Visayan Weapons Study

LabanTayo · 3rd December 2004, 12:02 AM

Hello Forum Members.
Zelbone and I would like to do a study of Visayan Weapons to try and figure out if there is any kind of pattern in the design of the hilt and blades, and try to provenance them by any similarities. Of course, pieces that are already provenanced will greatly help in this study. Deity, Animorphic, and Knob Hilts are all important in the Panay/Negros Swords.
With the Talibon, we would only like to study the Pulahan (Garab)type. If you have Cebuano Swords, please list the Names that you know them by when you send the pics. Because of dialectual differences in the Visayas, all the different names of each sword will be helpful. Any history that you have for your sword, or whatever Filipino Martial Art that uses your particular type of sword, would also be helpful.
What we would like to request from Forum members, is if you could supply digital pictures of your pieces. The optimal picture(s) would be an overall pic of the sword outside of the scabbard, plus close-ups of the hilt and its details. Even if you don’t know if its Visayan, send pics anyway.
The categories so far, will be as follows:

PANAY:
Tenegre
Binangon

NEGROS:
Tenegre
Itak

SAMAR / LEYTE:
Talibon (Pulahan - Garab type only)
Waray Sansibar

CEBUANO:
Ginungting
Sansibar

I’m sure more categories and sub-categories will arise as we get into it.

We will be taking a trip to the Philippines next year and will be in the Visayas area for a few weeks. Hopefully with a good outline of theories, we will get all the answers we need in the P.I.

Please email the pics to us directly. No need to post them in this thread.
kombatankc@yahoo.com
zel@kc.rr.com

Pic of Tenegres and Binangons:

Pic of Pulahan Talibon (Garab):

I’ll add more pics later.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Please refer to the prior thread for more details.
http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002689.html

ariel · 3rd December 2004, 04:13 AM

Fascinating! I have not heard the names of half of them and have never found these patterns either in the Zonnenfeld or in Cato!
Can you do all of us a favor and provide a brief description of each particular pattern? I understand that you intend to conduct an in-depth study but perhaps a very preliminary and schematic description would be possible.

LabanTayo · 4th December 2004, 02:26 PM

ariel,
as of now, we are getting together some pics of each type of sword we are looking for.

forum members,
we have only received pics from a few people (thank you guys), so, if you have pics and want to share them with us, please do so, we greatly appreciate all the help so far.

LabanTayo · 6th December 2004, 03:34 AM

a day at my house with a small assortment from our collection.
preliminary work on the study is very rough, but fun at the same time.

Federico · 7th December 2004, 05:51 PM

Ive always loved pics of large piles of blades. Always puts things in perspective for me, when my tendency is to focus only individual pieces, that these weapons werent isolated individual pieces, but rather parts of a much larger culture.

zelbone · 8th December 2004, 02:48 AM

Yo Federico!

If I remember right, don't you have a tenegre with a big brass S-guard? Mind sending us some pics

?

Some pics of your Pulajan garab would be nice, too

!!!

Federico · 8th December 2004, 06:46 AM

Hey Zel, Ill post some pics soon, just need to find the time and sun (been real rainy lately).

Ferguson · 8th December 2004, 10:43 AM

You are welcome to any of my pics of my tenegre on Photobucket

I'll be taking some more pics of a couple of other bolos this weekend.

Steve

wolviex · 8th December 2004, 11:14 AM

wilked aka Khun Deng · 8th December 2004, 12:41 PM

Don't have anything to offer except my best wishes in your endevours and an offer of assistance. I'll be in Manila for 6 months coming February if there is anything I can do for you while I'm there please don't hesitate to ask.

Don't get any ideas Dha guys, I'm not jumping ship, but remember I only collect from where I've worked and research keeps me out of trouble.

LabanTayo · 8th December 2004, 02:05 PM

Wilked,
email sent to with some info.....

thanks for the help so far everyone.
every little bit is appreciated.
even a pic of a hilt helps alot.

ruel · 8th December 2004, 10:09 PM

Before this effort can be considered a true "study," two things must first be done.

1. VALID DEFINITIONS:

You need to define what a "Visayan" weapon is, and to justify how you arrived at your definition. Without basic definitions, this study will not have a clear focus and hence will serve no good purpose.

2. CRITICAL METHODOLOGY:

You also need a way to evaluate the quality and reliability of the information you collect, as well as a way to decide whether your information is a representative sample. Otherwise, you'll simply be mixing good information with bad, and actually harming the effort of producing valuable research (because someone later will have to do that same sorting and sampling).

