what were the working blades of India?

[Billman]

Hi all
Just joined the forum as a collector of edge tools, not weapons, in order to be able to share knowledge with others. Any tool can be used as a weapon, either because of its nature, e.g. long handles slashers are similar to the bill of the english footsoldier of the Middle Ages, or because it is all they have available, e.g. the genocide in Rwanda wher the principal weapon was the machete.
As this thread is on tools, rather than weapons, and as the differences are sometimes so negligable (hence many current European agricultural tools being sold in the USA as medieval weapons) it is not a dicergence from the topic of the forum, but a way of extending understanding.
Edge tools of the world can be divided into several broad groups:
Billhooks/machetes/cane knives/ parangs etc
Sickles
Long handled slashers
Axes
Knives
Adzes
These are very broad groups, and some tools will fall midway between two groups... My own passion is the humble billhook, the most versatile tool of the lot - vastly underated - and in the wrong hands a vicious and nasty weapon...
For the best collection of images of ethnic tools/weapons have a look at the Dutch Museum of Ethnology at Leiden:
http://www.rmv.nl/index.aspx?lang=en
Search the database their for the hundreds of images in the collection