Kai,
I have Juynboll's book on Philippines but unfortunately it only covers the weapons in the Leiden museum. This means that most of them are from Sulu, Mindanao (a lot of Bagobo) and some from North Luzon. And only a handful of swords collected in the region around Manila. No blades from South Luzon and the Visayas.
It's quite thin compared to f.i. Borneo and unfortunately not as useful.
Ben,
I have the second edition of Stone's book and in the beginning you can read about him and his life.
Stone was clearly a remarkable man and his work was of high value when he published it and it still is today.
But unlike Haddon, who based his book on his expedition to Borneo in 1898-1899, Stone actually never visited the island.
His descriptions of f.i. Borneo weapons are based on the litterature that is listed in the end of the book. This means that he only had a small percentage of all the information we have today about Borneo weapons to base his book on. And no Internet!
To list all weapons in all times is an impressive task and I find it very surprising that there are so few errors in his work based on the above.
On the Parang Nabur he writes the source of his description openly for the readers to double check.
Which I have quoted so everybody can make their own opinion and contribute to the discussion.
In f.i. Leiden there are 25+ "Parang Nabur" with credible collection notes and collected in SE Borneo.
None that has been collected in NW Borneo!
Of course there is a bias because North Borneo was British and the rest was Dutch at that time. But there are also weapons in the huge Leiden collection, like the Niabor, collected in Sarawak.
Also don't you find it strange that there are no references to this sword in f.i. Shelford, Evans, Brooke etc. where you can find all the other weapons of the inhabitants of the old British part of Borneo?
Why don't we see it in any of the Iban books that has been published after Stone?
I find it quite probable that the authors of those has tried really hard to find this "Sea-Dayak sword" as described in Stone. But it seems as if all of them failed for a reason...
Why?
I think the only conclusion must be that the weapon wasn't in use in that region?
So Ben here is the
"Parang Nabur" challenge:
There are 25+ "Parang Nabur" from SE Borneo with collection notes in Leiden alone.
Show me 5 "Parang Nabur" (only 20% of the amount in Juynboll) with proper scientific collection notes originating from Sarawak and a proven age of at least 100 years (no new tourist copies).
If so you will be the new owner of my 114 cm "Parang Nabur".
If you can't do it who can?
Michael