machetes,, regional styles..

ausjulius · 6th September 2008, 03:10 AM

has anyone here got a collection of different machetes from specific regions in south america?
as there seems realy to be a good deal of regional difference in sheath handle and blade shape and use..

also i do wounder if there is any localy made patterns of machete in africa , as it appears that the machete comming to africa in a european introduction and so the patterns used are introduced patterns... i wounder if there is a local style that is localy made.??

anyone have any good reference on the history of the machete and the different styles that wer epopular at different times??

(i have a serious machette adiction... they are just such useful tools )

RSWORD · 6th September 2008, 03:32 AM

This should provide a good start for you.

http://www.vikingsword.com/rila/index.html

ausjulius · 6th September 2008, 04:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RSWORD

This should provide a good start for you.

http://www.vikingsword.com/rila/index.html

hahar,, ah yes i have already read this some time back.

has anyone got any drawings or pictures of the mentioned "wacking sticks" used by the natives.. and what area is this refering to brazil and the south or mexico and the central america??

does anyone know who was the first firm to commercialy produce machetes?

i woudl think some firm in spain but i guess maybe, more likely england due to the advancement in hot rolling there in the 18th centuray..

has anyone and information on regional types and historical regional types , that maybe are no longer common??

ive seen quite some variation in the handles of the machetes on mexican machetes alone.. some being quite fancy with several spurs or a lather large hook on the pommel sometimes almost shaped like a z, and it seems these are from specific regions,,
some have partial tangs some full , some tapered.. ect ect
ive notices also brazil and the caribbein winding the grip with wire is popular..
also is having a carved pommel on these hidden tang machetes.. normaly a dog s head or a boot or the head ot a rooster or such is common,

also i have noticed sheath style is quite different in each area,, there seems to be quite a few way that the sheaths belt loop is produced,, each more common in one specific area..

machetes rely facinate me as they are a "new" style of ethnographic knife .. that had not exisisted until recently .. but now is so wiedspread around the world..

anyone got any good collection with information about the reginonal popularity of specific models ??

Berkley · 6th September 2008, 05:50 AM

While not really responsive to your question, you might find this of interest regarding African machetes.
I acquired this well-used Masai seme some time back, and upon examination it was obvious that it started life as a plastic-handled factory-made machete. In tracking down the manufacturer's mark, I discovered that a principal source of contemporay machete production is China, which was the original source for my creatively recycled machete.

ausjulius · 6th September 2008, 06:42 AM

haha interesting , yes "diamond brand" the make copies of martindales products, hoes and machetes ect ect,, ive found their machetes normaly much harder than martindales and cannot be sharpened with a file..
normaly stiffer also... i remember when i lives in australia diamond brand goloks were common , . the quality varied greatly ,, but actualy several i owned were better than the original :O others were much worse..

it is interesting that there is not a firm producing masi knives anymore.. ive seen old english made seme blades.. but all ive seen were forged blades...

interesting machete

Gonzalo G · 7th September 2008, 10:52 AM

I find many questionable statements in that article. From the concept of the machete, to the history of it´s development in America and it´s types. The machete, as we actually know it, is the result of an evolution which begins in Spain, and not with the whacking sticks of aboriginal americans. This evolution implies many diverse forms, geometries and measures, some of which are reflected on the actual machetes. The machete has been, historically, a tool and a weapon, even today, no matter the intentions of their actual manofacturers. We produce and use still today in Mexico, machetes with hanguards and elaboratedly hilts with eagle pommels decorated with silver, and blades with etched inscriptions tipical of the motos used on the military swords. And people use them as a weapon.

Tough the machete have been progressively used more as a tool than as a weapon, since it´s origins and difussion throught the spanish army, and latter throught the spanish settlers, the machetes were used by the commoneers to make war or to work on the fields in agricultural and cattle raising activities. The spanish army, by Royal Order of october 5th, 1841, adopted the machete for all the infantry and provincial militias, since the saber "...in the present cirumstances and the actual state in the art of the war, it is a a bothersome and impeding weapon on the march and manoeuvres, useless on encampments and combats". (Free traslation form a quote made by José Luis Calvó, a distinguished researcher on this subject, on his article "Sables, Espadas y Machetes Distintivo de Clases de a Pié I", page 27). In other words, the machete was adopted as the sidearm of the infantry, artillery and engineer corps since then.

