This is what I have been able to glean from the few sources available.
First, a note on the name
corvo. There is some belief that this is linked to the Portuguese name for a crow. I have found no credence for this attribution among those familiar with this knife. It appears that the name derives simply from the adjective,
corvo, meaning curved. A fellow forumite from Spain, Marc, also noted this in an old thread.
The
corvo seems to have made its first appearance in Chile around 1700 and is thought to have derived from a small sickle used as an agricultural tool and introduced by the Spanish. As a tool it had no guard and was sharpened only on the concave edge. Over time it became a standard tool of miners and agricultural workers where it was used as a pick as well as to cut vegetation and wood.
At some point it became the weapon of the working man, often used in combination with a parrying device in the other hand--a stick or perhaps cloth or cape wrapped around the arm. The
corvo came to be a much feared weapon in the hands of skilled fighters, often leading to horrific injuries and fatalities.
In 1848 there was a substantial influx of Chileans into California associated with the discovery of gold. Why the Chileans (known as the "48ers") were among the first to invade the Californian goldfields is an interesting story (
http://historicaltextarchive.com/sec...read&artid=257). Reference is made to the use of the
corvo as a mining tool during that period.
Military use of the
corvo is well documented in the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). It is unclear whether the
corvo was military issue or whether the soldiers simply brought their own knives with them (every working man had his own from adolescence). It was in this war that the terrible injuries and fatalities caused by the
corvo were described and condemned by Peruvians and Bolivians who were on the wrong end of these weapons.
I have not been able to establish whether the
corvo continued to be used by the military in the remaining 19th C and first half of the 20th C, but in 1971 the Chilean government started manufacturing the
corvo for military issue. These were made by FAMAE and production continued until 2000. Two double-edged models with guards were made: a prominently hooked model with a 90 degree curve to its tip (sometimes called the
corvo cuervo), and a less curved version (sometimes called the
corvo atacameno). The former were used by officers and special forces units, the latter by other ranks.
Civilian corvos underwent changes during the 20th C. also. The traditional single-edged knife was adapted to a double-edged weapon, probably some time in the first half of the 20th C., although single-edged versions still seem to have been made as well. The hilts of these knives became fancier, with more intricate stacked hilts becoming fashionable, and civilian versions sometimes had guards added to them (presumably to enhance their fighting usefulness). Inlaid work on the blades is unusual, and can be found on older versions as well as those of the 20th C.
This is a very sketchy history of the national knife of Chile, and consists of a lot of words without pictures. I will post a series of pictures from my files over the next day or so to illustrate the points made above.
I hope others can fill in many of the blanks about these knives and answer the interesting questions Jim has posed.
Ian.