This particular form of knife is a bit outside my experience, I've seen a few, and sold a few, but I really do not know what this particular form of Sumatran knife is used for.
However, there are knives in Jawa and Bali that are extremely similar to this knife form, and those Javanese and Balinese knives are work knives, mostly used for working rotan, I believe.Some years ago I knew a tukang wrongko who favoured this style of knife for detail work in the carving of wrongkos.In Bali they are used in the preparation of offerings.
In my experience, knives from the entire Indonesian area that are used as weapons have blade geometry that presents a grind on either side of the blade, knives that have a chisel grind, as this knife presently under discussion does, are work knives. In Jawa and Bali any work knife that must be kept sharp is kept in a scabbard, very often a scabbard that is suited to waist carry in belt, setagen, or sarung folds.
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