With rival tribes wielding wooden staves and the bow and arrow, this was the Stone Age face of 21st century violence.
Countless deaths were reported in Kenya's Rift Valley during ethnic clashes which have been raging since the country's disputed elections last month.
While guns have been used in the capital Nairobi, firearms are less readily available in rural areas.
As the death toll mounted today (Saturday), former UN chief Kofi Annan called for an investigation after visiting areas hit by violence.
He said: "We saw gross and systematic abuse of human rights."
Speaking in Nairobi, Mr Annan added: "It is essential the facts be established and those responsible be held to account. The government will have to do whatever it can to increase security."
In one battle near the tourist town of Nakuru, a dozen warriors were left dying in the streets, some with deep gashes to the head, others with arrows stuck in the chest and back.
At least 25 people are reported to have been killed there since Thursday night.
One reporter watched 16 charred corpses unloaded from a police truck outside a mortuary today, while a doctor at the town's main hospital said he had recorded nine other bodies.
On the edge of the sprawling Kaptembwa slum area the bodies of two men had been placed in the back of a police truck - one killed by an arrow, the other hacked to pieces with machetes.
Some victims had been stoned to death.
Nakuru, 95 miles north-west of Nairobi, is Kenya's fourth-largest town and thousands of Britons each year visit nearby game parks and flamingo lakes. It had previously been spared the post-election bloodshed.
Friday's fighting also saw the first deployment of Kenya's military since the start of a month of bloodshed that has horrified Western powers, damaged one of Africa's most promising economies and shattered the country's peaceful image.
A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed in Nakuru and yesterday soldiers patrolled alongside paramilitary police in trucks, who fired live rounds above their heads in a vain attempt to stop the fighting.
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