Cambodian Dhas

[ariel]

Dhafia to the rescue!
I just bought this trio on a lark. The seller said he got them in Cambodia. I show them the way they are, no cleaning, just to show the amount of patina.
The first one is a Dha, 72 cm in length total, the blade alone is 51 cm. Very primitively made, with a lot of pockmarks.The handle is wood, turned. There are two iron collars. The "tsuba" is ~ 8 cm in diameter, pretty thin and composed of layers: there is an overlay of softish metal all over and it is covered with vegetal designs on a crosshatched background, rather pretty. The scabbard appears to be newer, with the halves joined by wooden pins.
The knife is 29 cm, blade alone 19.5 cm long and 1.7 cm wide. It is single edged, and there are some simple designs along the blade, reminescent of what is often seen on Thai Darbs. The handle is wood, with old and very tight rattan bindings and a small brass collar with indents.The scabbard looks newer, brass fittings on both ends.
The last one is 83 cm long, blade alone is 64 cm long and 2 cm wide at the base, widening to 4.5 cm at the tip. The quality of the blade is much higher than the Dha's.The base of the blade has a wavy projection on the edge side ( blade-catcher?) There is a very thin fuller running along the entire back of the blade. The handle is wood, with a 9 cm iron collar and a brass shell 27 mm in diameter.
I have a feeling that all the wooden parts on all swords are old, but newer than the blades.
Questions:
- Are these Cambodian?
-Any particular names?
- The "tsuba" on the Dha and the "blade catcher" on the other sword suggest to me that these are not agricultural implements. Correct?
- Where does shell come from?
- How old do you think they might be?

[Ian]

Hi Ariel:

Need better pics to give any sort of opinion. I think the third one you show is actually from a pole arm. There are Vietnamese and Thai pole weapons of similar form.

Note a similar example from Vietnam here: http://www.sevenstarstrading.com/art...page=vietsword Perhaps something in common with the mak used by the Montagnard of Vietnam, Laos, and possibly Cambodia. There are also Chinese pole arms of similar form that may be the inspiration for the form in SE Asia. Philip and Scott could no doubt contribute more on the Chinese connection.

Ian.

[kai]

Good catch, Ariel!

I'm also voting for polearm.

Regards,
Kai

[~Alaung_Hpaya~]

I'm not an expert but the scabbard and tsuba combinations are similar to the ones listed as Cambodian on Mark's website ( they're actually are part of Ian's collection ) . There's a picture of one of them on the History of Steel's website:

http://www.arscives.com/historysteel/images1/263-iag04.jpg


The turned wooden grip looks Thai ( Siamese ) and many modern Thai daab share this feature . The knife looks like a Thai priest knife and I would agree that the markings look Thai .

I think Ian's subsequent response would give you the definitive answer to your questions.

[Andrew]

I think Cambodian weapons are ripe for more research. Frankly, I have yet to really get a good appreciation for what, exactly, constitutes a "Cambodian" sword. Ian does have a few that defy easy insertion into the more familiar classification groups, but I think we've all tended to fall back on "Cambodian" as a default in such cases. Not to say the reasoning that gets us there isn't sound, just that it lacks extensive data to support it.

Ariel, I like this group of weapons very much. Thanks for sharing with us. If you ever want to part with that pole-arm/sword catcher, please contact me immediately!

[Mark]

The second one is very interesting. No opinion about it being a polearm blade, but it sounds plausible.

The features of a Cambodian dha are a sharp change or bend in the overall sweep of the sword between the blade and the handle, something Ian has identified, the presence often of a tsuba, and a scabbard with an upswept tip rather than the square or round ones seen in other dha. I don't think we have enough strongly-provenanced blades to really confirm whether these are consistent, nor indeed even if such swords are "Cambodian" (i.e., Khmer) as opposed to being of a Tai minority.

[Andrew]

Ariel, you might consider contacting Philip Tom to attempt some forensic restoration on that sword. He may be able to remove the handle to examine the tang and polish a small window to get a good look at the blade construction.

[Philip]

In terms of overall form, the disc guard with oval lateral aperture as seen on Ariel's dha is something quite frequently encountered on some types of Vietnamese sabers. I think that the origin of the auxiliary apertures (there can be one or two) is definitely Japanese. As stated in Huard and Durand's CONNAISSANCE DU VIET-NAM (Hanoi: Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient, 1954) p 155, there was a considerable import of Japanese swords into SE Asia in the 16th cent. Originally, the aperture(s) were to allow removal of the by-knife and skewer that are usually contained on the sides of Japanese scabbards. These accessories were not used on Vietnamese scabbards so the continued presence of the openings on locally-made versions of tsubas is for stylistic reasons only.

I have an example of a Vietnamese saber (guom) whose circular brass guard has two lateral openings. Recently I obtained several excavated bronze Vietnamese disc guards, reputedly obtained in the area of Hoi An, which boasted a resident Japanese merchant colony in the 16th-17th cent. (a covered bridge, and several graves, are extant testimonies to this community). One of the guards has a single D-shaped side opening, in this case too small to be of any functional use. Otherwise, the guard is multi-lobed with depictions of lions, dogs, and unicorns in relief, having a more Chinese flavor to the shape and art work. I have two others, both silver-inlaid copper, in which the apertures have morphed into S- and lozenge-shaped openings. Here, these also appear to be an original Japanese concept which has become modified with the strong Chinese elements which are integral parts of Vietnam's decorative arts.

[ariel]

So, Philip, what do you think: is it Cambodian or Vietnamese?

[Philip]

Ariel,
When I compare the guard on your sword with the loose bronze Vietnamese guards (the excavated ones) I have, I note the following. Your specimen is thinner, and without any flange or raised border around the rim. Some of the decorative motifs on yours bear some similarity to Vietnamese work, albeit in lower relief and with somewhat less precision. The shape of the oval aperture is spot on to those of other Vietnamese saber guards I've seen elsewhere.

I am at a loss to explain the flaking or spalling to the surface of your specimen.

In one of the pictures you posted, taken from the hilt side, I notice that a bit of the central mortise (for the blade) seems to extend beyond the periphery of the grip ferrule. I wonder if the guard is associated, and came from a hilt that originally had a wider blade. The frontal side shows some sort of dark brown fill surrounding the blade where it emerges from the guard. I'm wondering if this was put on to hold the guard steady on the tang, considering the apparent differential between the tang and mortise widths.

From what I can see of the rest of the hilt (your photos are a bit dark), I don't see any typically Vietnamese design features. I doubt that guard and sword were "born together", and if the dha is Cambodian, it's possible that the guard may be an import from Vietnam, or a locally made copy thereof.

[Mark]

The details of the tsuba aside, it appears to me to be a fairly typical Cambodian dha. They tend to have disk-shaped guards, thinner, more evenly-tapered blades, and a distinctive "break" in the line of the curve of the blade and handle where handle meets blade.