Omani dagger? Filipino knife? and ivory hilt dha

[Gavin Nugent]

Originally Posted by David

While Gardner's work is perhaps seminal i would not personally depend upon it specifically for accuracy.

What's the why behind the comment on accuracy?

Some may have considered him crackers, he did however have the benefit on living in Malaysia for quite some time, Borneo and Perak if I recall, and he had a genuine interest in the people and culture some 25 years before his work was published in 1936.

The item you present here is the same piece you posted in another forum where it was received as a Tumbuk Lada too... I think within these pages it carried various names too.

I totally understand the dilemma, the passing of time and various cultural alignments place conjecture on the "name" of items.

I refer to Marius's note about the sheath timber angle for example and look to this http://vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4912 and see the same stylised angles.

Another thread showed a Minang Sewar I sold as a Tumbuk Lada, yet it was identical style, manufacture, and proportions to another Minang Sewar with black coral seen in Zanneveld's work, which also sold to the same collector...

I read comments that the Tumbuk Lada (referring to the BIG ivory hilt types) have a straight blade and fullers compared to the deep drop of a Sewar blade, yet, that one in the image above I shared, it has the same curve and drop as the silver Sewar to to left in the same image.

Is it best to tear up all the history books and simply name them knives? Or does that then enter in to the is it a knife or a dagger based on design or application... some framework needs to be adopted, and I personally feel the forefathers who went to the trouble to document these things were in a better position than we were, and phonetics aside, they had a far greater accuracy being there first hand without greater influences at work.

[Sajen]

I have known and still know people who would call these daggers as bade-bade! We shouldn't insist on a specific name.

Attached a picture with a "sewar" in up, down under a Malay badik, an unknown Sumatran dagger and four different Batak daggers, in complete down a "tumbok lada".

[Sajen]

The same daggers with their scabbards so far present.

[Gavin Nugent]

Indeed there are many names used... you only have to look at Stone.... I think there are 4-5 types under that banner... Tumbuk Lada barely got a mention within, Sewer says refer to a type bade-bade...

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/31576

But should in not be that regionally and culturally specific names should be applied to regionally specific items.