hmong knife from French Guiana

[blue lander]

The seller says it was purchased in Cacao, French Guiana in 1977. Cacao is apparently the center of the Hmong community that was established there after the Vietnam war. According to Wikipedia the first wave of refugees arrived in 1977, the year this knife was acquired, and they lived off government subsidies until they could pool enough money to buy farming equipment.

According to this article there is a Hmong blacksmith in Cacao who made knives. But given that this knife was purchased the same year they arrived, I wonder if it was made in Cacao or was brought over from Laos? The article does say the first thing the guy did when he landed was set up his forge to make tools to clear the land, so he probably was making knives in '77


Here's a Hmong knife made in Cacao for comparison

[spiral]

Cool!

Its always great to learn about the people & there story's attached to the stuff we collect.

spiral

[Sajen]

Wow Blue, very interesting thread. First time that I read about Hmong blacksmith in Cacao. Great to have a knife with this provenance!

Regards,
Detlef

[Robert]

Blue Lander, Very nice knife and great information as well. Could you post a few more detailed photos of the knife showing the blade and hilt in a better light? Having the knife with its original scabbard, the story behind how it was acquired as well as all the other information you have been able to put together is what makes our hobby/passion/addiction meaningful and then to be able to pass this all along to its next caretaker so important. My congratulations.

Best,
Robert

[blue lander]

Thanks both. Agreed, the best part about collecting is that it opens the door to further learning about other cultures.

It sounds like the land is similar to Laos, and the Hmong were able to farm land previously considered unfarmable. Even though they only make up a tiny fraction of the population they produce the vast majority of the fruit .

Although it doesn't have anything to do with the knife, This thread has some interest info about the Hmong society over there. It appears that Hmong have had a much easier time assimilating in Cacao than those who migrated to cities in the US

[blue lander]

Originally Posted by Robert

Blue Lander, Very nice knife and great information as well. Could you post a few more detailed photos of the knife showing the blade and hilt in a better light? Having the knife with its original scabbard, the story behind how it was acquired as well as all the other information you have been able to put together is what makes our hobby/passion/addiction meaningful and then to be able to pass this all along to its next caretaker so important. My congratulations.

Best,
Robert

Thanks. Once the knife arrives I'll take better pictures. The wood ought to be snakewood, but it's hard to tell what it is from that picture. The seller says the knife was never used, but it looks like it wasn't stored very carefully. That other guy etched and polished the blade on his Hmong knife which revealed a very nice edge quench, I'll probably attempt to do the same.

[blue lander]

It just arrived. Man is this thing a beast. The blade was coated in some dark grease, sort of like what you find on old military rifles and bayonets. I've wiped it off and gave it a quick once over with windex in order to take a picture.

The blade's really thick like a khukri. There's a split in the wooden hilt I'll need to seal up.

In the picture I've attached there's also a Brazilian pocket knife I bought from the same guy. No brand name on it, it just says "stainless Brazil". He was also selling a Dutch pocket knife from Bequia, Grenadines which I didn't buy. So perhaps the previous owner was some sort of aid worker in that part of the world.

[blue lander]

Better pictures.

The seller said the knife had never been used, but there's a couple minor dings in the edge so somebody used it at some point. The edge towards the tip was a bit dull, but further down it's still sharp enough to shave the hair off my arm.

The black bits holding the sheath togeather are some sort of plastic. They slide off fairly easily, allowing you to disassemble the sheath. I'm not sure what the rope is made out of but it doesn't feel synthetic to me.

[blue lander]

I etched the blade. I used citric acid rather than FeCL this time, and it worked a lot better. It takes much longer for the acid to work, but you have much more control over the process and the results are better.

Interesting that nearly 1/3rd of the blade seems to be hardened especially around the belly. I wonder if there's some advantage for having so much hardened steel behind the impact point, or if it's just so you can sharpen it more times before you hit the soft stuff.

Edit: You can't really see it in the pictures, but I think there's another quench line much closer to the edge. Perhaps the cutting edge is tempered extra hard with somewhat less hardened steel behind it, followed but unhardened steel for the "body" and spine of the knife.

[Ian]

Hi Blue:

Interesting knife. I think it was quenched in a fairly deep container of oil to get that extensive line of hardening. Not surprising that it would take a keen edge.

Ian.

[blue lander]

It's definitely sharper than any store bought knife I've owned. I'm tempted to take it out to the yard and trim some branches but that crack in the hilt worries me. Snakewood is supposed to be one of the hardest/densest woods in the world, though.

