Thanks Peter. I enjoy your site and have learned much reading the articles.
The quote from Sir Charles Alexander Gordon (1877) from the link you posted indicates, at that time, the dha was anecdotally commonly used in local disputes. He seems to be including Burmese across the range of social status in the statment. In this case the "fancy" dha would continue to function as a weapon intended for use rather than just as a fashion or cultural prop. How much this would change from late 19th to early 20th C is not clear to me but perhaps the decline in dha quality follows a decline in the acceptability or stronger legal consequences for using dha as a weapon during disputes.
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