Rawson's book on The Indian Sword shows a number of unusual designs for Naga dao. I don't see one that matches this example closely, but he makes the point that these unusual shapes were largely ceremonial and that the plain dao were for use as tools and weapons.
This one shows the usual crude blacksmithing techniques of the Naga whom Rawson describes as "iron-poor" and who had to resort to reusing iron scrap, which often resulted in low quality blades. Higher quality iron and steel was "obtained" from English plantations which used good quality iron and steel tools that could be adapted to dao.
Ian.
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