[This message has been edited by Conogre (edited 08-31-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Rick (edited 08-31-2001).]

The sheath looks alot like the one on this knife. It is currently listed at Oriental Arms:

Nice piece and a good find. While the blade form has some resemblance to a pinahig of the Igorot in northern Luzon, the hilt and sheath do not. Typically, the pinahig have cylindrical hilts that are wrapped in rattan; the sheath are open-faced but with a broad wooden cross piece to retain the blade and sometimes additional rattan twine to hold it in place. I would say your example is definitely not from the Philippines (nor is the example shown from Oriental Arms, in my opinion).

A Naga origin is much closer. The sheath and hilt are correct for Naga, and the blade is a fairly common variant on the usual "squared off" Naga dao. Although Naga is the most likely attribution, I would not exclude Kuki (Assam) or Akha (North Burma) origin also -- there is some crossover between these adjacent tribes in terms of weapons -- and the blade may have some layering to it which might suggest a Tibetan influence also.

While it is always tempting to use the "Naga" designation for weapons linked to Assam/Northern Burma, other tribal groups are present. I think the Naga have obtained undue prominence because of Rawson's lengthy description of their weapons in his book. If we had similar, detailed descriptions of the weapons of the Kuki, Akha and other tribes, we might find that what we often attribute to the Naga actually have their origins elsewhere.

I would welcome any information about reference sources on weapons relating to other tribes in Assam and Northen Burma.

Regards,

Artzi, I think the most compelling point for a Philippine origin is that it was bought in Manila. I have spent some time in the Cordillera region of Northern Luzon where a number of the Igorot peoples live, and have never seen a blade with the shape of yours.

My comments are based on observations and discussions with local people as an occasional sojourner in the region on and off for the last six years. I am not a native of the region, nor of the Philippines, so my observations and experience are necessarily limited.

As shown in the article to which you refer, the pinahig (an Ifugao tool that has common features with knives used by other local groups) is a heavy "chopper" with forward-weighting of the blade; the spine is straight or sometimes a little convex; the handle is usually an in-line extension of the long axis of the blade, but sometimes angled down by a few degrees; the hilt is typically wood with rattan bindings and and an iron, or occasionally silver, ferrule may be present. These are heavy duty jungle knives, similar to the itak used by the Aeti (Negrito) of central Luzon and the Bataan Peninsular, the latter more closely resembling a kukri in the shape of its blade.

The pinahig is carried in an open scabbard comprising a slab of hardwood and a retaining block. The flat slab is hollowed out to roughly the shape of the blade, and a block of wood is bound across the face to retain the blade in place. This is well illustrated and discussed in the article referred to above.

Artzi's piece has some very different characteristics. The blade is not forward weighted and is a different shape from the pinahig and other jungle knives of Northern Luzon. In particular, Artzi's has a concave spine that is similar to some blades in the Christian (Tagalog) regions, but the Tagalog scabbards usually comprise two pieces of wood bound together and are closed not open like this one.

The method of closing the face of the scabbard is also very unusual on Artzi's piece. It appears to comprise multiple, crudely made, metal staples spanning the length of the cut out section of the wooden slab. This carries through to the repair at the tip. I have never seen this before, and many of the local native people I know in the mountains would consider such a use of iron or steel as wasteful.

Finally, the use of rattan binding on the handle does not really help in locating the origin of this piece. True, mountain tribes people in Northern Luzon use this method often in affixing hilts to their knives and other edged weapons. But so do many peoples throughout SE Asia and IndoChina. One can find extensive use of rattan on some of the dha in Burma, Thailand and VietNam, and various other countries. In some ways, rattan bindings are a poor man's epoxy glue, and are fairly universal in many rural Asian societies.

Having said all of this, I really don't know if Artzi's piece is an unusual Filipino knife or from somewhere else. I have had almost no contact, for example, with the Bontoc people in the remote Mountain Province of Northern Luzon, and it might be from there.

I think we need help from a Filipino familiar with the knives of Northern Luzon to take this discussion any further.

Conogre, I looked at that strap too and was wondering whether it was rattan or something else. Perhaps Lee has some more information he can share. If it is plaited rattan, that again would argue, in my mind, for an origin probably outside the Philippines. I've not seen plaited rattan straps like the one shown above associated with Filipino sheaths. You might be right about a Borneo attribution.
Sure would be nice to hear from our Filipino and other Asian members on this forum. We banyaga are just guessing.

I am reviving an old topic because I have come across another one of the mystery knives originally posted by Lee Jones in this thread. Unlike the other two, this one has a solid wooden handle with a wrapping of copper wire. Otherwise, the blade shape and the scabbard are identical to the earlier postings which showed an open-faced scabbard with metal "staples" enclosing the blade. I bought this off eBay recently and the dealer (Pierre Cayala) has no clear idea about its origin. I think we have a definite category here that needs to be defined in terms of place of origin.

Dimensions: Overall length = 22 1/4 inches; length of blade = 13 inches; maximum width = 2 1/4 inches; thickness = 3/8 inch just in front of the hilt.

Ian.