Hi Bill the tribal art dealer who sell the armour in Californie did make it complete with one off my spears .
I used to have a nice Nias collection before I start to collect Iban and Muruts weapons.
mostly of these Items went to a great friend of mine that was well known and respected and I miss him a lot because he passed away.
His name was Hank off Cyberantiqeus.
In the Netherlands you can find more about Nias than in Indonesian because we have a lot in the museum and the museum data base
Same about the kris in the Netherlands more about this sublect than anywhere else
The point that Cyclura wanna make is this an bellato that used as origin as an headhunting weapon that comes from the time they taking heads is hard to get .
So people start to copy it to make money ( we see thes on krissen mandau moro krissen weapons unfortunally they come a lot on the market if you like these items it is oke)
BUT THESE ARE MAKE FOR TOURIST AND MAKE MONEY PEOPLE WHO SEE THEM A LOT ON EBAY THINK 50 years THAT IS OLD THESE ITEMS BECOME
STANDARD NIAS PIECES BUT THEY AREN T:
It is also I see it a lot with mandau s that comes on the market if you like them it is okee but don think most of the pieces you can buy in Borneo ( Kuching very bad place to buy a mandau) that they are old and ever used for head hunting.
I know Chris has an outstanding collection of Nias stuf I send him recently
an 2 spears from an very old dutch collections that have been in the Netherlands for at least 100 years.
One off them used by an South Nias chief for headhunting.
I can reccommanded the book about Nias by Schröder but on the moment
I think the price is a little over $5,000.00 on Abebooks.
the data base in the museum of Leiden is very good Nusantara also the Kit museum in Amsterdam is very nice so take a plane to the Netherlands and I show you the Museum spots.
Regards Ben
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