An interesting piece of information possibly pertinent to these swords comes from a comment that the head weapons curator at the Thai National Museum made to our intrepid field operative, Dan Wilke. She said these look a lot like old Thai cavalry polearms.
One wonders if it is a case of derivation, or of convergent evolution. I don't imagine that there is much in the way of cavalry used up in the mountains of Annam, and a longhandled blade has its advantages apart from being able to reach people on the ground from the back of a horse. Still, I have this fantasy of a lost Thai cavalry unit settling down in the highlands and passing down their familiar chopper design to their decendents.
|