hmmm....well i, for one am not assuming that. Firstly i prefer to refer to these substances as entheogens. Hallucinations imply something that is not really there. I do not believe that is the case with the visions produced by these substances. Nor do i believe that these substances are necessary in order to hear the plants "sing", but they have been know to guide the people to the knowledge of this kind of listening.
And i guess you are right, we do already have a couple of leukemia drugs from tropically plants so i guess it makes no sense to keep looking for one that might actually cure the disease. :rolleyes:

The ice knife idea is cool ;) , but if you already have the chisel, rock or stick needed to fashion it i think you might make a better, more permanent knife out of them. :shrug:
Blow guns are also neat things, but i am afraid i do not have any. True though that we haven't had much discussion of them on these forums. :shrug:

Hi David,

I used to work at a hospital in the Bay Area, in the early 90s, when AIDS was really becoming epidemic. A doctor had gotten a birthday card that said, "Remember when childhood leukemia was lethal, and sex wasn't?" That was back in the 1970s. Childhood leukemia is now one of the most curable cancers, thanks in part to vincristine and similar plant drugs. I think of it as a success story, even though we don't have a 100% cure rate.

Now, if there was a drug out there to cure stupidity, I could use that! :D :D :D

As for what to call mind-altering plants, you're right. If I call them entheogens, someone gets mad, if I call them hallucinogens, someone gets mad, if I call them medicines, someone gets mad, if I call them drugs, someone gets mad, and if I call them poisons, someone gets mad. This is not to insult you in any way, but to point out that such plants are a touchy subject for our society, and I don't think there's a neutral way to talk about them. At least the term hallucinogens has been around long enough for you to know what I'm talking about, more or less. In my mind, that shared communication is reason enough to use the term.

Best,

F

Ain't that the truth. :D
And please don't misunderstand. I am in no way angered by your use of the term hallucinogen. Just explaining my point of view. And i do understand that entheogen is not a word that the general masses would recognize. :)

Fearn, it wasn't helpful. It was super :) Thanks for the elaboration.

And being a mining engineer who in my younger days had been blasting gold veins deep within the bowels of our mountains, I know exactly what you mean.

But hopefully not hoping against hope, I still look forward to the day when more drugs will be discovered, be they coming from plants or insects of the rain forests or from elsewhere.

Then what are we waiting for? ;)

Earlier all I know was that the day destroys the night, and night divides the day. Now I feel like breaking through to the other side ;) :D

But as mentioned, enough talking about shamans and chemically-assisted meditations!

On a more serious note, I'm sure we all agree with Vandoo when he said:

Referring to Davis again in the video, it's of course true that our present techie world is but just 300 years old. With all the progress it has made, I hope people will also not forget to tap into the wisdom of the ancients. Their knowledge gathered over a course of thousands of years, is to me a more valuable gold mine ... which reminds me of one of the greatest tragedies ever, the burning of the ancient library of Alexandria *sigh*

We would have found a lot of info there for sure regarding metallurgy, ancient weapons, if we are to go back to the subject as we should ...

Links for those wishing to know more about Wade Davis:

The one we all saw earlier -- Video: Endangered cultures (2003)

The story continues -- Video: Worldwide beliefs and rituals (2008)

Interview with Anthropologist Wade Davis

Links pertaining to Wade Davis

I often wonder how a particular culture can be preserved in this day and age ...

For instance, watch this short video of a modern samurai who displays amazing feats with his katana.

Is he cheapening the proud heritage of the samurai by such seeming crass commercialism? Or is he in fact ensuring in his own little way that the ways of the samurai are not forgetten? :shrug:

Interesting synchronicity.

This week in Science News, one of the feature stories is "Venom hunters: scientists probe toxins, revealing the healing powers of biochemical weapons."

So that's where the bioprospecting action is right now, the rapidly growing field of "venomics" (and I'm not making the name up), a combination of the studies of venom effects and the genes and genomics behind it. Interesting stuff, if you're into bioscience.

If you're not into it, just think of it as a way of turning pit viper venom into heart medications, or just a 21st century way of turning swords into plowshares.

Best,

Frank

Thanks, Frank! :)

Filipinos are actually quite familiar with this line of research. And one reason for that is that there's a local research agency that keeps a lot of live poisonous snakes, as they study precisely how to make anti-venom vaccine, among other stuff.

On using nature as inspiration for industrial design, everybody might want to check out this interesting video: Janine Benyus shares nature's designs.

very cool, thanks for posting this up!

Bumping this one up, because in the US, National Geographic channel is running an hour-long program on Wade Davis working with the aborigines in Arnhem Land. No hallucinogens, but they do show spear-making and spear use.

This thread, which began with a sort of whimsical, yet interesting topic, has evolved into somewhat the pinnacle of off topic digression :) ...but I confess to having followed it with ever increasing fascination.
I am constantly amazed at the incredible core of knowledge on such a vast array of fields here, many of course not directly related to weapons.

