How old is the kampilan as a form?

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Other accounts I have seen described the weapon used by the warriors as 'cutlasses', again a broadly applied term for any heavy blade and in any degree curved for cutting strokes. Since this term was not really known until late 17th into 18th c. it is again clearly later addition to the text of accounts.

The original Italian is:
uno con un gran terciado (che è como una scimitarra, ma più grosso)

The whole original text is available at https://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Relaz...torno_al_mondo

For "terciado".
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Terciado.jpg
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpost.php?p=165771

Since it's explicitly scimitar-like, it doesn't sound like a kampilan to me. If it's similar to modern Philippine weapons, a big pira or a panabas? But long curved swords were not unusual in the area - a classic weapon of "Japanese" pirates. A long dao/dha/katana-like sword could be described as "like a scimitar, but larger".