Also 8–9 kirri, 9 kierie, kiri, keeri, keri(e. [Hottentot or Bushman. Kolbe 1745 has ‘Kirri a stick or staff,’ Arbousset Bushman Vocab. ‘Club, Keri.’] A short club or knobbed stick used as a weapon by natives of South Africa. See also KNOBKERRY.
1731. Medley, Kolben’s Cape G. Hope, I. 188. The Kirri is about three foot long; and about an inch thick.
1785. G. Forster, trans. Sparrman’s Voy. Cape G. Hope (1786), II. 9. They were all of them armed with … javelins, which they call hassagais, as well as with short sticks, to which they gave the name of kirris.
1815. Barrow, Trav. S. Africa, 367. The Keerie, or war-club.
1824. Burchell, Trav. S. Afr., I. 354. A keeri or kirri (a short knob-stick) in his hand.
1885. Haggard, K. Solomon’s Mines, x. (1887), 160. Savage-looking men … with spears in one hand and heavy kerries in the other.
attrib. 1731. Medley, Kolben’s Cape G. Hope, I. 330. The women rarely trouble themselves to interpose when the men fight only with Kirri sticks.
