Knobkerrie

Origins

Clubs with knobbed heads are among the oldest weapons in Africa and were in use across the south of the continent long before written records. The English name is borrowed from Afrikaans. It joins knop, meaning a knob, with kierie, a word for a stick that Dutch settlers at the Cape took from the Khoekhoe language. Each people had its own name for the weapon. The Zulu called it the iwisa, plural amawisa. Related clubs were carried by the Xhosa, Swazi, Sotho, Tsonga, Ndebele and other peoples, and similar throwing clubs are found in East Africa.

Design & Construction

A knobkerrie is made from one piece of dense hardwood. The maker chose a branch or a young tree with a thick swelling, often where the stem met the root, and carved the swelling into the head and the stem into the shaft. The grain therefore runs unbroken from handle to head, which makes the club very hard to snap. Most heads are plain polished balls, but some are faceted, ridged or studded, and the shapes differ from one people to another. Sizes vary a good deal. Fighting clubs were commonly between about 60 centimeters and a meter long. Shorter, lighter ones were made for throwing, and long ones served as walking sticks. Some fine examples have shafts bound with brass or copper wire. A chief's or headman's club could be a mark of rank as well as a weapon.

Combat Use

In the hand the knobkerrie was a simple and dangerous weapon. All its weight is in the head, and a blow could break a skull or a limb. Thrown, it turned end over end, and it was used in this way to hunt birds and small game as well as in fighting. Boys in many southern African societies learned to fight with sticks from an early age, and the skills carried over to the club.

In the armies of the Zulu Kingdom the main weapons were the stabbing spear, the Zulu Iklwa, lighter throwing spears and the war shield, the Zulu Isihlangu. Many warriors carried an iwisa as well, tucked behind the shield or held in the shield hand. It was a second weapon for close fighting and for when a spear was lost or broken. Clubs were probably among the weapons used in the close fighting at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879, and they would have been carried by men in the regiments that attacked the mission station at the Battle of Rorke's Drift later the same day. There the defenders stood behind barricades with rifle and bayonet, and neither club nor spear could reach them easily. The knobkerrie was not a weapon that decided battles. It was cheap, always at hand and deadly enough at arm's length.

Legacy

The knobkerrie outlasted the kingdoms that used it in war. During the First World War British soldiers borrowed the name for the home-made clubs they carried on trench raids. In South Africa the club continued to be carried as a traditional weapon and a sign of manhood. Its appearance at political gatherings, particularly during the violence of the early 1990s, led to long arguments over whether such traditional weapons should be allowed in public. The national coat of arms adopted in 2000 shows a spear and a knobkerrie crossed above a shield and lying flat, which is meant to stand for defense and authority at peace. The film Zulu (1964) shows the club in Zulu hands beside the spear and shield. Other clubs from many periods are described under Maces & Clubs, and the arms of the Zulu army under Zulu Kingdom Arms & Weapons.