Two Maasai Spears and a Shield - Recorded in the Maasai Mara.
Вставка
- Опубліковано 13 гру 2022
- Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deals/kenya - Enter promo code KENYA for 85% off and 3 extra months for FREE! The traditional Maasai Spear and shield are famous and appear as the emblem on the national flag of Kenya. In this short documentary we will see one made in a truly traditional way, with nothing but an open camp fire and a hammer. These traditional craftsmen have an incredible skill and manage to work the steel almost cold until it becomes an impressive spearhead. Recorded while we were in the field investigating traditional earth architecture (video to come).
In response to many comments that the use of scrap steel makes this less of a tradition than if they had smelted their own metals, I would add that in pre-industrial Africa, mostly the metals were made by different tribes and traded with the blacksmiths, very few had the materials available locally to make good iron or copper. In response to those who think there is less skill because they are working without bellows, just try it! My attempts at cold working just a small piece of steel bar ended in a cracked dented mess! Still, great to hear all your thoughts.
We make no profit from this channel and all proceeds support further fieldwork and are shared with the people that we film through various projects we engage with around the world. Everyone we film has been paid fairly for their work.
You can support us via Patreon or make a donation direct through Paypal, or contact us directly if you want to discuss another way to support us - (email address is on our channel page).
/ nomad_architecture
paypal.me/NomadicArchitecture
nomads.org/Books.html
MUSIC: I write all the music for our more recent videos. If you like it let me know, I know it is not perfect, but I enjoy it!
I spent about 6 months teaching English to some Maasai friends of mine who had come to Zanzibar to work. The whole gang of guys had never as much as held a pencil before but tbh they picked it all up in no time. Maasai people are some of the friendliest and smartest folks I've come across.
Certainly friendly, compared with some of the other tribes we worked with in Kenya where we felt things were pretty hostile most of the time.
@@NomadArchitecture What country is this?
@Nomad Architecture oh yeah that sounds interesting. If you guys ever feel like you have the time, consider starting a 2nd channel to tell those stories. I'd watch!
But yeah, the maasai people I met were all supercurious about other people and cultures, and super friendly to invite you in - both if you came out on the savannah and when you met some who had moved to the city to work. I spent a good 2 days meeting maasai rappers in Arusha once, after I had spent like 2 minutes being friendly with a random hat-seller i met on a street corner lol
Ok
@@tatumergo3931 Ok I am sorry.
I am a blacksmith studying at the American College of the Building Arts to restore historic ironwork. Thank you for sharing these wonderful traditions with the world, there is valuable information to be learned from these traditions.
Like what?
What value please?
the methods of cold forging outlined in this viideo are unheard of in western blacksmithing, and may have structural and practical capabilities that are unable to be determined from the video.@@titsup4u
Here I thought I would have to move to a 3rd world country to become a blacksmith.
@@hetrodoxly1203 the whole process that these Masai are using to construct the spear IS the valuable information
To most people it must seem like it is extremely improvised shoddy work, but in more ancient times, this was likely the way in which cultures and civilizations had to make due.
Cold-working the iron, using the wrap-around method to hold the spear-blade in the shaft, hell, even the methods of finding and constructing the shaft itself is pretty useful.
These Masai are working in a way that likely most celtic/germanic tribes also used before the Roman Conquests.
If anyone is curious, the small knife they use appears to be the Okapi knife made in South Africa. Cold steel makes a variant called the kudu.
I was just looking this up, thank you
They have/had three sizes. Make sure you buy the one you want.
I was curious. It resembles a Spanish made style that's really quite old
I am a journeyman woodworker who has so far mostly made tools and small objects, and also a few tables. The ancestral craft of these amazing people is absolutely fascinating and I definitely learned a few things by just watching them, their movements, their techniques. This is wonderfully humbling, many respects to them, and thank you for documenting and posting this material.
Thanks, I was there again a couple of weeks ago and we made a club and a bow and arrow (and a whole house too). Videos coming soon.
@@NomadArchitecture Oh wow. I'm really looking forward to it and al I can learn from it! Cheers!
