Mandau
 

I recently received some objects from a friend who lived in Indonesia with her parents in the 70-80s. Her father traveled all over Indonesia for his work and regularly brought something home. Like these mandau's, quite small 65 and 63 cm. Both blades have a convex and a concave side. One blade is laminated steel with several fractures, faults, one over almost the entire length of the blade. Cutting on the handle reasonably good, especially the ivory piece. In both handles traces of where a coin once sat. Facinating objects but beyond my familiar knowledge. Made for those who travel, the real stuff, just let me know what you guys think.
Regards
Marc

More pictures.

Those swirls in that ivory hilt are lovely.

Congratulations Marc!

Very cool swords!
What is the diameter of the coin slot?

With respect,
Yuri.

Hi Yuri

About 15mm.

Regards
Marc

Marc there may have been a coin - Netherlands India 1/10 guilder. I have a Mandau that was also without a coin, I bought it online for a small amount of money.

See the thread:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=29680

With respect,
Yuri.

The real deal can be problematic . A sword made for dancing, once used to attack a person becomes real. WW2 era swords were used and Iban warriors in the UK Borneo 1963 -1966 dispute swords were used. These look nice but not sure they will impress the old guard.

I don't think that the hilt is carved from ivory. ;)

Nearly all swords are made to kill people! :eek:

Hi Detlef
It is ivory, the Schreger lines are clearly visible.
regards
Marc

Looks like elephant ivory to my eye. See the cross-hatched lines? I do think this is a bit unusual, which makes this mandau a bot special. Certainly not made for those that travel.

I agree with David on the cross hatching - elephant ivory

Is there any information about the production of ivory mandau handles in Borneo?

Never seen any. But Dayak weapons are only a minor interest for me so someone more invested in them might have better information. I only have one in my collection and it's hilt is deer horn. That is probably what the majority of hilts are made from and you will, of course, find wooden ones. I have read that on rare occasion human bone has been used, but i have never seen an example yet. I have never heard of ivory being used, but this very clearly looks like ivory to my eyes and it is certainly a traditional carving. So it seems to be a rarity to me.

I agree that the ivory shown here is most likely elephant ivory.

However, ivory from some other animals does also display schreger lines. An expert in this field of ivory identification can in most cases differentiate the source of an ivory, however, in the case of mammoth ivory it can be somewhere between difficult & impossible to be absolutely certain with any identification.

Fossil ivory has been used in Indonesian artifacts in the past, & is still being used in Indonesian carvings today. In Bali a tour of shops, galleries & workshops that sell ivory carvings will almost always identify the ivory carvings being offered as "mammoth ivory".

A.W. Nieuwenhuis in his book "Quer Durch Borneo" describes the Dayaks making mandau handles from deer horn.

The Bornean elephant, or Kalimantan elephant, or Borneo dwarf elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis) is a subspecies of the Asian elephant that lives in the northeast of the island of Kalimantan.

I had no idea that ivory is rarely used to make a handle for a mandau. Although the material is available locally, culturally it is apparently not the custom to use it.
Have shown the mandau to a friend who is more familiar with it. He confirmed my suspicion that the scabbards were fairly recent, but the swords seemed older. The quality of the carving is good and the small utility knife has a good patina. He also found that the talismanic figure is of good quality and age.
As in many cultures, the things most exposed to wear and tear are replaced regularly, perhaps with these mandau's the case.
The blade of the mandau with the ivory handle is laminated, not visible in the photo but in the right light and at a certain angle it is slightly visible. I assume the damage to the blade is from use. The flaws present in the steel created during the fabrication process may have been visible but still found good enough to make it a weapon.
Regards
Marc

I suppose a lot of ivory being offered bears the heading ‘mammoth ’ because mammoth ivory is legal to trade. I think it is hard to prove that it is mammoth at the request of customs.
Regards
Marc

Aussie ans Iban ww2.

Hi Marc,

The handle is indeed from ivory, the first mandau I've seen with such a handle. The handle also shows a very nice carving and also a face. Laminated mandau blades are also very rare and seldom seen. In short, you have a great mandau there, I hope Maurice sees this thread and will comment, he is, at the moment, the person who knows as best about mandaus. Great score, congrats!

Regards,
Detlef

First time that I see a mandau hilt of ivory ( in over 30 years)

It would be worth to restore the hilt in my opinion.

The ivory most probably allowed a more detailed carving compared to deer antler.

Thank you for your response. Is there any particular reason that ivory was rarely used although the material is present?
I suppose the piece missing from my mandau is similar to your mandau. A restoration might be considered, I have a piece from which it could be made.
Regards
Marc

Hello Marc,
I do not know if there is a specific reason why ivory is seldom/almost not used in Borneo.
I have only seen 2 objects of elephant ivory before. Both were earrings, and one of the owners was for some reason claiming that it was an ivorine fake. This is the 3rd object of ivory that I have seen. And based on the carving I am sure this is the real deal 🙂
The material is indeed present as in local elephants. And also through trade it must have been possible to get ivory from either Asia or Africa.
Ido notice that elephants do not play a role in the art , myths and religions on Borneo.

Ps. I just noticed that on your hilt, the protruding point at the back is an inserted piece of a different material. Probably antler. I assume the ivory was not big enough to carve this protruding point from one piece.

Ps. Here a picture of a hilt of similar quality to give you an idea about how the missing 'nose' might have looked.

Indeed, I forgot to mention that the piece sticking out is of a different material, probably antler or bone. Do you have an opinion on the blade, apparently a laminated blade is something not common? The flaws in the steel make it of little use anymore. Reason to sell perhaps.

Regards
Marc

Mandau hilts were a form of currency in Borneo. If necessary, the owner could remove the hilt from the sword and sell it.