In other words, you need a valid research methodology based on critical insight.

* * * * * * *

There's really little point in gathering information now, without having done these two things first. I hate to be a bucket of cold water, but it's better to deal with these issues now, at the beginning, rather than let them invalidate the entire project.

LabanTayo · 8th December 2004, 11:22 PM

ruel,
thanks for the advice and warning.
with us being Filipino, i think we can come up with a clear definition of what a Visayan Weapon is. thats the easy part.

right now we are gathering whatever information we can get. we will then start the research process. it might take a few years and several trips to the PI to do this, but i think we will be able to at least come up with a valid island by island description of their given blades and their history. we dont intend on writing a published book, just something to give to people that will give them a clearer idea of the visayan weapons. we dont know all the answers ourselves, thats why we're doing this. most people that do Filipino Martial Arts dont even know what island their art came from or what weapon their art is based on. at least with what we come up with, they'll have a better idea. we wont have Kombatan guys going out and buying kampilans or matulis bolos to train with. they'll at least know that their art uses a medium to long, tip heavy type blade (tenegre with a clip or drop point from Negros).
tons of other reasons why we are doing this.
wish us luck........

ruel · 8th December 2004, 11:54 PM

* You of course have my best wishes.

* Maybe I need to elaborate a little on the definitions comment. For example, my late paternal grandmother's family are all ethic Cebuano and hence culturally Visayan. However, for a good long time they have been in Mindanao (Davao City) and hence geographically non-Visayan. One or two hundred years ago they probably used bladed weapons, but I'd wager they were not proper ginungtings or sansibars.

What to call them, then? A Visayan weapons definition based on culture would say include them, but at the risk of logically including what would more properly be Moro or Lumad weapons. A geographic definition would say exclude them, but that would be to deny the fact that they considered themselves Visayan,and unfairly neglect a good number of people. One has the potential to be over-broad, the other over-narrow.

I'm not suggesting that either definition is better, or that some alternative will be, but some kind of definition should be adopted nonetheless, simply to give the study clarity and consistency. As long as whatever definition chosen is clearly explained and justified, it will be useful for methodological purposes.

If I seem hung up on this, it's only because I see it as a problem that pervades our current body of reference materials and causes much unnnecessary confusion, but at the same time could be very easily avoided with a little fore-planning.

zelbone · 12th December 2004, 06:13 PM

I'd like to thank everyone so far who has sent us photos and words of encouragement and advice. YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST

!!!

When Shelley and I decided to work on this project, it first started out as just pure curiosity of these swords we seem to gravitate towards. This was going to be more of a survey than a hardcore research project. But the more we talked about it, we realized that really there isn't much information on these swords and that there seems to be a growing interest in them...especially amongst Filipino Martial Arts practitioners. Moreover, with the added confusion of different dialects and nomikers for these swords, we knew that this little project of ours deserved more than being just a survey and that it had to become more of thorough study.

Ruel, Marc, Federico, Ian, wilked, et. al, I greatly appreciate your comments and advice. I haven't done any academic research in over a decade and I'm sure Shelley hasn't either. But we both share a similar passion for these swords much as the Dha-guys do for their SE Asian dhas, the keris guys with their kerises, and the Moro sword collectors for the krises, kampilans, barongs, etc. (we all know the various factions on this forum

) Yet there seems to be more general information available for these groups than for the swords Shelley and I prefer. Our goal is to make this information less confusing and available to everyone.

Which brings us to Ruel's sage advice. Shelley and I have discussed this and at first our definition for Visayan swords was pretty broad. Narrowing the definition would give us better focus on our subject. Since this is a study on swords, the focus will be on swords. But the culture behind these swords is as bit as important as the swords themselves. Without the culture, these swords mean nothing. This is where it gets confusing and where focusing our definitions come into play. Shelley and I will discuss narrowing this definition down further and will share it with everyone in the near future. But roughly, the swords we will be concentrating on originate from the main "Visayan" islands in the Central Philippines which includes Panay, Negros, Cebu, Samar, Leyte, and Bohol. We may or may not include Masbate and Mindoro. We will also be focusing on swords as a weapon, not tools. Though there is a fine line between a tool and weapon especially in the Philippines where blade patterns are similar and your everyday "bolo" can be used as both, we will concentrate on the more ornately manufactured weapons that were concieved purely for the taking of human lives. As for a time period, that still hasn't quite been decided yet. We could use a time frame of anytime before the end of WWII, but Shelley and I both know that even up till now, a tenegre could be squaring off against a ginunting on an isolated beach in the Visayas as I write this

. We can't ignore this fact, so we'll discuss this as well.

