Is this a siraui?
 

More than 10 years ago I acquired this piece from the late Hank Spierenkamp. He called it a siraui. However, it does not look like examples of siraui illustrated in several reference sources, and I'm wondering if anyone has another name for it and an idea of where it originated.

The sharpened edge is towards the bottom of all the pictures. The hilt is upturned at its end, and the blade is slightly recurved, somewhat like a rencong. The hilt is polished smooth and I looked at it hard under magnification to see if it might be rhino horn--there is a defect at the end of the hilt that suggests it may be made of some type of horn--but I think it is more likely wood. (I'm willing to be persuaded that it may be rhino horn if someone has good reasons to believe that ;)).

Your thoughts about where it comes from, what it may be called, and the hilt material are all very welcome.

Ian.

Ian, you may find this thread helpful. It seems to me that there are at least two distinctively different blades that have been identified as siraui, on that may or may not be considered a fighting blade and one that is obviously intended first and foremost as a utility knife.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=siraui

Thanks David. Yes, I looked through the archives also. Not much here or elsewhere I'm afraid.

Hank was an experienced guy and I think his web site may still be up in memory of his contributions to collecting Indonesian knives and swords. I accepted his description as coming from someone who had many years of experience in the field. Would just like to confirm what he said and learn more about these knives, if anyone can help.

Ian.

Well Ian, from what i understand as a siraui (both forms shown in the link i shared) i would not immediately identify your knife as one. Though the handle orientation seems similar your blade seems to be much slimmer than the siraui i have seen and most siraui seem to curve slightly upward throughout the length while yours seems to curve slightly downward. But who knows, it might just be one more variation on the theme. :shrug:

Hi Ian,

I am afraid but I think like David that it fit neither the description of the classic Siraui like described nor the other form which get often named as Siraui.
Here some more threads about this knives: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=siraui, http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=siraui,
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=siraui,
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=siraui,
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=siraui

Best regards,
Detlef

Hi Detlef anf David:

Yes, I agree. It does not look like other examples discussed here or shown elsewhere.

Thanks for the comments.

Ian.

Hello Ian,

Nice - that's a weird piece for sure!

I believe that it's a really far stretch to call this a siraui. Having seen quite some siraui variants, neither the blade, nor the hilt, nor the scabbard does bear any relationship with typical siraui (nor any possibly related blades).


I don't think it's necessarily from Aceh (nor northern Sumatra, that is). I'd need some well-lit close-ups of the pommel and scabbard mouth (preferably from different angles) for gaining a better understanding. How much taper has the back of the blade and far from the hilt does the cutting edge start? An etch might also yield additional info! Dimensions?


The macro shot is not good enough to be positive. However, from what can be seen in the pics, I'm fairly sure this is waterbuffalo horn.


Is that area cleanly chipped or is there any resin/etc. remaining?

Regards,
Kai

Hello Kai,

Thanks for your thoughts. I think these are better pics of the defect and the end of the scabbard. The defect appears to be filled with resin.

Blade length = 10.5 inches
OAL = 15 inches
OAL in scabbard = 16 inches

Thickness of blade in front of hilt = 5/16 inch

Maximum blade width (at hilt) = 3/4 inch
Minimum blade width (near mid-point of blade) = 0.5 inch

The blade does taper towards the tip but not a great deal until about a half-inch from the tip where it tapers fairly acutely to the point. The sharpened edge starts about 3.5 inches from the hilt. For a blade that is not very wide it is quite sturdy and thick. Probably a good thrusting weapon.

Ian.

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Hi Ian,

the hole in the hilt seems natural to my eyes, I have a Kalasan hilt with a very similar hole at this place.

Regards,
Detlef

Forget, what to my feeling look weird is the orientation of the handle. :shrug:

A pic would be great, Detlef!

This is very unlikely to be a natural defect/malformation: The end of the hollow portion of a horn is a fairly acute and rounded "cone" - here we're looking at the endgrain and such a shallow depression does not make any sense unless there was something inlaid. OTOH, the shape does not seem to be perfectly regular and the whole piece is a rather plain ensemble without extant decorative elements...

Regards,
Kai

Hello Detlef,

One might argue that this may point to northern Sumatra.

However, neither blade nor hilt nor scabbard do seem to vibe with any established pattern - another possible oddball...

Regards,
Kai

Hello Ian,

Thanks for the additional data!


As mentioned above I'd guess there was something inlaid here; probably nothing too fancy though IMHO.


To have one third of the edge unsharpened is certainly unusual for Southeast Asia.


