Has anyone else, or Federico himself, for that matter, found any further information suggesting or confirming that the panabas itself is actually a weapon DERIVED from a similar appearing tool?
Once the statement was presented, I found myself strongly in agreement with it, based primarilly upon intuition, I admit.
While you're probably correct in the attribution of a piece made in the last 50 years or so, the fact that some fundamentalist Muslims consider attempted conversion a capitol offence along with the occasional "terrorist" act of a head in a bag (surprisingly often belonging to a missionary) would seem to indicate that some might still be being made "just in case".
While rather grisly humor is hard to avoid, I suspect that this might be the actual case, particularly in "plainer" models that wouldn't garnish all that high a return on the open market, similar to American Ahmish items still being made for local use and yet appearing in antique/folk art areas here in the USA.
Mike
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