European Military Patterns- Ethnographic or not?

S.Al-Anizi · 7th January 2007, 08:03 PM

Hello,

Another one of my 'useful' (?) topics. Something that I really did not understand, ever. Many threads over here, including one recently, featured european military issue blades, raised the issue whether they are suitably discussed here or not. I am wondering the same thing, why couldnt these swords and bayonets, or lets call them daggers if you want to sound ethnographic

, be labled and discussed as European ethnographic? Just as so called 'islamic' weaponry is very similar in dimensions, and styles, these swords, used from Russia, to Spain and Portugal, and later America, had very similar designs and origins, which I believe where eastern European (am I correct here?)

Jim McDougall · 7th January 2007, 09:57 PM

Interesting topic

I think this is reaching a bit though and stretching the ethnographic denominator to these dimensions would severely inhibit reasonable and effective classification of weaponry. It is however a thought that has crossed my mind and I'm sure others many times, for example Scottish basket hilts...these clans were tribal highlanders much the same as Caucasians; or Southeast Asians in Laos, Vietnam, Assam etc. In studying the famed American Bowie knife, here is an indiginous weapon form that developed in the U.S. although undoubtedly influenced by knives from the Meditteranean, and curiously mostly later produced by English makers, Yet I am not certain that the term ethnographic would properly apply here.

In my opinion, and as I have noted, many military regulation pattern weapons may be considered 'associated' with the ethnographic weapons we study and typically are best discussed under appropriate heading. I have noted that in many instances the 'association' becomes more direct when components of these pattern weapons become mounted in or the form influences native weapons. Instances of this are of course in India, where many tulwars were mounted with British blades; in Africa where Manding sabres etc. are mounted with French or German regulation blades, with of course many other instances in many colonial spheres.

There are also of course instances where an ethnographic weapon form has become a regulation military form, where the kukri is a classic example.

I think the course of weapons study can function well within the existing perameters without further delineation as it serves well to focus on the weapon being discussed without such concerns.
Still an interesting view though

Best regards,
Jim

Rivkin · 8th January 2007, 03:24 AM

I can just give my opinion - why not, but most of pattern weapons are not truly ethnographic weapons. "Pattern" community is very different; a big thing there is to have a sword typical for some high class and relatively small unit (like light brigade), especially with good provenance or even decorations. They have completely separate books, gatherings and forums that for example I do not know much about. It is just historically a different community.

Concerning sabre's origins - well it certainly not China (my unacademic and unguric opinion), even though they had sabres under Han dynasty, they just disappeared with no consequence.
In my opinion sabre appeared in VIIth century in Khazar Empire, essentially a little bit to the north of Dagestan. Khazars had a very diverse population, which somewhat artificially can be split by burial customs into settled "alanics" (catacombes), "turkic" (kurgans) and unknown (cremation). The division is highly speculative since turks also did use catacombes and iranics did use kurgans, so it is more cultural than language-related thing.
Concerning cremation-users, they were strange people, sort of shock-troopers. The only nation where you very often see full set of arms and armour - mail, spear, sabre, bow etc. Additionally you often see a lot of healed wounds on these soldiers. They also did not have infantry, only cavalry. There are many theories concerning who were these people (khazar nobility, avars and so on and so on, russian fashits obviously believe they were ancient russians), but they used sabres, i.e. weapons with initially small but noticable curvature. The sabre then spread both to the west and to the east (interestinly enough mongols per se, i.e. the tribes of eastern syberia were actually one of the last to hold on to straight swords) and curvature grew. Strangely it grew very extensively among circassians (something like twice the rate of any surrounding nation), so it is quite possible in my opinion that "shamshir"-like sabres appear in XIIIth century circassian areas, later to be replaced in these areas by a circassian sabre (which was actually designed for stabbing due to its peculiar points. I do not believe in hooking stabs made with shamshirs, never read about it. With a circassian sword - it was designed for it).

In Europe the sabre sort of stagnates until the "revival" of its popularity in XVIIth century (one can say due to the polish influence, or one can say due to tatar influence, often transmitted through the poles).

ShayanMirza · 8th January 2007, 03:47 AM

Wow, that's a great summary of saber history!

Regarding shamshirs, the writings extant in English have little to do with practicality, with some even speculating they were solely for hunting animals. However, my martial arts instructor (32 years experience studying and teaching numerous martial arts) demonstrated hooking thrusts to me with it while blunt steel sparring, and they were spectacular. I put far more stock in hands-on practicality in the world of weapons than I do on writing when it comes to technique.

