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Originally Posted by Ian
Shazam,
I know of no traditional use of the barung (or kampilan or bangkung) by the people living in the Visayas. There are many of Visayan descent who live in Mindanao, especially Davao City, and it is possible that they may have sporadically used such Moro weapons. On the other hand, there are known examples of Moro kris in Visayan dress, and a number of these have been shown on this Forum. I know of no historical reference to the systematic use of Moro weapons by people native to the Visayas (such as the Ilonggo, Warai, Bisayan, Cebuano, etc.).
The adoption of weapons by different ethnic groups reflects the uses required of them. Many Filipino ethnic groups use swords that have shorter blades than a lot of other groups in Asia and SE Asia. This probably reflects the style of fighting they adopted. There are several martial arts styles practiced in the Philippines.
The picture that you show above is from a site that features modern interpretations of Filipino weapons, and some of their examples are pretty much fantasy weapons. I don't consider it an authoritative source for information about traditional Philippine weapons.
Ian.
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Hello Ian,
There has been a previous thread that talks about a kampilan potentially being Visayan, which is here:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4469
There has also been depictions of Visayans using the kampilan in Filipino media such as the tv show: "amaya" and wondered how accurate that is in depicting ancient Visayans.
As someone who is passionate in uncovering artifacts that may have been lost during the pre-hispanic times, I always assumed that the lack of the Kampilan and kris is a result of Visayans being under Spanish colonization and
not because they never made them.
Likewise, using the kris, armor and many other things have been abandoned during the era of the Spanish empire in favor of using the famous
bolo
due to many Filipinos being farmers/workersof the land.
Its no completely unheard of to hear that Visayans imported long swords from foreign nations which is why I don't recall the Visayans choice of using mostly short swords a definite one.
Martial arts is a debatable topic as it is claimed by many that it is primarily hispanic in origin and is non-existent prior to colonization.
Sorry for the long post, but propagating the Visayans using the kampilan and not mostly just their knives or short swords doesn't exactly fit well for a people surrounded by other(s) use of longer blades. Especially that somehow a people such as the Thai or Moros are able to make and use them while the Visayans do not.