Spanish-American War Period Barong & Kris for Comment

[ThePepperSkull]

Originally Posted by Battara

Lucky Crud!.....er.......I mean.......congratulations!

Seriously what a great find!

In the kris in question, the pommel looks more to be either white metal or , and I think this likely, a lower grade of silver with lots of tarnish (which can be more yellowish in lower grade silver). Needs to be polished first to see (and a jeweler could test it to be sure).

Swaasa - yes the formula for it varied between the different hues desired (and perhaps costs). Sometimes a metal can look like swaasa, but in the end is a high copper/low silver alloy to appear as swaasa.

The baka-baka appears to be copper or a copper alloy.

Intriguing for a Maguindanao to have a barong (or perhaps it is someone else's barong that the US soldier picked up as well).

Thank you so much for posting and looking forward to more posting of these newly found friends of yours! Salamat!

Very interesting. Isn't the horse hoof pommel (seen in the centre in between the top kris and the barong on the bottom) typical of sulu kris as well? Perhaps he spent some time with the tausugs?


Anyways, thank you for sharing laEspadaAncha! I am still reading through your first post. I had to scroll down to see the pictures of these wonderful pieces first

[laEspadaAncha]

Originally Posted by ThePepperSkull

Very interesting. Isn't the horse hoof pommel (seen in the centre in between the top kris and the barong on the bottom) typical of sulu kris as well? Perhaps he spent some time with the tausugs?

Howdy Pepper... FWIW, what little reference material I have shows several (of this) hoof-pommel kris attributed to both the Maguindanao and Maranao...

Speaking of which, here are photos of the second kris... Curious to hear your collective thoughts. I would call this a "fast" kris - less mass & weight, quicker in the hand, and obviously smaller in size than the first kris. What intrigues me about this is the braided ring/band below the pommel. It has a rich, deep yellow color and bright luster, and I think it might be - might be - gold. I think it originally sat in the groove visible just below the pommel. The ring is open at the back, and I was able to get it to sit in the groove - in which it fit perfectly. However, it has sat where you see it in the photo below for so long, the rattan exhibited too much play when I moved it, so I returned it to the position you see in the photos.

Measurements (approximate):

Blade (measured from where the gangya meets the hilt): 19 5/8 in. / 49.8 cm
OAL: 24 in. / 61 cm
Gangya width: 4 in. / 10 cm

[laEspadaAncha]

Lastly, here's the barong. Blade measures approx. 15 in. / 38 cm with a 22-in. / 56 cm OAL. The spine of the blade measures 51/6 of an in. / 8 mm in thickness at the hilt. The color variation you see is just that - there is very little light pitting on the blade, isolated almost completely to a small area on the back-third of the blade on the obverse. I presume the line running (roughly) parallel to the edge is a hardened edge.

All comments welcomed and appreciated...

[Rick]

The short ferrule on this Barung would indicate possibly a Yakan origin ?

The second kris is, to me, a bit puzzling; is it Sulu or Mindanao ?

The blade seems to carry aspects of both .

[mross]

Intrestingly the horse-hoof exhibits many characteristics of a twist-core. The photo's don't seem to show it but...

[laEspadaAncha]

Originally Posted by mross

Intrestingly the horse-hoof exhibits many characteristics of a twist-core. The photo's don't seem to show it but...

If I was more confident in my etching abilities (I have a bottle of etchant solution from RadioShack purchased for this purpose that remains unopened to this day), I would be in the process of finding out...

Rick - thanks for the Yakan suggestion & another anthropological lead to follow. Don't know when Yakan people first started settling on Mindinao, but surely there must have been established trading amongst neighboring populations?

[Rick]

Originally Posted by laEspadaAncha

If I was more confident in my etching abilities (I have a bottle of etchant solution from RadioShack purchased for this purpose that remains unopened to this day), I would be in the process of finding out...

Rick - thanks for the Yakan suggestion & another anthropological lead to follow. Don't know when Yakan people first started settling on Mindinao, but surely there must have been established trading amongst neighboring populations?

Well also, if you're going to battle you collect as many like minded people as you can, no ?


Even relatives and visitors .