Yeah, it does look like a very simple rencong/sewar blade (without bolster and other bells and whistles). However, the hilt does not really look optimized for stabbing, doesn't it? (The gripping area appears to be rather long: when you keep the pommel inside your palm, you pretty much loose contact with the blade and vice versa if you snuggle up on the blade?)

Apparently the 2/3 edge got resharpened quite a lot, too - IMVHO quite excessive if this blade got predominantly utilized as dagger...

Maybe a utility knife with more specialized function? Or a really convincing attempt at a sharpened pry-bar at last? ;) :D

Regards,
Kai

Kai,

It feels much more natural in the hand if the knife is held with the sharpened edge up and the thumb resting on the end of the blade. Perhaps that is why the edge is not sharpened for the first few inches. A stab to the abdomen and a slice upwards would be a devastating wound and likely to hit major blood vessels.

Ian.

Hello Ian,

There are quite a few utility/EDC/status knives/tools which are mainly utilized with an edge-up grip: peurawot, lopah petawaran, luju celiko(?), piso raut, sanggi, etc.


Yeah, for the first inch or so - 3.5" is quite a lot for human thumbs though! ;)


That does work with a rencong hilt. However, with your piece the gripping hand would be much more likely to slip onto the blade (unless you lend support with the second hand - a risky strategy to bet your life on in a brawl, I'm afraid).

Regards,
Kai

Hi Kai,

here you go.
Like said, at least by my kalasan handle I feel very confident that the hole is natural. When you look close you see the natural grain around the hole which is in the middle, I think to see the same by Ian's handle. Buffalo horn is hollow in the most of it's length and only at the end massive. I think it's a inadvertent accident from the carver. The hole in the handle from Ian's knive look very similar to my eyes. And the knife isn't fancy at all so I doubt that the hole is extra carved for a jimat.
Just my thought which is worth like any other thought since we just don't know if the hole was carved with aim. :shrug:

Best regards,
Detlef

Thanks Detlef. Yes, a very similar defect and I agree that there appear to be a couple of concentric rings around my example also.

Ian.

Hello Detlef,

Thanks, that makes a good comparison!


Yes, your's looks like the natural cavity. Notice the relatively smooth inner surface and the depth of the hole (compared to the surface of the opening).

However, what throws me with Ian's example is the considerable area of the opening and the relatively shallow depression: Considering the rather limited diameter of the pommel, one would expect the cavity to reach the front of the pommel or at least very close! (There is a slight angle to the grain - it might be possible that the tip of the cavity extends into the gripping area.)

Ian, can you ascertain whether the bottom of the hole is only resin/fillings or is there also solid horn? An X-ray would be nice to have... ;)


True, maybe the resin was just supposed to patch the hole.

BTW, I don't think this really is an accident or missing skill of the carver - most likely these are lesser examples made to a budget while the largest horns or best pieces were reserved for VIPs...

Regards,
Kai

Hello Ian,

Yes, the hilt of your example obviously includes the central part of a horn.

I'm less convinced that the opening really follows the growth rings - it does look a bit unregular/polygonal (anyway, waterbuffalo horn is not perfectly round to begin with) and, more importantly, several rings seem to (partly) touch the opening which might point to human intervention/carving.

Regards,
Kai

Sounds like a very likely reason. The kalasan is an average example, eyes from bullen-nails are the only metal adornments but with a good blade.

Regards,
Detlef

A couple more knives that might have some similarity to the topic of this thread. The top one (OAL = 14 inches) has a blade of similar shape with its edge towards the bottom of the page. The second one (OAL = 12.5 inches) has its edge facing upwards. Both have bone handles, the second having most of the humerus bone of a monkey. The second one also has a small copper coin worn smooth for a disk guard and a strip of copper wrapped around the blade adjacent to the hilt.

I don't know where the first one came from--perhaps one of the hill tribes from MSEA. The second one is from Vietnam where it was collected in the early 20th C.

These village quality knives have always impressed me with their utility and generally high craftsmanship given the fairly basic tools that went into making them.

Ian.

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Hi Ian,

the first one is a Nias knife, very nice and rare piece! Here a you can see my one: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=nias

Best Regards and a Happy New Year,
Detlef

Thanks Detlef. I like the word “rare”. Best wishes for the New Year. Ian

Following Detlef's kind identification of my pisau Nias, I came across this one on eBay and acquired it today. It looks like a mini-balato, but has an overall length of only 16 inches. Note the wire loop on the scabbard throat that looks very similar to Detlef's example.

The pics come from the auction site.

Ian.

