Fernando, thank you so much for adding to this with excellent research, these great close up photos and most pertinent observations.
Your question on my comment regarding the alteration of this kastane is well placed, and my wording was indeed oblique.
What I meant was that regarding the 1836 inventory found by Jeff which showed 12 'dragon swords' ( compellingly suggesting the kastane) among stores supplied to this fur company. .....it does not seem they would have all been altered. It seems that the grouping of 'dragon swords' would have been noted as such for the grotesque zoomorphic creature of the pommel giving the 'dragon' term.
This example seems to have a bone hilt grip, as given the degree of goethite from age and being deposited or in conditions taking it to 'excavated' condition, and the fact it still exists. Wood I think would have been gone.
This example then may well be one which was apparently remounted with bone, and it seems well peened, more in accord with an armourer than a native remount. This suggests more use of an individual of the trade industry than a native, but it seems perhaps that the other 11 swords may have filtered into native use. Without corroborating examples it is not possible to know exactly what these dragon swords looked like, nor how many were altered.
That they were entered into inventory in original state seems likely as noted by description.
Good reference on the fact that 'turtle people' seems an early colloquial term by natives for Spaniards, for their armored countenance. However, by these times, as noted, the Spanish were typically not wearing such armor.
Oral tradition is a profoundly maintained thing among native peoples, and it does seem this term would have carried forth regardless of such detail as it no longer being worn. The term indirectly may have been broadly used to describe 'foreigners' in the manner of 'firangi' with blades in India.
One thing I have discovered in studying the Spanish in colonial situations is that they often, almost stubbornly, continued the use of long obsolete arms and armor. The main problem causing the reluctant abandoning of many items was unserviceability and lack of armourers to maintain them. The Spaniards aboard the vessels seen by natives in coastal areas may have had such armor, or even without the body armor, probably had helmets. The hard 'shell' effect would recall the turtle in native parlance.
The turtle seems well used in mythology and lore of many cultures beyond Native American, and as noted, in Asian areas as well.
Returning to the problem of how this sword, or the other 11 which we presume might have accompanied it, might have arrived in these vastly incongruent circumstances in British Columbia, we still have no solution.
As Jeff has noted, and I agree, this sword seems to have come into this context in trade circumstances rather than being a weapon from any Spanish incursion as mentioned in the news items. I am thinking more likely of Dutch-Spanish contact via trade situations in the areas in Philippines an environs, and perhaps these reaching Spanish ports in Mexico, then to Alta California and of course beyond.
I would imagine this being around 1770s as I have noted, the blade on this seems much like Dutch hanger blades of 18th century.
|