[kronckew]

curiously, i just order a pair of enep/hmong knives from aranyik, thailand within the last hour

a 12.5 in. bladed enep one with a wood scabbard with braided rattan bands, 20 in. overall, the blade is 6 mm thick at the grip, distal taper down to 3.5 mm.

a 10.25 in. hmong/enep , in. 16 in. overall, 6mm blade tapering to 3mm. with a folded bamboo basket scabbard.

both 5160 steel with partial tangs. edges are convex ground & advertised as razor sharp. i have a pair of daab swords from the area that were differentially hardened in oil and have a distinct 'hamon', maybe these two will be as well.

look very much like yours above. your crack looks a bit big for filling with std superglue, maybe a high viscosity (gel) superglue, or a slow cure epoxy mixed with a bit of similar coloured sawdust may be better. if you turn it into a heavy user, it might be worth drilling a hole thru the bolster & inserting a steel pin thru it and the tang stub, which is likely quite short.

[blue lander]

I really like those daabs.

I know Thai knives/swords have a reputation for stubby tangs, but I just checked the tang on this Hmong knife and it goes nearly 2/3rds of the length of the hilt! It's about the exact length of the crack, which I'm sure is not a coincidence. I was thinking of filling the crack with gorilla glue since it'll expand into the crack.

[kronckew]

last time i did that i had foamy gorilla glue all over the place, definitely do not wait for it to harden before you trim it. i was gluing an alpine spike ferrule on the end of a fokos/ciupaga walking stick axe. the dollup of glue expanded and pushed the ferrule off. i removed some foam reseated it, and the foam pushed it off again. removed more foam, cut a shallow relief groove, reseated it and kept cleaning foam oozing out for about an hour. it finally stopped. that ferrule ain't coming off no how, no way, not ever i barely managed to keep my hands from getting stuck to the axe shaft.

the longer sword has a 1 in. wide tang about 3/8" thick that goes all the way to just before the pommel, then has a short screw rod welded to it to hold the pommel nut that holds it all together., which is also a counterweight. the bolster is about 3/16 thick stainless steel. the shorter one was polished unlike the longer one which is etched to show the hamon, but is the same steel &heat treatment. it has two pins thru the tang that you can see, which again is about an inch wide and terminates threaded into the pommel.

they were made by serge cozun darbs, in aranyik, but he started having QC problems and no longer is on the interweb. the smiths in aranyik however still keep on making these swords and knives the same as they have done for centuries.

[Robert]

Blue lander, Before you use Gorilla glue or anything else please consider removing the blade, cleaning the tang or all rust (which is more than likely what caused the wood to split in the first place) gluing and clamping the wooden hilt back to its original state and then refitting the blade using your choice of adhesive to hold it in place. If this is something you plan on using on a regular basis, may I suggest using either epoxy or epoxy putty to permanently fix it in position. If you are not planning on using this for severe service than damar or cutlers adhesive might be a better choice. JMHO

Best,
Robert

[blue lander]

You're probably right. The blade was coated with something like cosmolene so it was rust free, but that wouldn't have kept rust from sneaking into the hilt. I'm also worried that some sort of "traditional" adhesive that might have dried up and cracked.

It sounds like gorilla glue would be a bad idea too.

[kronckew]

not sure what thais use, but khukuris use 'laha', also known as himalayan epoxy. it's a mix of tree resin, bees wax, powdered brick and (dried) water buffalo or yak dung. may also have hair mixed in. a similar mix is used to hold tulwar blades to their handles. it is thermo-setting, if you heat the grip to around the boiling point of water, it softens and the parts can be dislocated. wood/horn khukuri grips can be placed in a oven bag then held in a pot of boiling water till the stuff is soft enough to loosen. older khukuris with loose grips can be fixed by thus re-melting the laha.

it smells wonderful. if you are married, do NOT do this in the kitchen unless you want an immediate divorce.

there are recipes for laha, or western cultlers cement, or equivalents, if i recall, posted here on the fora. or google. some of the recipes are actually not smelly enough to alienate your significant other. if the knife is to be part of a collection, the more traditional goop would be better.

epoxy is essentially forever. heating it hot enough to melt it loose i suspect would permanently damage the wood.

[blue lander]

Thanks for the heads up about the smell. That link I put in the first post shows that other guys French Guiana Hmong knife and his blade came loose and it does look like some sort of natural resin was used. I was thinking of dunking it in boiled linseed oil to see of the hilt plumps up a bit and the crack closes.

[Robert]

If there is not a oversized tang socket in the handle and very little extra space to fill this is the best recipe for cutlers wax I've found so far. It also has the extra benefit of actually smelling nice when being prepared for use.

In a double boiler mix:
8 oz pine pitch or damar,
1/4 cup Carnauba wax
4 oz beeswax
Stir until well mixed. Have the hilt warmed slightly to help keep the wax from setting to fast. Carefully pour mixture into socket and insert heated tang. Brace for a few minutes until wax sets.

If there is a lot of space to fill just add charcoal crushed into a powder to this mixture to take up the extra space and for added strength.

If you are going to be using this for doing a lot of cutting or hacking limbs from trees I would still use epoxy, but that is just my personal opinion.

