Zamboanga,
Yes that's rattan woven around the shaft near the spear head. I guess it acts like the metal ferrules on your examples. It's woven in a way similar to the way rattan is woven on a few panabases and kampilans I've seen. It's pretty loose now so I don't handle this budiak as much as I'd like to. The pole is original as well and is made of a nice dense rattan staff with multiple nodes...I wish I could get rattan bastons this nice for my arnis training
! The whole spear stands about 5'6" and is pretty light. I'm guessing it would throw rather nicely, but I'm afraid I would mess it up and my neighbors would think I was weird
! The only thing missing is the end cap at the other end of the shaft. The sankil sounds neat after you described how to use it...I definately have to get one of those!!!