Yi saber

[josh stout]

This is a Yi saber with the typical Tibetan style blade and distinctive large round pommel. I do not know if the Yi produced such blades or traded for them from Tibet, but they are identical to Tibetan blades. The handle, pommel and scabbard are fairly diagnostic though scabbards from Eastern Tibet are very similar when done without fittings. The pommel is the real sign this is Yi. This one may be ivory, but they come in a variety of materials while all maintaining the same shape. I have posted several pictures, as most people are not familiar with this kind of sword.

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...duation376.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...duation375.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...duation372.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...duation374.jpg

I hope these are interesting.
Josh

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Josh,
Very interesting sword of Tibetan/Bhutanese form. This looks like a good 'working' example rather than the examples of more ceremonial mounts of Tibet and Bhutan with profuse fretwork. I have never quite understood exactly how these swords with more of a knob type pommel could be determined either Tibetan or Bhutanese. I have always thought of course of the Tibetan 'ke tri' with trilobate pommel, but it seems I have seen both hilt types attributed to Tibet, while never seeing a ke tri attributed to Bhutan.

I am really puzzled by the 'Yi' term. Was that not the Korean dynasty?
Are you saying this sword is Korean?

Best regards,
Jim

[Andrew]

Hi Jim. Josh was, I believe, referring to the Yi "Minority" in China:

http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Minorities/min-Yi.html

Best,
Andrew

[ariel]

Just a bit of legalistic quibbling:
Why saber?
Usually, saber is defined as a ( mostly) single-edged, curved blade ( shamshir, Kilij).
Palash ( or any other spelling) has a straight blade that is single edged. Sword is a straight blade that is double-edged.
At least, that is how they are defined by the Russian weapon specialists ( Miller, Astvatsaturyan, Trubnikov, etc).
Thus, Tibetan swords are , strictly speaking, palashes. No?

Many weapons ( Kora, sossun patah etc, mostly Indian) cannot be classied according to that principle. Also, what to do with straight, but partially double-edged blades ( Khanda, for example) or even fully double-edged ( firangi)?

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the clarification
I'm way behind in my homework on China!! and I figured it was something like that as there was sound implication in Josh's identification.
All the best,
Jim

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Ariel,
I think the terminology thing is one of the most confounding things in weapons study, and that is multiplied by semantics, colloquial terms, transliteration and general terms that broadly cover all forms of edged weapons in certain category.

I do know that in regulation swords the term sabre is often applied to straight military swords especially in British cavalry weapons. For example in the 1780's there was a straight sabre termed a spadroon with straight single edged blade , and it was generally accepted among basket hilt swords that a straight single edge sword was a 'backsword' while the double edged was a 'broadsword. This became even more confusing when the Scottish basket hilts of the 17th-19th c. began being termed 'claymores'. The claymore was of course a huge two hand broadsword of the 16th c-17thc and the term in Gaelic meant 'great sword'.

To make matters even more confusing on Indian swords, when is a 'sabre' a tulwar and when is it a shamshir? the standard tulwar hilt seems to be well placed as far as correct term, but there are those with Persian type hilts that are also called tulwars.....so are we calling it by the blade or the hilt?

In North Africa, the huge broadsword we all know as kaskara, as I have discussed over the years....has never been called a kaskara in the Sudan, in fact the Sudanese have no knowledge of the term. It is simply called a sa'if, just as in Morocco and Algiers the 'nimcha' is called sa'if. In Arabia the long straight sabres are called sa'if. I have seen Ottoman kilij type hilts with straight shamshir blades instead of the distinct short, yelman blade kilij...so is it a kilij or a shamshir? I call it a shamshir with Ottoman hilt.

This goes on and on, and it really is confusing. I guess the only solution is to apply the best description possible including defining features........as far as applying a term here I guess its preference. Technically if described by the standards of Eastern Europe or Turkey..pallasche would fit. It seems I have only ever seen them termed as Tibetan swords without further definition.

tomato/tomahto I guess

All the best,
Jim

[dennee]

Nice sword! (Better than my Yi swords, I'm afraid.)

The Yi used to be commonly referred to as Lolos, a pejorative nickname developed by non-Yi neighbors, in Western sources.

The use of "saber" for both curved and straight single-edged swords better corresponds with Chinese usage, in which "dao" means both (with whatever modifier indicates the blade or sword form).

[josh stout]

Terminology sure can be confusing. I use saber as the translation for dao but knife would be another translation. This would be a zhibeidao in Chinese which would be translated as straight backed knife. In Tibetan they are often called a ke tri but recently one was called Ral Gri in a catalogue of Scott Rodell's. That is not a term I am familiar with. I have also seen the term patang. Phuntsho Rapten, a Bhutanese researcher, calls them patag perhaps an alternative form of patang. In "Arms and armor of Tibet” LaRocca manages to avoid using any specific terms for Tibetan swords perhaps due to the variability in name. I have no idea what the Yi (Moso, Lolo, Noso) call this in any of their six dialects.

A knowledgeable person has told me that Yi culture has influences from Vietnamese culture. This influence would be found along the border of the two regions, but in this case the saber comes from North Western Sichuan so I would not expect to find any Vietnamese influence, just Tibetan and a bit of Chinese culture.

