Thanks for the very informative replies!
That's very interesting... the forward-curved, sickle-like billhook blades are very similar to the working blades in Taiwan... they did not use the stereotypical straight machete for work, it was the curved "fat sickle" type of the blade... in Taiwan there too was a good distinction between war and work blades (to some degree). Although the Aborigines (Yuan Zhu Min) often used their headhunting blades for survival and fighting... when Chinese peasants revolted against the Dutch, they use the biggest blade they had... the curved rice-knife or the billhook style blade. Street brawls and fights often involved spears, cleavers, dao, axes, etc.
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