This, conducted to the development of some colonial versions of the military machete on Cuba and the Phillipines, and influenced the versions of this weapon in Mexico, thought independent from Spain since 1821. The very war of independence of Mexico, and latter the civil wars and the wars made against foreign interventionist countries, were made with the massive use of the machete as a sidearm. It can be said that agicultural implements were used in all the world to make wars, but as I stated, the machete was also specifically a weapon, and it took several military types which still survive. The traditional machete was not the actual laminated thin blade massively produced, but has a tapered blade aproximately 5mm thick at their beginning, and has the profile of a wedge. Examples survive on mexican museums.

The actual machete is the result of the industrialized and cheap version of it, designed by countries foreign to this tradition, in order to satisfy the needs of the markets of the less industrialized countries. Hardly an "ethnic" edged tool, or just as ethnic, as the bowies made for the United States on the Sheffield factories in England in the 19th Century, with which the machete shares the fact of being a tool and a weapon. Is as ethnic, as the malayan-indonesian edged weapons made by Valiant Co. And though many of this less indutrialized countries actually make the same cheap models, their direct origin is found in Collins, the Solingen factories and other manofacturers in Europe and the United States. Another thing is to study the traditional old machete.
My best regards

Gonzalo

Billman · 4th November 2010, 02:56 PM

The working tool of Europe, used in all countries from Scanadinavia to North Africa, and from Britain to Russia was the billhook. First developed in Mesopotania (now Iran/Iraq) it spread eastwards into Indo China and west into the Ancient Greek Empire and thus throughout the Mediterranean regions. With the Romans it spread further into mainland Europe, although in England it was being used prior to the Roman invasions c 50AD... Originally cast in bronze, by the late Iron Age the types now seen being used for coppice work and hedge laying were already in common usage.

Machete like blades were used in Roman times, but I guess that it these developed later, especially after the Spanish colonisation of the Americas - and were probably a specialised version of the infantry sword.... In Northern Europe the Fascine Knife, with a straight blade, became the infantry general purpose tool, but in France Italy and England the curved billhook was widely used by the armies..

Billhooks are not all concave: straight edged blades and even convex blades exist in some regions and some have a back blade as well. Fitted to a long handle it becomes the slasher or England and the croissant of France, and develops into the bills & halberds of the medieval foot soldier... Hudreds of regional patterns exist in England and France, and one French maker, Talabot, boasted they held patterns for over 3000 types (ref their catalogue c 1935).

Post the Industrial Revolution, England led the world in steel making and tool making, and by the mid 19th century exported more tools to the colonies than the rest of the world combined....

If you want to look at the history of the machete, you need to go back further, and look at the history of the billhook...

ausjulius · 5th November 2010, 02:25 AM

billman,
thanks, but the billhook and the machete are two unrelated tools with quite different natures,
the machete is a purely central American invention.. there is also south and central american billhooks and some billhooks dressed out like machetes even , but they are two different fish.
the billhook is a fascinating tool with great variation i have a collection of these tools and related hack knives as well

but by comparison there is a lot of material on billhooks and a lot of old ones to be had,
where as the machete is seems to be less easy to collect in any range and the quality or interesting pieces are mostly in the south and central American nations.. and product of a factory nature was far less varied and not destined to the producers home country.....

so the locally made ones are really what one has to look at as a machete... and the others a re machete like tools..
because as the billhooks were made for the people who used them the factory made machete was made just for a box in a warehouse 99% of the time..
probably one can say a lack of a direct like to ones market caused this..

by the time these nations in the americas industrilized the cheap thin machetes from american adn european producers had taken hold in the locak factories..

but you look even today you can get a billhook with no lesser quality or different materials and function than one from 200 years ago from southern and central European makers , and still there is a range of regional styles produced..

.

VANDOO · 5th November 2010, 02:44 AM

THERE ARE MANY POSTS TO BE FOUND IN THE FORUM AND FORUM ARCHIVES SEARCH USING MACHETE. ONE OLD ONE I REMEMBER THAT WAS FUN WAS POSTED BY THERION, 12/01/2002 TITLED "THE ELISIVE MEXICAN CHICKEN-FACE HUMP-BACK MACHETE" IT STILL HAS SOME PICTURES. ENJOY

SORRY I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LINK IT HERE.

fearn · 5th November 2010, 04:08 PM

I agree that the billhook and the machete are different beasts.

However, I think we need to remember what ethnographic is about (at least in my opinion).

Ethnographic does not mean hand made, it means an artifcat of a culture, used to understand that culture.

