Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
Jim,
I have only a passing understanding of Moro armour in the Philippines. While I see some commonalities with the boiled leather form you show, it does not resemble the construction of Moro armour that I have seen and you have described here.
Regards, Ian.
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Thank you Ian. This armor came out of an auction sometime in 1957 in California and was grouped with other Spanish colonial items including a morion. It was acquired by a renowned Arizona antiquarian named Gil Procter who operated a small museum previously held by Pete Kitchen, another legendary figure in Arizona history from the 1870s.
The cuirass was in this time on display from 1958 until Procters death in the 1960s. From here it with many other items it went into storage and obscurity until ultimately ending up in an estate sale over 20 years ago.
It was then acquired by an Arizona dealer and appraiser who is well known in American Indian and Spanish colonial arts and cultural items.
At no point in the entire time of this example has it ever been described as anything other than a very old Spanish leather cuirass, which were known to be in use in the Spanish southwest from end of 17th century into early 18th.
The difference in this type of armor from the regularly known type of leather armor is that this is of cuir boulli, a hardened rawhide of ox. The other more ubiquitous type is of buckskin, often deerhide, which is tanned and treated leather, in layers sewn together into a jacket (cuera) which was long and open in front.
In these times metal cuirasses were hard to come by in these remote frontier regions, and mail was also hard to maintain. The problem with these forms of armor was also they were not durable in the heat and climate, heavy and with mail, it did not protect well against arrows. In most cases, especially if mail had become compromised with rust or corrosion arrows could easily penetrate and worse, carry contaminated metal shards into the wounds.
In the cuir boulli cuirass shown here, there is question on the decorative elements and motif, indicating it resembles OKIR, which is a complex Philippine motif typically vegetal in character.
Here what I would point out is that in this period in New Spain in late 17th century, European art styles in baroque manner were well established with Indian artists, such as the Pueblo, who produced artwork which often combined their own styles with the baroque type decoration. This is the case with this armor which is believed to be represented in a painting of the massacre of the Spanish and Pueblo expedition from Santa Fe into Nebraska in 1720. This work is on buffalo hides and atypical of most Pueblo paintings typically produced in Santa Fe, which were more commonly ecclesiastic and Catholic oriented of course. Baroque art was a theme developed by Catholic Faith in early 17th century which held into mid 18th, and even longer in Spanish contexts.
As far as I have discovered, the construction of this rawhide cuirass is not consistent with any of the scale and mail armor assemblies of the Moro in the Philippines which are typically 19th c. and of carabou (water buffalo) and brass links. The presumably okir style decoration on them seems characteristically placed on the scales in brass cutout elements.
In this armor the decoration, in stylized baroque floral figures, is cut into the rawhide apparently after the hardening process.
In the construction of this armor, it is open at the side, where it was lashed together. Note the projections at the neck both front and back which were to prevent knife cuts, these not present of course on Moro armors.
Illustrated are okir style motifs left and baroque right
The cuirass, and the Pueblo painting of c. 1726 showing a Pueblo warrior wearing what appears to be this type armor, and what seems to be a representation of what Holz ("The Segesser Hide Paintings", 1970, Gottfried Holz). terms 'insignia'. This reference occurs pertaining to many of the over 46 other warriors in these paintings (Segesser II) with similar type armor.
The Mabagani armor shown in post #5 in my opinion does show tenuous similarity to elements of the discussed cuirass, but these may likely be to exposure to these types of earlier Spanish style armor sometime in the centuries the Spaniards were in the Philippines. While the Moros did not copy Spanish style armors typically, there seems to be an equal degree of copying of Spanish helmets, with a vestigial degree of elements such as the 'comb' on the morions ....but overall the Moro versions resemble burgonets.