S.E. Asian spear

[LJ]

I would guess this is from Philippines or Indonesia, but would any of the Southeast Asia specialists care to offer an opinion? I've noticed some recent posts discussing ferrule forms: this one has a fairly plain copper ferrule below the head, also a thin-walled copper ferrule on the butt end. The shaft struck me as nicely made, worked into a regular 8-sided form. I couldn't see any old inscriptions on the shaft. Overall length of the spear is 169 cm.

[CharlesS]

Certainly an interesting piece, and a very attractive one.

The octagonal haft reminds me of a Moro piece I recently posted here. The rest, however, does not seem Moro at all.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ght=moro+spear

Puzzling....looking forward to seeing what info you get back.

[LJ]

Yes, the octagonal shafts are very similar. I wonder if the copper wrapping on the butt of this one [which is looks the poorest quality work on the spear] has been put on by an owner when an original horn butt broke off ?

[Sajen]

This spear is a riddle for me. Don't think that it is Moro and don't have seen something similar from Indonesia. I would lean towards somewhere from the Philippines. I think the brass ferrule is original to the spear.
Very interesting spear, good catch!

Regards,
Detlef

[Maurice]

It could be an Achenese lance.
Is the octagonal shaft round at the upper side near the blade and octagonal near the butt?
Or is it all octagonal from end to tip?

Maurice

[LJ]

Many thanks for the suggestion.

The shaft is octagonal at least as far as the ferrule (but, of course, I can't say whether it continues to be octagonal under the ferrule without taking the spear apart). The cylindrical ferrule on this spear contrasts with the octagonal ferrule on the spear posted by CharlesS.

The octagonal section continues to the butt. However, if we assume that the thin copper wrapping on the butt is a later repair, then it is also possible that the shaft might have had its original end cut off.

I don't know if this is important, but it did strike that (compared with the FEW other S.E. Asia spears I've seen) that the head seems to have an unusually long shaft.

[Rich]

While I don't think it is Japanese, I don't think it is a spear (i.e., not for throwing); more likely a pike or lance (yari in Japanese).
Rich S

[LJ]

I think once we start talking about names, this opens a whole can of worms. Perhaps somebody might want to start a separate post on this !

I think the European Armoury guys might be happier if long thin weapons were generically called 'Pole Arms', but I've always been quite happy to use 'spear' for long pointy things that were either thrown or held. In fact, I suspect that in many cases there might have been no clear distinction ... one spear might have been both thrown AND/OR held at different times depending on circumstances. Assegais, with 'throwing' and 'stabbing' varieties being a notable exception.

Lances ... yes, I think the name is usually restricted to things used when riding horses.

All of which is interesting, but gets away from this post a bit. Yes, I'm fairly certain it isn't a Japanese Yari. Following Maurice's lead I've looked at the Volkenkunde Museum (Leiden) website and although their images are low-resolution you can see there are several Pole Arms from Aceh in their collection that have facetted shafts. They are listed on the database as lances, rather than spears, which begs the question ... were they used on horseback ?

[Rich]

Agreed, let's forget semantics and get on with trying to figure out what this is.
Rich S

[LJ]

But I can't resist adding my computer's semantics when I tried searching for "spear aceh" and it suggested "spear ache". Which is, I guess, what you get when prodded with one !