Hi ,
thanks for listing this puzzling sword ! Your pics are very good and now it looks a lot more attractive.
For such possibly older unusuall examples we must be carefull with tagging it to a certain tribe. Migrations,trades and headhunting raids hasn't made it easier to determinate such pieces. Fascinating is it too see after seeing some hundreds of mandaus that there are still examples that we haven't seen before.It tells something about seemly endless artistic skills of the people who create them.
If the blade is concave or not doesn't tell anything about the origin IMO.
Both concave and not we see them used among different tribes in a large area. That the blade was once longer is for me no doubt looking to the overall shape. But just that fact is quite seldom as you see that the sword seems to be in use after the break.Seemly for the owner the sword had still value and possibly it was a heirloom of gift.
Wooden hilts are among collectors less valued that antler however they are interesting as the carved is more free to carve what he wants.
What is interesting is that your handle looks to have the overall basic shape of a Kayan hilt ( with larges eyes crossed by arms) but with complete other motifs however the back has a quite kayan looking design.
The main motif seems to be a kind of " hornbill head". Where that is from is again difficult, I see it more or less on an old "Batang Lupar like" sword in my collection but also in other carvings much more to the north.
Another feature ,not yet mentioned, is that the hilts ends are closed, there are no drilled or carved holes in it, so it was seemly mentioned not to attach ( human) hair to it.
Maybe it was because the owner was too young and not "powerful" enough to carry hair bundles ? Was that
maybe also the reason that this hilt was made out of wood ? Was it
maybe a young well skilled boy who got the second hand blade from his father ?
All just speculations of course, sorry
Arjan