Jim, could you make it more clear to me the part in which you say:
What is also curious is that this kastane, while intact other than the grip alteration, would seem to be unusual, and such 'custom' alterations of what appears to be staghorn grip not too likely for as many as 12 swords of such exotic nature.
Do you mean there is a record of circa 12 kastanes have/had their grips altered in this discussed manner ?
... For i realize this modification is a vital detail is this sword history definition; as certainly such intervention took place after leaving Sri Lanka and before getting into America; in Spain, when matching with current provenance theory.
Also interesting is the interpretation of the so called "turtle people" attribution; with one source betting this was due to incoming Spaniards wearing front and back armour (and helmet) gear, giving them a turtle look (a plausible perspective), while other remembers that by this time and place, they were no longer using such heavy armour. However i wouldn't discard the possibility that the natives would call them so becaue they were aware of their earlier outfit. A far shot would be that, the said natives were aware or told of the real origin of these swords; in fact Sri Lankan people were eentually 'a (not the) turtle people', as in their island sea turtle abunds, even kastane hilts and scabbards often being made with turtle shell.
Here we have some of the two dozen pictures published in 2013 by Cass Chowdhury, a British Columbia resident, whose professor Dr. Stanley Copp had done a fair amount of background work on this sword. Cass's task at the time was to try to narrow down the kastane's origin to a few plausible theories, or at least definitively rule some out.
It doesn't seem to me that the grip is stag horn, but a rudimentary work done with a less exoticmaterial ... wood ?
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