Rivkin · 8th January 2007, 04:15 AM

It is your call. I believe that medieval training manuals/accounts should be consulted when one is interested in medieval fighting techniques; I do not believe in middle-eastern martial artists - most of them can't half-decently ride a horse, which brings into question whether they really understand the use of horse-based weaponry (which is what the east is all about) neither they ever killed someone in battle, i.e. they don't really know how the real use of the weapons look like.

ShayanMirza · 8th January 2007, 04:17 AM

Well that's interesting that you don't believe in the martial capabilities of hundreds of millions of people, but he's not Middle Eastern to begin with.

Just curious, where are you from?

Jim McDougall · 8th January 2007, 04:20 AM

Exactly

RhysMichael · 8th January 2007, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rivkin

I do not believe in middle-eastern martial artists - most of them can't half-decently ride a horse, which brings into question whether they really understand the use of horse-based weaponry (which is what the east is all about) neither they ever killed someone in battle, i.e. they don't really know how the real use of the weapons look like.

I understand your being skeptical but I do not know how many middle eastern martial artists you have seen. I know my sampling would be very small but I would not dismiss it as not having true matial arts practicioners. If you were to come to my home town you could go from matial arts school to maritlal arts school and depending on luck of the draw never go to a school where the instructor had actually been in a fight or done contact sparring. Does that mean there are no true eastern matial artists here? No, it does not. There are many good schools here, but they often are not the best marketed or the ones with the fullest classes. I can remember when FMA were virtually unknown outside their country of origin. They were not comercialized and publisized but they were there. It difficult to find a true Bando or Thaing school now. But I do not believe these martial arts are dead. How long ago was it that SCA sparring was considered a true representation of WMA ? If you had looked at them would you have said there were no true WMA martial artists? or just that they were a rarity ?

I agree to you that many of those who tout themself as experts of middle eastern matial arts ( or any other martial art ) are not and we should look at them with a "show me" attitude but that does not mean they do not exist

Mark · 12th January 2007, 03:18 PM

We have discussed from time-to-time whether certain weapons qualify as "ethnographic" for the purposes of this forum (by the way, the name has changed to "Arms & Armour," so we are allowed to discuss non-edged weapons as well

).

What is ethnic to one person is cultural to another. From our Western point of view weapons such as tulwars and keris are "ethnic" because they come from other cultures. On the other hand, our Indian, Malay and Indonesian colleagues would rightly view a US Civil War sabre, a rapier, or a Viking sword as "ethnic."

My view is that any weapon that is specific to a culture meets the definition of "ethnographic." This basically excludes fantasy weapons, or weapons so generic that they are not identifiable as belonging to any particular culture. A switchblade, or a modern machete or handgun could fall into the latter category, for example.

As a practical matter, we don't see much discussion here of Western military weapons, medieval and earlier European weapons, or nihon-to, because collectors of these weapons tend to form a distinct group apart from the collectors of other weapons.

Philip · 13th January 2007, 02:06 AM

Mark,
I made a suggestion for a "sticky" pertaining to the definition of ethnographic, and put it on that thread about the Wehrmacht dagger. Rather than repeat it here, could you check it out and see if it's worth implementing?

Jim McDougall · 16th January 2007, 03:09 AM

Thanks very much Katana

!

Mark, very well explained on the 'ethnographic term' and I'm glad that the arms and armour heading was added to widen our scope. It is of course the nature of studying weapons that there will always be instances where a topic exceed subject guidelines, but it seems one never knows where important data pertinant to our studies may turn up!!~

Paul,
Thank you very much for posting that data on the use of the old M1796 blades, exactly the reference I was thinking of!!!! I really appreciate you posting it, and BTW, its great seeing your posts here!!

With all best regards,
Jim

Mark · 16th January 2007, 04:31 PM

The moderators have been kicking around the idea of defining the meaning of "ethnographic" for this purposes of this forum.

Personally, I hate to give the impression that we are imposing a bright-line exclusion of any one group of collectors. On the other hand, rather by definition this forum is directed to a particular sub-group of weapons & armor.

Anyway, Lee pointed out that he has provided a definition on the main page of the Ethnographic Edged Weapons Resource site page. I have added a sticky note at the top of the General forum, providing this definition.

We are not going to create any particular class of "prohibitted" weapons/armor, though. I think that the natural flow of the forum will be away from discussion of things that do not fit this definition of "ethnographic," so the definition I put up in the sticky post should not be taken as a strict prohibition against any discussion of things falling outside that definition. As several people have pointed out, often there is a direct relation between more standardized weapon and tool patterns and what can be considered "ethnographic," so some discussion of things like military pattern weapons can be enriching to the overall discussion.

