A Sumatran... something?

[kai]

Seems we crossed posts, Alan!

I believe this is a class of blades distinct from the coastal Melayu beladau: the latter tend to have blades with a broader base (approaching their Arab in-laws ).

Usually beladau blades are also more strongly curved while the central Sumatran highland daggers NN03 tend to exhibit a slightly curved blade only; Leif's example shows the strongest curve I've seen so far (with most of the curve located at the base though).

Regards,
Kai

[A. G. Maisey]

No Kai, we did not cross posts, I read your post before I wrote.

You can call this beladau or jambiyo blade whatever you wish, I think you know my opinions in respect of playing with names --- the people who are mostly responsible for the names used by collectors of ethnic objects and who have come from outside the societies responsible for the origin of these objects, as far as I can see do not and have not understood the languages involved, nor the societies of the people involved. This is a generality and can without doubt be shown to be incorrect in some instances.

So --- name it as you will.

The two names I have given I have not taken from any book, I have not heard them from another collector, I have not pulled them out of thin air, nor dreamt them up after finishing a bottle of shiraz.

Beladau was given to me first by a dealer who lived in Jogja, but came from Palembang, that was around 1980. In later years I had the same name given to me again by several people who were not collectors or dealers of weapons or artefacts, just ordinary people, housewives and their husbands. These people were from various places in Sumatra, and I seem to recall one couple came from somewhere else, maybe Malaysia.

Jambiyo is the general name for any dagger with curved double edge blade and a hilt with flared pommel and ferrule section, like the Middle Eastern jambiya.

In both cases the people I knew who used the name beladau/jambiyo did not draw any distinction between short, broad, deeply curved blades and longer narrower, irregularly curved blades, but the daggers that they saw in my possession did have the same type of hilt, something like a crude version of a ME jambiya.

So for me, Rafngard's cobbled up dagger has the blade of a beladau.

What anybody else may care to call it is up to them.

An after-thought:-

I do not know, but I suspect that "beladau" might be a generic used to refer to a class of daggers.
Reason being that "bela" means "defence", "dau" is possibly a corruption of "daun" = "leaf", the word "leaf" is sometimes used as an indirect reference to a blade.

[asomotif]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

The two names I have given I have not taken from any book, I have not heard them from another collector, I have not pulled them out of thin air, nor dreamt them up after finishing a bottle of shiraz.
.

[kai]

Hello Alan,

I read your post before I wrote.

You can call this beladau or jambiyo blade whatever you wish, I think you know my opinions in respect of playing with names

Well, I hope you noticed that the thrust of my postings was not an easy fix regarding names but rather to suggest that we have 2 distinct classes of blades, from different cultures; confounding them won't help IMVHO.

I couldn't care less what name will eventually be established for this blade type, if any. However, I'd like to avoid prematurely affixing a wrong tag to them; and even more so confounding their originating culture and history.

Beladau was given to me first by a dealer who lived in Jogja, but came from Palembang, that was around 1980. In later years I had the same name given to me again by several people who were not collectors or dealers of weapons or artefacts, just ordinary people, housewives and their husbands. These people were from various places in Sumatra, and I seem to recall one couple came from somewhere else, maybe Malaysia.

I don't doubt that orang Melayu and other coastal Sumatran ethnic groups might be inclined to refer to the kind of blade in Freddy's and/or this thread as beladau. However, I'd posit that this type of blades originates from the Minang highlands and is distinct from the coastal beladau type. Thus, it is pretty much a moot point what other cultures choose to say about a Minang blade. It's like asking a true-bred member of the Surakarta society about a Tenggerese blade (or vice versa; there may be people who know both (or multiple) cultures well enough to give an educated cross-cultural response - probably a rare find though...

Jambiyo is the general name for any dagger with curved double edge blade and a hilt with flared pommel and ferrule section, like the Middle Eastern jambiya.

In both cases the people I knew who used the name beladau/jambiyo did not draw any distinction between short, broad, deeply curved blades and longer narrower, irregularly curved blades, but the daggers that they saw in my possession did have the same type of hilt, something like a crude version of a ME jambiya.

Could you post examples of the pieces which these informants commented on, please? I suspect we're speaking of a mixed lot or even different beasts...

I will also try to come up with pics from my collection for a better understanding of what I refer to as highland daggers.

Regards,
Kai