Knife for I.D. Chinese? Tibetan? Bhutanese?

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Excellent info Wayne! Thank you. That makes sense, it seems in most ethnographic areas edged weapons prevail. Not sure what the source I was reading meant, but thats why I posted this, for feedback.

yeah bhutan is a good example. they are still making them and if you look at bhutanese news p[apers you can see here and there examples of killings or fights, jelous lovers, angry neighbours ect.. with patags being mentioned.
goverment official were typically presented with a sword in bhutan and in the 1970s to cut costs as at the time many amny officials qualified for this .. they tried to import blades form india.. the chrome plated patags you see about soemtimes are apparently mostly indian made.
later that stopped.. now most blacksmiths there are indians and nepalis, bhutanese choosing not to work in this kid of work. nost of the bhutanese sword makers are quite old. but they apparently have soem training program to revitalise sword making.
in 2008 in tibet the tibetian swords were used to attack chinese and you can see footage of lhasa from that date with tibetians armed with swords running though the streets chopping at thier targets.
after the failed uprising many monks encouraged tibetians to destroy their weapons and there was rituial burnings of huge.. i say huge.. 10000 knives and swords all in a pile.. huge piles of arms. some of a very advanced age .. along with lepoard skins, sword belts.. antique firearms.. ect.. very sad.. they piled them up outside temples and burnt them. such a shame. . imagine seeing a silver sheathed sword with red coral dicoraiton and laminated blade burned up to a pile of metal and ash.. sad.