Mystery knife

[Ian]

Attached is my transcription of what Robert sent. It is incomplete and definitely not the whole article published by Fox, but it is everything that I have.

Fox appears to have been an ethnobotanist with expertise in the plants used by these indigenous people of the Philippines. If you don't fancy reading the Latin plant names, just pass right along to the general text. He describes, in considerable detail, the manufacture and materials used for men's and boy's bows and arrows, the creation and attachment of arrowpoints, the significance of different shaft lengths for the arrows, and even how to make and string the bow. In case you were wondering which vines were used for the bowstrings, it's all here in great detail.

The space devoted to edged weapons is small but informative. He provides drawings of various bolos (Plate 9) and gives their respective names and uses. The materials used to make the knives and scabbards are described, including the sources of the glues and resins needed to secure hilts, scabbards, arrow heads, etc. It would be nice to have the complete article (which seems to run to several hundred pages and may have been this guy's doctoral dissertation).

To help with orienting where the various groups are and the geographical features I've attached a picture of the Central Luzon Region. I have indicated Mt. Pinatubo, the site of the old Clark AFB, and the nearby town of Apalit in the Province of Pampanga. More about Apalit in a later post.

Very interesting reading this article, and I've enjoyed going through it in the process of transcribing the text. Because of size limitations on files, the article is split into two parts, one for the text and the second for the Plates.

Ian.

[Ian]

The "mystery knife" that started this thread is shown in the middle of three knives (see attached picture). Each of these knives shares some similarities:

• The cutting edge is recurved
• The spine of the blade is convex, curving down to an acute point
• There is a short ferrule

Some differences:

• The bottom two hilts have a blind tang construction and the top one has a full length tang construction
• The ferrule of the center one is much smaller in diameter than the adjacent hilt, while the other two ferrules are slightly less in diameter than the adjacent hilt.

The top knife bears a stamped inscription indicating it is from APALIT. We have discussed these knives before, and the location of Apalit is shown on the map in the previous post here.

The middle knife is typical of the hundáng produced by the Pinatubo Negritos, as shown in Plate 9 of Fox's article. It came with a wooden sheath (see pics attached) similar to the sheath for a katána that is shown in Fox's Plate 9.

The bottom one is a recent acquisition. The blade has been polished to a mirror finish and has been professionally sharpened--this may well have been done by the U.S. seller of this item. It came with a leather sheath typical of Filipino manufacture, and the sheath shows some age (probably early 20th C.). I suspect this one is an upscale model of the top knife and may come from Apalit also.

I was prompted to put up these comparisons because of the similarities of the various knives. Leif (Rafngard) expressed the same thought about knives from Apalit. Given the relatively short distance between the eastern side of Mt. Pinatubo and Apalit, it's not unreasonable to ponder whether some diffusion of styles might exist. Indeed, Fox notes that the Negritos would get their work bolos from nearby markets, although he does not specifically identify Apalit as one of those markets.

The next to last picture attached to this post is of another Apalit bolo that resembles a talódo in the shape of the blade, again perhaps suggesting some crossover in styles between the Negritos and Pampangans. All conjecture, of course, but it is food for thought.

The last picture is another copy of Fox's Plate 9 for comparison.

Given the proximity of Clark AFB to the Negrito homeland and to knife making centers such as Apalit, it is perhaps not surprising that examples of the knives from these sources ended up as souvenirs for US servicemen, and have then found their way on to the U.S. market.

Ian.

[Ian]

Two examples of the Pinatubo Negritos' dipalata photographed in a Spanish Museum. This picture comes from an old thread on the rare Moro gayang, one of which can be seen at the bottom of rack.

[Ian]

The shape of the blade on this knife is strongly reminiscent of the Pinatubo Negrito katana shown in Fox, Plate 9 above. This picture comes from the Philippine section (no. 212) in the History of Steel Exhibition at the Macao Museum of Art (see here). The museum described it as a Luzon tabak, probably from Batangas.

The knife has a brass ferrule and a horn handle the end of which is carved with a human head wearing a brass cap. This style of carving is typical of work from Ilocos sur, and therefore is likely to be Ilocano in origin. The links between edged weapons of the Negritos and Ilokano are issues for a separate discussion.

Ian

---------------------Attachment: Luzon tabak (Ilocano style hilt, Negrito katana-style blade)---------------------------

[Sajen]

Hello Ian,

by searching I stumbled over this thread: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...hlight=negrito A very similar knife to the one which has started this thread.

Regards,
Detlef

[Ian]

Detlef, thanks for finding that old post. Yes, definitely the same style of knife and correctly identified as "Negrito," although the geography is a little off. As Nony suggested in that post, that knife was probably mid-20th C in manufacture although the style clearly goes back to at least the early 20th C.

Ian.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by Ian

As Nony suggested in that post, that knife was probably mid-20th C in manufacture although the style clearly goes back to at least the early 20th C.

Hello Ian,

I personally would place this one a little bit more early, the good workmanship, the small aluminium(?) nails at the handle, the used wood (looks like a very nice grain) and the patination let me guess a birth around the 1930s but like always I could be wrong.

Best regards,
Detlef