One thing that I have found through many years of studying arms, often particularly with ethnographic forms, is that finding true understanding of them very often extends into subjects which would not seem related.

One of my favorite areas in examining arms has always been markings and symbolism, and understanding these often leads down incredibly esoteric and even occult paths. This is especially the case in American Indian culture as well as Spanish colonial situations, where in many cases these have melded together.

I could not resist following the Castaneda topic, which led me to the American Indian religions that follow the use of peyote and some of the other hallucinogenics, and its development from prehistoric times in America's southwest and northern Mexico. This leads to Meso American cultures, including the Aztecs and Olmecs, and the influences that evolved into the American Indian and Mexican cultures as well as Spanish, which in many cases included....weaponry.

Bruno Thomas and Ortwin Gamber in thier 'Harnitschstudian' (Studies in Armour) from 1937-1955, convincingly explained that "...rather than being mere accessories, weapons are in fact themselves artistic creations that reflect larger stylistic tendancies of a period".

The study of art of course includes religion and all material culture, including that of folk religion, which as discusses, may often include botanicals that in turn include hallucinogens.

Just my thoughts, and thanks for the intriguing discussion....really enjoyed the adventure and added some great dimension to my present studies in Spanish colonial and American southwest study.

Best regards,
Jim

The last practicing Kiowa horn doctor (a form of blood letting) uses buffalo horns handed down through her family and for cutting instruments, slivers of glass from broken brown (they have to be brown) booze bottles instead of splinters of buffalo bones like they used to. I use broken glass to scrape down bow staves, and brown glass is harder and sharper based on my admittedly subjective experience.

What about the use of gar's teeth for scratching at the SE ceremonial grounds? Would that count as an improvised "knife"?

As for hearing plants or animals sing, uh, the bad news is for the majority of folks on this board, (myself included) is that the don't speak English. Strangely enough, even sheep can speak Kiowa, but they don't speak English-I kid you not.

a very interesting thread...
 

Weapons are often loaded with shamanic power, and even so-called straightforward religious energy. The aspiring knight stayed up all night praying over his weapons, and there are lots of instances of various kinds of power in weapons. Keris is just one example.

Shaka Zulu totally changed South African combat methods from basically ritualistic spear throwing from a distance to a very methodical and effective military science. The long throwing spear was discarded for the short stabbing assegai, and the first of these, which he commissioned (Supposedly after a vision) was tempered with various animal entrails by his ally, the medicine woman Isangoma.

Castaneda's teacher talked about leaving weapons where spirits could touch them and empower them.

The ordinary and extraordinary realities exist at the same time and in the same place. And weapons are full of that kind of energy. In fact, I would say that weapons are one of the primary sources and repositories of shamanic energy.

Very nicely done guys!!! Talk about bringin it around.......beautiful. :)

Aiontay, its always great to learn more on the true American Indian perspective, and Montino, well placed notes on the shamanic connections to weapons.

All the very best,
Jim

Thanks Jim, and all of us couldn't agree more of course :)

When I started the serious study of Phil. ethnic weapons, I thought I would just be dealing with blades. Now I see myself (reluctantly) studying the weaving patterns for instance of the many Phil. ethnic groups.

It's becoming one heck of a journey, but I never regretted it and I'm definitely enjoying the ride.

Thanks for the info aiontay on the improvised knife and blood-letting. That's quite interesting!

It's also interesting to think that our peoples may be related, if certain theories of anthropologists are to be believed.

By that I meant the hypothesis that from Asia, a group of people crossed the land bridge during the Ice Age into Alaska. Or perhaps your people would have a totally different belief, in which case it will also be interesting to know about it. Thanks in advance!

By the way, can you kindly please elaborate please on the last sentence of your post? :)

On another matter, on the attempt to blend the supernatural with the physical, I'd like to repeat this account I first quoted here, describing an Igorot "amazon priestess" in action in the battlefield:

"On the 25th [June 1747], Don Cuarto began the attack, but was soon put out of action himself by two rocks which struck him in the head. Apparently directing the defense forces was a sort of amazon priestess in their midst, naked to the waist, who kept inciting the Ipituys to fever pitch with her shouts and taunting the enemy with her invective and challenging them to shoot her, and although she was a frequent target, no ball found its mark -- a circumstance analyzed in the friar report of the battle as a sure sign of direct covenant with the Devil. The Igorots fought with such fury and war cries they literally foamed at the mouth, causing their enemies to suspect they had chewed some narcotic root to provide a suicidal intoxication."

The account was taken from WH Scott's The Discovery of the Igorots: Spanish Contacts with the Pagans of Northern Luzon (1974).

