Continental SEA...More than just swords & knives??

[Nathaniel]

Originally Posted by aiontay

Sorry, I don't know the original source of the picture. It appears in the book "The Trouser People", which I have, but I can't seem to lay my hands on right now.

It should be noted that there is a pretty long history of private armies (tat) in Burma, which continued well in to the 20th Century, so a lot of traditional Burmese weapons were replaced pretty quickly with firearms. Swords and knives obviously hung around longer since they could serve utilitarian functions as well as function as weapons, but traditional weapons arts were replaced pretty quickly. I did study a bit of the Karen sword art in Thailand.

Ainotay, Thanks for the book reference

Oh, yes, private armies...each Burmese state and tribes, etc...I think the same in Thailand...each a loose group of city- states forming a loose federation.

I'm just wondering if their are some more representative Burmese weapons other than the beautiful swords & daggers. We see Thai pole arms....but not Burmese....has anyone seen examples? or have pictures?

And even with firearms taking over traditional weapons we don't see many examples in the collecting world, such as you see in other cultures... Japanese, Vietnamese, etc I know there are some famous Thai firearms...like the one King Naresuan used to shoot across the river to kill the Burmese general.