Mandau for sharing/comments
 

I have bought finally my first Mandau :) It has a thick and massive convex/concave blade decorated with brass points and ornaments. I do not know a lot about these fascinating swords – any comments?

Blade details:

Beautifull handle ! :)

+ blade and scabbard btw. nice one

Yes nice piece. Quality carving.

Hi Tatjana,

congrats! what I like in special is that nice ornament on the back of the handle.

a mandau from the Mendalam river area from last half 19 th century most likely.

you recognise them on the use of the "gearwheel"

Arjan.

Congrats Tatyana!
Beautifull old piece, and as Arjan stated allready, I also like the beautifully carved handle, especially the backside...


Could you please post a close up from the handle seen from above?

Kind Regards,
Maurice

Thank you all for the kind comments and telling the origin and age!
Maurice: I haven't made any pictures of the handle from the top, because there are no carvings there, only the bare old grey antler core :) But if you still need it, please let me know, I will make it tomorrow.

Tatyana, not necessarily.
I only was a bit curious where the broken piece would be attached...

Maurice

The carving at the back is indeed very elaborate and extraordinairy.

I like this type of handle a lot. Unfortuately I did not bump into one that was either well carved enough or affordable :shrug:

Best regards,
Willem

Hello Tatjana, to my oppinion your mandau comes from the Kenya subgroup of Dayak near the border of Sarawak. It are the Kenya who generally use this type (form) of handle and always tend to have a 'busy' decoration with lots of scrolls (the Kajan in comparisson have a more archaïc style of decorating) and the use of the protuding 'points' , which are actually depicting leaches, is more used by the Iban subgroup in Sarawak. Hence my conclusion.

Unfortunately I dont have my map of subgroup locations in Borneo not at hand. So perhaps it would be the upper Mendalam river like Arjan said before indeed or the upper (far inland) Mahakam/Kajan river?

I believe in the book 'hornbills and dragons' there is a map.

Very old blade also. Possibly even older than the handle and scabbard. The very old and best (?) quality blades where called 'mantikei' by the Dayak as they were made by the Ngaju subgroup in South Borneo (slightly up the Baritoriver) in a village called Mantikei. Native iron was used for those blades and even iron from meteorites -according to sayings- was used.
I have had one of those older native iron blades myself and indeed this iron is of the best quality and has more a silver shine in stead of the more common blades who have more nickel in them with a more yellowish shine (in comparisson).

Hope this is of help,

Willem: This is exactly the reason, why this one my FIRST Mandau is, although I was looking for one for a long time :)
Indianajones: Thank you a lot for the additional information!!! Are there any books on this subject? I am very surprised that the origin and age of Dayak swords can be found so exactly, and when one asks about Indian arms then normally one gets no exact information...

[QUOTE=Indianajones]Hello Tatjana, to my oppinion your mandau comes from the Kenya subgroup of Dayak near the border of Sarawak. It are the Kenya who generally use this type (form) of handle and always tend to have a 'busy' decoration with lots of scrolls (the Kajan in comparisson have a more archaïc style of decorating) and the use of the protuding 'points' , which are actually depicting leaches, is more used by the Iban subgroup in Sarawak. Hence my conclusion.


sorry to add a correction but the style of the handle is surely Kajan ( not Kenya)
examples of this type can be seen in "In Centraal Borneo "by Nieuwenhuis
also the scabbard is typical Mendalam Kajan style, loose Kajan scabbards in this style are also illustrated in "In Centraal Borneo" those where freshly carved during the stay of Nieuwenhuis so we can be quite sure that this design is indeed Mendalam Kajan.

Kenya handles are mostly of a whole different style but the main difference is that a Kenya is mostly " filling spaces with scrolls,dragon and leech motifs"


The Kayan style is somewhat more developped with more arms,eyes etc.
its typical however that it seems that the eyes carved by Medalam Kajan does have teeth what make them look like gearwheels.

Arjan

! Are there any books on this subject? I am very surprised that the origin and age of Dayak swords can be found so exactly, and when one asks about Indian arms then normally one gets no exact information...[/QUOTE]

Hi Tatjana, it should be a misunterstanding that origin and age can be found exactly for all dayakswords in general. There are a lot mixed style swords as handles and blades where traded and tribes migrated to other parts of Borneo.
Besides that the enourmous artistic skill of different dayak carvers have made such an large ammount of different styles that it almost endless even for advanced collectors. There are no books about this subject, some info is in Hornbill and Dragon, some in Quer durch Borneo, In Centraal Borneo, Iban art ect.

Arjan

Tatyana, you are lucky that you bought a style that is well documentated in "Quer durch Borneo". Often it is not very easy to determine the origin and there are all kinds of mixes of blades and handles.
For instance a rare one in this thread : http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=mendalam

Indeed Arjan to reply on your comment, it takes a long time and research to be able to distinguish a particular style to each different Dayak subgroup and also to geographic locations. But is is certainly possible!
This is what I have done for years and thats why I had made this map.

Every subgroup has its own style or better said characteristics and by this it is certainly possible to pinpoint a specific mandau to a specific location.
This is actually not only regarding Mandaus from Borneo but in general to any tribal art item (must be good old and authentic ofcourse). This is ofcourse depending on the amount of studymaterial been done or available (to the researcher).

You are right that influences and traded materials (blades) can make specific identification more dificult. For instance; a lot of tribes like the Bahau and Aoheng and Modang all use the particular long mouth design with teeth looking like a row of pianokeys and also the characteristic 'fat elbow' .

But I wont go in so far details here. As everybody knows it would take a long long story to explain and found my opinion detail by detail.

This research on base of the old Photos and many books and than being able to pinpoint YOUR mandau (or any item) to a specific location or/and perhaps ceremonial use is what it makes such fun collecting these!