Note 301 — Chapter VII

The difference between offensive and defensive weapons is often not very marked even in our civilisation; thus the sword and the sabre serve as much for giving as warding off blows; the same is true among savages in regard to the staff, the club, etc. Frequently, too, objects which originally have nothing in common with war, become offensive or defensive weapons. Thus the bracelet is sometimes a defensive weapon. Among several Negroes (Ashantis, Kafirs, Vakambas), and in Melanesia, warriors put on their legs and arms bracelets formed of the long hair of different animals (goat, boar, zebra) which almost completely cover the limbs and protect them effectually against the blows of club and spear. The bracelets of wire rolled in numerous spirals around the fore-arm or the leg, which are met with among the Dyaks, the Mois of Indo-China, the Niam-Niams, and the Baghirmis of Central Africa, are veritable protective armour; they are the prototypes of the vantbrace and greaves.

In certain rarer cases the bracelet is an offensive weapon. Among the Jurs, a negro tribe of the upper Nile, bracelets are found provided with two points or spurs, four inches long, and very dangerous. The bracelet of the Irengas (to the east of the upper Nile), as well as that of the Jibba (living on the banks of the Jibba, a left-hand tributary of the Sabba), is a great disc, with an opening in the middle through which to pass the arm. A portion of the disc is removed in order to give it more elasticity, and its outer edge, exceedingly sharp, forms a kind of circular sabre. In order not to wound himself, the wearer covers the edge with a circular case which he only removes for battle.