It’s good to be optimistic, but optimism must be tempered by reality: The Great Depression was very bad, but a similar depression today would be far worse due to population and ultra-modern ignorance of true earthly living. Way more people were connected to nature in the 1930’s. We all must mentally prepare ourselves for suffering so we can deal with it when it happens; if we do that and try to be as earthily knowledgeable and skillful as possible, we have every reason to be optimistic. A good day to you, my good sir.
@@tatumergo3931 Not at all, we developed are own Iron and were making better quality products 2000 years ago, they just bash already made steel into shape, the 'Anvil' is a sledge hammer made probably in the west.
The sand paper leaves impressed me 😮
I've played around with making socketed points in the past, and I had more 'proper' tools at my disposal. My work looks primitive compared to that finished spear, and these guys are working with a campfire and rocks! Its always great to watch experienced craftsmen at work.
We have a phrase for that in Australia: " All the gear, no idea" 😅I'm only joking. I guess that's the difference between a hobbie and a way of life.
@@anthonycoster8774 that's an accurate description in my case! I suppose half the gear would be more applicable! Regardless, these guys are impressive!
Consider that it takes him a very long time to manufacture a fairly rough tool and it looks like he was using galvanized iron that he had found somewhere?
We say "a poor workman blames his tools"
These craftsman have learned to do a lot with a little. But bellows to get the steel to forging temperatures would sure be nice!
@@kenbird899maybe so though working galvanized outside rarely brings negative consequences
Anyone who's ever tried working metal without the proper tools knows just how much patience these craftsmen have. To make something that good by cold forging alone, with a claw hammer and a sledge as an anvil. Just wow. They sure know how to make do with what they've got. Very inspiring, I might have to try making a spearhead of my own.
They are also using western hammers. Imagine using only stones as hammers and files and a rock as an anvil. That's how they did it in precolonial times
The bigger question is why haven't they developed the making of Iron, developed tooling, they're 2000 years behind.
@@hetrodoxly1203 Because they live in the modern world and it's easier to find those already made. Plus if they're nomadic, they would have no way to set that up. They don't even have bellows, which would simplify and speed up their work about 5 times over.
@@mrkiky Yes even over thousands of years they've not even developed simple bellows out of animal skins.
@@hetrodoxly1203 Or wood. I guess it's ok if they make 1 spear every 5 years and don't need to mass produce. But they still mess their tools up a lot more by banging on cold steel.
How absolutely beautiful is the patience to make these spear! It protects the family, live stock and neighbors! They are so amazing in their work!
I noticed that they tend to pull the knife towards themselves when cutting. It might look dangerous but as a hobbie woodworker, I think it gives you more control over the entire knife stroke - for accuracy,. That, and the angle that your arm moves is a straight line, as opposed to your knife flicking to the outside with a push stroke. Also, because its green wood, they probably don't have to apply much force. It's these little nuances that I think shows what experienced craftsmen these men are.
I would have never thought to use the side of a sledgehammer as an anvil. I think that I just found a new use for that sledgehammer I kept meaning to get a new handle for.
My foregrandfahers used sheild made of rattan cane fo sheild themselves when on the prowl for head hunting.
We are of the Dayak people once very fierce used to hunt head for payment for a wife friendly peaceful and humble now.
Love from Borneo❤
I have a spear just like this, given to me by my friend Hasheem from Tanzania. It is very cool to see how it was made.
Every man wants a spear and a shield, regardless of his skin color - brown, black, white, pink, yellow, red...nice to see we are all the same
100% there is something about a good edged tool or weapon in your hand. You feel like you can face any task needed.
That very well may be, but this is ye age of ye gonne, and I’ll be a sonne of a bitche if I’ll suffer the lords to take such. In other words, I prefer firearms. 😁
@@chriskourliourod1651 i hear ya and I share your sentiment. However, nothing is more manly than a spear. Have you seen the photos of the Masai spearing a huge lion in front of President Roosevelt in 1909 or 1910?
