Robert:
Excellent post! The knife is wonderful, but the explanation of the symbolism is very helpful. I have heard several versions of this symbolism before from a few Filipinos, but the graphics that you show make it all so much clearer.
It is interesting that the tripartite "Spanish" hilt fits so neatly into a traditional, three-layered view of the animalist world--the brass ferrules in this case separating the three elements. We should go back through past posts and identify similar iconography.
Ian.
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