Rick,
No i don't have pictures of natives wearing these weapons.
The keris from New Guinea are mostly, just like the mandau and spears, tourist stuff. They have that shiny paint on the plain wood.
But it is said that the real keris from New Guinea have the same look as the tourist stuff but the paint is made from organic material with the woven "pendok" that are on these keris are the old and original ones. Sometimes such a keris pops up in an auction house here in Holland. I own one with museum numbers on it. Some very expierenced collectors told me this is the real thing, just like their own example.
Looking at the paint of this mandau it has the same look of paint made from organic material.
It is known that the papua tribes used mandau's and machetes. The blades were aquired by forging by their own blacksmiths and by trading. the weapons were decorated with natural (organic) paint in traditional motifs.
Please, don't ask me for books and titles, because i cann't remember it.
And of course, I realize that there is unfortunately a lot of recent made tourist stuff.
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