As for the validity of the information we gather and the methodology we use, we are working on a systematic formula that would yield us the most reliable critical information in an unbiased manner. Basically, we will be doing a lot of cross referencing. In other words, information we get from one source will be checked with another source and then checked again, etc, until we are satisfied with our findings. This information will then be noted and documented. We will also be checking the validity of our sources themselves and "grading" them to the pertinance of this subject. Once we gather enough reliable information, we will come up with a rough outline and glossary to share with anyone who is interested. Whether we actually write a paper or even a book on the subject, we will post our synopsis on this forum or on a separate website for all to share. Keep in mind, don't expect this to happen overnight

. This sort of research takes time, maybe a few years and several thousands of miles of leg work. But we do intend on sharing information as we go.

Thanks again for all your support and comments.

Ian, heres a pic of a real sansibar below the Pulajan garab.

zelbone · 12th December 2004, 06:19 PM

Hey, Ibeam!

Thanks for the pics of Punong Guro Edgar Sulite. The sword he is holding does look like the one in the picture above. Thanks for the words of encouragement as well.

Maraming Salamat,

Zel

donutsrule · 13th December 2004, 03:32 AM

The following blades (the bottom sansibar is a blunt practice blade) were made by Master Romy Macapagal and so are of VERY recent manufacture.

However, since he's the archivist for Kalis Ilustrisimo, he might be worth talking to about historic designs the next time you're near Manila.

Edit: Oh, btw, the live sansibar is chisel-ground.

3rd December 2004, 12:02 AM	#1
LabanTayo Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Kansas City Posts: 177	Visayan Weapons Study Hello Forum Members. Zelbone and I would like to do a study of Visayan Weapons to try and figure out if there is any kind of pattern in the design of the hilt and blades, and try to provenance them by any similarities. Of course, pieces that are already provenanced will greatly help in this study. Deity, Animorphic, and Knob Hilts are all important in the Panay/Negros Swords. With the Talibon, we would only like to study the Pulahan (Garab)type. If you have Cebuano Swords, please list the Names that you know them by when you send the pics. Because of dialectual differences in the Visayas, all the different names of each sword will be helpful. Any history that you have for your sword, or whatever Filipino Martial Art that uses your particular type of sword, would also be helpful. What we would like to request from Forum members, is if you could supply digital pictures of your pieces. The optimal picture(s) would be an overall pic of the sword outside of the scabbard, plus close-ups of the hilt and its details. Even if you don’t know if its Visayan, send pics anyway. The categories so far, will be as follows: PANAY: Tenegre Binangon NEGROS: Tenegre Itak SAMAR / LEYTE: Talibon (Pulahan - Garab type only) Waray Sansibar CEBUANO: Ginungting Sansibar I’m sure more categories and sub-categories will arise as we get into it. We will be taking a trip to the Philippines next year and will be in the Visayas area for a few weeks. Hopefully with a good outline of theories, we will get all the answers we need in the P.I. Please email the pics to us directly. No need to post them in this thread. kombatankc@yahoo.com zel@kc.rr.com Pic of Tenegres and Binangons: Pic of Pulahan Talibon (Garab): I’ll add more pics later. Thanks in advance for any and all help. Please refer to the prior thread for more details. http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002689.html

6th December 2004, 03:34 AM	#4
LabanTayo Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Kansas City Posts: 177	a day at my house with a small assortment from our collection. preliminary work on the study is very rough, but fun at the same time. Attached Images

8th December 2004, 12:41 PM	#10
wilked aka Khun Deng Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Oahu, Hawaii Posts: 166	Best of Luck Don't have anything to offer except my best wishes in your endevours and an offer of assistance. I'll be in Manila for 6 months coming February if there is anything I can do for you while I'm there please don't hesitate to ask. Don't get any ideas Dha guys, I'm not jumping ship, but remember I only collect from where I've worked and research keeps me out of trouble.

