Two old Maguindanao kris--with some differences related to age

[Ian]

Xas, thank you the terminology. While it differs a little from what Robert Cato collected from his informants in the 1990s, I shall revise my data accordingly.

Originally Posted by xasterix

... As for the age estimates for the krises, I believe the first one is late 1800s-early 1900s, while the second one is early 1900s-preWW2. I based these estimates by checking the trend of several provenanced museum samples (date of acquisition).

This is a difficult issue. I've written elsewhere on these pages about the problems with using accession dates of items in museums. There is an inherent bias with such dating. Even with the very best provenance one can find, it tells us only about that particular sword, but does not necessarily tell us when that particular style of sword arose and was used. To further complicate matters, older battle styles can still be made even in the presence of preferred newer styles—perhaps until all the warriors who preferred the older form and the panday who made them have died.

I believe strongly that we often underestimate the historical age of sword styles (and thereby the age of the swords themselves) by referencing when they were found, a date usually recorded by individuals outside the sword's culture who "collected" them. To better understand why weapons of war change over time in a poorly documented environment (such as the Moro areas), I've chosen instead to look at the conflicts. What features of a (potential) conflict would lead to warriors requesting panday to change the fighting characteristics (such as length, weight, balance, etc.) of a weapon?

Xas, the dates you are proposing would suggest that the events which influenced the style of the swords shown above were the war(s) with Spain, renewed in 1851, and the conflict with the U.S. that started in the very early years of the 1900s. Personally, I don't see any major difference between the edged weapons used by Spain and the U.S. that would warrant an increase in the size of the kris around 1900. The major threat during the Moro-U.S. conflicts was modern firearms, which was not a reason to modify the kris to make it heavier and bigger at that time.

As stated above, I think the change to bigger and heavier kris occurred within the second half of the 19th C, in response to Spanish actions starting in 1851, and that the somewhat smaller kris shown above may have related to Spanish-Moro conflicts over a century earlier. There are many reasons why provenanced pieces for similar kris might date to a later time. However, that does not exclude the hypothesis outlined above.