Hi Miguel,
Scott's book is unique as it's based on what the Spanish wrote about the Filipinos when they first encountered them. This means of course that there are a lot of misunderstandings and cultural biased flaws in the original documentation that needs to be decipherd (based on other documentation and sources). Like the old poison myth...
I assume that the kris from Makassar wasn't of the Sundang type but more of the regular Malay size?
And that the kampilan the Spaniards encountered on their Moluccan campaign belonged to Illanum seafarers?
Not to the regular inhabitants of the Moluccas who according to all other sources used other kind of swords?
I think the book is very interesting and also sometimes quite surprising.
Like when he mentions the baladaw (= Malay beladau?) as a kind of popular Visayan push dagger. I wonder why it didn't survive in popularity?
Unfortunately Scott died in 1993. A year before the book first was published.
Michael
|