Oh, I'm not purist in any kind of way. I just want to find out as much as possible about this particular weapon. It's not like I would throw it away if I found out it was not "the real thing".
As an amatuer linguist who learns a few Austronesian languages I'm very aware of the local differences (Podang, Pedang etc.). Apart from actual dialectic differences such different spellings can often be traced back to the Europeans who where the first one's to put a native language to paper. What sounded like "Pedang" to a British colonialist might have sounded like a "Podang" to his Dutch colleague, even though they basically heard the same word.