That final painting was beautiful
I’d love to go back to Kenya, I spent six or so weeks out there on exercise with the British army back in 1991 and I loved every minute of it and their culture. We were based in Nanyuki for our time there travelling to so many places then we spent one week in Mombasa at Watamu which was out of this world. Fond memories and if I had the funds I’d return tomorrow.
This is a great skill to have in a survival situation. I been wanting to learn blacksmithing ever since I first seen it.
Just do one better than they do and fan your coals, or make a simple bellows. A shop vac makes for good improvised blower bellows. I used to do it in a pit in my yard. put a metal pipe through the ground into the heart of the coals, and the other end I had the shop vac blowing in when I wanted to heat up the metal quickly. A small grill can do the trick too.
@@The_Gallowglass yeah but he’s not in a survival situation.
No attempt at making a forge not even a work bench
Crazy how you can make a masterpiece with a very few things to forge with!
Thank you for this video. It’s easy to forget how easy our way of life is comparable to a lot of others in our world. I know these families are happier than most with so much less
They are happy because they have less, not in spite of it.
If anybody is interested. I have a masai sword with sheave and original beading from BEFORE 1900 incl. The original beaded belt.
Dude just made a formidable weapon for short distance combat...the skill his hands have coupled eith his knowledge is amazing..great video
It's not that hard, they used an flat scrap metal.
Each of the Lads is a craftsman in His own right, thanks for sharing.
by basically cold hammering it, I guess it retains it's hardness, sharpness as it looks like a lawnmower blade they are using. Already a good steel for creating sharp knives
Mulțumesc!♥️ Văd și oameni optimiști cu poftă de viață ♥️ Respect 🎩🇦🇩🌿🙏🙏
working steel cold without a hot forge is a pretty mind blowing choice... But old steel cannot be worked cold, this "tradition" is pretty recent, maybe decades old, but not centuries old.
True.
This stuff is mild steel, which can be cold forged safely.
Keep in mind that proper steel was only available in a few areas of Africa and mostly through import. Most domestic iron was wrought iron which is malleable enough to cold forge. In fact, like bronze, cold forging was used to harden the edges.
@@rhapsodyman2000 nope you're wrong! While yes i agree that modern mild steel can be somewhat worked cold (they need to anneal it often in the fire tho), wrought iron CANNOT. Wrought iron does not behave like modern mild steel, and if you wonder why i know that, i'm a blacksmith and i work with mild steel, wrought iron, damascus, whatever. And wrought iron is just welded layers of steel, and depending on the quality, it will either crack instantly if cold worked, or crack very quickly. But there's no way you can make a spear head with a campfire and old traditional steel. Just no way. Even at red hot temperature, wrought iron forges white hot, and can be worked moderately at orange heat. But red is already cold for wrought iron.
@@jeanladoire4141 A few thing to keep in mind. First of all, these people are working with sheet steel and not bars. Cold forging and annealing is sufficient when all the hot work to make sheet steel is already done.
Second, I’m pretty sure properly made wrought iron of antiquity was very low carbon iron and quite malleable. In fact, the process of cold working wrought iron is the origin of the term Cold Iron.
Third, I don’t think these people are attempting to make a genuine reproduction of the truly traditional methods they would be used to work the iron back in antiquity. This is a tribe using modern metals and tools to do something faster than their ancestors ever could.
@@rhapsodyman2000 about the wrought iron, you're wrong, wrought iron is pretty fragile, way more than anything we have today. Being soft and malleable iron isn't what's difficult to work with in wrought iron, it's the fact that it's a layered fibrous material that just asks for splitting and delaminating.
You're talking about antiquity, but wrought iron was still being made around the world in the late 19th century, and especially around Africa, where it was made with rocks as hammers and anvils.
As i said, their tradition of working cold with mild steel is recent, a few decades old. But there's no way a century ago they worked like that.
In a tradition going back thousands of years a Masai blacksmith uses a hammer made in Birmingham or China to forge a spear.
