Interesting Yunnan daarb/ Dha

[ausjulius]

there is a company in china still making these swords.... they have a web site.. they are making weapons from the dai ethnic group

[Robert]

Using the pictures at the top of the post and comparing the blade length to scabbard length the blade seems to be about 92% the length of the scabbard.

Robert

[fearn]

Originally Posted by ausjulius

there is a company in china still making these swords.... they have a web site.. they are making weapons from the dai ethnic group

And that company is...?

[Nathaniel]

I just looked up the Dai people...they are also know as the Thai Lu in Thailand...one sub group is the Thai Yong, "Tai Yong are thus descendants of the Tai Lue. In Thailand, these people are know as Thai Yai (Big Thai) and by the rest of the world as Shan."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shan_people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingpo

[Nathaniel]

ausjulius, yes, do you know their website?

[Gavin Nugent]

I will ask a gentleman in Hong kong who provided me with many images of this village or one of these small mountain villages in Yunnan on the Burma/China border and also images of their work.
His visits were in the 1980's and they have been making blades for many hundreds of years.
My interest started some time ago when I purchased Bhutanese dagger of nice quality that had Chinese characters on it.
I'll see what I can post for all interested.

Gav

[Mark]

I, too, think this is a "Bama" dha, though the fittings have a Chinese flavor to them. Still, it could very well have come geographically from Yunnan, as ethnic groups straddle the border, and swords seem to migrate even further. I do not think that the tip is re-worked. Though I have never seen one precisely like this, you do get some exotic ones:



The long, curved handle is sort of unusual, too, for that style. Yet another sub-type, or possibly hybrid style. It never ends.

[josh stout]

I think the Chinese call anything like a dha a "Dai dao". This is one I have posted before that I think is Burmese (Shan?) in style but was certainly found in Yunnan. The blade is a slim "willow leaf" style similar to familiar Chinese blades but slim and light in comparison. I have a Vietnamese daarb with almost the same blade. It seems to be a more or less standard form, at least in a smaller example like mine.








Josh

[Nathaniel]

Originally Posted by Mark

I, too, think this is a "Bama" dha, though the fittings have a Chinese flavor to them. Still, it could very well have come geographically from Yunnan, as ethnic groups straddle the border, and swords seem to migrate even further. I do not think that the tip is re-worked. Though I have never seen one precisely like this, you do get some exotic ones:



The long, curved handle is sort of unusual, too, for that style. Yet another sub-type, or possibly hybrid style. It never ends.

I came across some Chinese dao with a different tip that reminded me of the tip on this dha:





I've been told this type tip is called a roster head/comb...Philip Tom said this type of tip is generally labeled "phoenix wing" or fengchi shape