Miguel Diaz, Nonoy Tan, Jude and I visited the National Museum weapons storage room 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately no pics allowed (a guard closely followed us around). Weapons were from the St. Louis Expo. Items captured from the Philippine-American War. Many Panay swords. Some observations:
-- plenty of tenegres with S-guards and D-guards. These generally have thinner, longer blades. Probably an adaptation by revolutionary officers (copied the look of European-style sabers). members of the Panay Bukidnon tribe whom we interviewed at the Iloilo Museum last year actually call these swords "sab-li" (saber).
-- a version of the tenegre with three protruding horns (the one Spunjer refers to as the Batman) was labeled as captured in Infanta, Quezon. Probably an import from Panay. Miguel Diaz, though thinks, "what if?'
-- several tenegres without any guard. In past threads, there was a tendency to say these were of later make. Well, it seems we cant make that generalization.
-- most common among scabbards were those with 4 inch leather bindings towards the top and carabao horn wrapped up to the bottom. The scabbard bottom either straight horizontal, sligthly slanting or curved (the curve, though is never as long or pronounced as that of the Panay Bukidnon sandukos). One interesting scabbard had the standard Catmon flower design but instead of a metal cut-out, this was painted in red, white and green.
-- I am now more convinced that the Panay Bukidnon sanduko is the "grandfather" design of the Panay tenegres. All the key features are very well illustrated (the elephant trunk, goat horn, teeth of a boar, bulging eyes, and the triangular hat). In the tenegres of the lowlanders, these are often stylized -- but a careful examination will reveal that they are still there. The isolation of the Panay Bukidnons kept their sword design relatively pure.
And where did that design come from? Look at the kingfisher kris of Pattani. All the key features are the same. Both represent a makara. The traingular hat is a karranda mahkota.
Pattani was at farthest outpost of the Srivijaya empire (at its peak). The ceramic evidence in the Philippines shows trade with Penninsular Thailand (bordering Malaysia) as early as 9th - 12th.
So, either the kris Pattani and the Panay sanduko had the same design inspiration or the Panay Sanduko was copied from kris Pattani.
Five years ago, I wrote a paper for Museo Iloilo on pottery excavated in Isla Gigantes, in the North Eastern part of Panay. On top of local pottery, there were early Thai (Dvaravati period) and Cambodian ceramics dated to 8th -10th century. This confirms trade with Penninsular Thailand and Cambodia during that period. If they traded ceramics, how about a sword or two?
The songs and epics of the Panay Bukidnon are all about the sea and travelling across it. While they have lived in the mountains for as long as they can remember, their oral tradition says they used to be seafarers.
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