Dayak swords a quick question from a novice

[fenlander]

Am I correct ?

Most Dayak swords of Borneo were made of soft steel. This means they were easy to blunt but easy to sharpen; plus they would not break so easily when hitting a hard object.

Correct ?

[asomotif]

Please note that dayak swords were made under very primitif conditions.
Some from local iron-ore, others from imported ore, recent blades can even have chinese makers marks
Your question suggests that there was some kind of standard quality.

Maybe Dajak or mandaukudi can advise

[Dajak]

There are some perfect blade s welmade

There are even laminated blade s made Latok s very wel made VVV has a nice laminated one pakayun s very wel forged Jimpul s and parang Ihlang parang sangkit these have mostly very
Blade s .

I talk here about the old stuff not the newly you see today for sale (the price for the nice forged ones starts easely at 1500.00 till 15,000.00
euro s and sometimes more just to give an indication)

So high quality stuff that s not often on the market and at least mostly before before 1900..

I will put some pics later

Michael can you post your nice Latok here to see it has one off the best blade quality that I know and from an very good collection


Regards Ben

[VVV]

Ben,

In my files I only have an old picture I took when I bought it and unfortunately no close up of the blade.
Look forward to see some of your examples.

Michael

[Valjhun]

I cannot figure why are they so bloody expensive...

I have just one parang ihlang in my collection and it has an old quality blade. I think that it was made before 1900 and I've bought it from a wife of an old deceased collector for a bargain price, together with its piso podang. Sadly no scabbard included.

Is that one of those very sought after pieces or not?

[fenlander]

Hi

Thanks for the information.
I am posting because my dad has a Dayak sword. It was bought in Brunei in 1968 (he was military). My comments above was basically what he said about Dayak swords.
I am trying to get a picture of it from him. It has a scabbard etc. There is also a dayak hat with lots of feathers in it that goes with the sword.

[Dajak]

Valjhun hope you can see the difference between yours and these

This is an parang Sangkit look at the blade A murut sword

Ben

[Dajak]

An Jimpul ex collection W. O. Oldman in his cataloque from 1913

[Dajak]

headmans Jimpul

[Mytribalworld]

Its still possible to buy good old mandaus for a reasonable price.
Its like buying a car there's a lot of space between Lada or Rolls.
not everyone can pay the high prices for the swords listed above but even for the man with a normal wallet its possible to collect nice items.

Blades: also between the blades is a lot of difference in quality.
many travellers in old times has seen mandaus that easely good cut a iron nail in pieces without damage on the blade.
In old times blades where made of local melted ore.many of those blades where so good that they could match with Swedish steel.
Main reason for the high quality was the purity of the ore.
The ore found on Borneo was based on 1000 a number of 996.986 FE2O3 (red ironoxide) . That could result in almost 70% pure iron while the number of strange insults like chalk,phoshor etc, was only 2%.

Another point was the big difference in quality of iron in the rest of the world in those old times.The most iron produced elsewhere in the world was made with a 2 step proces. First cast iron was made and after that it was converted into wrought iron.So it could be carried out on a far greater scale.
and of course it was much cheaper.
But the european industries where still coping with the problem of creating a tough iron with this process.
Only in Sweden they could make a high quality.
So early observers ( mid 1900 century) often compared the quality of Borneo with the Swedish iron.

Not every dayak village was so lucky to have a good blacksmith and also Nieuwenhuis mentioned that sometimes brandnew mandaus when they where tested where badly damaged and of a low quality.
One of the most produces baldes is the classic Kayan blade and good kayan blades where traded all over Borneo.

sources: Door centraal Borneo - A.W.Nieuwenhuis
metal working in Borneo - J.W.Christie and V.T.King
ijzererst in de Tanah laut residentie zuid en oosterafdeling van
Borneo - H.F.E.Rant

Arjan.

[Dajak]

Hi Arjan in some piont you are rigth that you can buy mandau s for reasonable
prices I did sell a nice koetei one to you for a nice price but it s very difficult to get them .

And you know as good as I that for the special ones you have to pay big money

That s when you try to get up in quality you get have up in price.

( I also would like that the market did not get so high sometomes because I have to let go some real nice mandau s that offered to me because the price is so high and the one on your web site is real cheap it s an bargain )

Ben

[fenlander]

So what do you Dayak enthusiasts think ?

This parang was presented to my dad by the head man of a
longhouse
in the ULU TUTONG area of Brunei in 1968 or 1969 as a thank you for a
helicopter casevac he did. He says that this particular parang which he
thinks is called a parang ilang may well be quite old and is not of the kind
sold to tourists. Indeed he says there were no roads in that area then.

[Dajak]

Hi This looks like a nice used one not the tourist stuff

It has a nice carrying guard



Ben

[Dayaktribe]

Originally Posted by Dajak

headmans Jimpul

Very nice chief sword!

[Roland_M]

Dayak were famous for the quality of their blades in Indonesia! As far as I know, Dayak blades were very desired in whole Indonesia.

I have one old Mandau, made from flawless forged laminated mono-steel with a differential hardened cutting edge and this blade is of extraordinary high quality.

Roland