[ariel]

Alex and Jim,

We have discussed the issue of “ name game” repeatedly. Allow me to offer my purely “IMHO” defense of this unfortunate term.
I am in the opinion that it is an important and valid part of any research into origins of weapons. Name was and is an integral part of any subject and object.

Not for nothing Albert in his book on Indonesian weapons provides multiple names of virtually identical swords manufactured on different islands or even by different tribes living next to each other. Elgood compiles voluminous glossaries of Indian weapons painstakingly noticing that for example South Indian Firangi was called Dhup in Deccan and Asa Shamshir further north.
Correctly naming an object completes its description. Misnaming confuses it.
Stone put a picture of various Parang Naburs from Borneo. Only when we ( at least I) realized that a peculiar one in the array was not a Parang Nabur from Borneo, but a Minasbad from Bicol, were we able to separate them.

We had long and fruitless discussions about peculiar Khopesh-like swords from somewhere ( Algiers? Sudan?), but elucidation of its correct name, Laz Bichaq, solved the conundrum once and for all: Laz people, islamized Georgians, Trabzon area.

We still have swords without their genuine names and often resort to artificial monikers just for the sake of labeling them somehow. Bukharan or Afghani “ pseudoshashkas” had names given to them by their owners, but those were lost to us. Mercenary found old Persian pictures of a battle between Persian and Afghani armies with multiple examples of carefully drawn guarded and guardless swords. What were those “ guardless” ones? Who did they belong to? How old were they? What was their history?

We have names without objects. Many Persian and Indo-Persian sources mention Kalatchurri. What was it? What can it tell us about the evolution of sabers in that region?

We often use names given not by the original creators, but by the more powerful occupiers. We call long straight Algerean swords Flissas, but a chancy finding in a forgotten book clearly states that this was a French moniker, whereas the natives called them Khedama ( whether this is true or not is another question).

Some prefer to call Central Asian guardless sabers “ shashka”, a name appropriated by the Russians from yet another part of the world and having nothing to do with Central Asian traditions. Let’s not forget that the Russians were awfully promiscuous with this name: they officially called their regulation dragoon D-guarded sabers “shashka” as well.

Ignorance is forgivable as long as it is openly admitted as such. But insistence on it despite facts is unprofessional and plainly stupid. The Earth is not flat and a continuous belief in elephants standing on a turtle tells us everything about a believer and nothing about astrophysics.

Understanding real names is important: it completes the circle in our description of an object and gives us novel ways of looking at its origins and history.

Perhaps, I am so insistent on it because of my profession, medicine. Without precise definition of a pathological condition expressed as its name, we are incapable of treating it correctly. Superficial enumeration of just symptoms and signs condemns us to lump totally different disease processes into an amorphous mass and dooms the patient. The old “dropsy” may be a manifestation of liver cirrhosis, nephrotic syndrome, valvular heart defect, chronic lung disease, obstruction by a malignant tumor, thrombosis of blood vessels, protein malnutrition etc, etc. Without a precise name we cannot communicate and cannot treat the underlying condition.

You of course remember Brothers Grimms’ tale about Rumpelstilskin: know my name and you become my master.

Sorry for a long post, just pure IMHO.