Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Malaysian matchlock musket (satinggar espingarda)

Philip · 17th February 2016, 04:00 AM

Hi, Cathy
Nice example you have here. It's similar to one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (acc. no. 36.25.2187). These are classic examples of matchlocks of Indo-Portuguese ( or Luso-Indian ) type, a fusion of European and Oriental technology perfected in the Portuguese territory of Goa, India, in the early 16th cent. A brief history:
1. Portugal was unique among western European countries in relying almost exclusively on a snap matchlock whose serpentine was powered by an external leaf spring. The prototype for this is a crude version first made in the late 15th cent. in the German-speaking realm of Bohemia, introduced to Portugal via a trade network involving German merchants (see Daehnhardt, ESPINGARDA FEITICEIRA, pp 49ff & figs.). These rudimentary muskets were widely used by the Portuguese for several decades as they improved their workmanship and design considerably in their own arsenals,

2. Both the German guns and their Portuguese derivatives were brought to the East, and when Portugal established an armory at Goa in the second decade of the 16th cent., Indian craftsmen further modified the design by introducing a very short, almost pistol-like buttstock held against the cheek, not the shoulder, when aiming. They also reduced the caliber and made the gun lighter and more balanced. This was a hit with the Portuguese who did a lot of fighting aboard ship and on river craft, and valued a more compact gun. A sumptuously decorated Goanese gun of this type, ca. 1550, is preserved at the Rustkammer in Dresden (current inv. no. G.1116, formerly S.181 in the 1606 inventory).

3. The Portuguese brought Sri Lanka, parts of the Bengal and Burma coasts, Malaya, and the Indochinese coast under their sway in the years following their conquest of Goa in 1510. Within a decade or two they were in Taiwan and the south China coast. Wherever they went, the locals enthusiastically copied these muskets and made their own versions, differing stylistically but retaining the same mechanicals and the cheek buttstocks.

4. I see from pics of your gun that the serpentine pivot bolt seems to run through the stock and is anchored on the left side via a crosspin. This is a holdover from the primitive Bohemian prototypes, whose serpentine pivots are screwed right into the wooden stock. Most Malay guns have this same arrangement, albeit of much finer craftsmanship. So do most Chinese versions; both areas are believed to have received the technology from the Portuguese in the 1520s-30s.

5. The Portuguese first reached Japan in 1543, they had guns with them and as they say, the rest is history. By then, though, the armorers at Lisbon and Goa had improved on the locks again, this time attaching the serpentine pivot bolt to the lockplate itself. This didn't noticeably improve shooting performance but enabled the entire lock to be removed as a unit, making repairs and maintenance easier. The Japanese guns have this feature. So do Korean matchlocks which are almost identical in all respects, Korea having received musket technology not directly from the Portuguese but rather second-hand from the Japanese as a result of the Hideyoshi invasion of the 1590s.

6. I mentioned above that the artisans at Goa tended to downsize the scale of the weapons in favor of ease of handling and firing (keeping in mind that the muskets of most north European countries weighed as much as 20 lb and required a forked rest under the barrel for a steady aim). However, these Malay guns tend to be long and quite heavy. Actually uncomfortable to hold unsupported when aiming, especially when considering the relative small stature of the people using them. This is in contrast to Indo-Portuguese matchlocks from the rest of Asia, which are generally quite easy to handle and are of manageable size. It is thought by some writers that these firearms were meant to be fired from a defensive posture (as from a parapet) but I'd like to see further research to confirm this. Compared to the field of Malay edged weapons, these firearms have not been well covered in the academic press, and I'm open to any references that fellow forumites may have found that will shed more light on the actual usage of these. (W. Egerton's AN ILLUSTRATED HANDBOOK OF INDIAN ARMS... p 63 has a very interesting quote on the manufacture of gun barrels in Lombok, Java, but says nothing about the use or ethnographic context of the finished product.)

