#HistoryKeThread Previously, I shared this photo and other similar ones in which warriors from the Gîkûyû and Merû communities sported a strange, catapult-like tool on their shoulder.
The first photo is of a Gîkûyû warrior. This second pic one is of a Meru warrior, featuring the same tool.
From my learnings, I have found out - perhaps irrefutably, that the device was indeed used to carry a shield.
Among the Agîkûyû, for example, young initiates as shown in this second photo carried special shields as part of their initiation dress.
Note that the shields are suspended from their shoulders.
Finally, this is an actual grainy photo taken in circa 1912 by Charles Hobley of a special Agîkûyû initiates shield.
I wonder whether the artistic illustrations thereon had any meaning.
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