The interesting thing about the machete is its ethnography. There are certainly handmade machetes (gorgeous ones, even), but "standard" machetes are a product on the industrial age. Industrial practices allowed the creation of the thin, highly tempered steel blades characteristic of most machetes, and colonialism, imperial politics, and global trade meant that these blades were distributed all over the world (as trade, industrial, and military goods), based on designs from all over the world, and locally modified from industrial products all over the world.

In a real sense, machetes are the ultimate "trade blades," and as ethnographic objects, we need to study them as pieces of our global culture, not exotic artifacts.

My 0.000002 cents,

F

Gavin Nugent · 5th November 2010, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VANDOO

THERE ARE MANY POSTS TO BE FOUND IN THE FORUM AND FORUM ARCHIVES SEARCH USING MACHETE. ONE OLD ONE I REMEMBER THAT WAS FUN WAS POSTED BY THERION, 12/01/2002 TITLED "THE ELISIVE MEXICAN CHICKEN-FACE HUMP-BACK MACHETE" IT STILL HAS SOME PICTURES. ENJOY

SORRY I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LINK IT HERE.

Here you go

http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001351.html

Gav

Billman · 5th November 2010, 06:26 PM

Glad to have opend up the debate a little, but I disagree that the machete is purely a south american tool. As far as I am aware there was little or no iron and steel working in the Americas prior to the European colonial period. Thus the tool was a European introduction.

Prior to discovering the Americas the Europeans had already colonised or visited much of Asia and the Far , which did have a history of ironworking which probably spread from India in the west, and China and Japan in the east into the Pacific Rime countries.

One only has to look at the wide range of ethnographic weapons/tools in the Rijksmuseum (Museum Volkenkunde) at Leiden http://www.rmv.nl/index.aspx?lang=en or http://www.rmv.nl/zoek_collectie.asp...rchfor1=parang to see a wide range of Far Eastern machete type blades...

It is likely (not proven?) that the long blade proved more useful as a tool for clearing scrub and jungle than the traditional hooks shaped tools common in Europe (although not all European billhooks are concave, some are straight and some are convex) and coupled with the fact that the first colonisers of the Americas were accompanied by sailors, armed with cutlasses - it was a natural progression to take a proven tool to the new land... which is why both machetes and bilhooks are common in Central and Southern America...

The long, thin and relatively wide blade of a machete is not easy to forge, compared to a relatively short billhook, so it is likely it was not a common tool until after a cheap source of reliable steel was available to replace the steel welded to iron methods used to produce the billhook. By the time the right metal was available the methods of mass production were also being introduced into edge tool production, and in England, Sheffield and Birmingham were at the leading edge of technological advancement in cutlery and tool making in the world...

Many machetes have handle scales riveted directly to an extension of the blade, not common on traditional tools or weapons from either Spain or England (altough this method of handling is used on billhooks from Southern France and Italy - and on the cheap imported ones flooding in from India and China..).

I have not seen enough early machetes to see if they are handled with a tang as per swords, cutlasses (and many types of billhook)....

Two machete style blades with tanged handles can be seen at website for Old Tools in France, http://outils-anciens.xooit.fr/t1883...r-une-lame.htm - the origins of both blades are uncertain....

6th September 2008, 03:10 AM	#1
ausjulius Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: musorian territory Posts: 422	machetes,, regional styles.. has anyone here got a collection of different machetes from specific regions in south america? as there seems realy to be a good deal of regional difference in sheath handle and blade shape and use.. also i do wounder if there is any localy made patterns of machete in africa , as it appears that the machete comming to africa in a european introduction and so the patterns used are introduced patterns... i wounder if there is a local style that is localy made.?? anyone have any good reference on the history of the machete and the different styles that wer epopular at different times?? (i have a serious machette adiction... they are just such useful tools )

6th September 2008, 05:50 AM	#4
Berkley Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Austin, Texas USA Posts: 257	While not really responsive to your question, you might find this of interest regarding African machetes. I acquired this well-used Masai seme some time back, and upon examination it was obvious that it started life as a plastic-handled factory-made machete. In tracking down the manufacturer's mark, I discovered that a principal source of contemporay machete production is China, which was the original source for my creatively recycled machete. Attached Images

