Panabas
 

My new birthday panabas. Very heavy blade that is over 1/2 inch thick at the hilt. The hilt has a heavy cast brass collar and two cracks in it probably from shrinkage (one on top of the hilt and the other on the bottom) but the piece is still very stable. The wood of the hilt for some reason looks a lot lighter in the pictures than it actually is, probably the lighting. This is a heavy piece weighting in at 4 lbs 6 ounces. What I would really like to know is if a panabas like this would have been used mainly as a weapon or as a tool. Thank you in advance for any comments on this piece that anyone would like to make.

Robert

With brass like that I would say a weapon for beheading, psychologically and symbolically representing the power and authority of the datu.

note the similarity to your barong in both the flared blade base and the octagonal handle cross section.

Thank you Jose, I thought that with the overall quality that it could possibly be a lower grade status piece. As usual, do you have an idea of age of this ?

Hard to place on this - around the turn of the 20c?