Most mass production 🔨 were made in Sheffield, the sledgehammer head looks a backyard one from Pakistan or its been heated to draw temper to get the mushroomed faces
Now I want a sandpaperleaf tree in my garden as well. Fascinating!
Now there's a thought. I should have brought some seeds back.
This was an amazing video that spear and shield turned out awesome!
This was a very educational video. Its good to know such skills in case we lose the grid one day and have to make our own tools the hard way.
I was making such spearheads at the age of 12 if i remember correctly. I figured out how they are made just by looking at museum pieces - how to fold socket, and how to make spine at the center from both sides at the same time. Same basic tools - improvised anvil, hammer, and fire. :D What is more interesting i would like to know where they sourced steel for this in the past. Or what they used before steel was available to them.
Some level of smelting has taken place in Africa for thousands of years, but not by these people, it was traded, and before iron, copper.
Iron producing is old in africa but not by all people there. There is trading and different qualities. As in other places of the world, too.
Crucible steel for example was invented by the Tamil in southeast India about 500 bc and exported to other places. Europe imported it as wooz. In europe it took until the 18th century to reproduce a similar quality of steel, over 2000 years later...
This is wonderful! Getting this information on video for future generations is amazing.
Personally, I wonder what the meanings are (if any) that they painted on the shield
This is just for a good laugh, but I just now wondered what symbols sodom and gommorah would have used on their shields. 🤣
Now this is really awesome
Looks like UA-cam just put another jewel on my recommendations again
As a 1/2 NDN....(CHEROKEE who "remembers the OLD things taught to him"....I would "do unspeakable things" just to EARN the HONOR of being given a chance at competing for one of those.....😪😭😭
Exquisite work. What amazing people!
Thank you
Excelente.
Saludo desde Argentina.
These guys have better tools than their ancestors. Imagine how the ancient Massai people made these with early tools.
Imagine how Europeans made better quality ones 2000 years ago, not just that they had to make the iron first.
@@hetrodoxly1203 i wouldnt know. Im not knowledgeable in history.
@@hetrodoxly1203😂😂😂 European ones were very low quality compared to maasai, Europeans never made iron, they jst bought frm other southern European tribes
Very inspiring video. What beautiful and happy people. Thank you.
The spear is a lot shorter and thicker than I expected. Is it more of a polearm than throwing spear? Or something like hybrid?
The spears they make here in Australia tend to be long, thin and somewhat flexible. They are usually made to be launched with a Woomera, which is similar to an atl-atl. The Australian spears can have different points depending on the purpose: A death spear has barbs that become dislodged in the body of the target. Fishing spears have lighter shafts so they float.
Also, that blade they use to cleave the steel... Is it a harder metal? Or does it work simply due to the respective thickness and temperatures of both metals?
Imagine traveling there and showing them how to make charcoal. Literally revolutionize their entire culture with a single advancement.
Thank you for sharing. 🙌🙏
I've always liked their chequered blankets
Someone send them a few small anvils and some good , different weight hammers.
They could make bank selling those online.
Um ferreiro habilidoso. Tem meu respeito.
f😢😢😢tr5rt5
5😢😢😢😢😢😢t😢tt😢
the metal scraps cut off from the larger pieces, what are they used for? You can't forge them together for new spears, using only cold forging. I've got a guess or two, but that's all.
OK, good question, I visit them again in a couple of months so I will find out.
@@NomadArchitecture Daym, thanks for the reply! And I look forward to it! And great video!
Small knives?
Arrow points? I mean, soft arrow heads don't retain their edge. But they can be straightened and not likely to break if they hit bone, rock, or a tree.
I thought arrow heads as well.
Wow,, it’s a beautiful nature..
Lots of stress fractures in those spear tips for sure
No doubt John. Some of the pieces look like you could tear them in half...Hello from Texas. {🙂
I wish you could leave the text up on the screen longer. It goes away before you have a chance to read it. There’s no need to quickly take text away
My workmates father was friends with an Australian Aboriginal man. He showed them how to heat the spear over a fire to remove the wobbliness from it. An important step apparently.
the tip of the spears is forged, it is not cut as it weakens
Pure Beauty ❣️🤗 Thanks
The craftsmanship is amazing!!
