Taiwan aborigines: a ceremonial Rukai knife

yuanzhumin · 13th June 2011, 12:32 PM

I promised earlier to post more pictures of the knife I bought through the Imperial Auctions sales on March the 19th. Here they are. I couldn’t do it earlier because it took some times for the knife to arrive and then even more time (more than one month) for it to go through the custom clearance.
This is a very nice Rukai tribal knife from Taiwan (total length 74 cm; handle 15.5 x 4cm; blade 54x4cm; sheath 58 x 5,8cm). Beginning of 20th century, may be before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_aborigines
Belonging to a tribal leader or an outstanding warrior, this kind of knife is not for daily working or common hunting. It is a ceremonial knife as we can see by the patterns on it and also by its uncommon size (it’s the second longest one I ever seen among Rukai/Paiwan knives). This one was used for rituals and mostly head hunting rituals.
Its handle is inlayed with silver and bronze pins plus mother of pearl buttons. On the top part, there is a stylized human head (the vertical parallel longer bronze pins on the upper part of the handle are symbolizing the hairs). Further down, sun patterns are seen on top of 4 joined faces patterns, themselves on top of two snakes joined by the head. The joined human heads together with the two joined snake heads symbolizes the start of a head hunting party.
On the wooden sheath-- colored in red because it brings protection, there is another double snakes pattern, 4 more human heads. That is a repetition of the just described pattern. Further down, two more snakes are facing opposite directions (I don’t know the meaning of this symbol). On the lower part of the sheath, we see flower patterns carved in the wood with ‘zigzag’ snake skin patterns, and more flower patterns carved on a bronze leaf.
On the other/open side of the sheath, two bronze bracelets with Chinese motives are followed by a long leaf of bronze carved with snakes and human heads. Two iron staples are closing the open side, making up for the body of a snake whose head is figured on the tip of the scabbard.

13th June 2011, 12:32 PM	#1
yuanzhumin Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Ex-Taipei, Taiwan, now in Shanghai, China Posts: 180	Taiwan aborigines: a ceremonial Rukai knife I promised earlier to post more pictures of the knife I bought through the Imperial Auctions sales on March the 19th. Here they are. I couldn’t do it earlier because it took some times for the knife to arrive and then even more time (more than one month) for it to go through the custom clearance. This is a very nice Rukai tribal knife from Taiwan (total length 74 cm; handle 15.5 x 4cm; blade 54x4cm; sheath 58 x 5,8cm). Beginning of 20th century, may be before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_aborigines Belonging to a tribal leader or an outstanding warrior, this kind of knife is not for daily working or common hunting. It is a ceremonial knife as we can see by the patterns on it and also by its uncommon size (it’s the second longest one I ever seen among Rukai/Paiwan knives). This one was used for rituals and mostly head hunting rituals. Its handle is inlayed with silver and bronze pins plus mother of pearl buttons. On the top part, there is a stylized human head (the vertical parallel longer bronze pins on the upper part of the handle are symbolizing the hairs). Further down, sun patterns are seen on top of 4 joined faces patterns, themselves on top of two snakes joined by the head. The joined human heads together with the two joined snake heads symbolizes the start of a head hunting party. On the wooden sheath-- colored in red because it brings protection, there is another double snakes pattern, 4 more human heads. That is a repetition of the just described pattern. Further down, two more snakes are facing opposite directions (I don’t know the meaning of this symbol). On the lower part of the sheath, we see flower patterns carved in the wood with ‘zigzag’ snake skin patterns, and more flower patterns carved on a bronze leaf. On the other/open side of the sheath, two bronze bracelets with Chinese motives are followed by a long leaf of bronze carved with snakes and human heads. Two iron staples are closing the open side, making up for the body of a snake whose head is figured on the tip of the scabbard. Attached Images