My Maguindanao Kris

[xasterix]

Nice kris! I agree that it's likely Maguindanao. Unique hilt too.

I've seen around 2 archaic krises that don't have a separate gangya, both are in the Philippines. They both have round tangs. They've made me think about the widely accepted assumption that krises with separate gangya are automatically older. I jokingly call these as "mono-gangya" krises.

There are also kalis (Sulu) being made nowadays that still have the separate gangya feature; they retained that knowledge even without outside intervention or Internet access, from what I understand.

Of course I'll need more samples (and preferably disassembled archaic ones with mono-gangya) to prove this hypothesis that separate-gangya krises aren't necessarily older, but it's an interesting thing to consider, IMHO.