A Bagobo Sangi for comments

[migueldiaz]

Nice pics, thanks!

In Fay Cooper-Cole's excellent work, The Wild Tribes of Davao District, he mentioned a Mandaya dagger which has a sort of hair trigger assembly:

"Much as the fighting knives are prized, the dagger, bayadau or badau, is in even greater favor. It is worn on the front left-hand part of the body in ready reach of the right hand, and is never removed unless the owner is in the company of trusted relatives. A light thread, easily broken, holds the dagger in its sheath and the slightest disturbance is enough to cause the owner to draw his weapon."

Now I'm wondering whether the badau or bayadau would be something like the daggers pictured above. By the way, in other Philippine dialects, the equivalent word is balaraw, i.e., dagger.

Yet another related topic would be the pics below from the Univ. of Michigan. The group with the shield are Bagobos. Not sure about the other trio (but they are Lumad also, for sure). In any case, we can see that these knives are more of men's knives (as side arms), rather than women's.