Nice piece Charles.
They have indeed become family heirlooms and are much sought after in Coorg circles. I have been lucky enough to have been given native insight in to these knives.
I quote directly from one email;"Piche-katti means handy knife. We grow coffee, rice and coconuts back in Coorg and in the old days they used it to harvest paddy and today the knife is used to break open coconuts in a wedding as a part of the welcome ceremony", unquote...images of the ceremony were supplied to me that I cannot share here.
Quote, "Every Coorg man gets one done when he gets marries and I got one done a couple years ago(see attached)", unquote...again, I cannot share the images here.
Gavin
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