[kai]

Hello Ian,

Thank you for the question about Lumad weapons. Yes is the short answer to your question, but not usually as long as Moro kampilan and with different hilt styles peculiar to their Lumad origin. The T'boli in particular had a short bladed version of the kampilan, that they called a tok or kafilan. There are also examples of similar short kampilan used by the Bagobo.

This may be a bit of a moot point: Yet these blades tend to resemble the Moro bangkung much more than they resembkle the Moro kampilan; even the minority of Lumad blades that exhibit a kampilan-like spike, does not show the fine details associated with the latter. I'd posit that the spike got copied into the local traditions merely as a decoration; however, the long Moro kampilan blade wasn't. Moro kampilan blades recycled for Lumad use seem to be exceedingly rare - can anybody show any examples? I'd guess that the bangkung as well as the Lumad chopping blades have a common origin with many of the similar chopping swords/tools from the Indo-Malayan realm.

If you search on this site for various Lumad names you will find a few examples of kampilan-like swords used by these groups. The blades of the shorter versions are made within the Lumad cultures—those of the T'boli are particularly respected for their quality and traded for by other groups.

How about twistcore blades from the T'boli? The few known Lumad examples appear to be Bagobo - seems like the latter also were capable of very nice bladesmithing work. I believe we need to be very careful not to generalize from the very limited (and often singular) accounts from the colonial period (or later).

Exchange among the Mindanao Moro tribes and Lumad groups is known to occur with respect to kris blades, so I don't see any reason why that would not apply also to kampilan blades.

Exactly, Moro kris blades were commonly adapted into Lumad use - there seems to be no reason that kampilan blades would not have been available, too. Thus, their absence/rarity must be related to Lumad preferences.

Here are a couple of pictures of a T'boli and a Bagobo small kampilan. They are each shorter than the Moro kampilan and are more in the nature of large knives rather than swords.

From a regional perspective, it's the kampilan blades which are "too long" rather than the Lumad blades being "too short" - the latter may double up as machete-like tools (I would not call them knives though); most swords from the whole archipelago tend to be on the short side (from a western perspective): while some of the shorter blades may also be favored by limited resources, shorter blades do make sense in a dense jungle environment...

As far as sources of iron and steel, native groups are very resourceful. Although there is iron ore available on Mindanao, it is likely that Lumad smiths obtained some of their iron from other sources, including Moro, Spanish, and later the U.S.

While local supplies were often limited, trade was pervasive all over the archipelago and getting raw material was mainly limited by funds (or rather gathering of suitable trade goods, especially precious forest products like timber, resins, or spices). Long-distance export from steel-producing industries in China and India has been known for centuries, too.

Regards,
Kai