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Old 25th December 2007, 07:10 PM   #24
Jim McDougall
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
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Thank you for posting these Kronckew! The sea Dyaks were definitely one of the groups from those regions I was referring to. The parang (I believe often termed also 'mandau') is not surprisingly included in some references I have seen showing groupings of a variety of 'pirate' weapons. I am not sure of the range of the Sea Dyaks beyond thier home regions, but I would not be surprised if some of them joined other pirate crews on individual basis. These parangs might have been adopted by crewmen of ships that visited these regions as well, which seems a plausible speculation.

The 'klewang' you show is also very interesting, especially the wrapped grip and mount components which appear of Japanese katana style. It seems that in discussions some time ago concerning Japanese influences on the weapons in SE Asia, it was noted that many groups of river pirates in the rivers deep inland in SE Asia were comprised of many Japanese. I vaguely recall even a katana type sword captioned as from India, though I had serious reservations on complete acceptance of that attribution.
The hilt on this example with the upward and downward quillons on the guard of course also reflects Chinese sidearms including those attributed to Chinese river pirates. Those groups were still extremely active well into the 20th century and a great movie that included that topic was "The Sand Pebbles" with Steve McQueen. I do not recall specifically details such as weapons from the movie, but thought the subject worthy of note.

All best regards,
Jim
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