My Kiowa ancestors came out from underground through a hollow log as ants. A pregnant woman got caught and that is why there aren't too many of us. On my Chickasaw side, we came from the west and ended up in the SE USA, before the Andrew Jackson repaid our help in fighting the Brits with him at the Battle of New Orleans by removing us to Oklahoma. For a rather interesting story regarding the Chickasaw migration legend, which was a common one in the SE, read Du Pratz's story of a Yazoo Indian who basically tries to find out if the story is true. Du Pratz was a French settler in Louisiana in the early 18th century, and his book is available online.

Which leads us to an Asian connection. Over here we say it was actually the other way around; you guys came from here (just kidding), and Du Pratz story indicates there might be a connection. My Kachin friends assert that their migrations legends lead them to believe that American Indians are their brothers. Interestingly enough, the linguist Sapir posited a link between the Tibeto-Burman languages and the Dine languages (Apache, Navajo, and tribes in Alaska and Canada). As for a link to the Philippines, the only link I can think of is that I've studied Pekiti Tirsia for over 20 years. Sorry, that's the best I can do. Oh, I like chocolate meat, which is a very Kiowa style dish.

As for my last sentence, their is a Kiowa Christian hymn "Son of God, the Spirit of Joy He Is" or that's how it is translated into English. It is my favorite hymn. A number of years ago a Kiowa man's wife died. One day not long after her death he was walking along a country road and passed a herd of sheep, animals not native to the Americas. As he passed by the herd, he realized they were singing a hymn. That is where that song comes from, sheep. As my Yuchi friend said when I told him that story, "See their own animals don't speak English!"

aiontay, that is fascinating. My family has lost touch with almost all of their traditional Chinese/Taiwanese beliefs and world-views. Maybe that's a good thing... maybe it isn't at all. The last 300 years of sino-history has been a lot of cultural decay...


I too have found that happening. My quest to learn more about the Southern Chinese way of fighting, as well as Taiwanese aborigines has led me to brush up on my Mandarin and also try to relearn Min-nan/Taiwanese! I've found myself looking at Chinese clothing styles from Fujian, their boats, etc. I have also been listening to Taiwanese aboriginal songs and folktales, as well as their weaving and tribal structures... because a weapon is an artifact of survival in a society, and thus will be imbued and crafted with the hues and beliefs of that culture. Unfortunately, few people I know share the same enthusiasm for Taiwanese history and weaponry, but hey, never hurts to be different.

But the same goes for European weapons too. If an inscription has a reference to God but you don't know their religion well, you wouldn't get far. If a cavalry saber has a number and a mark on it but you don't know the system of master craftsmen and apprentice, you don't know the mass production of things, you don't know the exportation of British and German blades to Africa and India, etc... you'd be lost.
If she was hot I'd fight for her too ;)

But on a more serious note... how real is this?
The Spanish tend to make their best enemies seem like demonic fanatics... rather than well-trained combatants fighting invaders... this probably also has to do with the Spanish world-view (leading back to what you were saying).

The Mayans idolaters, the Moro Mohemmadans, the Igorot pagans... :shrug:

Hi Aiontay,

You don't think that sheep would speak to Judean shepherds as well? :D :D

Seriously, though, I wonder if the sheep were humming, rather than speaking. People get their melodies from all over the place, and for all I know (and feel free to correct me), the person who wrote that Kiowa hymn was a shepherd who picked up his inspiration from the field.

Mozart did the same thing. He had a pet starling of whom he was quite fond. Starlings are mimics that can learn words, but Mozart put starling-like musical phrasings into at least one of his pieces.

Best,

F

Hebrew or Arabic was the original language, of course, and plenty of ethnographic blades were used to prove that point. At least it was Semetic, and of course the animals understand it otherwise they would have gotten in the ark.

Fearn it was the words, not the tune. The hymn is 20th Century and there are still people alive who know the "composer" ( now deceased). He wasn't a shepard. The interesting thing to me is there are lots of songs attributed to animals in all the tribes, but they all pre-date Christianity as far as I know. Now there are plenty of Indian hymns that came via dreams or direct revelation, sort of like lots of medicines.

KukulzA28, Taiwan is a great place. I lived there for a year. Lots of interesting history.

I'd love to write more...
 

I'd love to write more but time is away on me.

Attached is a label attached to a quiver of arrows I passed by a week or two ago.

Gav

Fair enough Aiontay, and thanks for the story. Hopefully I'll hear an Indian song next time I'm around a flock of sheep, whether or not I understand the words.

Cool! :)

Hey, I don't mind if we from Asia came from over there, via that Bering land bridge which is now Bering Strait.

I should probably mention that to the immigration officer the next time I visit the US. I'd like to find out what kind of conversation that will trigger ;)

Joking aside, the study of languages is indeed heaven-sent with regard to tracing the migration paths of peoples, and as regards finding out who is really related to whom.