No it’s not it’s very poor cold worked iron no work bench no forge would u let this man fix panels on ur car ?
@@smudd71 Best dumb comment I've seen in a long time.
@@smudd71😂😂😂 without Morden technology u r useless
@@samanth. I flint knapp and make bows xx
And even with modern technology he’s useless xx
I love this chanel
Very interesting. Just goes to show what some good old human ingenuity will do. These people don't use bellows like you conventionally would for forging. Usually you would want to heat the metal to a white hot by using bellows or some other form of strong airflow so to make the metal malleable to forge. All they did was just heat it in a fire then beat it almost like it was cold forged. Heck in some ways it looks like they do a lot of cold forging as well. This is a very old way of forging. The first iron tools and weapons were likely made in Africa with the first bloom iron also possibly being developed there too. Some of the oldest iron work was done in places like Egypt who would forge iron from meteorites into things. King Tut famously has a Iron dagger made from such a material. The art of taking raw native metal like copper and cold forging it into things goes back as far as the Neolithic before even smelting copper was a thing. It was also done by Native Americans in the Great Lakes Region. These people are performing one of the oldest existing arts of metallurgy. And that is pretty cool. It may be adaptive from older ways especially with the use of scrap steel, but none the less is crazy to think about how long this has been passed down generation by generation for.
Very interesting
C'est impressionnant, quelle maitrise.
One word, "Awesome!"
@1:50 this tree reminds me of the Hau tree found in Hawai'i.
Dammit! Now I want one of those traditional shields. How much do they cost?
I enjoyed the video very much! I imagine they still used them to defend their cattle and themselves from predators in the bush. To many know-it-all's posting b.s. hello from Washington State, USA!
Amazing channel my dear brother
Did they tell you why they don't use bellows? I know that different kinds of bellows have been used around the African continent, so curious why they don't.
So, what did they do prior to the availability of completed steel? Has this method replaced the old way of doing it, or were steel spears only first made available in the past few decades?
Before steel there was copper and before that pointed sticks as the first spear in the vid. Copper has been around for a long time, but typically all metal production was a closely guarded secret.
Iron has been made in subsaharan Africa for centuries before Europeans showed up.
@@NomadArchitecture in central and eastern Africa, local peoples knew how to smelt, namely, to smelt iron in small furnaces with several furnaces already in the 9th century, long before the Europeans
Parabéns guerreiros ❤
I was on a trip with a masai guide. We got attacked by a lone hyena he shielded me and stood in front of me then he threw his spear and it went clean through the hyenas chest and into the ground not once did he show anger or fear he is very brave man.
Wow, that must have been quite an experience, and a good shot!
So nature
The knives they used are made by Okapi
i want to make my own spear like this video
sadly it is illigal to get a sper in korea
good job watching from Bangladesh
that looks very different from the leaf shaped spears I have seen the maasai use in other videos. those look like something made with a lot of skill, and one video I've seen even shows the spear with a central ridge and an oversized blade. this on the other hand, is rather simple in construction with a much smaller blade. I wonder if there are variations among different massai tribes or if the other points I have seen are now produced for them by someone else.
We saw the ones with the ridge for sale in a local market. They were made in a small factory in Kenya.
No comment on the other stuff because not my areas of interest; but... the blacksmithing isn't 'great', wonderful', 'authentic' etc. it is really just to a very, very basic standard indeed and would almost certainly be labelled as such if weren't being done in Africa; these spears often buckle easily or crack and break.
😂😂😂 so coz they r made by Africans they break, u r jst mad coz this destroys your notion that Africans were in stone age, there's a reason arabs & whites feared Masai warriors Even with guns,
Amazing documentary! Could you please go further into details on the wood spears and how thy make them? I’d love to know how to make a replica. If you do happen to read this; keep these coming 👌
Well I was there last week and we filmed a club and bow and arrow, watch this space and they will come in a few weeks.
@@NomadArchitecture fantastic!
