Kukri Knives

[Gsingh]

Hi all

Over the years I have purchased many kukri knives and most of them had retained the 2 smaller knives which are concealed in the scabbard. Does anyone know what these were used for? Or what the purpose would be?

Thanks

[RobT]

From what I have read, the sharp knife (karda) is used for cutting tasks that the khukri is too big for. I have read that the knife without an edge (chackma, chackmash) is used as the steel component in flint and steel fire starting and it is also used to planish out edge nicks in the khukri.

Sincerely,
RobT

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by Gsingh

Hi all

Over the years I have purchased many kukri knives and most of them had retained the 2 smaller knives which are concealed in the scabbard. Does anyone know what these were used for? Or what the purpose would be?

Thanks

The small sharp knife is just that. A small knife
The other tool is a a fire steel to strike a tinder.. the Mongolian word is chagmag or chakmak for the complete tinder pouch and striker typically hung from the belt. In Nepal these Mongolian tinder pouches probably arrived via trade with Tibet as in Tibet the item bares the Mongolian name also.
At some point Nepalis began putting tinder pouches in the back of the sheath and began also calling the hard little striker a chakmak .
The Nepalis also use the striker to sharpen the kukri blade kukris generally are not very hard and with a correctly made chakmak you can shave metal of the blade and sharpen it like a butchers steel.
I don't know what the original Nepali name is for the chakmak.. but it has assumed the Mongol name over time. I also can not say when the Nepalis began using the chakmak as a sharpener ..
There only other culture using sharpening steels natively aside from Europeans is Yakuts who on some knife sheaths have an iron blade that can be used to like a butchers steel and can also strike a flint. It may well be Mongol and Turkic nomads also used their chakmak strikers on the pouch to hone a knife and Nepalis learnt it . Or the Nepalis invented this method natively

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by ausjulius

...It may well be Mongol and Turkic nomads also used their chakmak strikers on the pouch to hone a knife and Nepalis learnt it . Or the Nepalis invented this method natively

I have a large crown stag grip khukuri that came with the karda/chackmak striker in a dangly belt pouch - the khuk itself has a scabbard cover made for a baldric shoulder belt - a later add-on.


I note the size of the larda/chackmak seems to be proportional to the khuk's blade lenght - and are pretty much useless on small khukuri. they get lost very frequently and many people take off the empty little pouches on the scabbard.

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by kronckew

I have a large crown stag grip khukuri that came with the karda/chackmak striker in a dangly belt pouch - the khuk itself has a scabbard cover made for a baldric shoulder belt - a later add-on.


I note the size of the larda/chackmak seems to be proportional to the khuk's blade lenght - and are pretty much useless on small khukuri. they get lost very frequently and many people take off the empty little pouches on the scabbard.

Nice. Is the kukri an Indian kukri as I've noticed they generally lack a chakmak or if they have one there is never a tinder pouch in the scabbard.

As to kukris it does seem the other northern Indian cultures have always had that blade shape too and it's that the Nepalis made this super refined much more ergonomic and really very sophisticated style of weapon until it overlook almost every other arm they had in its appeal.
i think it's been discussed over and over and I use to think it was a myth.. but as one looks more and more at archeological items it does really look like that kukri has its distant origins in Greece and Anatolia and ultimately maybe??? Egypt with curved sort of weapons the kopis.. and we can probably throw in Germanic war knives and finally the sex and other items too from that family. The bronce age chopper. The yatagans and such knives in the south Balkans are just to clearly descended from those curved kopis and the small curved knives that accompanied them and if anyone every does some archeological research into it in India, Nepal and Iran I would bet you'll find similar knives appear several1000snd of years ago with the spread of Greek and Anatolian cultures eastward..
It's similar to how our modern Bowie knives probably came from a similar ancestor but much earlier . - Bowie to messer - seax.. seax to war knives and war knives probably from some bronze proto kopis from the Mediterranean people's.

We only know kukris as far back as we see them in art which is when they became a status item in Nepal. But they probably existed many hundreds of years prior or even more.
It's similar to most old styles of weapon . We see them first in art when they achieve social popularity.
But generally they have existed for a great period of time prior or have existed Ina slightly different form in the society that we don't immediately recognise.