Early signs of dhamentia

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Tim Simmons

In a very informative but not too scholarly book "The Vanishing Tribes of Burma" Richard K Diran, available from amazon, some nice pictures of Burmese young ladies . The Shan, Yao, and Hmong all have groups in Burma, Loas and Thai borders, the Golden Triangle, so I think trying to be sure of the swords origin is really quite tricky. I must say I rather like the idea of saying "Golden Triangle" Tim

Diran's book is a nice source, but unfortunately lacks the depth we're all looking for. Don't feel discouraged, Tim. Mark, Ian and I have been struggling with these issues for years now, and our research has frequently turned up information that changes our way of thinking. For instance, if you do a search of the old forum, you'll find an old thread where we tried to categorize dha forms along tribal lines. This very rough typology has broken down over the years, and while some elements remain helpful, we're moving in other directions presently. Information obtained from Dan Wilke (Wilked) while he was stationed in Thailand was invaluable in this regard.

Stay tuned.