4th November 2010, 02:56 PM	#7
Billman Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Posts: 129	Machete or billhook??? The working tool of Europe, used in all countries from Scanadinavia to North Africa, and from Britain to Russia was the billhook. First developed in Mesopotania (now Iran/Iraq) it spread eastwards into Indo China and west into the Ancient Greek Empire and thus throughout the Mediterranean regions. With the Romans it spread further into mainland Europe, although in England it was being used prior to the Roman invasions c 50AD... Originally cast in bronze, by the late Iron Age the types now seen being used for coppice work and hedge laying were already in common usage. Machete like blades were used in Roman times, but I guess that it these developed later, especially after the Spanish colonisation of the Americas - and were probably a specialised version of the infantry sword.... In Northern Europe the Fascine Knife, with a straight blade, became the infantry general purpose tool, but in France Italy and England the curved billhook was widely used by the armies.. Billhooks are not all concave: straight edged blades and even convex blades exist in some regions and some have a back blade as well. Fitted to a long handle it becomes the slasher or England and the croissant of France, and develops into the bills & halberds of the medieval foot soldier... Hudreds of regional patterns exist in England and France, and one French maker, Talabot, boasted they held patterns for over 3000 types (ref their catalogue c 1935). Post the Industrial Revolution, England led the world in steel making and tool making, and by the mid 19th century exported more tools to the colonies than the rest of the world combined.... If you want to look at the history of the machete, you need to go back further, and look at the history of the billhook...

6th September 2008, 03:32 AM	#2
RSWORD Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Greensboro, NC Posts: 1,083	This should provide a good start for you. http://www.vikingsword.com/rila/index.html

6th September 2008, 06:42 AM	#5
ausjulius Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: musorian territory Posts: 422	haha interesting , yes "diamond brand" the make copies of martindales products, hoes and machetes ect ect,, ive found their machetes normaly much harder than martindales and cannot be sharpened with a file.. normaly stiffer also... i remember when i lives in australia diamond brand goloks were common , . the quality varied greatly ,, but actualy several i owned were better than the original :O others were much worse.. it is interesting that there is not a firm producing masi knives anymore.. ive seen old english made seme blades.. but all ive seen were forged blades... interesting machete

7th September 2008, 10:52 AM	#6
Gonzalo G Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Nothern Mexico Posts: 458	I find many questionable statements in that article. From the concept of the machete, to the history of it´s development in America and it´s types. The machete, as we actually know it, is the result of an evolution which begins in Spain, and not with the whacking sticks of aboriginal americans. This evolution implies many diverse forms, geometries and measures, some of which are reflected on the actual machetes. The machete has been, historically, a tool and a weapon, even today, no matter the intentions of their actual manofacturers. We produce and use still today in Mexico, machetes with hanguards and elaboratedly hilts with eagle pommels decorated with silver, and blades with etched inscriptions tipical of the motos used on the military swords. And people use them as a weapon. Tough the machete have been progressively used more as a tool than as a weapon, since it´s origins and difussion throught the spanish army, and latter throught the spanish settlers, the machetes were used by the commoneers to make war or to work on the fields in agricultural and cattle raising activities. The spanish army, by Royal Order of october 5th, 1841, adopted the machete for all the infantry and provincial militias, since the saber "...in the present cirumstances and the actual state in the art of the war, it is a a bothersome and impeding weapon on the march and manoeuvres, useless on encampments and combats". (Free traslation form a quote made by José Luis Calvó, a distinguished researcher on this subject, on his article "Sables, Espadas y Machetes Distintivo de Clases de a Pié I", page 27). In other words, the machete was adopted as the sidearm of the infantry, artillery and engineer corps since then. This, conducted to the development of some colonial versions of the military machete on Cuba and the Phillipines, and influenced the versions of this weapon in Mexico, thought independent from Spain since 1821. The very war of independence of Mexico, and latter the civil wars and the wars made against foreign interventionist countries, were made with the massive use of the machete as a sidearm. It can be said that agicultural implements were used in all the world to make wars, but as I stated, the machete was also specifically a weapon, and it took several military types which still survive. The traditional machete was not the actual laminated thin blade massively produced, but has a tapered blade aproximately 5mm thick at their beginning, and has the profile of a wedge. Examples survive on mexican museums. The actual machete is the result of the industrialized and cheap version of it, designed by countries foreign to this tradition, in order to satisfy the needs of the markets of the less industrialized countries. Hardly an "ethnic" edged tool, or just as ethnic, as the bowies made for the United States on the Sheffield factories in England in the 19th Century, with which the machete shares the fact of being a tool and a weapon. Is as ethnic, as the malayan-indonesian edged weapons made by Valiant Co. And though many of this less indutrialized countries actually make the same cheap models, their direct origin is found in Collins, the Solingen factories and other manofacturers in Europe and the United States. Another thing is to study the traditional old machete. My best regards Gonzalo

