FLISSA IN PI MUSEUMS?

Raja Muda · 8th September 2005, 02:06 AM

Spain was ruled by the Arab Umayyad caliphate in Cordoba, before the state fragmented into smaller sultanates, only to be swallowed by the nascent powers of a united Castile and Leon. The last of the Arab rulers of Seville, Abu Abdillah (Boabdil) was driven to the Alpujjaras and later into exile during the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. And of course, westerners refer to the Arabs from the Maghreb as Moors. So it's not with some irony that when they landed in the PI, they found people sharing Boabdil's faith, hence the term Moro (correct me if I'm wrong, that's how I understood it).
So I think while proper display rules might not allow weapons from two distinct cultures be displayed or attributed to the same category, the poor curator probably mixed up one Moro with another

Lew · 8th September 2005, 02:31 AM

MORO,MORROCO they look and sound similar maybe the curator had one too many glasses of wine that day

Lew

Battara · 8th September 2005, 05:30 AM

"Moro" etymology - on the money!

Carlos - like the early Moro gunong in the middle.

Marc · 8th September 2005, 08:49 AM

Well, close enough.

Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler in an Iberian Peninsula territory, was the king of Granada, not Sevilla, but it's OK...

His kingdom fell in 1492, to the hands of, indeed, Fernando and Isabel (Ferdinand and Isabelle, the Catholic Kings). Anyway, the etymology of moro regarding the denomination of the PI Muslims is spot on, indeed, the Spaniards named them with the same name they used for the Iberian Muslims they were more familiar with. But I think the root for moro in Spanish iis older, from the Latin [/]Maurus[/], which designated some of the bereber tribes/lands since the Roman times and that ended up giving its name to the actual Mauritania, though I think that the name "Morocco" shares the same root, also...

Regarding the Flyssa there, I would attribute it just to a curator's mistake. Not strange, in fact. Let's face it, we around here are quite familiar with the major types of ethnographic weapons, but fact is that there's not that much information about this kind of weaponry around, and if you're given a lot with tens or even hundreds of weapons that have to be classified in a probably relatively short time, with almost no budget, and probably little knowledge of the subject altogether, these things are bound to happen, no matter the curator's good will. Again, the internal mechanisms of the museums are all too human, at the end, some of us know this well...

Raja Muda · 8th September 2005, 10:15 AM

Thanks for the correction Marc, should have remembered that Abu Abdillah was Sultan of Qarnatah.

The Moors was a blanket term applied by writers of old to describe Arabs in general, just like Afranji or Feringgi (which became Farang in Thai I think) from Franks was used to denote westerners in the eastern part of the world.

8th September 2005, 02:06 AM	#1
Raja Muda Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Posts: 100	Irony with Iron Blades? Spain was ruled by the Arab Umayyad caliphate in Cordoba, before the state fragmented into smaller sultanates, only to be swallowed by the nascent powers of a united Castile and Leon. The last of the Arab rulers of Seville, Abu Abdillah (Boabdil) was driven to the Alpujjaras and later into exile during the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. And of course, westerners refer to the Arabs from the Maghreb as Moors. So it's not with some irony that when they landed in the PI, they found people sharing Boabdil's faith, hence the term Moro (correct me if I'm wrong, that's how I understood it). So I think while proper display rules might not allow weapons from two distinct cultures be displayed or attributed to the same category, the poor curator probably mixed up one Moro with another

8th September 2005, 10:15 AM	#5
Raja Muda Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Posts: 100	My Mistake Thanks for the correction Marc, should have remembered that Abu Abdillah was Sultan of Qarnatah. The Moors was a blanket term applied by writers of old to describe Arabs in general, just like Afranji or Feringgi (which became Farang in Thai I think) from Franks was used to denote westerners in the eastern part of the world.

8th September 2005, 02:31 AM	#2
Lew (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: East Coast USA Posts: 3,191	MORO,MORROCO they look and sound similar maybe the curator had one too many glasses of wine that day Lew

8th September 2005, 05:30 AM	#3
Battara EAAF Staff Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Louisville, KY Posts: 7,272	"Moro" etymology - on the money! Carlos - like the early Moro gunong in the middle.

8th September 2005, 08:49 AM	#4
Marc Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Madrid / Barcelona Posts: 256	Well, close enough. Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler in an Iberian Peninsula territory, was the king of Granada, not Sevilla, but it's OK... His kingdom fell in 1492, to the hands of, indeed, Fernando and Isabel (Ferdinand and Isabelle, the Catholic Kings). Anyway, the etymology of moro regarding the denomination of the PI Muslims is spot on, indeed, the Spaniards named them with the same name they used for the Iberian Muslims they were more familiar with. But I think the root for moro in Spanish iis older, from the Latin [/]Maurus[/], which designated some of the bereber tribes/lands since the Roman times and that ended up giving its name to the actual Mauritania, though I think that the name "Morocco" shares the same root, also... Regarding the Flyssa there, I would attribute it just to a curator's mistake. Not strange, in fact. Let's face it, we around here are quite familiar with the major types of ethnographic weapons, but fact is that there's not that much information about this kind of weaponry around, and if you're given a lot with tens or even hundreds of weapons that have to be classified in a probably relatively short time, with almost no budget, and probably little knowledge of the subject altogether, these things are bound to happen, no matter the curator's good will. Again, the internal mechanisms of the museums are all too human, at the end, some of us know this well...