Hello Ian,
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Thank you for that link. Interesting interpretation by Rose Schubert. I was hoping that this paper would have some data to support Ron's ideas, but it seems that Schubert was guessing as much as we are.
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Sorrily, she does not clearly state whether this is her own idea or gleaned from another source. As she doesn't give any citations when explaining this idea (while doing so elsewhere in the paper), one would tend to believe this was her own deduction; she also does not mention the sarimanok.
I certainly would be cautious of her suggestion that the bird is actually meant to be carrying the sword (blade). Or at least to utilize this assumption to argue for a "correct" orientation of the stylized figural carving.
Even for a warrior society like the Moro groups, most of the time a sword pommel will on display while carried in scabbard (i. e. with the pommel pointing up). However, this certainly is not its most crucial use, even for a status piece. Thus, the jury is still out on how any of these possibly/probably talismanic features were assumed to "work" by traditional Moro cultures.
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Turning the hilt upside down, or switching the head for the tail as I suggested earlier in this thread, are different ways of looking at the representation, but we have no way of knowing if any of these interpretations are correct without clear data to support them.
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We certainly can look for additional hints from genuine pommels. The only example with a pretty compelling figural style that comes to my mind would be Chris' sarimanok kris (
pics in post #50 above) and even that is stylized/ukilized enough to leave room for arguing if one wanted to play devil's advocate.
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The suggestion that having the wavy blade (naga) positioned above the representation of the bird would be inconsistent with the naga interpretation of the blade offered by Alan and Ron.
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Not necessarily inconsistent IMHO. (And the other orientation would be not work out nicely as well.)
Undoubtably, there is lots of carry-over from earlier cosmologies into the Moro tradition(s); however, one would expect details to change/(d)evolve over time and there usually is enough flexibility to add another bonus feature or two...
Regards,
Kai