Best,
Robert

[Robert]

Just asking a question about the name of these knives, is it hmong or enep? I too have one example of these knives and seeing that there are not that many shown on the forum I thought I would add it here as well. Instead of a wooden scabbard mine has one made of rattan similar to the second one down in Kronckews photo. Unlike the others shown above it also has some designs stamped into each side of the blade. Sorry about the very poor photo quality, but at the present these are the only ones that I have.

Best,
Robert

[kronckew]

'hmong' is the name of a tribe of mountain people in northern thailand/laos/vietnam, sometimes referred to as montagnards, they were staunch allies of the USA in the vietnam war, many were repatriated to the USA and canada afterwards, tho many were left behind. they were fond of using crossbows.

'enep' is a thai word meaning 'knife'.

the hmong favour an enep style knife like the ones discussed here.

the vendor of the ones i've ordered also has one similar to yours on his site. photo attached below.

the other photo shows a high status hmong chieftan's knife made by an acquaintance in vietnam, along with the original he copied. sadly not for sale.

if you go to youtube & search 'hmong knife', there are a number of interesting videos.

[Robert]

Hello Kronckew and thank you very much for clearing that up for me. Do you have any idea of the age of my knife? One of the examples you show has a rattan sheath like mine (though not quite as elaborate) is this normal for one of these or was it just a replacement for a wooden one like most of the others shown here have?

Best,
Robert

[kronckew]

i think the scabbard depends on the available local materials. i suspect the woven ones are more thai. most of the locally made ones i've seen were wood. the original fancy one above was wood, and the smith faithfully reproduced the horn handle, then made a horn scabbard for it.

as these were made for ages, and are still made much the same way, and are meant to be and are used hard, i would not hazard a guess at age. i suspect older ones would have been resharpened so many times they'd be rather thinner in profile, unless of course some foreign collector like us obtained it a long time ago & put it up nicely oiled and unused. so it could be anywhere from a few years old to a couple centuries.

[Robert]

And again, thank you very much for the information on this Kronckew. Unlike a few who only want their items to be of great age I just want a general idea of age, be it the last century or last week. I noticed that in the photo (that you pointed out) that what I take to be the original chieftain's knife has a wooden sheath while the copy has one made from horn. Did older fancier ones like this originally have scabbards made from horn or was this just a case of artistic licence being taken by your friend? Either way it is a beautiful piece.

Best,
Robert

P.S.
I have changed the photos that I posted earlier to ones of a better quality.

[kronckew]

i think it was artistic license. we're both frequenters of a khukuri related forum, and around the time he made the knife, they were supplying some decorated khuks with brass bound horn scabbards. in fact they liked his knife so much they made a number of duplicates in nepal. they still pop up occasionally & i may at some point custom order one. i would however prefer a wood scabbard myself.

p.s. - the photos do seem to show a fair bit of age patina on the wood. may want to add a few decades to the lower age limit.

[blue lander]

I finally took this knife outside and put it through the same "tests" I'd put a khukri/parang/golok through. Namely, clearing brush, chopping off branches, and batoning through firewood. What I found is that its quite well balanced so you can effortlessly slice through brush, and its sharp enough to lop off branches as thick as your thumb with the flick of your wrist. If you swing it at a tough old piece of wood it cuts surprisingly deep, but it binds in the wood and is difficult to pull the blade back out. I wouldn't want to try to cut a tree down with it. I also carved a spoon out of a branch with it. Because the knife is very balanced and the edge is sharp all the way to the hilt, you can do intricate work with little fatigue.

It easily batoned through firewood but I noticed a few flat spots in the edge where it hit knots and one small chip. The edge is just too thin and hard for that kind of abuse. If you were swinging it around carelessly and hit a rock or something I have no doubt the edge would chip badly.

Where it really shined is in the kitchen. Held from the hilt its very effective slicing through large pieces of meat. Grabbed from the spine of the blade like a Chinese butcher knife, the belly towards the tip makes an excellent paring knife. Even stuff like onions and potatoes that don't like thick blades were easy to slice as thin as you need them.

Judging from videos I've seen on YouTube, the hmong knive is primarily used today as an "all-in-one" kitchen knife, and that's really what it is: A kitchen/butcher/animal processing knife that can also be used for "utility work" like clearing brush and whatnot. It is not a khukri-like knife that can do stuff you'd usually use a hatchet or axe for. The edge is too thin and brittle. It's an all-in-one knife that could do anything an isolated villager might need it to, who also has access to a proper axe.

It isn't something you could wander into the woods and build a log cabin with, though. Besides the delicate edge, the lack of a guard means you'd have to be very careful. Since the edge and the belly start right at the bolster,if your finger slipped onto the blade you'd probably be cut to the bone. Other Hmong knives I've seen have a small circular guard but mine doesn't.