With the rise of high-speed computing in the 1970s, linguists were able to easily categorize gazillions of words, thereby providing additional leads in areas where archeology runs out of steam.

The Philippines' own language tree is below (from one of WH Scott's books).

For instance, it is one of the evidences being cited to prove that the dominant Taosugs of the Sulu sultanate actually came from the other side of Mindanao (the Agusan-Surigao area).

Now what I'm really interested in is a Phil. language tree with the time dimension, just like what was done (below) for the English language tree.

PS - Thanks for the reply-comments on the other points as well.

Fearn,
Rather try to hear an Indian song, maybe you should listen for one meant for you; maybe it is out there. Mozart was on to something, and I wouldn't completely rule out those sheep speaking English, but in order to hear them, maybe to get on the right mental/spiritual level requires a lot of prayer and fasting. And listening to the birds sing, even if you don't understand their language is never a bad thing, but I'm sure you already know that.

Migualdiaz,
Just tell the immigration guys you're Navajo. I've had Navajo friends be mistaken for Asian by Asians.

To try to bring this back to the weapon angle, I've seen ceremonial uses of wooden knives and real gun in dances, but those weren't by my tribe, so I probably should leave it at that.

Looks like we are trodding similar paths :)

Well, she is probably already 80 years old ;)

Seriously, I agree with your hunch that that was a case of biased reporting.

In the 333 years that Spain controlled substantial portions of what is now Philippines (i.e., given that the Igorots, the Moros, the Lumad, and other lowland and upland "infieles" were not really subdued), Spain never made money (the government was always on a deficit). The US had the same experience.

And so naturally, the on-site bureaucrats' "press release" to the mother country would always be biased lest they (the administrators) be seen in a negative light.

When the Filipino national hero José Rizal reconstructed prehispanic Philippines' history for instance, he did not rely on the Spanish friars' accounts.

And that's precisely because their accounts were always citing extraordinary events. In the case of the friars, they were recounting always magical and supernatural occurrences among the activities of the natives.

While Rizal for sure (and most Filipinos) would not absolutely rule out such phenomenon, I think Rizal saw that the friars' stories have simply too much of those stories.

Now the locals' accounts of the overall history will also be biased for sure, to be fair.

Thus for me that's the challenge for the historian -- how to meld two half-truths and come out with a more objective account.

Thanks Aiontay,

I already speak more animal languages than human ones. It's fun.

F

By the way, if you're referring to the alleged use of a "narcotic root" by the Igorot warriors during battle, it's the first time I've heard about it. If Nonoy Tan is reading this, then maybe he can shed more light on the matter.

As for a warrior getting berserk via the botanical route, I think most of us know that certain Viking warriors 'popularized' this.

And the very word itself (berserk) is derived from Old Norse of the same meaning.

Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

History

Hilda Ellis-Davidson draws a parallel between berserkers and the mention by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII in his book De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae ("Book of Ceremonies of the Byzantine court") of a "Gothic Dance" performed by members of his Varangian Guard (Norse warriors working in the service of the Byzantine Empire), who took part wearing animal skins and masks: she believes this may have been connected with berserker rites.

In 1015, Jarl Eiríkr Hákonarson of Norway outlawed berserkers. Grágás, the medieval Icelandic law code, sentenced berserker warriors to outlawry. By the 1100s, organised berserker war-bands had disappeared.

King Harald Fairhair's use of berserker "shock troops" broadened his sphere of influence. Other Scandinavian kings used berserkers as part of their army of hirdmen and sometimes ranked them as equivalent to a royal bodyguard. It may be that some of those warriors only adopted the organisation or rituals of berserk war-bands or used the name as a deterrent or claim of their ferocity.

Still, some scholars consider the frenzied and indomitable berserker and his bloodshot eyes to stand right alongside horned Viking helmets as a "feature of later literary [works] rather than contemporary historical ones", placing the legitimacy of Icelandic sagas as historical records into question. Little Icelandic literature was recorded before the middle of the Thirteenth Century, more than two hundred years after the conversion of Iceland to Christianity. The sagas are broadly interested in history, but they are re-tellings of legend and in no way constitute a proper historical record. The family sagas in particular shed more light on 13th- and 14th-Century ideas about the 9th-11th centuries than they do on the legendary period itself.

Irish hero Setanta (Cúchulainn) is said to have been a berserker in some legends.

Theories on the causes of the berserkergang

Theories about what caused berserker behaviour include ingestion of materials with psychoactive properties, psychological processes, and medical conditions.

