burmese/ kachin dha for comment
 

this was the first blade discussed in my larger "collection " thread-- and was the blade other members wished to see more of.


as I described before, this blade actually has a "hornet" or "hummingbird" forgemark; if I cannot find picture of this I will take one.

I bought this dha in a person to person sale some months ago, after searching for kachin style dha and seeing this I think on sword forum for sale-- it is still my favorite of all my dha( other than my modern one I am having made :D)

either way

1. full picture of blade and scabbard, again I do not think scabbard is meant for this blade, it fit very poorly and essentially cut all the rattan because its "horns" on the tip of the blade stuck out of the scabbard from top to bottom
2. this sword has zero distal taper, one of the reasons I love it
3. eyeballs say there is zero difference between tip and grip on thickness, does this tell us anything?
4.handling in the past without cleaning perhaps by a previous owner a generation ago, or even the owner himself-- clear fingerprints in the corrosion of the blade here, I still love the sword, would love any more thoughts you guys would like to offer.

I think I purchased this dha from a member of this forum, though I was not a member at the time-- so It may be archived somewhere, I know I have seen a post somewhere by previous owner asking questions like mine, my hope is that people have more knowledge now than then!

thanks for your time and consideration on this blade. It feels very old to me, I even fancied it was a much older sword broken at the tang and flipped around, using the tip as the new tang, it looked almost like one edge had be forged flat from a european sword-- this was ,of course, fancidful, I now think it to be entirely forged in SE asia, somewhere in the shan area or yunnan as another poster said.


I tried to post the hornet forgemark-- as it was too large I point you to my photobucket(if that is ok) --



to me that is clearly a bird, or hornet forgemark, any thoughts?

Hello Gehazi, Please resize you photos and download them directly to the forum as per forum rules. As I do not know what OP system you are using here are a couple of links that you can use to download a resizing program. The first is for XP only: http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/ And then there is this one: http://www.irfanview.com/

Best,
Robert

The blade looks to be in good condition to me and reasonably clean.

The lack of distal taper is intriguing, how's the balance and feel in the hand? :)

if I had to carry a sword it would be this one, it feels massive like a tool but has finesse, its short enough that it does not get in the way , the balance is better than you would think, it fairly spoiled me when I look at distal taper as I am always looking for a solid forged line with a minimal taper or almost none.

all the fittings are still good and tight, minus the scabbard-- once I better figure on the compression will post pictures of what I think is the forge mark and some micro pictures with my scope on the steel, has some very interesting crystallization patterns .

Gehazi:

The more I look at this one and the more you describe its metallurgical qualities, I am convinced that the most likely origin of the blade is from the the small ethnic group known as Husa, whom we have discussed many times recently. A quick search of the site will turn up several descriptions of them and their products. The quality of their blades, their forging skills, and the wide geographic areas over which their goods were sold have been discussed.

Incidentally, the curious dha that you acquired from Artzi (posted in your first thread) has the "running tiger" stamp that is unique to Husa manufacture also.

Ian.

PS. I would be happy to resize some pictures if that is that is needed.

Welcome to the forum Gehazi. Glad to see you are enjoying the sword we made a deal on :) Here are some more pictures of the sword.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=5426

I'm not familiar with the "hornet" or "hummingbird" forgemark. :shrug: Very interested to hear more about it :)

As an aside, in the Nova documentary episode "Rat Attack" (about how bamboo flowering leads to a rat plague that devours nearby crops and produces famine) (link to video on YouTube), you can see how flat-ended dhas are used in planting fields in the Indian state of Mizoram by the Myanmar border. The pictures are scattered throughout the early video, but you can see it fairly clearly at the 19:40 mark.

They use the square ends of their dhas as digging sticks, and I'm willing to bet they don't have a distal taper on their blades either. The lack of a distal taper may be functional.

F

very cool info fearn I love the region's blades.

also nathaniel , after asking another forum member, you are right I think it was a forge flaw that just looked interesting!! -- either way thanks everyone for comment and thanks most to nathan for selling this beautiful blade to me a year or so ago ( maybe more !)

this sword remains one of my favorites , I will eventually post my entire shan/husin style dha collection along with my naga and kachin examples!

thanks everyone!