These weapons are largely unknown, but the market for Chinese antiques is going further and further afield in search of things that still have reasonable prices. Recently I have been finding many pieces from various border regions particularly those with Tibetan influence. Until recently these areas were too remote, but the region is being systematically developed and the remaining antiques are finding their way to the market.
Josh

[dennee]

Regarding Jim's point about distinctions between Bhutanese and Tibetan swords, it is often regarded as a convention, but I believe it to be more than conventional. Bhutanese swords generally have the "gubor" pommel and essentially no guard, their grips are typically of shagreen or braided wire or frog skin, they are shorter on average than are Tibetan zhibeidao but their blades at least as thick and as a consequence, have a more pronounced distal taper of the back of the blade. On average, the blade quality is probably better in extant examples, as there is a very wide range of qualities among Tibetan swords. Bhutanese swords were apparently sought after in Tibet (thus a Tibetan provenance would not be unusual--I have seen a couple in monasteries), and their quality was remarked upon by a couple of early twentieth-century Western observers. Historical photographs of Bhutanese show many of these swords (although their details are often obscured by the "modern" method of vertical suspension from a belt and just back of the right hip, one reason, I would think, for the persistence of the shorter form). The Bhutanese certainly consider these their national sword (see Phuntsho Rapten's paper online).

Dealers' or collectors' attributions to "Tibet or Bhutan" is probably indicative of a creditable reticence to seem certain when we are not certain, but it is based on the fact that so few swords have sound provenances. But to turn around a question like "why would we attribute one form to one place and another to another?" I would suggest that we would have a greater burden explaining the persistence of a distinct form if it were not largely related to geography and local culture. Sure, one could imagine that there would be a demand for shorter swords among those who had to carry them all the time and were perhaps not usually mounted, for instance. Thus, why couldn't a "Bhutanese" sword persist next to a "Tibetan" one. That is, I think, born out both by the fact that there are many single-edged Tibetan shortswords (with pointed tips and with the typical "oblique" tip) as well as the fact of importation of Bhutanese weapons (and armor, by the way). But it wouldn't explain all of the distinctively Bhutanese details of scabbards and fittings too.

Philip Tom has pointed out the similarity of Bhutanese swords, including pommels, to Chinese Tang and Song Dynasty pallasches. I'm guessing that the reason is related to the fact that Bhutan was largely settled by Khampas from eastern Tibet in the thirteenth century. As they had lived on the Chinese frontier, they may have brought Song-era sword-making technology largely intact to their new land. Being on the periphery of the Tibetan cultural area, more distant from the main locus of technological and cultural exchange on the Tibetan/Chinese frontier, sword manufacture may have remained quite conservative (one might also make guesses about the terrain of Bhutan versus that of Kham as well as the jungle character of southern Bhutan influencing a preference for shorter swords). "Tibetan" swords, the most prized of which were probably those that continued to be produced in Kham, particularly Derge and the Horpa states, also seem to show a lot of Chinese influence, but largely of the Ming period. The trilobate pommels; the idea of a thong or lanyard attached to the pommel in some fashion; U-frame scabbards, sometimes reinforced with a bar along the length of the flat of the blade (which, it seems, was frequently or eventually abstracted into a mere decorative strip); and the round, iron dished guard form all seem to be elements that do commonly appear on various Chinese and Tibetan swords around that time. So it may be that continued proximity to the Han culture influenced more rapid change among the cousins of the Bhutanese still in Kham. It's rather like language or many other traits in a culture that tend to change more rapidly in the populous "core" and more slowly on the periphery.

Where I imagine that typically Bhutanese and Tibetan forms overlap is likely in knives. There are certainly a number of modern knives of essentially the Bhutanese hilt form but without a distinct pommel, merely a rounded wood grip. These seem like a rather comfortable form for a working knife and may bleed over national boundaries.

[Jim McDougall]

Josh and Dennee,
Thank you both so much for the beautifully detailed and well explained data on terminology and differences in Bhutanese vs Tibetan attribution. It seems there has been a great deal of attention recently on Tibetan, Bhutanese and Chinese weapons and its great to see a well established base of knowledge on them.
There is not much in the way of attainable resources that go into any detail so the information is very much appreciated!!!

All the best,
Jim

[josh stout]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Josh and Dennee,
Thank you both so much for the beautifully detailed and well explained data on terminology and differences in Bhutanese vs Tibetan attribution. It seems there has been a great deal of attention recently on Tibetan, Bhutanese and Chinese weapons and its great to see a well established base of knowledge on them.
There is not much in the way of attainable resources that go into any detail so the information is very much appreciated!!!

All the best,
Jim

You are very welcome. There is information out there, but it is hard to gather together and tends to reflect either a Chinese imperialist or Western Imperialist viewpoint. For example, Western linguists still use the pejorative Lolo to refer to the Yi, while the word Yi, is from a Chinese variant of barbarian. In their own language the people are called the Nosu, at least according to some things I have read though there are many other names. I suspect Nosu is most correct for the Yi living in the Sichuan area. In terms of swords, the Yi share many historical similarities to the Tibetans in language and culture. Both cultures retain Tang/Song characteristics in their weapons (see http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4712). The southern Yi in Yunnan are quite different and considered to have Burmese influence in weapons and language. This includes the use of poison arrows. I have yet to find anything with a good provenance from the southern Yi. (Here I am lumping six separate language groups into the northern Sino-Tibetan and southern Sino-Burmese groups.)

This is a set of shuang jian that may be from a southern Yi group. It strongly resembles Ming styles with the extra large lobed pommel with a tassel hole and the big nosed, big-eyed monster face, while also resembling some Tibetan things with the lotus on the pommel. What makes me think this is not Chinese is that all Chinese monster/dragon mouth guards have the blade coming out of the mouth. This one has the handle coming out of the mouth, which while unknown in China is quite common in Vietnam. The combination of Chinese, Tibetan, and Vietnamese characteristics with the retention of Ming characteristics points to the possibility of a southern Yi origin for these shuang jian.

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...duation346.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...duation347.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...duation343.jpg

I hope this is of interest.
Josh