Long knives -- usefulness in Mongolia

[Stasa Katz]

Dear friends, I got hold of a copy of a book published late in the 19th Century, entitled Among the Mongols, by James Gilmour.

Gilmour was a medical missionary, became friends with the people he lived with. For us, his text give possible clues on why knives on some Tibetan and Mongolian and certain Chinese trousse sets have longer blades.

In areas where food was not pre cut before serving, and where a man had to do his own carving, a longer blade would have been needed for the task.

A person with a trousse might and still may, if host or a guest of honor, be expected to know how to cut entire boiled sheep or half of a one and then do the honors of serving portions to the other guests.

To do such carving and serving a long "kitchen sized" blade would have been necessary.

Here is Gilmour's description pp 114-115

http://books.google.com/books?id=ojl...ed=0CBYQ6AEwAA

But the silence did not last long, for soon the mutton for soon the mutton was pronounced " done," and and the serving lama who held
the keys and acted in general as butler to the mandarin
produced two great brass flat dishes.

One of these he heaped up with meat for his master.

The other was filled with one huge piece of mutton, the hinder part of
the back bone, including the great, broad, fat tail, several smaller portions, such as ribs, etc.

We set to work, the lama explaining that to present the rump and tail was the highest honour that a host could offer a guest at a feast.

Armed only with a knife, we soon made havoc of the steaming mass, when the mandarin remarked that evidently I was not aware of the proper custom.

The lama explained that a portion should be given to all in the tent, which was now nearly full of neighbours and children who had collected for the occasion.

At my request, he kindly undertook to perform the office of dissection and distribution for me.

His knife knew all the joints and turns among the bones, and in a short
time all in the tent were eating. While we were going on with this first course, millet was added to the water left in the pot in which the mutton had been boiled, and by the time that we had finished the tail and picked
the bones the millet was ready, and was dealt out to all who could hold out a cup.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ojl...ed=0CBoQ6AEwAg

This page gives an engraved illustration of a Mongol knife and sheath.

However, tthis particular reproduction of the engraving omits what to me is an important feature.

My edition of Gilmour depicts, in this engraving, what look like two chopsticks lying just beneath the knife and sheath. the tops of the chopsticks are connected by what look like cord.

It is hard to tell if the chopsticks were in the original engraving and later omitted, or in a later edition of the book, were added to the engraving after the author had a chance to read it and offer corrections to a future edition.

The engraving may therefore depict a knife that formed part of a trousse.

Gilmour himself did not mention any use of chopsticks during this first visit to a tent.

He also described how dangerous those knives could be in the hands of angry drunks.

(personal note: I recently aquired two Tibetan bo an knives. Their sheaths resemble smaller but identical versions of the sheath depicted in the Gilmour engraving. But the blades of bo an knives are short--4 inches to 5 inches at most--not suitable for carving large hunks of meat, as necessary when presiding at the kind of meal Gilmour described.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ojl...ed=0CCUQ6AEwAA