Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

ariel · 15th August 2016, 01:26 AM

Based on iconography, tulwars were used mainly for deer hunting, whereas katars were most often shown as implements of tiger hunting by the Rajahs.

Great populations of deer likely explain the abundance of hunting tulwars, but I have my doubts that there were enough tigers hunts to justify the profusion of katars with hunting scenes.

Here is my attempt to utilize Enrico Fermi's "guess-timate method" that served him exceedingly well : in a series of guesses, over,- and under estimates cancel each other.

As per this paper

http://voices.nationalgeographic.com...ting-in-india/

between 1875 and 1925, 80,000 tigers were killed in India, i.e. roughly 1 per day ( that includes organized hunts for visiting dignitaries as well as "mechanized" hunts with cars, machine guns and cannon). Also, that includes the REPORTED number of tigers killed by professional hunters outside the royal hunts, but let's ignore it for the sake of simplicity and attribute ALL to royal hunts.

Prior to Indian independence ( 1947) there were roughly 250 princely states

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...tates_of_India.

Thus, each Rajah had a chance to organize a tiger hunt and to kill one tiger roughly every 250 days, i.e. once- twice a year.

Was it really necessary to produce that many tiger-hunting katars specifically for such an infrequent occurence?

15th August 2016, 01:26 AM	#37
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Based on iconography, tulwars were used mainly for deer hunting, whereas katars were most often shown as implements of tiger hunting by the Rajahs. Great populations of deer likely explain the abundance of hunting tulwars, but I have my doubts that there were enough tigers hunts to justify the profusion of katars with hunting scenes. Here is my attempt to utilize Enrico Fermi's "guess-timate method" that served him exceedingly well : in a series of guesses, over,- and under estimates cancel each other. As per this paper http://voices.nationalgeographic.com...ting-in-india/ between 1875 and 1925, 80,000 tigers were killed in India, i.e. roughly 1 per day ( that includes organized hunts for visiting dignitaries as well as "mechanized" hunts with cars, machine guns and cannon). Also, that includes the REPORTED number of tigers killed by professional hunters outside the royal hunts, but let's ignore it for the sake of simplicity and attribute ALL to royal hunts. Prior to Indian independence ( 1947) there were roughly 250 princely states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...tates_of_India. Thus, each Rajah had a chance to organize a tiger hunt and to kill one tiger roughly every 250 days, i.e. once- twice a year. Was it really necessary to produce that many tiger-hunting katars specifically for such an infrequent occurence? Last edited by ariel; 15th August 2016 at 07:32 AM.