Exceptionaly rare knife from Formosa/Taiwan

[yuanzhumin]

Hello

I wanted to share this piece just arrived into my collection and see if one of you had any additional infos on it.

This is an exceptionally rare ceremonial bronze and iron knife from the Paiwan tribe. I personally think that there are only few dozens of them left.

The following comments are copied from the digital on line Museum of Taiwan. I attached hereunder 4 photos of my knife and then one (the 5th) of the knife displayed on the website of the digital Museum of Taiwan.

Mine is a shorter with the following dimensions : 19x5 cm

Bronze knife (comments from the museum)

Introduction
Bronze knives, azure stone beads and ceramic pots are the “three treasures” of the Paiwan tribe. In earlier days these items would only be owned by chiefs or higher-class people and were usually passed down from ancestors. Usually these sacred items would not be touched casually by ordinary people and would only be shown during the special ceremony held every five years.
??The Paiwan today only know that the bronze knives were passed down from their ancestors and were sacred. Taiwan does not have the tin needed to make bronze and none of the aborigine tribes possessed bronze making technology, so some scholars believe the bronze knives originated in the Dongshan civilization of Vietnam because of their shape and material.

Shape
Bronze handle and iron blade. The handle is human head shaped. The head is decorated with five joined small heads. On the lower part of the handle and where it joins the handle there are joined triangles shapes carved in. The blade is iron. The upper part has a waist and the lower part is a double-edged blade.

Manufacturing method
Handle made of cast bronze. It is a double edged blade made from worked iron.

Function and use
Bronze knives are different to domestic use knives or fighting knives. They had no practical function and were a sacred item. They were representative of position and status. They would only be displayed during the once-every-five-year ceremony.

[Tim Simmons]

Magnificent!! A pleasure to see.

[yuanzhumin]

Thank you Tim. For you and the others that are interested I posted hereafter the pictures of the two most beautiful of these kind of ceremonial or ritual knives that I have ever seen.
The first one is very long with 56 cm and is one of the masterpiece of the Shunye Museum of Aboriginal art, in Taipei, and the second one, measuring 42 cm, is in the collections of the Sankokan Museum of the Tenri University, in Japan.

[Tim Simmons]

Superb artistry and casting on the second example. How wonderful to have one, even if not quite as fine as these two.

[Rick]

These are lovely examples !
Please keep showing us Taiwanese ethnograpich weapons Yuanzhumin , they are seldom seen on the forum .

[Nonoy Tan]

Taiwan does not have the tin needed to make bronze and none of the aborigine tribes possessed bronze making technology, so some scholars believe the bronze knives originated in the Dongshan civilization of Vietnam because of their shape and material.

Hi Yuanzhumin,

Do scholars theorize that the bronze knives were exported to Formosa?

Did the indigenous peoples of Formosa attempt to make similar knives using iron?

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by Tim Simmons

Magnificent!! A pleasure to see.

Agree with Tim! And congrats to this rare find.

[KuKulzA28]

You're an expert and I a novice. You're a collector and historian, and I use machetes in the woods. I've heard of and seen pictures of these bronze knives... but I know little to nothing about them - let alone having one. You're very fortunate to have one... Hold onto it and keep good care of it, please!!!

If only the looted bronze knives were returned to Taiwan, or even to the Paiwanese people...

It's always good to see stuff from the home(is)land pop up on this forum.

[migueldiaz]

thanks for sharing! would there be mainland china blades that are similar in shape? thanks in advance

[fearn]

I suspect the tradition of ceremonial bronze knives was widespread, because they showed up in Korea as well. However, the Korean knives don't look at all like these, and as far as I can tell, their design is unique to Taiwan.

How old are they?

Absolutely wonderful to see them.

F

[Emanuel]

Very beautiful artifacts!

Somehow "phurpa" immediately came to mind when I saw these.

Not necessarily implying a connection, but it is very interesting to yet again find parallel and separate development of similar forms and treatments.