The tastes and interests of the forum membership naturally control the type and extent of discussion of weapons and armor on the forum. If a topic has some relevance to our interests, discussion will obviously continue as long as that interest lasts. My guess is that in many cases, a post on a pattern European sabre will be met largely with indifference.

Of course, a post on the latest fantasy offering from Museum Replicas, or a Paul Chen Practical Katana is going to be met with a polite "wrong forum" message from the staff.

7th January 2007, 08:03 PM	#1
S.Al-Anizi Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Arabia Posts: 278	European Military Patterns- Ethnographic or not? Hello, Another one of my 'useful' (?) topics. Something that I really did not understand, ever. Many threads over here, including one recently, featured european military issue blades, raised the issue whether they are suitably discussed here or not. I am wondering the same thing, why couldnt these swords and bayonets, or lets call them daggers if you want to sound ethnographic , be labled and discussed as European ethnographic? Just as so called 'islamic' weaponry is very similar in dimensions, and styles, these swords, used from Russia, to Spain and Portugal, and later America, had very similar designs and origins, which I believe where eastern European (am I correct here?)

13th January 2007, 02:06 AM	#10
Philip Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: California Posts: 1,036	suggestion for a sticky Mark, I made a suggestion for a "sticky" pertaining to the definition of ethnographic, and put it on that thread about the Wehrmacht dagger. Rather than repeat it here, could you check it out and see if it's worth implementing?

16th January 2007, 03:09 AM	#11
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 9,938	Thanks very much Katana! Mark, very well explained on the 'ethnographic term' and I'm glad that the arms and armour heading was added to widen our scope. It is of course the nature of studying weapons that there will always be instances where a topic exceed subject guidelines, but it seems one never knows where important data pertinant to our studies may turn up!!~ Paul, Thank you very much for posting that data on the use of the old M1796 blades, exactly the reference I was thinking of!!!! I really appreciate you posting it, and BTW, its great seeing your posts here!! With all best regards, Jim Last edited by Jim McDougall; 16th January 2007 at 03:21 AM.

16th January 2007, 04:31 PM	#12
Mark Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 987	An "official" definition of sorts The moderators have been kicking around the idea of defining the meaning of "ethnographic" for this purposes of this forum. Personally, I hate to give the impression that we are imposing a bright-line exclusion of any one group of collectors. On the other hand, rather by definition this forum is directed to a particular sub-group of weapons & armor. Anyway, Lee pointed out that he has provided a definition on the main page of the Ethnographic Edged Weapons Resource site page. I have added a sticky note at the top of the General forum, providing this definition. We are not going to create any particular class of "prohibitted" weapons/armor, though. I think that the natural flow of the forum will be away from discussion of things that do not fit this definition of "ethnographic," so the definition I put up in the sticky post should not be taken as a strict prohibition against any discussion of things falling outside that definition. As several people have pointed out, often there is a direct relation between more standardized weapon and tool patterns and what can be considered "ethnographic," so some discussion of things like military pattern weapons can be enriching to the overall discussion. The tastes and interests of the forum membership naturally control the type and extent of discussion of weapons and armor on the forum. If a topic has some relevance to our interests, discussion will obviously continue as long as that interest lasts. My guess is that in many cases, a post on a pattern European sabre will be met largely with indifference. Of course, a post on the latest fantasy offering from Museum Replicas, or a Paul Chen Practical Katana is going to be met with a polite "wrong forum" message from the staff.

7th January 2007, 09:57 PM	#2
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 9,938	Interesting topic I think this is reaching a bit though and stretching the ethnographic denominator to these dimensions would severely inhibit reasonable and effective classification of weaponry. It is however a thought that has crossed my mind and I'm sure others many times, for example Scottish basket hilts...these clans were tribal highlanders much the same as Caucasians; or Southeast Asians in Laos, Vietnam, Assam etc. In studying the famed American Bowie knife, here is an indiginous weapon form that developed in the U.S. although undoubtedly influenced by knives from the Meditteranean, and curiously mostly later produced by English makers, Yet I am not certain that the term ethnographic would properly apply here. In my opinion, and as I have noted, many military regulation pattern weapons may be considered 'associated' with the ethnographic weapons we study and typically are best discussed under appropriate heading. I have noted that in many instances the 'association' becomes more direct when components of these pattern weapons become mounted in or the form influences native weapons. Instances of this are of course in India, where many tulwars were mounted with British blades; in Africa where Manding sabres etc. are mounted with French or German regulation blades, with of course many other instances in many colonial spheres. There are also of course instances where an ethnographic weapon form has become a regulation military form, where the kukri is a classic example. I think the course of weapons study can function well within the existing perameters without further delineation as it serves well to focus on the weapon being discussed without such concerns. Still an interesting view though Best regards, Jim

