I dug up this dress-less Maranao kris (blade only), and decided to rebuild it with a vintage Maranao hilt with carabao horn pommel, plus Zamboanga-made asang-asang. I decided not to include a ferrule (I didn't have one that could fit, and a lot of Maranao kris hilts don't have ferrules anway). I don't have the materials (nor the skill) to build a scabbard- and I didn't want the kris to travel to the South just yet, so it's still incomplete. It's long (24.2in blade) and heavy; the engraved old Arabic characters were translated by a Malaysian scholar as the "Kalimah Syahadah" or Shahada. It carries a deep religious implication; according to a Mindanao scholar, the kris was likely used for qurbani (Islamic ritual sacrifices). IMO it was engraved and assumed its ritual role at a later time; in its previous life, it may have been a dedicated battlefield kris.
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