Blades from Sarawak, Malaysia

[asomotif]

Did a "tourist art" industry already exist back then?

In batak (sumatra) area tourist trade existed before 1900
On Nias tourist trade started maybe somewhere in 1930's

As for these mandau's, parangs etc, pictures of the blades would be helpfull.
The handle and scabbard may be newer than the blade.

But to give my humble first opinion :

1st picture : left one looks like complete tourist to me. the others might well be contemporary examples.

2nd picture : both tourist IMHO

3rd picture : sumpitan looks tourist to me, spears, not even Borneo i think.

4th picture : podang : yep, that is the real thing. more pics of that one please...

[Dinggat]

So, except for the Piso Podang (and possibly the smallest one in pic #1) all of them are tourist art? That's kinda disappointing. But well, what could I expect.

I can confirm that the small parang is most probably a working tool. It has a pretty thick blade with no decorations at all. The other one's have more or less decorated blades.

Originally Posted by asomotif

4th picture : podang : yep, that is the real thing. more pics of that one please...

I can provide you with more pics in a couple of weeks, I'm not at home right now. I'll open a new thread for it when the time has come

But I can show you two pics of another Piso Podang that hangs in my grandma's longhouse in Sarawak. I took two snapshots of it when I visited last time.




Is there any good literature on Iban "cutlery" out there? As a half-Iban who didn't grow up there I'm interested in all things Iban, but whereas ethnologic stuff about agriculture, history etc. can be found quite abundant, specialized literature on their swords has not shown up to me so far.

greetings and thanks