Modern scholars believe certain examples of berserker rage to have been induced voluntarily by the consumption of drugs such as the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita (Howard D. Fabing. "On Going Berserk: A Neurochemical Inquiry." Scientific Monthly. 83 [Nov. 1956] p. 232), or massive quantities of alcohol (Robert Wernick. The Vikings. Alexandria VA: Time-Life Books. 1979. p. 285). While such practices would fit in with ritual usages, other explanations for the berserker's madness have been put forward, including self-induced hysteria, epilepsy, mental illness or genetic flaws (Peter G. Foote and David m. Wilson. The Viking Achievement. London: Sidgewick & Jackson. 1970. p. 285).

A Horizon Book on Vikings claims[citation needed] that some chieftains would hold their berserkers in reserve during a battle. Once a portion of the enemy line appeared to tire or weaken, the chieftains would send the berserkers charging into the enemy ranks to hopefully open a break and even panic the enemy. The book also claimed that while on sea voyages close to land, berserkers were sometimes asked to go ashore to find objects on land to wrestle or bash to give vent to their fury.

Botanists have suggested the behaviour might be tied to ingestion of bog myrtle (Myrica gale syn: Gale palustris), a plant that was one of the main spices in alcoholic beverages in Scandinavia. The drawback is that it increases the hangover headache afterwards. Drinking alcoholic beverages spiced with bog myrtle the night before going to battle might have resulted in unusually aggressive behaviour.

The notion that Nordic Vikings used the fly agaric mushroom to produce their berserker rages was first suggested by the Swedish professor Samuel Ödman in 1784. Ödman based his theory on reports about the use of fly agaric among Siberian shamans. The notion has become widespread since the 19th century, but no contemporary sources mention this use or anything similar in their description of berserkers. In addition, the injection of bufotenine from Bufo marinus toad skin into humans was shown to produce similar symptoms to the "Berserker" descriptions. These findings, first examined by Howard Fabing in 1956, were later linked to the induction of zombie characteristics by ethnobotanists in 1983.

A simpler theory attributes the behaviour to drunken rage. It is also possible that berserkers worked themselves into their frenzy through purely psychological processes, perhaps using frenzied rituals and dances. According to Saxo Grammaticus they also drank bear or wolf blood.

Parallels in other cultures

Among the Irish, Cúchulainn acted in the 'battle frenzy', or 'contortion', and many other famous Irish warriors from the pre-Christian period became possessed and frenzied. They are described in texts such as The Tain as foaming at the mouth and not calming down after battle until doused with cold water.

Similar behaviour is described in the Iliad, where warriors who are "possessed" by a god or goddess exhibit superhuman powers.
In historical times, the Spartan warrior Aristodemus is mentioned as acting with a berserker-like fury at the Battle of Plataea, to redeem himself from accusations of having acted with cowardice at Thermopylae.

Berzerk behavior is also similar to the Amok frenzy described among Moro tribesmen in the Philippines and among other tribes in Malaysia.

It's a long read but I thought it was interesting.

Hi Migueldiaz,

I thought they'd actually tested these two theories on the BBC (berserkers: drunk or on magic mushrooms). They did it by having a volunteer whack at targets with period weapons sober and under the influence. Their conclusion was that the alcohol (and especially the hallucinogenic mushroom) significantly degraded the subject's performance.

I'm not saying that people didn't go into battle drug, on meth, or similar. Still, I think it's possible to go berserk without drugs, and probably most of the berserks did. One thing from the sagas I've read is that the berserkers were always potentially violent, and that was part of the problem with dealing with them. Psychotic rage might be a better explanation.

Best,

F

Thanks migueldiaz... my how far have we gotten from shit-knife?
At least we're still borderline still on topic with the drugs!

There are a lot of disgruntled youth, people with terrible upbringings, and psychopaths. Give them a sanctioned outlet with hysteria-inducing rituals, intoxicants available, and war... and they will flock together for that. While strong and disciplined glory/booty-seeking Viking warriors with spears, axes, swords, and shield, backed up by bowmen were the back-bone.. the bersarkers were probably more of a psychological effect on the enemy.

Imagine an enemy who is obviously crazy, swinging at you with 100% the entire time, not slowing down, shot with two arrows already and still coming... that is somewhat inhuman and scary.

It's possible that they used drugs, but like fearn said I think it's more likely that many were psychopaths to begin with.


However, do any of you know of the corvo? It is a curved knife from Chile, and was famously used in the War of the Pacific by Chilean soldiers. They would be given Chupilca del diablo (a mix of black gunpowder with aguardiente) that made the men crazy and violent. May not have been quite as effective as machine guns and rifles, but the sight of crazed men lobbing off your friends' heads with curved knives must be shocking. Parallels can be found all over the place.

Still interesting stuff guys, some of it gettin' kinda weird, but as we get into topics like pyschological effects in battle, and here and there the essence of weaponry as applied, the degree of pertinance stubbornly holds.

