Hi Miguel,
Interesting kris the marine has. It looks like it has 2 guards & is a watered blade. No idea about his contest, if it is PR stunt or was a real event. I do know that there is a code in some places in the PI where sword duels or assassinations with a sword have some acceptance where use of a firearm would not be acceptable. Apparently retaliation (code) limited to means of prior incident.
Yes there is no doubt that the US military & varies general instructions & eventually the executive order in 1911 of disarmament changed a good generation or two of the Moro traditions.
While I doubt swords (manufacture/use) totally disappeared, their revival after WWII was altered. Where a farmer or someone in a remote village would be concerned about a blade for functions of both work & a weapon, a city person would be more concerned about a symbol of present status. I'd consider both ethnographic & each a part of history. While we generally consider "WWII" blades as cerimonial, I'd also guess that a few of them settled disagreements.
The commercial aspect has been around since the Spanish but post WWII also saw a explosion in tourist items. Plenty of raw materials (damaged/abandoned equipment) and plenty of customers (service men), who didn't spend enough time, in the PI, to know the genuine items.
So there is a blur between ethnographic & tourist. Some is blatant, while some, as can be seen in the present posts, is a personal opinion.
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