Hilt of an old South-Indian sword

[Battara]

I don't know much about the yali, but what I do know about the makara (again not much) is that it is a water based monster made up of different animal parts, like an elephant trunk (as mentioned earlier), sometimes tentacles, big mouth, etc. I have one on my Tibetan kartika (grigung in Tibetan).

I guess that does point to "makara" being from northern India.