3 Talibons (or Garabs?)

[Ian]

Leif:

These are fun knives indeed and they come in many sizes and varieties of hilt. Talibon or talibong is a common name applied to these knives that may be quite small up to sword length, but garab is probably an older term to describe a similar style of knife but that has an angle between the tang and the blade such that the hilt is tilted down. In addition, the garab has a depression just in front of the hilt on the back of the tang/blade which could serve as a thumb rest, and the garab usually has a tripartite butt that resembles the bud of a flower flanked by two leaves. I think the term garab is Eastern Visayan (possibly Warai), while talibon/talibong may be Western Visayan--but don't hold me to that. Attached below are pictures of two traditional garab from the late 19th/early 20th C which shows the features mentioned above.

Of the three knives you show in your post, the shortest one is the most traditional in style (although not showing all the features of the garab in the pictures) and may be a little older than the others. I think all of them come from the Western Visayas (Leyte or Samar) and are probably from the mid-20th C, dating from the end of WWII or a little later. Incidentally, the eagle and plaque shown on the longest one is the Philippine eagle insignia and is commonly found on these knives that date from the end of WWII or later. Knives with this insignia were common bring back items by GIs returning from the Pacific theater in the 1940s.

Ian.