Hello David,
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When i search for "Sarimanok hilt" i find a good number of hits lead me to these very old (10-13 century) gold hilts. I do not believe these swords were kris per se, but this does seem to help establish the symbolic use of the Sarimanok within the culture as hilts and pommels for swords going back centuries ago.
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There seems to be no extant sources corroborating that these hilts really were attributed to the same "mythological beast" originally nor has it been established that there is any continuous line of cultural descent. Arguing that the Maranao figurines are similar enough to the gold hilts to prove any connection seems overly enthusiastic to me to say the least.
Thus, I'm far from convinced that this attribution holds any water! I'll ask Lorenz - maybe he can point us to the origin of this attribution/story...
Regards,
Kai