Kaskara with welded hilt

[blue lander]

Pictures attached. It seems like somebody welded a bar of aluminum to a kaskara to make a hilt. Has anybody seen this method used before? What I'm wondering is if it was done by an indigenous person or was it a later repair done by a western owner. The blade looks pretty nice with deep fullers straight fullers, hopefully European, with man in the moon markings.

I didn't pay much for it, pretty much the lowest price I've ever seen a Kaskara go for, so even if its an "inauthentic" hilt repair or the blade isn't European I'm still pretty pleased with it. It hasn't arrived yet, I'll give it a closer inspection when it does.