Westafrikan cavalry

This morning a friend sent me a mail telling me that he likes especially this mix of total different subjects on my blog. Ok, I thought to make him happy here something again very exotic.

A hobbyfriend from the UK onces asked me if I can arrange the production of figures for him. We wanted to have something totally exotic, so for me this was of course a teaser.

And here you have them. Two different poses of Sokotho califate African heavy cavalry. Usefull from 1700 unitl 1904 when they tried to break British squares and afterwards disappeared from history as a fighting force.

There are seven different heads available and I wanted to have open hands too to have some variations. I know this is really too exotic for most collectors. But in case someone is interested, I have around 200 of them left.

Of course as usual I have made the historical research before. Here are some nice paintings for them

Today they have still this kind of dress on ceremonial occasions

And they were as colourful in the old days too, no matter what the b/w-drawings suggest

At least then a suggestion for a book if you really want to go deeper into the subject
http://www.amazon.co.uk/African-Knights-Bagirmi-Nineteenth-Century/dp/1901543080/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1316267223&sr=8-3