Best regards,
Yuri

Hi Marc,

Do you have picture of the other side of the blade ?

Roughly / locally forged blades are sometimes referred to as "mantikei".
I have 1 blade in my collection with a similar surface as this one.
They are rare, but I am not sure if they have a special status.

I read on the forum in an old post that when the men left the village to settle a conflict, the big mandau were taken with them and the small ones stayed in the village to defend it. I also thought I read that the mandau's were kept in the men's house, longhouse. No idea if this is correct, can't find the post again.

Regards
Marc

Hi Yuri, thanks for the info, no idea the handle was/is a monetary value. You do come across loose handles.

Regards
Marc

[QUOTE=Marc M.;297764] I also thought I read that the mandau's were kept in the men's house, longhouse. No idea if this is correct, can't find the post again.

A.W. Nieuwenhuis «Quer Durch Borneo»
Ergebnisse seiner Reisen in den Jahren 1894, 1896-97 und 1898-1900; Erster Teil

Chapter VII.

...The main weapons of the Kayan are the sword (malat) and the spear (bakir); the blowgun (se̥put) plays only a secondary role as a weapon; only a few understand how to use it at all, and no true Kayan is capable of collecting and preparing poison for arrows. It is mainly descendants of the Punan among them who prefer the blowgun, the original weapon of the nomadic tribes. The sword, on the other hand, is not only the most important weapon for the Kayan in war, but also the most important item in daily life, rivaled only by the small knife (nju, Fig. h, Plate: Swords of the Mendalam Kayan), which is always carried in a special container on the inside of the scabbard. Any work that cannot be performed with a knife or axe is performed by the Kayan with his sword, which therefore never leaves his hand. When working in the fields, however, he uses a simple sword made for this purpose to chop down branches and undergrowth. However, when on long journeys, he uses his war sword both against the advancing enemy and for hewing boards and chopping firewood. No Kayan takes two kinds of sword on expeditions, but everyone ensures that his own can serve all purposes. Therefore, both at Kapuas and Mahakam, simple but well-crafted blades are generally preferred for serious military campaigns, while the beautiful ones decorated with inlaid copper and silver serve only as highly valued ceremonial objects. Only a warlike chief, such as the Pnihing chieftain Bĕlarè, also took beautifully crafted war swords on expeditions, but he may well have used them to fell small trees...

As for the monetary system. an interesting book is :

Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo

By Eric Hanssen

Het crossed the Island by foot in the early 80's and in that time such a journey still depended on trade items, rather than money.

Here some pictures of my mandau which I think qualifies as mantikei.

Hi Willem,

Sorry, forget you as a person who knows also well about mandaus! ;)

And thank you for providing the word "mantikei" for laminated mandaus, I searched for nothing in my memories for this word! :D

PS: I see a little bit of rust at the tip of the blade from your nice mantikei mandau you should care about! ;)

Regards,
Detlef

Impressive chopper.

Regards
Marc

Here is what A.W. Nieuwenhuis wrote about blacksmithing in Borneo:

…Cheaper and better European iron has, as already mentioned, replaced the home-smelted iron previously used exclusively by these tribes. The natives living along the middle reaches of the Mahakam and Kapuri have completely abandoned smelting their own iron; above the Mahakam Falls, it is still practiced occasionally by the Long Glat. For this purpose, a large quantity of charcoal is first burned in the forest, then iron ore is sought in the scree banks of some small tributaries of the Mahakam. This iron ore occurs here in yellow-brown lumps in the form of blunt twigs and small cylinders, and is said to be of varying quality depending on the river. A strong fire is then lit in a hole in the ground, and alternating layers of charcoal and ore are kept ablaze until completely burned. After cooling, a lump of iron mixed with slag is found at the bottom of the hole. Understandably, the carbon content varies greatly, and cast iron, steel, and wrought iron are unevenly mixed within it. From such a lump, the blacksmith then chips off a piece the size of the object he intends to make. Even the best weaponsmiths have difficulty distinguishing and converting the different types of iron into one another…

…Therefore, if a weaponsmith wants to create a sword with the properties of steel, he will only immediately find the right one by chance; most swords that must meet a specific required property are repeatedly reforged and mixed with new types of iron. The smiths know that steel can be hardened, but iron cannot, and that pieces of iron with certain properties, welded together, can produce a metal that can be hardened easily; however, they always remain at the trial and error stage, and a homogeneous mass is almost never achieved. Hardening occurs only in its crudest form, by suddenly immersing the entire glowing object in water; hardening with oil or partial hardening, e.g., when forging a sword, is completely unknown.

For the reasons mentioned above, the particularly good swords to which the Bahau smiths owe their fame are rare and only come about by chance; they can never compete in quality with the best weapons made by European smiths. By far the majority of swords possess the qualities of iron rather than steel weapons, and even those with beautiful inlays I have often seen straightened by their owners after they had suffered wear and tear. Occasionally, parts pop out of the edges, or large chunks fly off, etc. Thus, apart from the difficulties associated with smelting the iron, it is understandable that the natives, among the items purchased at the coastal points, mainly bring large quantities of good iron bars up into the interior, despite the weight of the load. Swords forged from this iron are therefore much more highly valued than those made from their own material…

…Sword-making, in particular, suffered most from the introduction of European goods from the coast; furthermore, the fact that the presence of a European administration has severely restricted warfare among the Bahau tribes has also had an unfavorable effect. As a result, for example, beautiful swords of good quality are no longer forged at Kapuas. During my visit to the local population, the blacksmith was able to make me a sword and decorate it with engravings based on ancient designs, but the quality of the iron left much to be desired and made the weapon completely unsuitable for military purposes…