Keith, thank you so much! You're truly a fountain of knowledge...I had no idea on the name of the Marlin fish!Its fascinating how terms and their etymology have so much history.
So far my efforts to connect this knife and its form to 'Jack tars' is tenuous, as it seems the stylus used by the Chettiars (palm leaf accountants) was known as 'narayam'. These apparently were not only in the fixed type stylus but were known in this folding form(the term 'Swiss' Army knife is used) so they must have been in use independently from the maritime use I supposed.
Still, the nautical 'marlin' knives still used today with awl suggest obviously their use. While the spike seems very small for heavy work on canvas, it might serve in other matters with rigging and rope beyond my limited awareness of such things.
Whatever the case, this does stand as a Tamil scribes stylus, and by the metal etc it seems end of 18th into 19th c.....Anandalal, based in Sri Lanka, identified one identical to this as such a number of years ago.
Thank you again for helping with this quandry, an usual item, clearly not often seen, at least as far as Ive seen.
Best regards,
Jim
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