Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Looking for info and pics: lang xian and nangseon

fearn · 21st November 2008, 06:27 PM

Thanks Josh.

Hopefully someone else will pop up with a real one.

Since the weapon's basically a spear tip on a piece of real or imitation bamboo, I'm beginning to speculate on the design. Perhaps the way you make one is to take a bamboo stalk, and rather than cutting all the side branches off to make a smooth shaft, you deliberately leave some of the side branches on as sharpened stumps? It would be relatively easy to make, so long as you chose your bamboo well. Moreover, sharp bamboo points would definitely tangle and cut, especially on poorly armored targets. The weakness of such a weapon is that bamboo tends to shatter, so if it failed, it would fail catastrophically.

I'm still hoping that one of the Korean revival arts, such as Muye24gi, is using the nangseon, so perhaps there's a picture somewhere?

F

21st November 2008, 06:27 PM	#3
fearn Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,247	Thanks Josh. Hopefully someone else will pop up with a real one. Since the weapon's basically a spear tip on a piece of real or imitation bamboo, I'm beginning to speculate on the design. Perhaps the way you make one is to take a bamboo stalk, and rather than cutting all the side branches off to make a smooth shaft, you deliberately leave some of the side branches on as sharpened stumps? It would be relatively easy to make, so long as you chose your bamboo well. Moreover, sharp bamboo points would definitely tangle and cut, especially on poorly armored targets. The weakness of such a weapon is that bamboo tends to shatter, so if it failed, it would fail catastrophically. I'm still hoping that one of the Korean revival arts, such as Muye24gi, is using the nangseon, so perhaps there's a picture somewhere? F