Thank you for your reassurances David, and although much appreciated, I am certain they are unnecessary. Just as nobody in this thread has recommended that Thomas be banished, I also did not suggest that banishment was being considered by anybody, however if this current thread were to be moved from the Ethnographic Weapons Forum, into the Ethnographic Miscellanea Forum I do feel that such action could result in Thomas' contribution to our mutual interest being forgotten, and oblivion is the state of having been forgotten.
The fact that you, yourself, have had experience in the craft of metal working is itself evidence of the varied ethnicity of North American culture. When we involve ourselves in ethnographic studies, we are indulging in a very broad based discipline, and where weaponry is an element of that ethnographic study, it becomes extremely difficult to define a boundary.
Thomas' work is certainly not old, it is not replication of weaponry from an identifiable culture, but it is extremely difficult to argue that it does not fit into the parameters of ethnographic study.
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