yeah ,, had a look, but the question still seems not fully answered.......
my gess is that it was held with a finger on the guard.......
india hasnt realy changed much as far as nutrition goes.. and the indians havent ,, i think got much bigger,,,.
one thing with the shashka grips,, why they are so tiny......
the central asian and afgan and russian shashkas are with a large handle,,,
as they are used differently,, the caucascian shashka was used mor elike a machete,,
in the factory some of the workers were puzzeled by the shashkas small handles
the guys were all dagestan nationals,, and most were rather short,, but ingeneral it seems rather thick stout hands are normal here..
guys height is mostly 5 foot 4 or so,, not tall atall...... there is however many tall guys aswell. but the short fellows seem mostly to have the same size hands.. you notice this after some time , as here hand shaking is very popular,
anyway they were puzzeled as to why their ansestors would make such small handles on there swords..we were making some swords.. anyway when they make swords they always put massive handles on the shashkas.. we make mostly the russian style.. sell to government ,and cossak groups and such,,but when they make a caucascian shashka they do this also..
unless it its ordered specificaly,,
to them it seems to make it wiht a good solid grip makes sence........
seems that the shashka was held alittle like the south americans hold a machete, and was never used to stab with.......
ive handled many northen european medieavil weaponry and most has large handles that fit well..
from what i recall the average height of people in northen europe was somewhat the same as it is now.....
the reduction in size occured in the 17th and 18th centuary with city living,,
i remember i was visiting a castle in germany ,the tour guide , pointed to a bed and said see the small bed , in the old days folks were much smaller... i looked at te bed and clearly it was a childs bead from the 17 centuary...,, and even in the 17th centuary there was not a good supply of 3 foot adults
good museam in solingen ,, you can handle many of the swords.... well atleast i did anyway , dont know if you were allowed to but nobody told me not to