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Afar and Somali Warriors - 90 centime

This regular postage issue from the Côte Française des Somalis (French Somaliland) highlights the nomadic cultural heritage and martial customs of the regional population by profiling a group of traditional warriors. The intricate line-engraving captures three men in traditional attire, including draped shoulder robes and waistcloths, displaying ancestral weaponry that includes long throwing spears, a curved defensive dagger (gile) tucked at the waist, and a prominent, circular hardened-leather buckler shield held by the central kneeling figure. In the lower background corners, the design hints at the territory's economic landscape, juxtaposing a coastal lighthouse and maritime port on the left with a desert caravan and a camel on the right. Historically, this 1940s definitive release archives the deep-seated pastoralist and warrior traditions of the indigenous Afar and Issa Somali groups who traversed the strategic desert corridors surrounding the Gulf of Tadjoura, using meticulous ethnographic portraiture to project territorial identity across the global mail network.