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Old 20th March 2006, 05:57 PM   #7
Titus Pullo
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I guess it is a Shan...since the Thais (particularily northern Thai people) are the same people as the Shans. But that can be tricky because people around there particularily the Burmans and the Thai Ayutthayans were influenced by many cultures because of many tradings with foreign merchants. The blade design and scabard seem to be Siamese, but the decorative designs on the scabard and hilt could be Shans (I know very little about Shans arts), or perhaps even Burman or the hill tribes. Or It could be from the Mon people, also. The Mon were the people who set up any major civilization on the mainland Southeast Asia for the first time, and their arts and martial arts influenced the later Khmer empire, Siamese, Burman, Shans, Vietnamese, and so forth. The Mon fought with swords in a similar manner as the Siamese, by decapitating the opponents. In other words...the Mon civilization was the prototype for other mainland Southeast Asian civilization. The Mon themselves were mainly influenced by the Buddhist cultures in India and Ceylon. There are a lot of Mon people, who fled the opressive Burman government, living in Thailand, also.
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