Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

ariel · 10th January 2022, 06:42 AM

Yup. Old and trusty Khyber Knife as per Brits.
They took the real local name "selavah", transiterated it into English as "Salavar", noticed that many of them had recurved bladed and,... voila! -Salavar Yataghan:-)

For years we thought that Salavar came from the name of Persian pants , Shalvars, but now the origin is clear.

Stone called them Churra , a " knife" in Hindi. Generally, the Afghani variant of the venerable butcher's knife. I once saw an old photo from Central Asian bazaar, where newly made examples were sold there as ,- you guess,- butcher's knives. They were made all over Afghanistan and immortalized by R. Kipling and a horrible weapon. Every self-respected Afghani carried one. Nothing was better for hacking sheep carcass or an unfortunate Tommy .

10th January 2022, 06:42 AM	#4
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Yup. Old and trusty Khyber Knife as per Brits. They took the real local name "selavah", transiterated it into English as "Salavar", noticed that many of them had recurved bladed and,... voila! -Salavar Yataghan:-) For years we thought that Salavar came from the name of Persian pants , Shalvars, but now the origin is clear. Stone called them Churra , a " knife" in Hindi. Generally, the Afghani variant of the venerable butcher's knife. I once saw an old photo from Central Asian bazaar, where newly made examples were sold there as ,- you guess,- butcher's knives. They were made all over Afghanistan and immortalized by R. Kipling and a horrible weapon. Every self-respected Afghani carried one. Nothing was better for hacking sheep carcass or an unfortunate Tommy .