Use of a "kachin dao"
 

Hi All,

Just watched a neat NOVA entitled "rat attack." It's about mautam, which is where bamboo in the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur all flowers and dies synchronously every 48 years. The bamboo seeds feed black rats, and when the bamboo runs out, the rats eat any available crops, causing famine and last time it happened, a two decade-long armed insurgency when the people of Mizoram reacted to the Indian governments' armed insurgency.

But that's off topic for this posting. The farmers in Mizoram use a blade that looks just like a kachin dao for just about every farm chore except harvesting rice, and this program has examples throughout of the farmers using their daos in a variety of tasks. Better yet, it can be watched in streaming video (link). Makes me want one of those blades. They look really useful in trained hands.

Best,

F