The use of psychological warfare absolutely cannot be discounted, and combat and associated trauma can only be realized as monumental and surreal. One of the best books I have found that addresses this phenomenon is "The Face of Battle" by the late John Keegan. He presents interesting perspective on this subject, but even his descriptions must be thought of as relatively civilized compared to warfare in earlier times, when mankind had only nominal contact with the concept of civilization.

I absolutely agree with Fearn, that the use of induced rage or intense combativeness with the use of certain drugs via botanicals is in many cases less likely, and that often temporal instigation could bring an individual to points of frenzy and near hysteria. There have been many investigations into these kinds of mind sets on various works, one book that I can think of is "The Mind in the Cave" discussing early man and shamanic activity using things such as chanting, drum rhythms and mental focus that could bring on trances and surreal intensity.

Musical psychologica is well known in combat, and loud chanting, beating of shields and shouting, and variations of noise was often, if not typically employed to dissuade or disconcert the enemy before contact.
In Scotland,besides the well known discarding of clothing and screaming charges of Celts, many berserks and then the Scots, was notably terrifying.
The bagpipe, though not indiginous to Scotland, became a well known device to stir the combativeness of thier forces, as well as to frighten the enemy. Indeed, these instruments were ultimately proscribed after the last rebellion as they were classed as a weapon!

The berserks, and I think warriors of these associated regions and times, were not necessarily inherently psychotic, but more attuned to violence and a certain disassociation with consequences of terrible carnage. This, along with vehement beliefs in supernatural dogma, enabled them to use self focused anxiety, induced rage and adrenalin into a frenzied state that exceeded the imaginations of the average person in trying to understand.

It has been documented that even in the aftermath of intense cavalry engagements, survivors were often seen sitting upright in thier saddles, staring emptily in a daze, with tears streaming down thier cheeks, not from sadness or fear, but from release of the power of inimaginable adrenalin and rage.

In many cases recorded, probably many times over unknown, combatants were not even aware of terrible wounds they had received, and were literally still fighting when they should have been either down or even dead.
In the Sudan, the mistermed 'dervish' warriors would tightly wrap themselves with material to sustain them even beyond potentially fatal wounds from gunfire, so they would be able to carry further into point of contact, despite numerous bullets in them. While this effort certainly might have given them some potential endurance, it was more likely the religiously charged drive that projected them so intensely. Thier faith would certainly have precluded any use of any sort of intoxication to produce this effect.

The psychological effect of the appearance of many weapons is well established, and this has been discussed many times over the years here, however,the psychological state of the warrior himself however, has not.

He, as a virtual living weapon, is essentially the topic here, and as such, the discussion serves well.

All best regards,
Jim

Very good point. The mindset of a person can be enough to make them "berserk" let alone drug-induced state.

That still happens today where a victim will be fighting off his assailant, or a cop fighting with a criminal... and thanks to adrenaline and focus, bullets and deep knife wounds are sometimes disregarded by the wounded as they keep on fighting. Many knife-attack victims are in a hand to hand fight only to realize they have been cut badly by a surprise-knife... but sometimes they had even killed their opponent before finding out that they have knife-wounds...

They say there is such a thing as a "10 second rule"... and even if mortally wounded, he can probably still kill you in that 10 seconds when he is enraged and pumping pull of adrenaline.

Reminds me of the Moro juramentado...

At the risk of throwing another wrinkle in this discussion, maybe in addition to ethnography we might want to add gender? We've got the Amazon priestess of the Philippines, and one of the versions of the origins of the balisong knife is that it is a woman's weapon, or one that women frequently used. Given that women's daily chores in many traditional cultures would be very blade dependent, maybe the focus on berserkers might obscure lots of other knives, improvised and otherwise used by women. In a lot of American Indian tribes knives were literally part of a woman's everyday dress, and they weren't just for chores. They were also carried for defense.

And how about knives made of river cane? They were extremely common in the SE USA. I've tried to make them and have never been successful. Does anyone have any information on how it was done?

Thanks for that tip! ;)

And I just checked out the pics of Navajos and they even look some of the uncles and aunts :) And I of course enjoyed watching the Navajo "windtalkers" in that Nicholas Cage movie.

Fearn, thanks a lot for this info! I'd better search Youtube on whether they have clips of that.

Acc. to contemporary brain researchers, a brain's flash of thought is not linear (e.g., like a bowling ball traveling down the lane). Rather, they say it's like a flash of electricity that radiates in all directions in 3D. So I think we are all just being L. da Vinci thinkers here ;)

This is not of course to abuse the kindness and liberality of the mods in allowing some bit of freewheeling discussion :)

Jim, this long post of yours is super. What would we do without you? ;) :)

I read your post several times, in fact. And John Keegan's The Face of Battle is also one of my favorite books by the way!