8th December 2004, 10:09 PM	#12
ruel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 4	feedback Before this effort can be considered a true "study," two things must first be done. 1. VALID DEFINITIONS: You need to define what a "Visayan" weapon is, and to justify how you arrived at your definition. Without basic definitions, this study will not have a clear focus and hence will serve no good purpose. 2. CRITICAL METHODOLOGY: You also need a way to evaluate the quality and reliability of the information you collect, as well as a way to decide whether your information is a representative sample. Otherwise, you'll simply be mixing good information with bad, and actually harming the effort of producing valuable research (because someone later will have to do that same sorting and sampling). In other words, you need a valid research methodology based on critical insight. * * * * * * * There's really little point in gathering information now, without having done these two things first. I hate to be a bucket of cold water, but it's better to deal with these issues now, at the beginning, rather than let them invalidate the entire project.

12th December 2004, 06:13 PM	#15
zelbone Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: VISAYAS and MINDANAO Posts: 169	THANKS!!! I'd like to thank everyone so far who has sent us photos and words of encouragement and advice. YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST !!! When Shelley and I decided to work on this project, it first started out as just pure curiosity of these swords we seem to gravitate towards. This was going to be more of a survey than a hardcore research project. But the more we talked about it, we realized that really there isn't much information on these swords and that there seems to be a growing interest in them...especially amongst Filipino Martial Arts practitioners. Moreover, with the added confusion of different dialects and nomikers for these swords, we knew that this little project of ours deserved more than being just a survey and that it had to become more of thorough study. Ruel, Marc, Federico, Ian, wilked, et. al, I greatly appreciate your comments and advice. I haven't done any academic research in over a decade and I'm sure Shelley hasn't either. But we both share a similar passion for these swords much as the Dha-guys do for their SE Asian dhas, the keris guys with their kerises, and the Moro sword collectors for the krises, kampilans, barongs, etc. (we all know the various factions on this forum ) Yet there seems to be more general information available for these groups than for the swords Shelley and I prefer. Our goal is to make this information less confusing and available to everyone. Which brings us to Ruel's sage advice. Shelley and I have discussed this and at first our definition for Visayan swords was pretty broad. Narrowing the definition would give us better focus on our subject. Since this is a study on swords, the focus will be on swords. But the culture behind these swords is as bit as important as the swords themselves. Without the culture, these swords mean nothing. This is where it gets confusing and where focusing our definitions come into play. Shelley and I will discuss narrowing this definition down further and will share it with everyone in the near future. But roughly, the swords we will be concentrating on originate from the main "Visayan" islands in the Central Philippines which includes Panay, Negros, Cebu, Samar, Leyte, and Bohol. We may or may not include Masbate and Mindoro. We will also be focusing on swords as a weapon, not tools. Though there is a fine line between a tool and weapon especially in the Philippines where blade patterns are similar and your everyday "bolo" can be used as both, we will concentrate on the more ornately manufactured weapons that were concieved purely for the taking of human lives. As for a time period, that still hasn't quite been decided yet. We could use a time frame of anytime before the end of WWII, but Shelley and I both know that even up till now, a tenegre could be squaring off against a ginunting on an isolated beach in the Visayas as I write this . We can't ignore this fact, so we'll discuss this as well. As for the validity of the information we gather and the methodology we use, we are working on a systematic formula that would yield us the most reliable critical information in an unbiased manner. Basically, we will be doing a lot of cross referencing. In other words, information we get from one source will be checked with another source and then checked again, etc, until we are satisfied with our findings. This information will then be noted and documented. We will also be checking the validity of our sources themselves and "grading" them to the pertinance of this subject. Once we gather enough reliable information, we will come up with a rough outline and glossary to share with anyone who is interested. Whether we actually write a paper or even a book on the subject, we will post our synopsis on this forum or on a separate website for all to share. Keep in mind, don't expect this to happen overnight . This sort of research takes time, maybe a few years and several thousands of miles of leg work. But we do intend on sharing information as we go. Thanks again for all your support and comments. Ian, heres a pic of a real sansibar below the Pulajan garab. Attached Images

3rd December 2004, 04:13 AM	#2
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Fascinating! I have not heard the names of half of them and have never found these patterns either in the Zonnenfeld or in Cato! Can you do all of us a favor and provide a brief description of each particular pattern? I understand that you intend to conduct an in-depth study but perhaps a very preliminary and schematic description would be possible.

4th December 2004, 02:26 PM	#3
LabanTayo Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Kansas City Posts: 177	ariel, as of now, we are getting together some pics of each type of sword we are looking for. forum members, we have only received pics from a few people (thank you guys), so, if you have pics and want to share them with us, please do so, we greatly appreciate all the help so far.

