Hello Charles,
Let me play advocatus diaboli: What features of the hilt clearly support a Yakan origin (assuming that the nice shandigan blade doesn't offer any additional hints)?
I have no qualms with the barung in Cato being Yakan: It has the very short punto (as in antique pira) and the long crest is also very similar to a pira pommel (keeping its heft towards the tip with blunt end and even getting a bit broader towards the tip if looked at from above).
Your hilt as well as many of the similar ones exhibit a very elongated punto though! (Quite a few of these made from horn which is usually only seen as rather thin spacers)
Moreover, while the flow of lines share limited similarities in side view, the carving of the crest is very differently done with gently flowing lines and a design more based on a triangular cross-section rather than a pira pommel/hilt.
I dunno the whole design strikes me as being completely different with only a few "accidental" similarities compared with Yakan hilts. For sure, I'd love to see more close-ups of antique Yakan pieces being shown for comparision!
It's a fact that these type of hilts are often found in colonial Dutch and British collections (with barung being not common at all) while they seem to be very rare in the US (despite loads of antique barung available). This is probably the main reason (including a few provenanced museum pieces) to attribute these barung to northern Borneo (as well as Kalimantan Timur and northern Sulawesi). OTOH, there are also some pieces that came out of US-controlled areas.
Incidentally, this is pretty much the same situation as with the old style kampilan hilt! This was first suggested to come from Borneo but the more plausible hypothesis is that it is an old style that got mostly replaced by later styles on Mindanao while it got preserved in the expat communities on Borneo. I believe, we're looking at a similar situation here with an older style of barung hilt being replaced by new style(s) in the Tausug/Samal (and possibly Yakan) cultural centers while staying in vogue for a longer time at the southern periphery of the Sulu sultanate.
Regards,
Kai
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