Charles, to my eye this does not look like a scarf weld.
From what I can see in the photo it seems that the softer iron that forms the sorsoran area of the blade has been split and the steel that forms the working part of the blade has been inserted into the opened iron.
It may present differently in the hand, but that's what it looks like on my monitor.
As to why this was done on this particular blade, perhaps the material used for the working part of the blade was not large enough to permit the sorsoran to be forged out. That occurs to me immediately,but I guess we could come up with a number of other ideas too if we put our minds to it.
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