Iron Sharpens Iron: Master Blacksmithing
Kasalina Maliamu Nabakooza
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Enduring Understandings
Blacksmithing emerged in my research for this unit as a means of physical and mental liberation. In the book Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths, hammers are described as being more than tools. Hammers are “personified, used in rituals of enthronement through which kings were ‘forged.’”82 In Baganda there was a royal hoe tax which facilitated the transformation of farming implements into weapons of war: “The royal blacksmith smelted some of them into fighting weapons such as spears, big knives, axes and such other tools as the king’s need warranted. There was always a large stock of fighting weapons in the king’s arsenal.”83 Also in the declaration of war, there was a saying that “any man or superman” would be transformed and remade like the needles used to sew the royal shoes out of leopard skin.84 Through mastery of the processes of design, analysis and revision, students will develop grit and understanding of art.
