Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Formosa Hill Tribe Swords ( for Yuanzhumin )

yuanzhumin · 19th September 2005, 04:10 AM

#To Zalmoxis : To answer your question, your knives are definitely not Taiwanese/Formosan.

#To Ian : I have personally not heard of any artists/craftsmen in Taiwan keeping on the traditional way of making tribal knives. May be there few very still doing it, but I don’t know of them. It could be possible, but I doubt it. You can find some knives produced today by the tribes for their own use or to sell to the outsiders, but they are not anymore made following the old ways, at least not for the blades. Even in the taiwanese (NOT aboriginal) knifemaking tradition, all the family little brands have disappeared. Only one is left that makes original handcrafted knives (if you are interested I can send you infos on him). But after this guy, it is finished. So for the aborigines, whose life have changed dramatically under the modernization of the last fifty years, and that have lost many of their traditions, may be only few of them, certainly old fellows, may have kept the knowledge, but I don’t think they are using it.

#Thanks to Tim for the photos.
-They were taken (I see the name written under them) by James W Davidson. He was an interesting guy, that arrived as a war reporter in Taiwan in 1895, covering the sino-japanese war, then the arrival of Japanese troops (in which he took some unexpected parts) and the building of the first Japanese colony (that lasted for 50 years). At that time, he was not anymore a reporter but a consul, the American consul in Taipei. He wrote a very interesting book on Formosa/Taiwan history published in 1903. It was the first book on the subject of Taiwan. There was a new print of this book recently (SMC Publishing Inc., Taipei).
-In the first picture, the one with the Ami warriors, we can see a sword that is exactly in the style of the Taiwanese southern tribes : no guard, straight and not curved, open one-sided sheath with metalic staples. The handle looks like Rick’s sword displayed in the previous photos on the same thread, but it’s definitely Ami, not Rukai because the rest of the sheath is not as decorated as Rick’s one, because of the dress of the two warriors, mostly their hats. The Ami are the largest Taiwanese tribal group with today nearly 150 000 members. They live on the south eastern coast, between the cities of Hualien and Taitung. They have a matrilineal society.
-In the second photo, we see an Atayal warrior, so if he had a knife, it would be like Tim’s one or Ian’s example A,C and D that are shown before in the thread.
-The third picture : He has no knife on the photo, but if he had one it would be exactly like Rick’s one, as it is a Rukai chief that is shown. There is little mistake in the legend of the picture as Tainan is a city, not a tribe. But the city is not far away from the Rukai’s territory. It is definitely a Rukai chief with the right of the nobility to wear a dress made of snow leopard skin, the feather in the head ornament, the sun made of teeth (usually pigs teeth; in this case, leopard teeth) on the front of the cap and the shell band over the shoulder.

19th September 2005, 04:10 AM	#17
yuanzhumin Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Ex-Taipei, Taiwan, now in Shanghai, China Posts: 180	Answers and comments #To Zalmoxis : To answer your question, your knives are definitely not Taiwanese/Formosan. #To Ian : I have personally not heard of any artists/craftsmen in Taiwan keeping on the traditional way of making tribal knives. May be there few very still doing it, but I don’t know of them. It could be possible, but I doubt it. You can find some knives produced today by the tribes for their own use or to sell to the outsiders, but they are not anymore made following the old ways, at least not for the blades. Even in the taiwanese (NOT aboriginal) knifemaking tradition, all the family little brands have disappeared. Only one is left that makes original handcrafted knives (if you are interested I can send you infos on him). But after this guy, it is finished. So for the aborigines, whose life have changed dramatically under the modernization of the last fifty years, and that have lost many of their traditions, may be only few of them, certainly old fellows, may have kept the knowledge, but I don’t think they are using it. #Thanks to Tim for the photos. -They were taken (I see the name written under them) by James W Davidson. He was an interesting guy, that arrived as a war reporter in Taiwan in 1895, covering the sino-japanese war, then the arrival of Japanese troops (in which he took some unexpected parts) and the building of the first Japanese colony (that lasted for 50 years). At that time, he was not anymore a reporter but a consul, the American consul in Taipei. He wrote a very interesting book on Formosa/Taiwan history published in 1903. It was the first book on the subject of Taiwan. There was a new print of this book recently (SMC Publishing Inc., Taipei). -In the first picture, the one with the Ami warriors, we can see a sword that is exactly in the style of the Taiwanese southern tribes : no guard, straight and not curved, open one-sided sheath with metalic staples. The handle looks like Rick’s sword displayed in the previous photos on the same thread, but it’s definitely Ami, not Rukai because the rest of the sheath is not as decorated as Rick’s one, because of the dress of the two warriors, mostly their hats. The Ami are the largest Taiwanese tribal group with today nearly 150 000 members. They live on the south eastern coast, between the cities of Hualien and Taitung. They have a matrilineal society. -In the second photo, we see an Atayal warrior, so if he had a knife, it would be like Tim’s one or Ian’s example A,C and D that are shown before in the thread. -The third picture : He has no knife on the photo, but if he had one it would be exactly like Rick’s one, as it is a Rukai chief that is shown. There is little mistake in the legend of the picture as Tainan is a city, not a tribe. But the city is not far away from the Rukai’s territory. It is definitely a Rukai chief with the right of the nobility to wear a dress made of snow leopard skin, the feather in the head ornament, the sun made of teeth (usually pigs teeth; in this case, leopard teeth) on the front of the cap and the shell band over the shoulder.