the Kampilan exclusively Moro?

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

I cannot add to this, but also find it most interesting. The lore of poison blades is known in medieval Europe and most certainly probably in many other cultures and times, but as noted, there seems to be no hard evidence of any such practice. ...
It seems in reality that these would lose or alter their properties in such processes as forging, but simply the knowledge of their presence might have led to such allusions.

I did read somewhere that some sort of 'paste' using various toxic venoms was used on blades, but again, this seems another form of psychological oriented myth.

i saw a video not all that long ago, on youtube i think, of a phillipino bladesmith forging a blade and rubbing it with crushed deadly spiders to make the blade more deadly. he said it infused the blade with spider venom, but i must assume the heat treatment afterwards would burn it all up.

edited: found it, HERE

as a side comment, even islam is not a homogeneous religion. as there are a number of sects like the sunni and shia that do not like each other very much. and others. islam does not have an overall religious leader like the catholics (the pope) and the buddhists (dalai lama). even the christian protestants have a pyramidal rank structure of bishops and arch bishops.

turkey, in the form of the ottoman empire used to provide some structure under it's sultan who was also the caliph and religious leader, but vast as it was, did not extend into lands outside the ottoman control. when it fell apart and the west imposed artificial boundaries without regard to local conditions, the seeds of the present conflicts in the region were sown, and we are forced to live with the resulting crops.

ah, well, enough politics. back to the present. at least the diversity provides us with a never ending source of differing sharp pointy things to collect.

[Jim McDougall]

Thanks Kronckew,
That is sort of what I had picked up in some of my reading as I followed this discussion and looked into the 'poison blade' phenomenon. It seems that this practice involved the preparation of some sort of paste using these venoms. As you note, the key properties of these substances would likely be lost chemically in the subsequent processes used in completing the work on the blades, but the perceptions become psychologically imbued.

Agreed on the notes pertaining to these religious structuring matters, which I mentioned only with respect to understanding the description of these dynamics as far as the diffusion of some weapon forms. It seems in the study of ethnographic material culture these factors often become quite important, and indeed these diversities make the study of these things most fascinating.

[Gustav]

Regarding Kampilan as a curved cutlass, just a coincidence more likely, considering the "artistic licence":

all of you surely know the picture of a Visayan Timawa or Tumao from the Boxer Codex (c.1590). Note the small signs on the blade, which remind a bit of chinese characters.

[MaharlikaTimawa]

Originally Posted by Gustav

Regarding Kampilan as a curved cutlass, just a coincidence more likely, considering the "artistic licence":

all of you surely know the picture of a Visayan Timawa or Tumao from the Boxer Codex (c.1590). Note the small signs on the blade, which remind a bit of chinese characters.

Now that I think about it, I've never seen a visayan timawa with a large sword like that before. Possibly this may be the Visayan kampilan that I'm looking for, although seems a lot different from the moro kampilans that were imported to the visayas. If such a large sword existed, could it possible be indigenous to the islands or imported from another area, maybe India.

[kronckew]

i recall seeing a pair of swords very much like the above in an auction on ebay, i believe as south china / viet swords. they also look much like chinese pole arms, guan dao, rehilted as a sword.

[Battara]

Last year I forgot to mention that the kampilan is also found in the Celebes and Sulawesi, both south of the Philippines.

On the topic at hand, this makes me wonder if the straight edged kampilan was not the only form of kampilan, but perhaps the only one that survived.

[MaharlikaTimawa]

Originally Posted by kronckew

i recall seeing a pair of swords very much like the above in an auction on ebay, i believe as south china / viet swords. they also look much like chinese pole arms, guan dao, rehilted as a sword.

I believe the guan dao and other Chinese pole arms have a relatively small blade in comparison to the of a long sword such as the kampilan. The picture of the weapon seem to scale with the size of the person, as shown in other pictures of the boxer codex weapon size seem to be somewhat accurate in their portrayal.

If you look at the photos drawn, the sizes drawn are accurate in terms of portraying them as either a long sword or a short sword. So chances are the sword shown with the timawa might possibly be some sort of long sword or kampilan localy manufactured just as the moros made their own kampilans and panabas.

[Nonoy Tan]

Originally Posted by Gustav

Regarding Kampilan as a curved cutlass, just a coincidence more likely, considering the "artistic licence":

all of you surely know the picture of a Visayan Timawa or Tumao from the Boxer Codex (c.1590). Note the small signs on the blade, which remind a bit of chinese characters.

Not Bisayans of the Philippines, but a Brunei warrior with his consort.

[MaharlikaTimawa]

Originally Posted by Nonoy Tan

Not Bisayans of the Philippines, but a Brunei warrior with his consort.

Could be Bisaya in regards to the headband.
Its been widely accepted in even wiki's that the picture is considered "visayan timawa/tumao" although no proof to state whether this really is visayan or from Brunei.

[MaharlikaTimawa]

You can see that the people in the pictures posted where head bans look nearly identical (excluding the tagalog) when comparing the warrior with the large sword who sports the same type of head ban. Just my two scents as to why I assume many people proclaim that, that is a picture of a Timawa or possibly a Tumao.

[kai]

If you thumb through the illustrations, there are all sorts of similarities from "recycled" artwork - since these illustrations were based on period accounts rather than being sketched on the expedition themselves, they are bound to include quite some artistic license. I believe we need to be very careful with interpreting these (as valuable as these early sources may be). We all know European medieval art depicting the holy land; making illustrations for newly discovered cultures on the other side of the world in the 16th century was much more difficult...

IMHO it would need very convincing evidence to overturn the attribution of the original authors - we really need to dig into the text, too!

Regards,
Kai

[kai]

Hello Nonoy,

Not Bisayans of the Philippines, but a Brunei warrior with his consort.

Thanks, I should have checked the source first. On the following page there is another illustration of the same 2 people which is attributed to Brunei, indeed (also the placement in the opus is clearly with the Brunei section).

Have you possibly checked the available translations of this codex? I'm interested in how the efforts of Donoso et al. compare to Souza & Turley?

Regards,
Kai

[Nonoy Tan]

Originally Posted by kai

Hello Nonoy,

Have you possibly checked the available translations of this codex? I'm interested in how the efforts of Donoso et al. compare to Souza & Turley?

The translations of both are not very different from each other. For a scholar, having both at hand would be good.

Nonoy

[kai]

Thanks, Nonoy!