Origin of this dagger?

[David]

Originally Posted by Sajen

Hello David,

like I write before, I am not really sure between whale bone and dugong but I know that both materials was used for keris hilts and other hilts in SEA.
Tusks from dugong are 20 until 25 cm long (approx. 8-10 inch), whale tooth are approx. 15 cm (6 inch) long. So they are large enough to carve handles from this material. A friend of mine have written a book about keris materials ( Faszination Kris, Zauber des Materials, Wolfgang Schilling) and he have confirmed the material of some from my keris handles.

Best regards,

Detlef

I guess i could see certain styles of thin handles carved from them as the tusks do tend to be rather thin. But how would you carve a hilt such as your example out of a source with this shape...