A Strange Discussion on Indian Weapons

[Jim McDougall]

To move beyond the developing nonsense of the last posts, I would like to join Ariel in sensibly evaluating the topic material.
In reference to stabbing potential of a weapon, in this case specifically armor piercing.....that is of course mail......while mail was indeed obsolete essentially in Europe.....it remained very much in use an such a number of ethnographic spheres that it would be hard to list them all here, and even into the 20th c.

I always remember first hearing of the Khevsurs years ago, reading Halliburton's "Seven League Boots", describing how these anachronistic warriors rode into Tiflis during WWI, armed cap a' pie wearing mail and old helmets looking like medieval warriors.

Iaroslav Lebedynsky used the term malle pierce in his references to certain bolstered and thin blades on kindjhal and others. It was not used in the 'title' of the weapon, only in its description.

In the Sudan and Egypt at the end of the 19th century, they were not only wearing mail, but making it there. It was used by Moros in the Spanish American war.

Despite the fact that firearms rendered this protection useless, it was still stubbornly retained by many and the idea of mail piercing weapons was not entirely lost, especially in remote regions where the materials needed for firearms were not always available.

These are simply assessments based on many years of intrigued study on these things, and not quite as 'first hand' as some who seem as if they had been there in real time. I only wish I had the ability to travel in time.

Here I would point out also that terms are usually less than viable as far as supportive evidence, but the more corroboration and cross referenced accounts, the higher degree of plausibility. I have always respected the nearly three decades that Robert Elgood has been traveling into India to field research for his valuable references, and also regard them as quite irrefutable. The mark of a true scholar and professional is to be able to remain open for new evidence or even correction, which is very much who he is.
Lesser 'scholars' will argue their position into the ground without any allowance or recognition of other views or suggestions, denying the possibility of learning from the many other deviations that may exist toward the subject matter.


The use of fanciful terms toward 'exotic' weaponry often collected is of course very expected, such as a huge blade...must be an executioners etc. but is hardly the kind of term responsible students of arms recognize.


Terms that are colloquially applied such as zirah bouk, pesh kabz, karud, churra etc etc etc should be recognized as just that, and the entire description of the weapon should note the variations accordingly. For our purposes in discussion we often defer to commonly used terms for the sake of convenience, but sort of footnote the proper term as possible.


For the most part, this 'strange' discussion has had some very worthy exchanges of information. Thank you to those staying objective.

[Mercenary]

If we do not discuss matters of faith (this is not a religious forum I hope?), let me summarize:
1. We do not have evidences of using term "zirah bouk" in real history.
2. We do not have writting sources mentioned the term.
3. The term is absent in Urdu, the language of the military camps of Persian-speaking armies, in which most military and weapon terms were Persian-speaking.
4. R.Elgood in the Glossary where for example in the article about katar he quoted ALL sources he had known but in the article about zirah bouk he quoted nothing at all. Maybe because he had not heard and read about it during his 30+ years (God bless him, we need more good pictures) travelling into India?
5. We do not have any information about using zirah bouk against armour.
6. We know nothing if it possible technically and physically to pierce with zirah bouk not a mail but... half inch wooden plank.

We know nothing at all... but we write a lot and defiantly argue.

[Jim McDougall]

Interesting rebuttal, so I think at this impasse the discussion has reached its level of useful exchange. I have very much enjoyed the information which has been exchanged since reopening this old thread, and from all of this we can see where continued research might present better understanding of the issues at hand in resolving these questions. Thank you.

[Ian]

Jim has suggested, very reasonably, that the present discussion has reached an impasse. The original title of this thread seems very apt. An odd recent discussion indeed.

Unless someone has a different line of discussion, it’s time to let this thread return to the archives.

Ian

[Jens Nordlunde]

Thank you Ian.
Jens

[Victrix]

And just when we had Comrade Lenin on-line...

[ariel]

This is not yet another focused note on katars, Zirah Bouks and the armor.
Just some musings on the origins of some terminology mentioned in this thread.

Let’s trace the word “ ordynka”, a Tatar/ Polish saber.
The entire word as we know it, is Polish and can be roughly translated as “ of Orda origin” .
The word “orda” is Turkic, meaning Army. In Turkey proper it sounds orta: remember different services of the Janissary corps ( not to confuse with corpse!)

In Slavic languages it was written and pronounced as ... you guess: Orda, but in Western Europe it mutated into Horde , and somehow started to define a very large, wild, barbaric and very malicious warlike force. Which is historically incorrect, because the original Orda encountered by the West Europeans, I.e. the Mongol army, was no less well-organized and disciplined than the Roman or Victorian one. The Orda that subjugated Russia and went as far as the Adriatic coast was the so-called Golden Horde, part of Ulus Juchi, I.e. Juchi’s Fiefdom..
It included the Crimea and nearby areas of the Ukraine, and Crimean Khans regularly invaded Russian dukedoms and occasionally served for the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. Part of them even settled in what now is Belarus, Lithuania and Poland proper . From them, their saber came to the Polish armamentarium and acquired the Polish name. As a matter of fact Russian language contains enormous number of Tatar words and their derivatives, the patrimony of peacefully living under the so-called “Mongol yoke” for more than 3 centuries.


But the Mongolian influence spread far away in a different direction , with the Babur invasion into the NW India. Originally, the language of it was called Hindustani. Then, the division between the Muslim ( largely ethnic Turkic Uzbek) and the Hindu populations divided it into Hindi and Urdu . The only difference between them is the alphabet, with NW Muslim India ( now largely Pakistan) adopting Perso-Arabic one, while the rest largely stuck with Sanskritic one. And the name of the NW Hindustani became Urdu: from the same Proto-Uzbek Turkic dialect ( Chagatai language) that gave us the word Orda: army language. In fact, both speaking Hindi and Urdu are virtually identical: my Indian and Pakistani colleagues freely speak to each other without any problems. But Urdu brought in some Persianized and Chagatai words and has several specific ( although barely perceptible) sounds. This is why Urdu alphabet contains 39 basic letters ( and additional 19 secondary ones), whereas Arabic manages quite nicely with only 28 and Persian with 32.

This is how Mongol army became responsible for the languages spreading from Eastern Europe to the Indian subcontinent. Not a miracle : about 10% of men currently living in what used to be the mighty Mongol Empire have the genetic imprint of a single progenitor. Likely, Chingiz Khan himself. The guy was rather busy:-) And just to think of it: no Viagra.