Thanks Gentlemen, this has given me something to work on.
Ben, the handle is firmly fixed, it would need hard hammer blows to get it off. I think I will leave it as it is.
VVV
A wild guess would be that it belonged to an Iban Dayak who went on raids together with Moros and then later converted to Islam (which made him change the hilt and add the motifs to his blade)
Michael, Amazing powers of deduction.
Er, can you tell me what his name was ?
thanks again
Royston