Pirate swords and weapons

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Rick

I believe I have an Iranun Kampilan,or so Xasterix tells me. It seems that it would be pretty cumbersome for boarding another vessel but it cerainly would be a fearsome weapon once one was ashore raiding.

Thats pretty cool Rick! I dont know a great deal on the weapons of these regions, and the kampilan seems to have been used by various tribal groups including sea dyaks (?) and of course Moro.
As you note, these full size swords would have been awkward in melees on deck, but deadly in encounters ashore.

I recall always wondering why full length bladed swords were so often associated with pirates such as the 'Barbary pirates' and the so called nimchas. What I found later was that shore raids and combat were far more prevalent than boarding vessels with these ethnographic pirate groups.

With the 'black flag' pirates of the 'Golden Age', there was seldom boarding and combat as in most cases merchant vessels surrendered without such action.

Question, on these kampilan, how does one distinguish one kampilan used by one group from another?
Whatever the case, I agree, these would be extremely deadly swords!