[yuanzhumin]

Thanks for your interest and your nice comments. This kind of knives are seldomly seen outside museums, even in Taiwan. Outside the island, only few of them have been collected in Japan, mostly ethnology department, and a couple of others may be found in very few places around the world. In more than ten years collecting Taiwan aboriginal stuff, I only saw 2 of these knives, and one of them is mine now and is the one displayed here. The other one was too expensive for me to buy, and it was bought by another private collector I know. In fact, these knives are very, very rare.
If I had to evaluate how rare, I would say there are only a couple of hundreds (around 200 ?) still existing, most of them in museums and ethnology dep., the other still in the hands of their original owners – Paiwan chiefs/witches lineage – or collected by private collectors.

To Nonoy : Scholars don’t know where these knives are coming from. They could have been imported as the Paiwan that used them and the other contemporary aborigines tribes didn’t know how to make iron and bronze till the 20th cent. The second hypothesis is that the bronze knives could have been made before, much earlier by the ancestors of the Paiwan but the knowledge was lost, or by another insular ethnic group that disappeared. The fact is that places were iron was made and bronze casted were found on the island, some of them dating back long long time ago. But what happened after is a mystery ? Another fact is that trade was very well developed few thousand years ago as taiwanese jade was exported all around Asia (spectrographic analysis of jade samples found all around Asia and dating few thousand years ago showed that most of the stones were coming from one place in Taiwan). In fact, this jade industry and exportation is what initiated the migration from the island to give birth to the wide austronesian spread all over south east asia and the Pacific. So it's easy to imagine the other way around, with these knives being imported into the island. Concerning the iron making, the aborigines began to make their own knives in the 1920s, taught by the Japanese that wanted to develop the local economy in the aboriginal villages (the principle is that when the aborigines are busy trading and making money they are not making war, mostly against the colonial power that were the Japanese at that time)

To Kukulza : I think that most of these knives are still in Taiwan, and the ones that left the Paiwan families were sold by the Paiwan themselves --- not looted. Everything coming from the aborigines that you can find today outside the aboriginal villages was given away by the aborigines themselves or stolen by them from their own people to be sold to the outsiders. It’s only recently that some kind of tribal pride has appeared accompanied by a cultural revival and a rediscovery of the traditions. Unfortunately, most of the traditions and heritage have been lost and what is recovered looks often more like a folkloric/touristic thing. In some case, when mixed with politics, it can become some kind of extreme militantism, with a more romantic/utopic than realistic dimension.

To migueldiaz : I don’t know if there is something close in China today, but the fact is that the kind of design on these ceremonial knives are very close to the Dongson civilization of South China and Indochina, and also the Shang and Chou period in antique China.

To fearn : How old are they ? We don’t know, but they are old, very old. It’s very possible that the iron blades have been changed and readjusted to the bronze handle because of the corrosion due to the age.

[Nonoy Tan]

Scholars don’t know where these knives are coming from. They could have been imported as the Paiwan that used them and the other contemporary aborigines tribes didn’t know how to make iron and bronze till the 20th cent. The second hypothesis is that the bronze knives could have been made before, much earlier by the ancestors of the Paiwan but the knowledge was lost, or by another insular ethnic group that disappeared. The fact is that places were iron was made and bronze casted were found on the island, some of them dating back long long time ago. But what happened after is a mystery ?

Thanks for providing this information, Yuanzhumin. Very interesting. The answers pose more questions though

Have there been any archaeological excavations which show metal blades or knives dating pre-20th century?

Did the aboriginal peoples export raw jade or processed jade? Did they use metal or stone tools to extract and work on Jade?

[KuKulzA28]

Originally Posted by yuanzhumin

To Kukulza : I think that most of these knives are still in Taiwan, and the ones that left the Paiwan families were sold by the Paiwan themselves --- not looted. Everything coming from the aborigines that you can find today outside the aboriginal villages was given away by the aborigines themselves or stolen by them from their own people to be sold to the outsiders. It’s only recently that some kind of tribal pride has appeared accompanied by a cultural revival and a rediscovery of the traditions. Unfortunately, most of the traditions and heritage have been lost and what is recovered looks often more like a folkloric/touristic thing. In some case, when mixed with politics, it can become some kind of extreme militantism, with a more romantic/utopic than realistic dimension.