17th February 2016, 04:00 AM	#14
Philip Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: California Posts: 1,036	thumbnail history of Indo-Portuguese matchlocks Hi, Cathy Nice example you have here. It's similar to one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (acc. no. 36.25.2187). These are classic examples of matchlocks of Indo-Portuguese ( or Luso-Indian ) type, a fusion of European and Oriental technology perfected in the Portuguese territory of Goa, India, in the early 16th cent. A brief history: 1. Portugal was unique among western European countries in relying almost exclusively on a snap matchlock whose serpentine was powered by an external leaf spring. The prototype for this is a crude version first made in the late 15th cent. in the German-speaking realm of Bohemia, introduced to Portugal via a trade network involving German merchants (see Daehnhardt, ESPINGARDA FEITICEIRA, pp 49ff & figs.). These rudimentary muskets were widely used by the Portuguese for several decades as they improved their workmanship and design considerably in their own arsenals, 2. Both the German guns and their Portuguese derivatives were brought to the East, and when Portugal established an armory at Goa in the second decade of the 16th cent., Indian craftsmen further modified the design by introducing a very short, almost pistol-like buttstock held against the cheek, not the shoulder, when aiming. They also reduced the caliber and made the gun lighter and more balanced. This was a hit with the Portuguese who did a lot of fighting aboard ship and on river craft, and valued a more compact gun. A sumptuously decorated Goanese gun of this type, ca. 1550, is preserved at the Rustkammer in Dresden (current inv. no. G.1116, formerly S.181 in the 1606 inventory). 3. The Portuguese brought Sri Lanka, parts of the Bengal and Burma coasts, Malaya, and the Indochinese coast under their sway in the years following their conquest of Goa in 1510. Within a decade or two they were in Taiwan and the south China coast. Wherever they went, the locals enthusiastically copied these muskets and made their own versions, differing stylistically but retaining the same mechanicals and the cheek buttstocks. 4. I see from pics of your gun that the serpentine pivot bolt seems to run through the stock and is anchored on the left side via a crosspin. This is a holdover from the primitive Bohemian prototypes, whose serpentine pivots are screwed right into the wooden stock. Most Malay guns have this same arrangement, albeit of much finer craftsmanship. So do most Chinese versions; both areas are believed to have received the technology from the Portuguese in the 1520s-30s. 5. The Portuguese first reached Japan in 1543, they had guns with them and as they say, the rest is history. By then, though, the armorers at Lisbon and Goa had improved on the locks again, this time attaching the serpentine pivot bolt to the lockplate itself. This didn't noticeably improve shooting performance but enabled the entire lock to be removed as a unit, making repairs and maintenance easier. The Japanese guns have this feature. So do Korean matchlocks which are almost identical in all respects, Korea having received musket technology not directly from the Portuguese but rather second-hand from the Japanese as a result of the Hideyoshi invasion of the 1590s. 6. I mentioned above that the artisans at Goa tended to downsize the scale of the weapons in favor of ease of handling and firing (keeping in mind that the muskets of most north European countries weighed as much as 20 lb and required a forked rest under the barrel for a steady aim). However, these Malay guns tend to be long and quite heavy. Actually uncomfortable to hold unsupported when aiming, especially when considering the relative small stature of the people using them. This is in contrast to Indo-Portuguese matchlocks from the rest of Asia, which are generally quite easy to handle and are of manageable size. It is thought by some writers that these firearms were meant to be fired from a defensive posture (as from a parapet) but I'd like to see further research to confirm this. Compared to the field of Malay edged weapons, these firearms have not been well covered in the academic press, and I'm open to any references that fellow forumites may have found that will shed more light on the actual usage of these. (W. Egerton's AN ILLUSTRATED HANDBOOK OF INDIAN ARMS... p 63 has a very interesting quote on the manufacture of gun barrels in Lombok, Java, but says nothing about the use or ethnographic context of the finished product.)