Hi Lew,
Nice piece. I agree that it definitely looks like a Borneo blade, but I had some observations or a possible wild goose chase
. A minor detail, the wood looks (IMO) like something that would come more from the Philippines than from Borneo. The things that really caught my eye were the recessed bands of woven rattan and the way the back flat of the blade is treated. The way the back of the blade is treated reminds me of
Piece A. On Piece A the back flat of the blade is ground out flat to a taper at the back edge, with a steeper angle ground in at the "fuller" line to accent the definition - it looks like a triangular fuller, but is really tapered on a distinct plane to the back edge. It looks like yours was done this way as well - is this so, or is it a regular fuller? This isn't a specific treatment I had seen before. Surfing around one day I found
Piece B. I thought that due to the similarities in B and A (handle and scabbard), that A might be from nearby (on Palawan). So (to keep this short) if C (yours above) is like B and B is like A, is C like A? Could it be from Palawan? Was Palawan a cross-cultural sort of place - influenced by both the Philippines and Borneo?
Somebody stop me if the limb is too long.