Whistlinbill's Collection #5: Mandau
 

... and miscellaneous for identification and comment...

Beautiful trio! I'll have to wait for those versed in the esoteric mysteries of these beautiful weapons to tell us the details, but I love the middle one!

The first remember some parangs mades to the tourist from Sulawesi.I saw them sevaral years ago when I visited that island.The others pieces are fantastics, congratulations!!

The middle one looks like a cross between a parang nabur and a mandau :confused:

Looks more like some type of Langgai Tinggang to me, used by the Ibans.
But looking at the scabbard it has also something of the Kenya's from the Baram area.
The Parang Nabur has different features and a mandau is always convex and concave (which is not the case here).

However.....Nice piece from Sarawak!

Maurice

I agree with Maurice. To be a proper mandau the blade must be convex on one side and concave on the other. I cannot tell from the photo if this is the case with the last blade on the bottom, but this one seems the best candidate for actually being a mandau. The first two are not, though the middle one is a beautiful sword.
The top one looks to be aimed at "those who travel for pleasure". :)

You're right David.
I'm sure the lower one is convex at the bottom side.
We are looking at the concave side on the image.

Gentlemen, thank you for your expertise! And you are very kind about the
t3 (my designation--terrible tourist trash)! In the olden times, I sort of
tried to buy anything that looked different to what I had.
Again, thanks so much--I so much appreciate your scholarly work!
Bill

Could we have some more pictures of sword nr.2 ?
It looks like a Langgai Tinggang to me. and a very good/nice one as well.


Best regards,
Willem

We will have to rely upon Whistlinbill for the requested closeups of #2; the image shown was not greatly reduced from the original.

Here is another extracted from another series: