Jamdhar/katar why do we call it a katar?

[Jim McDougall]

This is indeed a most interesting topic brought up by Jens, the terminology applied to these weapons, and how semantics and transliteration have undoubtedly confounded the proper terms for many of them. I think the idea of variation in terms used for katars with curved blades as opposed to those with the typical straight blades seems quite plausible.
I think the term 'katara' has a much more general application, though even that idea is vaguely applied. In regions of what is now Nuristan, the Kalash carry a dagger with hilt similar to the khanjhar (#6) shown here, without the closed knuckleguard, and these are termed locally 'katara'.

I have always considered interesting that the Persian 'quaddara' and the Omani 'kattara' seem to have thier terms so closely associated to the term for these daggers.

The term katar it would seem, and I emphasize I am no linguist, possibly to be diminutive of the kattara term?

Then there is the much discussed application of the term jhamdhar or jemadhar as argued by Pant to be the correct term for the 'katar'. He claims that the term became misapplied inadvertantly by Egerton in his work.

I always find discussions on the katar fascinating as it is truly one of the anomolies of ethnographic edged weapons, not only in its origins and development, but as shown here, even the term it is called by.

I do hope others will share thier observations as well.

All best regards,
Jim

[beoram]

In Hindi (and Nepali), the word is spelled as kaTaar (see transcription key), and seems to derive from (an unattested) Old Indo-Aryan/'Sanskrit' word *karttaara-. It seems to simply mean 'knife, dagger'. The root it derives from ultimately means 'to cut', and there are other related words with meanings like 'scissors' (e.g. Hindi kaatii 'goldsmith's scissors', Assamese kaatii 'scissors'). It's a bit strange that it's from a root of 'to cut', since I don't think of katars as generally being much use in cutting, but the sense may have generalised to 'knife', and then been applied to anything knife-like.

I think 'katara' is a red-herring. The devanagari orthography used for languages like Hindi, Nepali is a bit ambiguous in a few cases. The spelling kaTaar could in theory be pronounced either as kaTaar or kaTaara, and certainly in transcription might often be represented as 'katara'.
In any case, 'katar' could not be a diminuitive of 'katara' as far as I know, as Indo-Aryan diminuitives are actually formed by additional suffixes, or by changing vowels (usually -aa to -ii, i.e. masculine to feminine - e.g. Hindi rassaa 'rope', rassii 'string'). In other words the diminuitive of *karttaara is *karttaarii, and it is from this latter (diminuitive) root that words for 'scissors' are formed: e.g. Assamese kaatii (cited above), Gujarati kaat, kaatar 'scissors', etc.

So I don't know if 'katar' is correctly applied to the type of weapon it is often applied to in the West. My Hindi dictionary simply defines kaTaar as 'a dagger'. It seems it could be a case of overspecialisation of a term due to a misunderstanding by a Westerner. A bit like if someone pointed at a table knife and asked 'what's that called in English' and was told 'knife', but then restricted the meaning of 'knife' only to table-knives.

That said, the phrase kaTaar utaarnaa means in Hindi 'to stab with a dagger', which recalls the normal use of a katar. So perhaps the term became specialised indigenously and isn't just a European mistake. (plus a word can of course be used in both specialised and non-specialised ways, e.g. my wife, who is Nepalese, can use the term 'khukuri' to apply specifically to khukuris, but on occasion also just uses it to mean '(sharp) knife' in general).

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Beoram,
Beautifully written and well thought out post! I think your observation on the association between katar and katara is nicely supported and I am inclined to agree with the red herring comment!
I think your explanations linguistically on the application of these terms is excellent and provides the kind of perspective that really helps in the study of these weapons. Thank you very much !
All the best,
Jim

[Help]

Hi, I came across your excellent site whilst doing some research and wondered if you would be interested to know that I have been led to believe that the initial error was GC Stone's as he states in 'A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration' etc.(from my notes, I don't have a copy in front of me) that "Jamdhar Katari ...under this name Egerton figures the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush" (pg. 314)
However in 'The Arms and Armour of India' Egerton places Jamdhar Katari as Nepalese weapons.
Stone also mentions the British Museum Handbook which shows a Katir of the Hindu Kush, and the error has apparently led to much confusion between two daggers which only have a similarity.
What do you think?

[Lew]

Found this.

http://books.google.com/books?id=SPJ...um=3&ct=result

[Help]

Thank you for the link, yes the reference is to 'the knives' of the Kafir... I was trying so hard to be accurate too as that was my first post...

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hello Help, welcome to the forum.

It is difficult to say when, what we call a katar, was called so. It could be Egerton, but it could also have been a number of others, like Hendley, Watt, Burton or someone else, all writing about the same time. The name could even be a lot older, and I am afraid we will never know for sure.

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Help

However in 'The Arms and Armour of India' Egerton places Jamdhar Katari as Nepalese weapons.

Even funnier: Egerton's plate of Nepalese weapons has a picture of a typical Ottoman yataghan.

I think he grouped the weapons according to the place where he or his agents bought them. Had he managed to buy a Balinese Keris that somehow found its way to Afghanistan, we still might have argued about its true origin :-)

Well, he spent literally only a couple of years in India as a tourist and did not have Stone or suchlike as his reference book:-) Forgivable errors of a novice collector. Pity it acquired a patina of authority.

[Jim McDougall]

Absolutely Ibrahiim, and one of the true conundrums of studying ethnographic arms is the confusion in terminology which constantly plague students using old resources and contemporary accounts. In many cases transliteration and regional semantics, particularly in India where so many languages and dialects are present, certain forms are called by varying terms.
Ariel, good note on Egerton, and actually his work was so well venerated as it was indeed a seminal work on ethnographic arms (it was 1880 while Burton came out in 1884). While other writers such as Walhouse and others had written articles slightly earlier, his work was far more comprehensive and overall actually reasonably accurate aside from these errors . I believe his book was a catalog but cannot recall the occasion, and the items were listed according to the donors or submissions.

It is interesting that early writers indeed relied on other works, and some errors in Burton (1884) are traced to Demmin (1877). I can recall an instance where an item was identified as Tibetan from the Oldman catalog (1909?) while the exact same sword was classified as from Benin in West Africa with an example collected by French donor to a museum in Belgium. Research revealed the item in Belgium was indeed African.
If I recall correctly Stone has a sword identified as Italian which is actually British cavalry 1780s.

I always maintain great respect for all authors of books and articles on the difficult topics of arms history and classifications, and I believe virtually all of the books carry certain disclaimers in the introductions, as well as sincere hopes for others to continue the research to resolve the inevitable errors.

I like to think that we are among those who sort of 'pick up the torch'