It's probably an old cut, long since worn over, as most usually had a butt of some kind, usually metal.
It's possible that, like the Indonesian tombak, they were mounted on shorter shafts for convenient storage or display as they went out of use as the wall on even many tribal huts and homes were still too small for the full sized weapon, but I'm not sure about that.....members with roots from the area would probably have better information on that as far as local customs go.
Mike
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