7th December 2004, 05:51 PM	#5
Federico Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA Posts: 312	Ive always loved pics of large piles of blades. Always puts things in perspective for me, when my tendency is to focus only individual pieces, that these weapons werent isolated individual pieces, but rather parts of a much larger culture.

8th December 2004, 02:48 AM	#6
zelbone Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: VISAYAS and MINDANAO Posts: 169	Yo Federico! If I remember right, don't you have a tenegre with a big brass S-guard? Mind sending us some pics ? Some pics of your Pulajan garab would be nice, too !!!

8th December 2004, 06:46 AM	#7
Federico Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA Posts: 312	Hey Zel, Ill post some pics soon, just need to find the time and sun (been real rainy lately).

8th December 2004, 10:43 AM	#8
Ferguson Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Kernersville, NC, USA Posts: 793	You are welcome to any of my pics of my tenegre on Photobucket I'll be taking some more pics of a couple of other bolos this weekend. Steve

8th December 2004, 11:14 AM	#9
wolviex Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Poland, Krakow Posts: 418	Greetings! There are Tenegre and Talibon recognized as Visayan by our dear forum mates, which I have posted some time ago. There are from National Musuem, take a look and maybe they'll be helpful: http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002439.html and pictures: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4.../V02957-01.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4.../V02957-03.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4.../V02957-04.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4.../V02957-05.jpg and http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002611.html pictures http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...x/DSCF2146.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...x/DSCF2157.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...x/DSCF2154.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...x/DSCF2162.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...x/DSCF2160.jpg best regards

8th December 2004, 02:05 PM	#11
LabanTayo Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Kansas City Posts: 177	Wilked, email sent to with some info..... thanks for the help so far everyone. every little bit is appreciated. even a pic of a hilt helps alot.

8th December 2004, 11:22 PM	#13
LabanTayo Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Kansas City Posts: 177	ruel, thanks for the advice and warning. with us being Filipino, i think we can come up with a clear definition of what a Visayan Weapon is. thats the easy part. right now we are gathering whatever information we can get. we will then start the research process. it might take a few years and several trips to the PI to do this, but i think we will be able to at least come up with a valid island by island description of their given blades and their history. we dont intend on writing a published book, just something to give to people that will give them a clearer idea of the visayan weapons. we dont know all the answers ourselves, thats why we're doing this. most people that do Filipino Martial Arts dont even know what island their art came from or what weapon their art is based on. at least with what we come up with, they'll have a better idea. we wont have Kombatan guys going out and buying kampilans or matulis bolos to train with. they'll at least know that their art uses a medium to long, tip heavy type blade (tenegre with a clip or drop point from Negros). tons of other reasons why we are doing this. wish us luck........

8th December 2004, 11:54 PM	#14
ruel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 4	* You of course have my best wishes. * Maybe I need to elaborate a little on the definitions comment. For example, my late paternal grandmother's family are all ethic Cebuano and hence culturally Visayan. However, for a good long time they have been in Mindanao (Davao City) and hence geographically non-Visayan. One or two hundred years ago they probably used bladed weapons, but I'd wager they were not proper ginungtings or sansibars. What to call them, then? A Visayan weapons definition based on culture would say include them, but at the risk of logically including what would more properly be Moro or Lumad weapons. A geographic definition would say exclude them, but that would be to deny the fact that they considered themselves Visayan,and unfairly neglect a good number of people. One has the potential to be over-broad, the other over-narrow. I'm not suggesting that either definition is better, or that some alternative will be, but some kind of definition should be adopted nonetheless, simply to give the study clarity and consistency. As long as whatever definition chosen is clearly explained and justified, it will be useful for methodological purposes. If I seem hung up on this, it's only because I see it as a problem that pervades our current body of reference materials and causes much unnnecessary confusion, but at the same time could be very easily avoided with a little fore-planning.

12th December 2004, 06:19 PM	#16
zelbone Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: VISAYAS and MINDANAO Posts: 169	Hey, Ibeam! Thanks for the pics of Punong Guro Edgar Sulite. The sword he is holding does look like the one in the picture above. Thanks for the words of encouragement as well. Maraming Salamat, Zel

13th December 2004, 03:32 AM	#17
donutsrule Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 11	I don't know if this pic is of any use to you, but... The following blades (the bottom sansibar is a blunt practice blade) were made by Master Romy Macapagal and so are of VERY recent manufacture. However, since he's the archivist for Kalis Ilustrisimo, he might be worth talking to about historic designs the next time you're near Manila. Edit: Oh, btw, the live sansibar is chisel-ground. Attached Images