Baluchi and Ruga-Ruga question

[summsi]

Hi,

is it very unhistorical to use Baluchis and Ruga-Ruga as mercenaries for european lead expeditions?

And till when can I use the matchlock armed Baluchis, didn´t they use matchlocks after the 1870´s?

Thank you!

[Plynkes]

Explorers often had Zanzibari escorts, or travelled with caravans. It is not unreasonable to have them on the same side as Baluchis. Verney Lovett Cameron travelled with a Baluchi escort on his way to find Livingstone.

The term 'Baluchi' is an all-encompassing one anyway. Some of the so-called Baluchis were native Africans. They came from all over the place, Indians, Arabians, even Turks. The famous guide Sidi Bombay who travelled with Burton, Speke, Stanley and Cameron had served in the Sultan's Baluchi Guard (he had been taken as a slave to India as a youth, learned Hindi and later returned to Africa). Ethnically he was from the Yao people of Nyasaland, 100% African. So in a sense, all those above-mentioned explorers travelled with a Baluchi. 

Cameron's Baluchis were still armed with matchlocks in 1873. Chris Peers implies that Sniders, Remingtons or Winchesters were the standard weapons among Zanzibaris by the 1890s. The Sultan's Baluchi forces had been disbanded by that time (1881, it would seem), but individuals continued to serve for many years after that.

I've not heard of Ruga-Ruga serving with explorers, they more often came into (sometimes accidental) conflict with them, causing problems for their warlord leaders. But in colonial times the German authorities made widespread use of them as irregular troops.

[summsi]

Thank you Plynkes,

when I said Ruga-Ruga, I didn´t mean "real" Ruga-Ruga, but the Foundry Models. Can I use them as askaris, because I like their colourfull outfit?!

[Plynkes]

Well... the Nyamwezi famously hired themselves out as porters. The distinction between porters and askari is much more blurry than the Foundry catalogue would have us believe, and the Ruga Ruga were largely Nyamwezi.

I suppose if you add all those above things together then you can justify it. Personally I'd rather keep my Ruga Ruga as Ruga Ruga, but I'll bet in real life all the troop types weren't as clear cut and distinct as army lists make them. Some of the pictures of explorers' attendants don't look that different to the Foundry Ruga Ruga. If you want to do it, then why not? If I were doing it I might have a mix of Ruga Ruga and "ordinary" askari though. I don't think I'd want them all to be dressed so outlandishly, and I'd go more for the ones in robes and turbans than the more tribal-looking ones with teeth necklaces and all that other "ghastly finery." But that's just my own personal prejudice.

[Smokeyrone]

In 15mm, so far I'm stuck with Peter Pig's "ragged Egyptians" (great figures)for Ruga-Ruga but that will change, as I search the ends of the Earth for the correct 15mm figures.

 


Plynkes, were the matchlocks ancient, or fairly new in manufacture?

[Plynkes]

I don't know the answer to that. Thomson (him of the Gazelle) said they looked like they had armed themselves by robbing an antiquarian museum (this in 1878, extending their gaming life a little more). But he may have been referring to the design of the weapons, rather than their actual age.