I see. I'm surprised more weren't looted, after all the Japanese were very brutal in their conquests/rapes of their colonies. Though, on Taiwan, they did seek to assimilate it into a Japanese island. However the Paiwan selling their old possessions is also something I can see... it is too bad, but it is also a sign of a changing culture, one that is adapting or giving way to the "dominant" one. I don't blame Taiwanese for militancy ...in a way I only wish more Taiwanese sought to assert their identity and independence... with a unique blend of cultures, histories, and destinies. But, in general, the Taiwanese are not culturally fighters anymore, and there are very few militant people today. Nevertheless I am glad for what traditions persist, especially amongst the Yuan Zhu Min because they have been oppressed the most.

[yuanzhumin]

To Nonoy,
-There have been a lot of archaeological works done recently, mostly in the process of the rapid urbanization of the coastal areas of Taiwan. That’s usually when there is a new highway, a new port or an industrial zone in building that findings of historical importance are done. The Shisanhang site, close to the new Taipei harbour, is one of them, and there are few others all around the island where metal/iron tools were found dating from 2000 years ago to 1500 years ago. This give you an idea about the beginning of what we could call the Iron Age in Taiwan. (The history of Taiwan starts when the island became a Dutch colony in the 17th cent. The times before are considered as its prehistory). Shisanhang is the most interesting site because it’s the only place where a furnace for iron melting has been found, revealing that the former inhabitants of the island had the knowledge and the ability to melt iron. Discoveries of Chinese items dating from earlier Chinese dynasties showed also that commercial routes were existing, used also to bring iron or metal blades from the continent. This is for the coastal austronesian populations. As for the mountains ones, it seems that they were not doing their blades themselves and were bartering them. By the way, that’s how the Dutch made a fortune in the 17th cent.: they were giving iron blades to the mountains aborigines in exchange for deer skins that where then traded for porcelains and other precious stuff in Japan. Why the deer skins in Japan? Japan was in the middle of a feudal war at that time and the deer skin was known as being the best undercoat, under the samurai armors.
-Concerning the jade, its extraction and carving is located in one place, south east of the island, and was done early -- around 6000 years ago. We know now that this jade was exported all around Asia by the Austronesian peoples from Taiwan that exported at the same time their language. Some of the people kept on migrating till they discover Polynesia in the east or reached the coasts of Madagascar, in the west. On their pirogues with outrigger, this people exported the jade carved and sometimes raw, sculpting it on location (as some archaeological findings show it). It seems that they were using stone tools.
To Kukulza,
-it’s important to stay away from the clichés and the amalgams about the Taiwanese, the Chinese, the Japanese, the aborigines/austronesians.

[Nonoy Tan]

Yuanzhumin,

I now understand better the events that took place in Formosa during prehistoric times. Thank you.

Has there been any archaeological evidence of human habitation in the islands before the arrival of the Austronesians into Formosa?

Can you recommend some books that contains comprehensive details on the prehistory of Formosa?

I wonder what theories there are with regard the origin of the Larao/larao blade.

[fearn]

Hi Nonoy,

The Austronesians originated on Taiwan, and then spread south into Indonesia. According to the archeologists and linguists, it's the origin of that group of people. There were people on Taiwan before the Austronesians, but they were the ancestors of the Austronesians, just as the Austronesians were the ancestors of many Indonesians, Polynesians, Micronesians, and a group in Madagascar.

Hope this helps,

F

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by yuanzhumin

To migueldiaz : I don’t know if there is something close in China today, but the fact is that the kind of design on these ceremonial knives are very close to the Dongson civilization of South China and Indochina, and also the Shang and Chou period in antique China.

Thanks for the comments. The Dongson culture is indeed another lead yet to be mined. The Dongson drums' design for instance (a sample is below) looks uncannily like the Moro shields' motif ...

Thanks again for the comments.

[yuanzhumin]

More of these extremely rare Paiwan bronze knives ! These are pics taken from books already difficult to find individually. Put together, this is an absolutely unic sample !
I have the book references for those interested.

[yuanzhumin]

Few more

[varta]

May I share the picture of a recent purchase. It is 47 cm long. Slightly different from yuanzhumin's examples of the Tenri collection and the Shunye Museum of Aboriginal art.

[yuanzhumin]

Nice one, Varta !

[apolaki]

wow these knifes are so amazing! they remind me of the keris although its not wavy or elongated