Beautiful antique example with a much newer scabbard. Love the brass handle. But I wouldn't call it parang, by this length it's a piso/pisau. The wire near the scabbard throat I've seen by it's big brother, the balato as well.

Regards,
Detlef

Hi Detlef:

Sorry about the "parang" terminology. I was copying that from the old thread that you linked to. I will amend that to pisau Nias. :)

Yes, I think the scabbard probably is more recent that the knife. Once I get this one I will clean it up to examine the brass hilt better, and will try to post more pics here.

Interestingly, this knife had been online for a while and the price had just been dropped to a third of its original asking amount. I guess someone felt generous over the Holiday Season.

Ian

Hi Ian,

good that I haven't noticed the listing! ;) :D

This little beauty was sold last night by ebay, sadly I wasn't able to win it! :mad: It could be that this thread raised the bids!? :shrug:

Detlef, I'm sorry to hear you missed out on that one. It would not be the first time that something said here subsequently affected the price of an item online. There is sometimes a price to pay for sharing knowledge. :(

I have been contacted in the past by people who acknowledged that they bought a sword or knife because it was discussed here, and then offered to sell it to me because they knew I was interested in it! That was before eBay masked the names of unsuccessful bidders.

Hi Ian,

thank you for your sympathy! And very well said! :)

Regards,
Detlef

Detlef,

I just noticed that the one that slipped by us last night has a brass hilt of similar form to the bone one on my example in post #21 of this thread. Maybe this is a common Nias style. I am not sufficiently familiar with Nias hilts to know whether it is common. What do you think?

Ian.

Hi Ian,

very good possible. This knives have a similiar blade shape like the so called Si euli, see here: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=euli, I think that only the first and third piece are old/antique examples, the one in up is very similar like our examples and the third has maybe a recent scabbard, but this I can only guess by pictures.
Here was dicussed another one: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=euli
Look also by Zonneveld on page 123-124.
The only difference I can judge is the scabbard so I think that the upper one from DaveS is a similar pisau like our ones.

Best regards,
Detlef

Hello Ian,

I don't recognize this as one of the well established hilt types. Having said that I have to stipulate that there are not that many really old piso Nias around.

Your bone-hilted example seems to be the youngest; I'd guess it's post-WW2 (and probably not early in that period).

The second brass-hilted example that you got might be earlier but I'm not going to hold my breath... (niodanga wana)

The first brass-hilted piece has an interesting pommel (possibly alluding to the stylized southern Sumatran keris hilt?) and I'd like to see more pics after you receive it (and maybe some gentle cleaning)!

Detlef's wooden hilt might be the oldest among those shown here. Still, it's most probably from the first half of the 20th century; the hilt type (based on the Sumatran/Aceh hulu bawar - itself an extant survivor of early hilts from Java) is a well-established type also known from Si Euli.

Regards,
Kai

Just for clarification, it's from horn. :)

Hi Ian,

I saw the pisau Nias that you've just acquired on ebay at the start of last month. It was advertised as a "Dayak Warrior Sword/knife". From research on this site I thought it looked more like a Nias piece so I messaged the seller to ask whether it may be Nias. He didn't reply, but immediately changed the description to "Nias Warrior Sword/knife". As a still novice collector I lacked confidence in my own assessment and decided to swerve it, even though I thought it looked really interesting. So, I'm delighted to see that someone who really does know what they're talking about was happy to acquire it as a pisau Nias! It just shows what a fantastic resource this site is. Long may it flourish.

Dave,

I'm very pleased to hear you find the Forum helpful for your collecting. That is certainly one of its aims, to provide knowledge to collectors at all stages of their development and experience. Keep reading and keep posting, Dave.

Regards,

Ian.

Here another Nias knife I've bought recently. Pictures from the seller. Maybe not extremely old but with laminated blade.

Nice one, Detlef.

Thank you Ian! But have liked to get the one in post #28! ;)

Hello Detlef,

This is a kind of secondary sword (usually worn behind the balato). The blade looks promising - please let us know the blade thickness once it arrives. As you already suggested, the fittings seem younger (mid-20th c.?) to me, too.

It's a known pattern with pretty much identical style compared to the small EDC knives; there even may be a (possibly more recent?) continuum of sizes: Ian's from post #24 seems to be intermediate with traditional tip and apparently rather strong blade?

However, most of the knives are really small and the swords more in the balato size range (give or take a few inches) while the intermediate size-range usually gets covered by regular si euli (a damaged si euli scabbard is easy to recycle into a knife scabbard though).

Regards,
Kai