Rare Dayak Daggers - Sadop and Dohong

[Dajak]

Hi Michael look how he is holding the little Knife

Ben

[VVV]

Interesting!

Thanks for the reference picture.

Michael

[Dajak]

About the dohun here on an soul boat pictured in Hornbill and dragon we see
that they are spears not intended too be swords


Ben

[VVV]

Seems to be the tree of life with a Dohun at the top.
Just like described in the Schärer book:

"The trunk of the Tree of Life consists of the sacred spear, its roots ends in spearpoints, and it is flanked by daggers."

Michael

[asomotif]

There was an interesting discussion on the swap forum on dohongs.

at a certain moment there was a claim that dohongs were pure ritual weapons, as there are no pictures of dayak fighting with dohongs.
But also other claims have been made :

quote-
The Dohong was most likely the traditional sword/knife before the mandau.
So most Dohongs are from before 1850 and there are not many in museum collections.-unquote

But previous in this same thread nov 9th 2006 :

quote-
[I]There are some drawings that show s Dajaks with blowgun and parang-ilang but never see one with Dohun or daggers that is in my opinion not so old on Borneo as the sword the dajaks Used
The daggers have Arabic moslim influence .[I]-unquote

so we have the opinion that the dohongs were there before the mandaus...
And than the opinion that the dohongs are not as old as dajak swords...
(strange enough by the same person)

I am hardly an expert and mostly atracted by form of waepons.
But what could / would be the thruth on dohongs / sadaps ?

Does anybody have pictures/drawings of these waepons being used at all ?

[Dajak]

Hi Willem as you can read it shows that dohung is not an weapon al this can be found in the books and that dohungs have only being used before 1850
is not true.

I have an pedang that was taken to England in 1820 , many weapons was taken to europe in that time so if they did fight a lot with dohungs there was
also taken dohungs from the battlefield never read about that.

There is no evidence for it .

That there is some arabic influence in Borneo is true read history books .

Ben

[Mytribalworld]

Originally Posted by Dajak

Hi Willem as you can read it shows that dohung is not an weapon al this can be found in the books and that dohungs have only being used before 1850
is not true.

I have an pedang that was taken to England in 1820 , many weapons was taken to europe in that time so if they did fight a lot with dohungs there was
also taken dohungs from the battlefield never read about that.

There is no evidence for it .

That there is some arabic influence in Borneo is true read history books .

Ben

Hi Ben,

If you should have read the book that you bougth from me ( Schwaner ) you could clearly see on page 80 of the second part,that Schwaner give an excelent explanation about the use and History of the Dohong.
Schwaner was ther between 1843-1847.

here the translation of the text:

" The shield and mandau are imported on a later date but now very common.
In history the place of the mandau was taken by the Dohong and parang.
the Dohong must have been an ancesteral weapon.
It was a broad sword about one foot length, in the shape of a lance point and had a 8 inch long ,thick and round hilt, turned from ivory-so no doubt a outland creation-. from the dohong there are only a few examples left,which are kept as heirlooms from there ancestors.
nowadays they are only used to spread the blood of there victims on their bodies and to cut of the navel-string of the newborn kids."

So its quite clear we have here a very early evidence for the use of the dohong as well as a weapon in very early pre-mandau times, and after that being used indeed as a ritual dagger because of the heirloom status of the dagger.

There are also Dohongs in the collection of Bronbeek, a collection mainly built up by stuff from the battlefield.

About the arabic influence, I don't think that the arabs did their had their influence on the Dohong but the Malay.
The turned wooden hilt final is an detail that is used in many Malay objects and also daggers, see " Spirit of wood,the art of malay woodcarving".
Also I think that seen the large migrations in Borneo about 200 years ago, where the Kajans and Ibans where pushing from the north its good possible that the dagger (or the design) has been taken with tribes who did first live in the north put where pused to move to the south.The Dohong is mainly found among the Ngadjoe and Ot danum.
The ivory hilts could also be imorted by traders from Banjarmassin.

Finally, the use of the turned hilt final is a Budistic stupa symbol.

sources: Schwaner -beschrijving van het stroomgebied van den Barito
by C.A.L.M.Schwaner 1853

farisch A.Noor and Eddin Khoo Spirit of Wood

[Bill M]

Originally Posted by VVV

Seems to be the tree of life with a Dohun at the top.

Michael

Kether?