8th January 2007, 03:24 AM	#3
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	I can just give my opinion - why not, but most of pattern weapons are not truly ethnographic weapons. "Pattern" community is very different; a big thing there is to have a sword typical for some high class and relatively small unit (like light brigade), especially with good provenance or even decorations. They have completely separate books, gatherings and forums that for example I do not know much about. It is just historically a different community. Concerning sabre's origins - well it certainly not China (my unacademic and unguric opinion), even though they had sabres under Han dynasty, they just disappeared with no consequence. In my opinion sabre appeared in VIIth century in Khazar Empire, essentially a little bit to the north of Dagestan. Khazars had a very diverse population, which somewhat artificially can be split by burial customs into settled "alanics" (catacombes), "turkic" (kurgans) and unknown (cremation). The division is highly speculative since turks also did use catacombes and iranics did use kurgans, so it is more cultural than language-related thing. Concerning cremation-users, they were strange people, sort of shock-troopers. The only nation where you very often see full set of arms and armour - mail, spear, sabre, bow etc. Additionally you often see a lot of healed wounds on these soldiers. They also did not have infantry, only cavalry. There are many theories concerning who were these people (khazar nobility, avars and so on and so on, russian fashits obviously believe they were ancient russians), but they used sabres, i.e. weapons with initially small but noticable curvature. The sabre then spread both to the west and to the east (interestinly enough mongols per se, i.e. the tribes of eastern syberia were actually one of the last to hold on to straight swords) and curvature grew. Strangely it grew very extensively among circassians (something like twice the rate of any surrounding nation), so it is quite possible in my opinion that "shamshir"-like sabres appear in XIIIth century circassian areas, later to be replaced in these areas by a circassian sabre (which was actually designed for stabbing due to its peculiar points. I do not believe in hooking stabs made with shamshirs, never read about it. With a circassian sword - it was designed for it). In Europe the sabre sort of stagnates until the "revival" of its popularity in XVIIth century (one can say due to the polish influence, or one can say due to tatar influence, often transmitted through the poles).

8th January 2007, 03:47 AM	#4
ShayanMirza Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Charlottesville Posts: 25	Wow, that's a great summary of saber history! Regarding shamshirs, the writings extant in English have little to do with practicality, with some even speculating they were solely for hunting animals. However, my martial arts instructor (32 years experience studying and teaching numerous martial arts) demonstrated hooking thrusts to me with it while blunt steel sparring, and they were spectacular. I put far more stock in hands-on practicality in the world of weapons than I do on writing when it comes to technique.

8th January 2007, 04:15 AM	#5
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	It is your call. I believe that medieval training manuals/accounts should be consulted when one is interested in medieval fighting techniques; I do not believe in middle-eastern martial artists - most of them can't half-decently ride a horse, which brings into question whether they really understand the use of horse-based weaponry (which is what the east is all about) neither they ever killed someone in battle, i.e. they don't really know how the real use of the weapons look like.

8th January 2007, 04:17 AM	#6
ShayanMirza Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Charlottesville Posts: 25	Well that's interesting that you don't believe in the martial capabilities of hundreds of millions of people, but he's not Middle Eastern to begin with. Just curious, where are you from?

8th January 2007, 04:20 AM	#7
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 9,938	Exactly

12th January 2007, 03:18 PM	#9
Mark Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 987	We have discussed from time-to-time whether certain weapons qualify as "ethnographic" for the purposes of this forum (by the way, the name has changed to "Arms & Armour," so we are allowed to discuss non-edged weapons as well ). What is ethnic to one person is cultural to another. From our Western point of view weapons such as tulwars and keris are "ethnic" because they come from other cultures. On the other hand, our Indian, Malay and Indonesian colleagues would rightly view a US Civil War sabre, a rapier, or a Viking sword as "ethnic." My view is that any weapon that is specific to a culture meets the definition of "ethnographic." This basically excludes fantasy weapons, or weapons so generic that they are not identifiable as belonging to any particular culture. A switchblade, or a modern machete or handgun could fall into the latter category, for example. As a practical matter, we don't see much discussion here of Western military weapons, medieval and earlier European weapons, or nihon-to, because collectors of these weapons tend to form a distinct group apart from the collectors of other weapons.