Moro Tulip Kris (need Arabic/Jawi translation please)

[Spunjer]

Originally Posted by Battara

Thanks Ron for confirming what I discovered today doing my own research: yes Col. J T Orsdale under Gen. Wood. In fact, in 1904 he led a second expedition on the Rio Grande river in Maguindanao country. Thus you are right, this is around the turn of the century.

I wasn't quite sure of the date since on the one hand it has the a mono-steel blade with sharp luks, but on the other hand it has a distinct separate ganga.

Also according to Oliver Pinchot in an email, the Jawi says, " Datu Fi'cha" (spelling of the name might be a little off). I will now look for information for this Maguindanao datu.

I also thank you David for the picture.

And yes - this does add a wrinkle to the sharp look theory.

Yes I am as pleased as punch!

1) it's J.T. Van Orsdale

2) regarding the Datu's name: i can't see it myself as Fi'cha. for one thing, there's no "F" nor "C" in the Maguindanaon language, so we can go back to perhaps the name was spelled phonetically. long stretch, but it could meant Piang. you could start your research by looking for how Piang wrote his name in Jawi, or even in Arabic script.

3) regarding sharp seko (btw, luks is indo, seko is Moro. literally, it means "elbow"): again, that's the problem with just one book to go by. theories wrote in it becomes hard, fast rule. thanks for the link, Gustav! i don't have to go searching in my archives, lol

4) here's the link from the old forum i was referring to my original response:
http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001388.html