Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - How many researchers are there on the forum when it comes to Indian wapons

Edster · 21st September 2018, 02:48 PM

Jens,

I agree with Ian, but in addition to time and desire, one needs to know HOW to research. Major slick paged and photo rich A&A books are well known but often superficial in content. Usually a key to learning more is to access these author's references and footnotes, and then the references of these references. For example, my prime interest is Sudan's kaskara. I knew that Sudan Notes and Records was a colonial journal from 1918 to 1974 with lots of anthropological materials on the various ethnic groups inhabit this vast area. I developed access to all articles SNR had produced and began to graze through then. By chance I found in an article on customs of the Northern Bega a one page description of sword type names linked to their fuller construction. That became the basis to my Fuller essay on this forum.

In addition to swords I found out about who could forge iron, other weapons like long and short spears, throwing knives and sticks, and the use of poison arrows.

One way to get immersed in the subject is to Google on Indian Colonial Journals. This came up at random.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/...nalCode=fich20

Search on Libgen to see if journals have been archived. Google Books and Project Gutenberg are great resources for old travel narratives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis

How to access Libgen:
http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/?p=7172

As in Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/

For example while its more oriented to European arms, here is a link to Gladius journal
http://gladius.revistas.csic.es/inde.../issue/archive

A most of this digging is low yield, but it builds and in total you find quality information not obviously available. Think of it as detective work or being an intelligence analyst. Solve the mystery. I think internet research is more entertaining than watching current evening TV.

Happy hunting,
Ed

21st September 2018, 02:48 PM	#3
Edster Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 389	Jens, I agree with Ian, but in addition to time and desire, one needs to know HOW to research. Major slick paged and photo rich A&A books are well known but often superficial in content. Usually a key to learning more is to access these author's references and footnotes, and then the references of these references. For example, my prime interest is Sudan's kaskara. I knew that Sudan Notes and Records was a colonial journal from 1918 to 1974 with lots of anthropological materials on the various ethnic groups inhabit this vast area. I developed access to all articles SNR had produced and began to graze through then. By chance I found in an article on customs of the Northern Bega a one page description of sword type names linked to their fuller construction. That became the basis to my Fuller essay on this forum. In addition to swords I found out about who could forge iron, other weapons like long and short spears, throwing knives and sticks, and the use of poison arrows. One way to get immersed in the subject is to Google on Indian Colonial Journals. This came up at random. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/...nalCode=fich20 Search on Libgen to see if journals have been archived. Google Books and Project Gutenberg are great resources for old travel narratives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis How to access Libgen: http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/?p=7172 As in Internet Archive: https://archive.org/ For example while its more oriented to European arms, here is a link to Gladius journal http://gladius.revistas.csic.es/inde.../issue/archive A most of this digging is low yield, but it builds and in total you find quality information not obviously available. Think of it as detective work or being an intelligence analyst. Solve the mystery. I think internet research is more entertaining than watching current evening TV. Happy hunting, Ed Last edited by Edster; 22nd September 2018 at 01:11 PM.