What is it?

Cyclura99 · 1st August 2006, 07:39 AM

Aboriginal Formosan, Ataylal tribe or one of the other indigenous aboriginal tribal groups but probably Atayal, style of the blade and scabbard.

NOT Chinese nor Taiwanese....................

CY , the king of everything.

yuanzhumin · 1st August 2006, 08:49 AM

I love this forum !
I didn’t pay attention to the exchanges for a while. Then, suddenly arrive a message on Taiwan stuff, and here are the fellow members, remembering that I love everything from this island, paging or private emailing me. Many thanks for your concerns and shared interest !
From what I see, the first knife seems to be from Taiwan. But when I say Taiwan, I mean the aboriginal tribes living there, the original inhabitants of the island, not the Han (chinese) population that arrived after the 16 th cent.
The shape of the blade is typical of the northern tribes (Atayal, Truku, Saisiat). The shape of the scabbard, with the 4 holes to hold it, is confirming the aboriginal origin. To be 100% sure, we would just need a picture of its other side. If the scabbard is open on its other side and the blade sustained inside by iron staples, it is definitly a Taiwanese aboriginal knife.
But what makes this cutlass particular is the painting on the scabbard. Traditionnally, and mostly among the northern tribes, there are no colors/drawings on the scabbard. Except when the aboriginal owner evolved from what the Taiwanese before were calling a ‘ raw ‘ savage to the status of ‘cooked’ savage, under the influence of its contacts with the Han population, that means, to be clear, when the owner of the knife became sinicized. These sinicised aborigines are refered today as ‘Pingpu’ or lowland aborigines. In fact, now, we could say that most of the Taiwanese (except the ones that arrived from China in 1949 with Chiang Kai-shek) are descending from these Pingpu people, as 80% of the modern population has mixed chinese/aboriginal blood.
So this knife is belonging to an aboriginal guy that was in the mountains and then accepted the chinese culture to become a Pingpu. This is a transitional knife. In this transition, there are different steps, and you can see that this knife remained still primitive in its drawings when, on the two examples shown by Louieblade (thanks for the link), that are also both Pingpu knives, the impression given when you see the drawings is that they are really looking like han/chinese. In these cases, only the open scabbard and few details in the drawings remain to remind us that the owners of these knives were coming from aboriginal backgrounds.
Sommelier ? What a nice name ! Do you have any great wines to share with us ?
Best,
Yuanzhumin getting thirsty
PS I don’t know anything concerning the second knife, except it is not from the Taiwanese aboriginal tribes.

1st August 2006, 07:39 AM	#1
Cyclura99 Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 15	What is it? Aboriginal Formosan, Ataylal tribe or one of the other indigenous aboriginal tribal groups but probably Atayal, style of the blade and scabbard. NOT Chinese nor Taiwanese.................... CY , the king of everything.

1st August 2006, 08:49 AM	#2
yuanzhumin Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Ex-Taipei, Taiwan, now in Shanghai, China Posts: 180	I love this forum ! I didn’t pay attention to the exchanges for a while. Then, suddenly arrive a message on Taiwan stuff, and here are the fellow members, remembering that I love everything from this island, paging or private emailing me. Many thanks for your concerns and shared interest ! From what I see, the first knife seems to be from Taiwan. But when I say Taiwan, I mean the aboriginal tribes living there, the original inhabitants of the island, not the Han (chinese) population that arrived after the 16 th cent. The shape of the blade is typical of the northern tribes (Atayal, Truku, Saisiat). The shape of the scabbard, with the 4 holes to hold it, is confirming the aboriginal origin. To be 100% sure, we would just need a picture of its other side. If the scabbard is open on its other side and the blade sustained inside by iron staples, it is definitly a Taiwanese aboriginal knife. But what makes this cutlass particular is the painting on the scabbard. Traditionnally, and mostly among the northern tribes, there are no colors/drawings on the scabbard. Except when the aboriginal owner evolved from what the Taiwanese before were calling a ‘ raw ‘ savage to the status of ‘cooked’ savage, under the influence of its contacts with the Han population, that means, to be clear, when the owner of the knife became sinicized. These sinicised aborigines are refered today as ‘Pingpu’ or lowland aborigines. In fact, now, we could say that most of the Taiwanese (except the ones that arrived from China in 1949 with Chiang Kai-shek) are descending from these Pingpu people, as 80% of the modern population has mixed chinese/aboriginal blood. So this knife is belonging to an aboriginal guy that was in the mountains and then accepted the chinese culture to become a Pingpu. This is a transitional knife. In this transition, there are different steps, and you can see that this knife remained still primitive in its drawings when, on the two examples shown by Louieblade (thanks for the link), that are also both Pingpu knives, the impression given when you see the drawings is that they are really looking like han/chinese. In these cases, only the open scabbard and few details in the drawings remain to remind us that the owners of these knives were coming from aboriginal backgrounds. Sommelier ? What a nice name ! Do you have any great wines to share with us ? Best, Yuanzhumin getting thirsty PS I don’t know anything concerning the second knife, except it is not from the Taiwanese aboriginal tribes.