Continental SEA...More than just swords & knives??

Nathaniel · 13th April 2010, 03:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aiontay

Sorry, I don't know the original source of the picture. It appears in the book "The Trouser People", which I have, but I can't seem to lay my hands on right now.

It should be noted that there is a pretty long history of private armies (tat) in Burma, which continued well in to the 20th Century, so a lot of traditional Burmese weapons were replaced pretty quickly with firearms. Swords and knives obviously hung around longer since they could serve utilitarian functions as well as function as weapons, but traditional weapons arts were replaced pretty quickly. I did study a bit of the Karen sword art in Thailand.

Ainotay, Thanks for the book reference

Oh, yes, private armies...each Burmese state and tribes, etc...I think the same in Thailand...each a loose group of city- states forming a loose federation.

I'm just wondering if their are some more representative Burmese weapons other than the beautiful swords & daggers. We see Thai pole arms....but not Burmese....has anyone seen examples? or have pictures?

And even with firearms taking over traditional weapons we don't see many examples in the collecting world, such as you see in other cultures... Japanese, Vietnamese, etc I know there are some famous Thai firearms...like the one King Naresuan used to shoot across the river to kill the Burmese general.

aiontay · 13th April 2010, 12:54 PM

I'm not entirely sure why there aren't more Burmese weapons out there, but keep in mind most of those weapons would have had to have been collected pre-1940s since after that the political situation and civil war would have made it difficult to get stuff out. Lots of antiques were smuggled out since the 1940s, but I suspect trying to smuggle a pole arm used from an elephant across the Thai border was much more difficult than getting a sword across. On the other hand, why didn't those Victorians collect a bunch of those things?

When I was working on a crop substitution project in the Northern Shan State I went out to visit one of the villages we were workiing in. We had helped the Kachins buy a tractor for use by the whole community. They were using it to plow a field. As they were plowing I noticed that the counterweight on the front of the plow looked like a small cannon. I asked, and sure enough, it was a small cannon, maybe British or Burman, that someone had found out in the woods. It made a perfect counterweight to the plow. I suspect a few of those pole arms ended their days in a similarly utilitarian way.

As for private armies, you might want to check out Martin Smith's "Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity", and his chapter on the roots of insurgency. No pictures, but a pretty good short history of their role in Burmese history.

13th April 2010, 12:54 PM	#2
aiontay Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 88	I'm not entirely sure why there aren't more Burmese weapons out there, but keep in mind most of those weapons would have had to have been collected pre-1940s since after that the political situation and civil war would have made it difficult to get stuff out. Lots of antiques were smuggled out since the 1940s, but I suspect trying to smuggle a pole arm used from an elephant across the Thai border was much more difficult than getting a sword across. On the other hand, why didn't those Victorians collect a bunch of those things? When I was working on a crop substitution project in the Northern Shan State I went out to visit one of the villages we were workiing in. We had helped the Kachins buy a tractor for use by the whole community. They were using it to plow a field. As they were plowing I noticed that the counterweight on the front of the plow looked like a small cannon. I asked, and sure enough, it was a small cannon, maybe British or Burman, that someone had found out in the woods. It made a perfect counterweight to the plow. I suspect a few of those pole arms ended their days in a similarly utilitarian way. As for private armies, you might want to check out Martin Smith's "Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity", and his chapter on the roots of insurgency. No pictures, but a pretty good short history of their role in Burmese history.