Tibetan dog "stick" pocket flail

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by kronckew

Cool, would be very Illegal in the UK to carry one.

Haha well everything is illegal In the UK.
You just need to be imaginative with the shape I suppose..
In Tibetan regions people all immediately recognised what it was.
Useful multitool.
Monks also had a very large engraved handmade key on a strap for the same use.

It's a handy companion.
Some are engraved with Buddhist imagery to fish, patterns and the like.
You could see some older people in very isolated areas, herders and farmers with a belt knife, a dog flail and a sling for stones on their belt. Well armed.
I suppose wolves, stray dogs and nasty drunks could be encountered occasionally and it's best prepared that not.
But these little flails seemed totally a self defence ethnographic weapon.
People told me until the 2000snds these were an almost universal accessory . Now I'm searching pictures of Tibetans to spot these on their belts.
It seems these iron dog flails and stone slings have some strong universal cultural currency there as every Tibetan I've met outside Tibet immediately knew what they were and was familiar with them. So their decline is probably pretty recent. It didn't seem like the Chinese authorities really regulated the flails or even really knew what the were at a state level.. unlike knives ..