Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

tom hyle · 5th February 2005, 01:32 PM

Yes, it IS a sha'sh'ka, but is that what it would locally be called, or are we helplessly transposing a kazak word, having no alternative? And is that an important matter? Not really to me, in truth; just an idle wondering; all the local terminology seems to be of great interest to some other people though.
The main difference from Caucasian sha'sh'ka per se is length; with the Caucasian swords having grown to longswords, while these, like yatagan per se, seem to have remained most usually the ancestral size; what I categorize as "regular size" (ie. niether long nor short) swords. Is shah shish ka a big blade or the blade of the big? A lord of swords or the sword of lords? (It's common for barbarians, when confronted with mostly citified ideas of social division/stratification, and kazaks have a reputation for this, to speak of themselves as all being lords, kings, or heros.)
Note a tendency in Western Europe for the long sabre to turn into a regular length sword (hanger), perhaps under influence from falchion/long-sax, but I think also because its use comes more natural (no matter what Burton might have said; Burton was given to the usuall trained fencer's elitist/superiorist thing [ie "the way I was taught is THE WAY and there is no other...."], and was basically criticizing the naturalness of hanger use; giving more, perhaps too much, credit to his beloved "scientific" swordsmanship; it's not unreminscent of Samurai training manuals sneering at peasants and common soldiers and their swords.).

5th February 2005, 01:32 PM	#5
tom hyle Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Houston, TX, USA Posts: 1,254	Yes, it IS a sha'sh'ka, but is that what it would locally be called, or are we helplessly transposing a kazak word, having no alternative? And is that an important matter? Not really to me, in truth; just an idle wondering; all the local terminology seems to be of great interest to some other people though. The main difference from Caucasian sha'sh'ka per se is length; with the Caucasian swords having grown to longswords, while these, like yatagan per se, seem to have remained most usually the ancestral size; what I categorize as "regular size" (ie. niether long nor short) swords. Is shah shish ka a big blade or the blade of the big? A lord of swords or the sword of lords? (It's common for barbarians, when confronted with mostly citified ideas of social division/stratification, and kazaks have a reputation for this, to speak of themselves as all being lords, kings, or heros.) Note a tendency in Western Europe for the long sabre to turn into a regular length sword (hanger), perhaps under influence from falchion/long-sax, but I think also because its use comes more natural (no matter what Burton might have said; Burton was given to the usuall trained fencer's elitist/superiorist thing [ie "the way I was taught is THE WAY and there is no other...."], and was basically criticizing the naturalness of hanger use; giving more, perhaps too much, credit to his beloved "scientific" swordsmanship; it's not unreminscent of Samurai training manuals sneering at peasants and common soldiers and their swords.). Last edited by tom hyle; 5th February 2005 at 01:46 PM.