Thank you so much for those very kind words Migueldiaz!!! That means a lot. Actually I enjoyed writing on the topic and it helped me realize the importance of what is being discussed here.
The late Professor Keegan was one of the most brilliant writers I have read, and his ability to present true dimension in his work can only be described as magnificent, for lack of better words.

All the best,
Jim

The pleasure is really ours. Thanks again, Jim :)

Indeed. The more I think about it, the more it becomes evident that a man's mindset is really his primary weapon.

Give a determined Tausug Moro a toothbrush for his weapon and I'm sure he can still do a lot of damage -- and I don't mean to be facetious in saying that.

As we often hear, the battle is first fought in the mind.

And generals supposedly look into the eyes of their troops on the eve of the battle, to predict whether they will win the battle or not.

So maybe this is where the conditioning of the mind (whether self-induced or via botanicals) comes in. What I mean is that having realized the paramount importance of the mindset, a leader or a warrior strives to reach a certain psychological state, if he is to withstand the rigors and influence the outcome of something important he's about to do (e.g., going into battle).

And the mind is a pretty powerful instrument as we all know. What I excerpted below is somewhat related, as the police officers' account amply illustrates how our brain acts as a weapon in concert with a physical weapon, in extraordinary circumstances.

The account was taken from the bestselling book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, which in turn quoted Into the Kill Zone, by David Klinger, a University of Missouri criminologist --

Well over 90% of police go over their careers without firing a gun. For those 10% who get to shoot it out, their experience turns out to be quite intense, as follows.

First interview, about a police officer and his partner Dan, in which the suspect is in the act of attacking Dan --

He [the criminal] looked up and saw me and said, "Oh, sh**." Not like, "Oh, sh** [I'm scared]" but "Oh, sh** [here's somebody else I gotta kill], real aggressive and mean. Instead of continuing to push the gun at Dan's head, he started to bring it around on me.

This all happened real fast, in milliseconds.

And at the same time, I was bringing my gun up. Dan was still fighting with him and the only thought that came through my mind was, Oh dear God, don't let me hit Dan.

I fired five rounds. My vision changed as I started to shoot.

It went from seeing the whole picture, to seeing just the suspect's head. Everything else just disappeared. I didn't see Dan anymore, I didn't see anything else. All I can see was the suspect's head.

I saw four of my five rounds hit.

The first one hit him in his left eyebrow. It opened up a hole, and the guy's head snapped back and he said, "Oooh!" like "Oooh, you got me." He still continued to turn the gun toward me. And I fired my second round. I saw a red dot right below the base of his left eye. And his head kind of turned sideways.

I fired another round. It hit on the outside of his left eye, and his eye exploded, just ruptured, and came out. My fourth round hit just in front of his left ear. The third round has moved his head even further sideways to me. And when the fourth round hit, I saw a red dot open on the side of his head then close up.

I did not see where my last round went. Then I heard the guy fall backwards, and hit the ground.

Second interview, from another police officer:

When he started towards us, it was almost like in slow motion, and everything went into a tight focus. When he made his move, my whole body just tensed up. I don't remember having any feeling from my chest down. Everything was focused forward to watch and react to my target.

Talk about an adrenaline rush. Everything tightened up, and all my senses were directed forward at the man running at us with a gun. My vision was focused on his torso and the gun. I couldn't tell you what his left hand was doing. I have no idea. I was watching the gun, the gun was coming down in front of his chest area.

And that's when I did my first shots. I didn't hear a thing. Not one thing.

Allen [?] had fired one round, when I shot my first pair but I didn't hear him shoot. He shot two more rounds when I fired the second time but I didn't hear any of those rounds either. We stopped shooting when he hit the floor and slid into me.

Then I was on my feet standing over the guy. I don't even remember pushing myself up. All I know, the next thing I know, I was standing on two feet, looking down on the guy. I don't know how I got there. Whether I pushed down with my hands, or whether I pulled up my knees from underneath. I don't know.

But once I was up, I was hearing things again, because I can hear brass still clinking on the tile floor.

Time has also returned to normal by then, because it has slowed down during the shooting. That started as soon as he started towards us. Even though I knew he was running at us, it looked like he was moving in slow motion.

Damnest thing I ever saw.

Hence, it now appears that "bullet time" in the Matrix movie series has a basis after all.

A Formula One race car driver also supposedly experiences the same time dilation phenomenon.

