This strange "Filipino" Dha
 

There's an uploaded photo by a sword collecting user, of a Dha looking sword with a scabbard scribbled with Baybayin alphabet writing. Claiming it to be a Filipino Dha sword.

The theory is that this came from isolate places like Mindoro, where there exists some villages who still write Baybayin during the timeframe this blade was likely constructed.

Any thoughts? Is this really a Filipino made blade? I personally cannot fathom this being one of those bladed weapons that pre-Hispanic Visayans or Luzon people importing edged weapons from other Asian cultures since that happened much long ago than this blade's time of creation.

This daab is unequivocally northern Thai in origin, probably mid- to late- 20th C. These were often brought back by GI servicemen serving in Vietnam, and quite a few ended up with Americans stationed in the Philippines.

Why it would have Baybayin writing on the scabbard is unclear, but this is definitely not a Filipino-made dha.

Ian

I wonder if any dhas did manage to make their way to the Philippines in the course of trade, piracy, or military adventures prior to the 20th cent.? Reason I ask is that in the History Museum in Hanoi, I saw a display of many edged and staff weapons from the period of the earliest organized Vietnamese resistance to French rule -- the end of the 19th cent. to the turn of the 20th. Mostly traditional Viet peasant knives and spears, a few Chinese falchions and tridents, but there were also one or two Philippine goloks in the mix. The museum in Saigon had a small assortment of Thai weapons purportedly taken by Vietnamese troops in a victory over Thai forces in the early 1800s. So this stuff did get passed hand-to-hand across borders. I also read somewhere that the French hired a number of Filipino mercenaries to serve as auxiliary troops in a campaign to take Da Nang during the first half of the 19th cent.

In 1863 the officer of the Russian Navy Konstantin Stanyukovich observed for more than one month the actions of the jointed French and Spanish forces in South Vietnam. In his notes, he several times mentions the participation of Tagalog soldiers.

the frnech spanish and portugese recruited people form whait is now indonesia and the phillipines for their activities in indochina..
add that to the fact the taditionally the malayan people from java and their relatives held sway ove rthe oceans of asia untill the arrival of europeas.. (the bay manilla being on being a vassal of the malays in burnei who were in turn in the past comming fomr java in pre islamic times..) the fact that thai, chinese vietnamese ect has many malayo-polinesian words.. the fact that thai rules have many articles of Malayan attire. and in the past wore malay kris and badek knives.. ect.. fact that ther eis krist knives from vietnam of a specific style typically with metal handles.

its just somethign peopel have forgotten in the last few centuaries but in the hindu period of asia the ocient was totally dominated by the malayan people not just in thier own lands but what we now call china the southern part of this coast .. thailand and parts of burma.. even celon ect..
these people traveled very far from their homelands to trade and at the time operated quite sophisticated states trade based

so although these networks were on a rapid decline when europeans began their trading in these regions i have no doubt that sea going people still traded and had contact with various ports to sell and buy goods..

i was reading an article that speculated that malayian traders were the ones that brought elephantiasis to korea in the medieval period as it is a tropical disease but strangely so common to korea.
they got around a lot...as you can see by the people in madagascar. or invasion of celon...

so i find it not at all surprising that their weapons may be present in vietnam..

im quite sure if you look in a sri lankan museum you would see examples as well

[QUOTE=im quite sure if you look in a sri lankan museum you would see examples as well[/QUOTE]

From my visit to the National Museum in Colombo about a year ago.

In more than 40 years of traveling frequently to the Philippines and visiting many national and regional museums, I have not come across any antique dha or daab. One does occasionally find a contemporary Thai daab in antique shops, similar to the one shown at the top of this thread.

Perhaps some of our members who are residents of the Philippines can throw more light on the presence of antique dha/daab within their country, but my experience has been unsuccessful in finding examples (and I was looking for them).

Ian

I know this is a bit off topic, but that photo you attached to your post, the Malay blade on the bottom left, doesn't that kind of look like a Ginunting? Or no? Is it related to the Ginunting in any way?

Hi Ashkenaz,

It's a common blade form in SE Asia, basically one type of forward-weighted chopper. The Moro bangkung, for example, has a similar blade profile.

Ian.