cocos island knives are back
 

cocos island knives are back
i found this one form a recent auction in new zealand. and in fact there is another in an australian auction that looks like it might just be one as well
also in the 50s or 60s the cocos islands issued stamps with blacksmiths shown on the stamps . considering the agricultural nature of the plantation island there must have been busy that combined with the troops during the war..



we should really just call some office on the east island there and see if any of the local malays know who made this stuff
there is about 600 malays there so somebody should probably know immediately who the blacksmith family use to be.

sorry for those not familiar the cocos/keeling island golok or knife is the one in the top with a very distinct style. if you search cocos knife or keeling knife you should find more pics.

Where is the picture? :)

Ausjulius, you need to upload your pictures directly to this site.

Thanks.

ausjulius:

There is a recent summary of what this site has to offer about the Keeling-Cocos knives here.

Ian

Photobucket now charges $400.00 for pics uploaded to their site to be hosted on third party servers! That is probably why the pic shown by ausjulius (I suspect one of mine) is showing that error message--I refuse to pay that amount simply to enable third party hosting which previously had been permitted free!

I have downloaded my pics from that site and post them directly here. The original thread that had these pics was posted more than a decade ago, before the policy on directly loading files to this site came into operation. All the more reason to have the pics posted here for future reference.

Ian.

hmm i did .. it vanished... ill try again should be up there no. thanks

Ian and all -

Try using Imgur as a photo posting site. Free.

Rich

damn.. well no more photobucket for me.. that site was becoming so slow and nonfunctional that it s almost useless anyway.

these knives are really quite interesting you can see images and video footage of various clunies-ross wearing these as well.

the Malays there came some time in the 1860s i think before there was a mix if madagascan and south african coloured and Malay convicts...

they must have been contracted in a relatively compact group and brought their blacksmiths with them..

im just imagining some weird hybrid Madagascan or african weapons being made by a malay blacksmith.. or maybe a hybrid drik knife for the original clunies-ross heheh.

but really this is a mystery that i think we can solve with a few phone calls..
i think today im going to look in a phone directory for the cocos islands and make some calls there and see if any local people might know who were the makers of these and when they stopped making them!

ausjulius,

There may be a more dark explanation as to how Malay or Melanesian people ended up in the Cocos Keeling Islands in the 19th C. There was a practice in northern Australia of "blackbirding" native people of the Torres Strait Islands and nearby into forced labor on sugar plantations, etc. This was essentially a form of slavery. An ugly part of Australian history that also included indigenous groups (Aborigines).

I don't know the history of the Cocos Keeling Islands well enough to say whether the Malay inhabitants went there voluntarily or not, but the Clunies-Ross family ruled these islands with absolute authority before they became part of Australia.

I am more as curious if you will be able to get some informations! :)

Attached are my both honest examples.

Regards,
Detlef

the history of the cocos is very well documented by its owners whose children are alive today... there was no melanesian people on these islands.. its nothing to do with blackbirding..

thanks.. i didnt get to make a call today .tomorrow i shall do it..
they show up a lot so they must have made more than a few and for quite some time i suspect.

Here a link for your interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocos_(Keeling)_Islands
It is IMVHO surprisingly that so much knives can be found by a rather small population. :shrug:

well its been a while since this topics been discussed but i havesome further information.

i contact john Clunnies-Ross today and asked him about the knives and their history, he said the blacksmith shop on the home island (which although unused still exsists) manufactured these blades, although there could have been others too in the past. he said they were still made till the late 1970s along with others tools, spears ect . he said there was two main styles the "ladies" knife and the larger parangs. blades with made of eithervehical springs or indeed the german battleship.
he said making declinedwith the halt ofcopra processing.. no more charcoal being made and no more plantation workers,

he saidif we wanted more info about the knives there is a cocos islandfacebook page and that we could post the pictures there and that the relatives of the makers could see them and beable to givepossiably more information.

id really like to see somebody make such a knife again now. such ashame this craft vanished so quickly.

Great information!

I don't have facebook but feel free to upload pictures to their facebook site!

Regards,
Detlef

Ausjulius:

Thanks for the update. Great information. I was planning to visit the Cocos-Keeling islands last year but COVID came along, and travel there is still not re-established. Maybe next year.

Ian.

thanks, yes i will gather some images and make a facebook page just for this occasion (i too do not have facebook) i have several ofthese knives including ne with a longer thick 18 - 20 inch blade.. but alas they havebeen packedaway the last 16 years in a family members home😑.. far from where i live now. i find them very interesting knives.. especially the handle construction

hi ian.. yes would beaneet place to visit. from what i can gather there is still people alive who can make or did make knives, but to their age im not sure. it would be very goodif we couldsonehow revitalise to restart thisknifemaking tradition there. such a shame. i guess the locals viewed them mostly as tools