MARANAO BARONG 2
 

Hi friends,

sharing an old Maranao barung (from my father's collection). This piece is a much older piece than the one I previously posted.

Hilt: silver with kamagong pommel.


Enjoy

Yves

Hello Yves,

This certainly seems to be horn rather than wood!

I'm afraid this is modern, non-traditional craftsmanship. (I can't see enough of the blade to comment on it.)

Regards,
Kai

Once again Kai has a point (again every pun intended :D ). Although this is indeed Maranao work, it is recent, probably from Marawi City. The blade looks modern too, though etching it would help to see if there are any patterns or not.

Kai has a sharp eye ( :D ).

Here is the blade picture that I modified:

I have to agree with Kai and Battara on their dating of this ensemble to the late 20th C. It is possible the blade is older, but the carving on the hilt and scabbard point to a recent date. The ornate horn kakatua is well done, and I like how it flows from beak to crest. The earliest date I have seen attributed to this style is around 1990.

The blade shows forward-weighting, with the widest part occurring on the tip side of the halfway point down the blade. [I don't think we need to draw lines to see that is the case.] This is a similar geometry to a recently posted barung discussed here and considered to be Yakan. In my experience the Yakan and Maranao barung share this feature, which differs from the barung of the Sulu Archipelago.


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