Different Borneo sword

[Indianajones]

Hi all,
For me its not so easy to back my statements up with pics as I dont collect Dayak anymore. So I rely -on Dayak items- on pics I find online. I do have this old pic from a few of my mandau's/etc.; see below. With a Murutmandau I mean the MIDDLE example, which is quite similar to the one Willem has brought up (comparason pic). Unfortunately I did not make any pics of the blade, but also this one had the engravings and the copper lines near the narrow end of the blade near the grip. It did not have a blunt end which is now suddenly so much discussed.

At least even Michael is of the (same) opinion that those engraved blades originate from the North-Sarawak; Baram-river region. Although I suspect it originates still a bit more northernly (direction of Murut).

Question; What type of mandau/parang did the Kelabit use actually?
Point I have been making is; the blade and engravings Roy's blade has are from an area which usually displays -to my 'modest' knowledge- a different kind of grip. So the discussion of the blunt ending might just not bring us to the answer that is asked, is it?

It seems to me -as many Dayakcollectors are attending this forum- that noone has a mandau with similar grip??? That would be a rare phenomena, wouldnt it?

[Indianajones]

Found some pics of a somewhat similar example; it has the same type of (blunt ended) blade with the engraving and copper inset. Interestingly the scabbard is made of also a softer kind of wood as is Roy's grip. If its the same (type of) wood is ofcourse impossible to say (from pics) and than there's the problem of 'ascribing to a region/tribe'.
I can already hear everybody shouting 'Iban' again he he he (me too as it hasnt got the 'what I call' Murut type of grip n scabbard n engr. bars near grip)

See another comparative pic of a grip (deerhorn though) which sits on again a engraved blade. The carved features on this grip have some similarities TMHO; see the interconnecting vines, small 'whirlpools' (2 curved V's) and the "extension" beyond the grips 'horizontal'end. I put Roy's grip inbetween for convenience. (no worries;compar.exp.= sold)

Enjoy n look forward to the replies.

[VVV]

Indiana,

Now it seems like you are deviating from the topic again.
I don't see how your posting of your ex-parang somehow brings any new input to the parang we are discussing?
However, they look quite nice so why don't you publish them in a another thread so we can discuss them separately?

Anyway, you don't really need to own a lot of Borneo parang yourself to learn about them. There are a lot of museum databases on the Internet with provenanced Borneo blades and you can also quite cheap both visit museums and other collectors if you want to handle the swords yourself. It's much cheaper than buying them all yourself and within a couple of years you have acquired a lot of reference pictures for your coming studies.

On attributing Roy's parang to North Sarawak, that has never been an issue. The puzzle here is not where the blade comes from but why it looks so strange compared to all the 100's of related blades that I, Maurice, Arjan and some other Borneo collectors not active on this forum have in our study files. Also the handle is of lesser importance IMHO (but I admit that this assumption could of course easier be questioned).

On your reference parang it seems to be a jimpul related sword, which Roy's isn't, which makes it irrelevant as I brought up already in my earlier mail. That was the reason I only published the tips in my earlier post, to not bring in pictures of non-relevant blades in this thread to avoid spreading confusion.
Why don't you take your time and try to find something that will carry on the discussion if you don't like my attempt in two latest posts?

Michael