Southeast Asian knife Identification
 

Hello,

Today I bring, for your comments and consideration, a knife that I can only assume is from somewhere in the general Southeast Asian region. It was sold as being from the Philippines, but I have not seen any similar examples of knives like this from that area. The scabbard has a section broken off (and missing) and a crack near the tip. There is twisted brass wire forming a loop on one side and another pair of holes on the opposite side which probably had a similar arrangement. The blade is simple and without any major flaws, other than two small nicks in the edge. The blade starts off thick at the base and tapers towards the point. The ferrule, handle and scabbard all have simple carved decoration. The rattan binding looks similar to the binding found on Igorot/Ifugao/Bontoc knives. I am eager to see if any of you have any similar examples to share!

Thanks for looking,
Pitt

The scabbard construction looks Ifugao Philippines.

Aren't their scabbards normally open on one side though?

Yes they most often are but there is always variation, the back part is very Ifugao. It could possibly be from a hill tribe India/Burma.

The only other feature that I can find a comparison to is the tip of the scabbard being similar in shape to the tip of a Naga/Kachin dao scabbard.

I would search in the direction of Burma, Arunachal Pradesh and so on, for sure not Ifugao IMVHO.

Regards,
Detlef

Thanks for the info and replies! The Arunachal Pradesh dao seem to be the most similar to my knife, with the exception of the scabbard construction and handle shape of my knife. While the blade shapes are similar, the origin of my knife still seems to be uncertain. I guess I'll have to wait for other examples of this type to pop up.

Sheath & Blade Match?
 

Hi All,

Is everybody sure that the sheath and blade go together? To me, the knife is very slender and the sheath looks as if it was meant for a wider blade (especially from what I can see of the throat). I know that the design on the hilt sort of matches the one at the tip of the sheath but its a rather generic design that may be commonly found on many objects from a particular group (or on many objects of a number of related groups). Also, I know that the sheath wood is very often different from the hilt but in this case, to my eye, the color difference appears to be jarring.

Sincerely,
Robt