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Originally Posted by fernando
Let me not be a party pooper, Jim (and corrado) but, wouldn't you find these notches to small to pick and pull up 'thick' reins straps ?  . |
Good question Fernando, and in actuality, most of the suggestions that have been presented by authorities such as Wagner and other museum officials, collectors et al, though desperately trying to find a pragmatic explanation for these notches, have been equally fanciful.
As I have noted, even the character of these notches, let alone size, defies reasonable plausibility in accord with the proposed purposes. In the case of one pandour sabre I handled, the notch was too small for any effective purpose, yet it was faithfully placed in the same blade location.
My only recourse throughout the many years of trying to resolve this unusual feature has been to consider some long forgotten symbolic gesture for it. As I had mentioned, Bowie knives have long received a vestigial notch on the back of the blade in this manner. We may consider the 'choil' on the back of the kukri blade, faithfully placed, but with no explainable purpose.
The notion of notching a blade to serve as a 'blade catcher' is of course pure nonsense as far as I have seen in more years of studying this phenomenon than I can say exactly.