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Originally Posted by David
Yes, Ben certainly knows his stuff where Dayak weapons are involved. Hopefully he will be able to supply us with some guidelines for making these determinations. 
I don't think these weapons are very well understood in the collector world and a quick look at eBay will show you that the market is currently flooded with touristy mandaus. Many of them are quite obvious. What is a bit harder to dtermine is when we see a later example that may or may not be a practical working piece as opposed to a tourist piece. It is my understanding that heads were known to be taken by the Dayak well into the second half of the 20th century. |
What I don't understand is: a mandau is good only when had taken heads? in other words the mandaus were used only to take heads? And more: if one take as comparative examples only the pieces on books and museums maybe we can lost something: in african weapons, that I know just a little more, one can find pieces that are like the ones on books and also other more crude weapons that aren't beautiful enough to stay on a book but for sure old and "ethnographic" as the others.