Jamdhar katari - a theory

[Jim McDougall]

In rereading some of this thread, I came across some notes I had made last February (#156), concerning the use of these daggers by the Kafirs, and that the distinction of the term jamadhar katari apparently derived through Egerton (1880) in some confusion on weapon descriptions.

As I noted, the dagger form we are apparently referring to as used by the Kafirs is termed a katarah (or katara) by the Kafirs, as I found in the 1999 book "Kafirs of Hindu Kush: A Study of the Waigal and Ashkun Kafirs" by Max Klimburg.

Many salient facts and notes are often lost in the volume of these long standing threads so sometimes helpful to bring forward certain notes for the benefit of current readers.

These katara daggers, at least the ones I have seen are not 'armor piercing' blades, but more leaf shaped straight, or with slightly curved khanjhar like blades.

I think we are confusing these apparently mistermed jamadhar-katari with the katar (jamdhar) of northern regions (Rajasthan, Lahore etc.) which indeed had malle perce (reinforced) tip blades. The katars of the Deccan and southern regions did indeed use fragments of European blades for katars, but these were not typically 'rapier' blades but those of the heavier European arming swords. The use of actual narrow rapier blades was it seems usually confined to full size khanda type swords intended more as prestigious court type weapons in my view.