Moro kampilan (?) Spanish American war era

[AHite]

I attended a militaria show this weekend and purchased this interesting Moro sword. The dealer is a friend who acquired this and other Moro bladed weapons that were brought back by US soldiers from the Spanish American war. Some of the pieces (not mine) have old museum tags on them.

I bought this piece because of the dragon head handle and the overall good condition of it. I don't know if kampilan is the right term for this sword. The blade is not the typical kampilan style. It is very sharp, and as found slices paper quite nicely. There are markings on the spine of the blade, XXX. Not sure if these indicate anything or just decoration. The blade measures 17-1/2 inches/ 44.45cm.

The handle is horn, with a great carved dragon head. The handle appears to be pinned in two places to the tang. I've never seen this on a Filipino sword. I don't have any reason to doubt the age of the sword as presented to me, but would like the opinions of other members. Also, if it is indeed a product of the Moros. My friend still has another sword, similar to mine, a nice barong, and two Moro kris swords all from the same collection for sale. Hopefully I can acquire these at some point from him.

Regards,
Andrew

[werecow]

Not a kampilan but a ginunting if I'm not mistaken.

[JeffS]

Nice score. Blade certainly looks ginunting-like based on classifications I have learned here. Is it chisel ground? The guard style is not typical for these nor the pins securing the handle but the scabbard, ferrule and dragon would align with that classification. Kino posted an unusual old dragon handled ginunting-like sword with atypical guard. We have also seen some Visayan daggers with similar guard style. They would be more typical of Luzon. http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=29866. Can we get a better picture of the dragon?

[AHite]

Here's a closer picture of the dragon head. It has mother of pearl inserts for the eyes. I also added a picture of the blade and the markings on the spine. The blade is not chisel grind, not like the talabongs I have in my collection. It has a slight bevel on each side.

Thanks for clarifying the name of this type of sword!

Andrew

[JeffS]

Interesting, I only have one Visayan sword with double grind - it may be uncommon. I posted that one previously but it did not draw much conversation. I think that the triple X on spine is fairly common including parallel lines on the sides, but not sure on what look to be Roman tally mark 5's on your example though. It would certainly be interesting if these markings are intended to be numbers. Here is a likely 19C Visayan sword that I have with XXX spine markings. Hope to hear from the experts.

[Jim McDougall]

Being completely unfamiliar with Filipino weapons, I have had this example for more years than I can say, always thinking of it as a 'bolo' (no laughing) with that as a catch all term I guess.

It seems to have a resemblance to this posted example IMO. Could this be one of these? Are these indeed Moro? I presume also a Spanish-American war bringback.

The reason I got it was the hilt style with guard had a characteristic similarity to the Spanish colonial espada ancha, and figured it was reflecting influences of those much earlier swords but with Filipino blade.