An unusual stiletto depicted in Indo-Persian miniatures.

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Thank you for your entry Ausjulius! You are an intrepid soul to venture into this complex and perplexing subject matter. For those of here in the west, these topics are daunting with the lack of resources in English, as well as the many misnomers, errors and presumptions issued by western writers in the recent centuries. These 'chestnuts' have become so entrenched in the literature that it is hard to pursue serious study on the ethnic and historical character of the many peoples actually involved.

For example the ethnonym Tatar, which is so broadly applied it has become almost cliche' in many cases. When trying to study the weapons used by these people, this factor presents many challenges.

The case of the needle point sabers we know in general as 'ordynka' or czeczuga are one such example. These are the sabers with the sharp point generally regarded as 'armor (Mail) piercing, and with the similar type point seen on pesh babz, and various of the other daggers in these contexts.

These needle points were obviously for thrusting, and deemed armor piercing as presumbably the narrow point would enter the mail in a link, spreading it to allow penetration. The thing is, while that effect with mail seems likely, even more so it was to penetrate the heavily padded garments which served not only against cold, but as formidable armor to guard against arrows and slashing cuts from swords.

Clearly the advantage to these edged weapons with these needle points was well known and existed broadly in the arms throughout Central Asia, and with these sabers in Poland and the Caucusus, with these ordynka sabers.

Getting to the situation with the needle point stiletto, this is a far different example than any of these needle point weapons well known as Central Asian as well as Caucasian and Polish as far as the sabers...with most of the daggers of this character more to Central Asia and India.

As far as I have discovered thus far, though the stiletto (needle point dagger) was developed in Italy in the early 16th century, the form was not known to be used as such in Central Asian contexts despite the obviously well known needle point edged weapons in other forms.

In "History of the Fighting Arts" , G.K.Panchenko, Moscow, 1997, Vol. 3, p.305 he notes that the 'czeczuga' comes from the Tatarian people Chechan that lived in the Caucusus". and notes the subgroup Adyghe Bzhedukh tribe, Charcheney.

Images of these needle points from "Weapons of the Caucasian Nations", Emma Astvatsaturyan show these as used from 14th into 17th c. and they certainly carried further well through 18th.

The single image is from
Bron i Uzbrujenie Tatarow (Arms and Armor of the Tatars)
J.Gutowski , and of c. 1600

The term ordynka= horde.....refers to the diffused Tatar tribes which were united into the Mongol hordes.

the term czeczuga = sturgeon, the fish hide used often on the hilts of these swords, as loosely explained.

Most of this I retrieved from a 2006 post here using 'search'.
These topics have been discussed many times over past two decades, and we have remarkable resources archived here which we can rely on.

Hi Jim , yeah the whole Tatar thing its the bane of the Kazan bulgar people.

.. but most Bulgar people in Russia just accept its common for other people to call them "tatars".. which definitely is not their name for themselves.

in a similar vein Russians call china "Khitai" after a group of mongols who ruled over China before the "other" mongols under ghingis khan - the ones we know in the west took over china.
old naming conventions persist even if they are often misnomers.
.
the tatar confederation -mostly mongolised turkic tribes on the mongolian plateau- were a large part of the mongolian armies when they invaded the Russians lands.

Later the vast majority of these nomads became muslims..so any turkic speaking nomad became a Tatar in Russian parlance....
these folks went all over the near east spreading their language, weapons, martial culture and customs and conquering the people there.


the fact that the word for dagger has a turco-mongol origin in most of these cultures they conquered implies (at least in my eyes) that most likely they did indeed use daggers very frequently and imparted that word on the locals some how..

its just their arms didnt survive or didnt stay in use long and were replaced by native arms.

period accounts of the mongols and other turkic nomads of the day mention nets, hooks on lances, weighted throwing clubs, maces, daggers and javelins or darts and large knives as being very common weapons used along side the curved long sabres, lances and bows were are familiar with.

in art frequently these weapons are missing.

for example very large belt knives were commonly used, like a very long heavy bladed mongol belt knife with a long handle (35-40cm blade and a 20 cm handle for example or even bigger- and thick 8-9mm in the spine often).

parts of their blades exist in archeological finds..
these big knives even survived into the modern era in some of these turkic or mongolic ethnic groups and in cultures they influenced,
but i think ive seen only one 18th or 19th century russian sketch showing these big belt knives being worn ..
and no medieval drawings i can think of.

these were every day utility knives and common weapons.
used to butcher animals, cut wood, defense and so on.
worn on the back of the waist.

but we dont see any examples in art. just as daggers seem very rare too.

but it doesn't mean they were not widespread at the time.

i think with nomadic cultures its very hard to locate historical items, and on top of it the artists drawing these people were mostly from cultures where these nomads were invading them - not members of the nomadic societies.
id guess many time they missed quite a few things. even if they got many things very correct too.

so when we see these nomadic rulers in art with stiletto daggers on their belts its probably because the artists were familiar with these people by that point. but prior to that what did they wear on their belts when they were less familiar..
its just easy to give the curvy swords and bows in artwork too and not always apply all the details that the artist may not know themselves.