If Not a Barong,Then What?

[mariusgmioc]

Thank you Detlef for the clear and well illustrated explanation.

Indeed there are enough differences that set this blade apart from the barong family.

[Battara]

Yes that part of your hilt is damaged, and made of kamagong (I hate spell check ).

[drac2k]

That is not damage, but rather a beauty mark,lol ;I see it and thanks for the information.

[Interested Party]

I knew I had seen this style of hilt before. Sorry for the bad pictures. If I get a chance, I will replace the first one. There wasn't natural light yet. Here are two pages from Cato. I know the point slopes the wrong way, but could this be from the bangkung family, posibly with an influence from the Northern Philippine states? The example in the original post has a mouth the to me looks like a stylized crocodile.

Whatever it is it was a good find. The sad thing about living faraway from cities is that I never find anything like this

[kai]

No, this naga hilt style is found with a wide variety of blades.

I have difficulties to understand the urge to assign variant blades to well-known styles. We do know that in addition the common types there was quite some more variety of Moro blades. While we may not be able to establish their traditional names anymore (unless more research digs up additional period sources or via informants from those cultures), let's just accept that there are oddballs around.

Regards,
Kai

[Sajen]

Agree completely with Kai! We have seen more Moro oddballs at this place than this one.

Look only to this three threads:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=Moro
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=Moro
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=Moro