5th November 2010, 02:25 AM	#8
ausjulius Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: musorian territory Posts: 422	billman, thanks, but the billhook and the machete are two unrelated tools with quite different natures, the machete is a purely central American invention.. there is also south and central american billhooks and some billhooks dressed out like machetes even , but they are two different fish. the billhook is a fascinating tool with great variation i have a collection of these tools and related hack knives as well but by comparison there is a lot of material on billhooks and a lot of old ones to be had, where as the machete is seems to be less easy to collect in any range and the quality or interesting pieces are mostly in the south and central American nations.. and product of a factory nature was far less varied and not destined to the producers home country..... so the locally made ones are really what one has to look at as a machete... and the others a re machete like tools.. because as the billhooks were made for the people who used them the factory made machete was made just for a box in a warehouse 99% of the time.. probably one can say a lack of a direct like to ones market caused this.. by the time these nations in the americas industrilized the cheap thin machetes from american adn european producers had taken hold in the locak factories.. but you look even today you can get a billhook with no lesser quality or different materials and function than one from 200 years ago from southern and central European makers , and still there is a range of regional styles produced.. .

5th November 2010, 02:44 AM	#9
VANDOO (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: OKLAHOMA, USA Posts: 3,138	THERE ARE MANY POSTS TO BE FOUND IN THE FORUM AND FORUM ARCHIVES SEARCH USING MACHETE. ONE OLD ONE I REMEMBER THAT WAS FUN WAS POSTED BY THERION, 12/01/2002 TITLED "THE ELISIVE MEXICAN CHICKEN-FACE HUMP-BACK MACHETE" IT STILL HAS SOME PICTURES. ENJOY SORRY I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LINK IT HERE.

5th November 2010, 04:08 PM	#10
fearn Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,247	I agree that the billhook and the machete are different beasts. However, I think we need to remember what ethnographic is about (at least in my opinion). Ethnographic does not mean hand made, it means an artifcat of a culture, used to understand that culture. The interesting thing about the machete is its ethnography. There are certainly handmade machetes (gorgeous ones, even), but "standard" machetes are a product on the industrial age. Industrial practices allowed the creation of the thin, highly tempered steel blades characteristic of most machetes, and colonialism, imperial politics, and global trade meant that these blades were distributed all over the world (as trade, industrial, and military goods), based on designs from all over the world, and locally modified from industrial products all over the world. In a real sense, machetes are the ultimate "trade blades," and as ethnographic objects, we need to study them as pieces of our global culture, not exotic artifacts. My 0.000002 cents, F

5th November 2010, 06:26 PM	#12
Billman Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Posts: 129	Glad to have opend up the debate a little, but I disagree that the machete is purely a south american tool. As far as I am aware there was little or no iron and steel working in the Americas prior to the European colonial period. Thus the tool was a European introduction. Prior to discovering the Americas the Europeans had already colonised or visited much of Asia and the Far , which did have a history of ironworking which probably spread from India in the west, and China and Japan in the east into the Pacific Rime countries. One only has to look at the wide range of ethnographic weapons/tools in the Rijksmuseum (Museum Volkenkunde) at Leiden http://www.rmv.nl/index.aspx?lang=en or http://www.rmv.nl/zoek_collectie.asp...rchfor1=parang to see a wide range of Far Eastern machete type blades... It is likely (not proven?) that the long blade proved more useful as a tool for clearing scrub and jungle than the traditional hooks shaped tools common in Europe (although not all European billhooks are concave, some are straight and some are convex) and coupled with the fact that the first colonisers of the Americas were accompanied by sailors, armed with cutlasses - it was a natural progression to take a proven tool to the new land... which is why both machetes and bilhooks are common in Central and Southern America... The long, thin and relatively wide blade of a machete is not easy to forge, compared to a relatively short billhook, so it is likely it was not a common tool until after a cheap source of reliable steel was available to replace the steel welded to iron methods used to produce the billhook. By the time the right metal was available the methods of mass production were also being introduced into edge tool production, and in England, Sheffield and Birmingham were at the leading edge of technological advancement in cutlery and tool making in the world... Many machetes have handle scales riveted directly to an extension of the blade, not common on traditional tools or weapons from either Spain or England (altough this method of handling is used on billhooks from Southern France and Italy - and on the cheap imported ones flooding in from India and China..). I have not seen enough early machetes to see if they are handled with a tang as per swords, cutlasses (and many types of billhook).... Two machete style blades with tanged handles can be seen at website for Old Tools in France, http://outils-anciens.xooit.fr/t1883...r-une-lame.htm - the origins of both blades are uncertain....