Those tools are a work of art and craftsmanship thanks for sharing 😎👍
Ok armas y accesorios funcionales sin tanto rollo excelente
Nice spear 🎉
The Maasai tribes are badass.
Where do they mine the metal from?
They ambush lone lawn mowers 😂
Some people were asking what maasai do in the previous videos maasai women building houses, I hope this video answers that
Take car part and make spear! So cool!
How much time make this sharpy metal pole weapon?
I have a 70 year old african bow, quiver, and arrows.
I wonder if the arrowheads have been made in a similar way.
I am just editing a video of the same family making all three, or you can see an arrow being made on one of our earlier videos by the Hadzabe where the blacksmith is working with bellows.
I wish I could send those blacksmiths hammers and anvils.
Go and visit them and take some with you. They would be delighted.
Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of their showing you their traditional methods?
Every morning he walks up to feed his 54 children 😅😅
If there using modern hammers and scrap metal to make these traditional weapons I wonder how/what they used to make it in the past. Where did they source the raw material specifically the metals, did the mine? How did they process it? How did they get the metal to an high enough heat without bellows?
There have been groups in Africa that have known how to smelt metal for a long time, but mostly copper, which also can be found in some places raw without smelting. Being softer it can be forged using stones. I would love to record this but our focus is mostly on the architectures and I just catch other things in passing.
Use the key words "Africa primitive iron smelting" to search UA-cam. There are some excellent videos showing furnace construction and operation.
You can source iron from clay, its everywhere
@Videogamestashbox.com Thanks, I learned a lot from peoples comments on this.
way cool
Very cool 👍.
6:49 the Maasai man is offended 😂 I don’t think he was offering to hand it to him
It’s nice to see them finally enter the Iron Age
It’d be nicer if you actually read up on African history. African civilizations have been among iron weapons for millennia.
Oh, come on, this is just a show for the camera. You can see Modern tools; sledgehammer, pliers and factory made "panga". Age ago, they smelt iron. First, make charcoal from hard wood. Second, make mud balls from iron rich soil and bake them in the sun. Finally fire the mud ball in a furnace driven by goat skin bellows. And valour, iron for spears, knives, arrow heads and other tools.
@@stephenkinyanjui5659 lol yeah, that’s why central Africa looks exactly the way it did 10,000 years ago, right?
I’m not trying to pick a fight, but could you live the way the Maasai do? Or how the Eskimos do? Have you ever made a knife and used it to process an animal that you hunted and killed? Do you know flora and fauna and how to gather food from the wild? As long as the civilized is balanced with the primitive, people will be ever the more enlightened.
@@Louzahsol You sound like a cookie cutter racist. Regardless of the technology level, I think in retrospect with the modern era, this form of society may be superior. Sure it's much harder day to day, but humans thrive in that struggle and successes are only impactful when compared to a cultural standard. If the standard of success in your society is having enough food on the table, I can imagine that society has many more fulfilled people than our modern society filled with miserable neckbeards such as yourself
Did the Maasai ever discover metallurgy or did they trade for it?
According to them it was always traded.
@@NomadArchitecture awesome. Thank you.
Estan en su barbacoa me imagino se ve bien el herrero bonita lanza y tus dardos te falta de astilla su mortero de cocina pintan sus cueros. La zebra puede ser
Покажите им зубило🤫! Ну чего они мучаются так 👍🏻
nice
Hay quá
So do Brasil e 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏😮
Wandefull ¡¡
how much for one?
It depends. If you want a real one they are quite expensive. You can get spears made in a factory in Kenya off ebay quite cheap. about 99% these days are made in a factory, even the Maasai buy them.
So how did they make the spears before they had carbon steel files and old car springs ?
Goes back a long way, to the time of copper.
t@@NomadArchitecturethat's a blatant lie, iron was heavily used in Africa, please learn history before making up foolish statement
I like subscribing~!
What good was that shield though? Was it just decorative bc I doubt it would do anything to stop a spear 😂
Brilliant, like a window to the early iron age elsewhere. With the checked woven clothing you could be looking at the early Celts.