PS - I just remembered this ... In a Godfather movie (can't recall if it was Part 1 or 2), an assassin successfully killed an enemy boss by employing a good game plan and using the latter's own eyeglasses as weapon. I rest my case ;) :D

Some more info re extreme mental stress experienced by warriors during battle, taken from this Cannae battle article, using works by Marshall and Keegan for reference --

The warriors' deep dark secrets -- '[D]uring combat the soldier may become so gripped by fear that most of his thought is directed toward escape. But if he serving among men whom he has known for a long period or whose judgment of him counts for any reason, he still will strive to hide his terror from them ... The majority are unwilling to take extraordinary risks and do not aspire to a hero's role, but they are equally unwilling that they should be considered the least worthy among those present [SLA Marshall, 1947, p. 149]'

Pelters' peer pressure -- After the battle lines would have been drawn, skirmishers will try to disrupt the enemy's formation by getting near them to launch volleys of missiles. 'Many frightened troops [i.e., skirmishers] would have used their weapon in these circumstances out of a desire not to appear weak in front of their friends [the most important reason why men fight in battle, per Marshall (1947) and John Keegan (1976)] ... a large proportion of these would have fired blindly, without even attempting to aim.'

Not much change after 2,000 years -- In comparison, Marshall (1947) in his study of the American infantry's performance in WW2 observed that on average, 'no more than 15% of men ever used their weapon in any given engagement. This figure rose to 25% in the most aggressive companies when under extreme pressure ... [in the Korean War] the rate of fire [rose] to over 50%. However, no more than 20% of troops aimed their weapons.' Furthermore, 'Marshall's research (1947, pp. 48-9) indicated many troops will simply not use their weapons unless told to do so ....'

They need more peyote and/or ayahuasca! :D

Hi Migueldiaz,

I'm not sure that any hallucinogens such as ayahuasca or peyote are ever used in battle, mostly because the normal side effects (projectile vomiting and defecation) along with the visions, make it really hard for anyone to fight under the influence of either of these drugs. Peyote and ayahuasca are also generally taken in a strongly spiritual context, not on the battlefield.

In regard to peyote and warfare, the only question I'm interested in is whether the Native American Church has an active program to reintegrate returning soldiers back into their civilian communities, and whether peyote plays a part in that program. Many native people have rituals and such to help people "come down" from fighting and re-enter their communities. The one I know about is the Navajo "Enemy Way," but I'm sure there are others. It's something the US Army is finally learning to do, and given the harm caused by untreated PTSD, I think it's a good thing.

The drugs I know that have been used in combat include alcohol (to lower inhibitions, it also lowers judgement and accuracy, as we all know), meth, cocaine, and heroin, and that's mostly from vietnam and current third-world conflicts. The fact that some warlords use these drugs on child soldiers is (to me) horrifying.

Obviously, we're getting off the general topic of ethnographic weapons here, unless someone's going to bring out one of those Japanese opium pipe/clubs. Still, many of the weapons we collect were made for war, and this is part of their environment.

I think this thread is setting some sort of record for marginal yet unkillable topicality. What's next?

Best,

F

Very well stated Fearn and Miguel! I am very much inclined to agree that spiritual psychotropics such as peyote would not have been used in battle, nor indeed any hallucinogenics as the detrimental effects in reduction of awareness would have likely been fatal. As noted, Viet Nam did see varying degrees of drug use, mostly used in 'down' time in disassociation, however sometimes in combat situations, and unfortunately we can never know how much loss of life may have occurred in these tragic circumstances, perhaps as a result.

While the field of esoteric and philosophical topics is agreeably expanded to the farthest boundaries of connection to weaponry, again, we are considering man himself as a weapon and better understanding this can help in the little discussed topic of the psychological applications to weapons themselves.

It is a good thing to know that at last the military is beginning to understand the tremendously debilitatiing effects that can cause soldiers terrible difficulty in reassimilating into civilian life. I have seen these very effects and there is little can can be said to accurately describe these often very deep psychological wounds, which defy recognition outwardly, thus elude attempts in trying to heal them.

All best regards,
Jim

Fearn, Jim, thanks for expanding and deepening the discussion further!

Given the hypothesis that a man's primary weapon is his mental faculty, then it should follow that during combat his brain will experience the greatest wear-and-tear.

Whereas a weapon can be dispensed with after it gets badly beaten up, unfortunately the soldier and everybody else is stuck with his own brain.

The good news is that military institutions and the general public are now beginning to realize how important it is for them to be sensitive and supportive of PTSD cases.

Like in the UK, we read that finally, hundreds of WW1 soldiers shot for 'cowardice' are to be pardoned. That was an old article, so by this time they may have already been all pardoned.

And we can also recall that famous incident wherein Patton hit a soldier who apparently was suffering from PTSD ...

What I'll relate below is every bit true, and some people will find this amusing, for sure.

Our mother said that during her teen years (1950s), it was pretty ordinary for women (in the Philippines) to carry in their purse a sewing needle or pin, as an improvised 'weapon'.

The situation being prepared for is this -- in public gatherings or queues in a theater for instance, an occasional pervert (or horny teen) makes use of the tightly packed crowd as an excuse to 'accidentally' touch or bump maidens. And so that pin or needle comes in handy, both as a deterrent and as an actual ethnographic ;) weapon if needed.

They must have read about the porcupine when they were young!