reference for Philippine weapons?

[Marcus]

Zonneveld is a great reference for Indonesian weapons but in general it does not cover Philippine weapons. Can any one recommend a (faintly) comparable reference for Philippine weapons?

[Jim McDougall]

Marcus,
"The Collection of Primitive Weapons and Armor of the Philippine Islands in the U.S. Museum"
Bulletin 137. Herbert William Krieger, 1926

Is among the resources here on our web site. Click on the logo and follow the options

"Moro Swords" by Robert Cato, 1996, is great for the Moro regions of course, but has become sort of hard to find. Possibly interlibrary loan might help in interim. Often universities have these and loan via reference librarians.

Stone's massive volume is always good but of course must go by the weapon names individually.

Those are all I can think of offhand, but our search archives is loaded with discussions on every form of the Philippines arms and armor, again using key terms and words on the search function. I use it constantly as I don't always have access to my books and notes.

All the best
Jim

[Ian]

Hi Marcus:

Unfortunately, there is no single reference like van Zonneveld's that deals with the weapons of the Philippines. Robert Cato's book on Moro Swords is the most comprehensive account to date of the Moro weapons, but critics have pointed to inaccuracies and it does not deal with quite a lot of weapons, such as spears, shields, armor, and less common edged weapons. This book has become very hard to find and is out of print--the odd copy that shows up is expensive.

The hardest weapons to get information about are those of the native tribal groups. Many of these groups live in remote areas and often in relatively small numbers. As a result we don't often see their weapons on the market, but what we do see are weapons from minority groups that are close to population centers (Bagobo, Tagakaolu, T'boli, Aeta [Negrito], Ilonggo, Waray, Cebuano, Ifugao, Bontoc, etc.).

There is some useful information on the History of Steel web site, including examples of non-Moro weapons, which can be found here: http://www.arscives.com/historysteel...nes.swords.htm

An early 20th C. edition of National Geographic also had some useful information and showed hand colored pictures of native groups with their weapons. Some of those pictures were also in the Krieger article referenced by Jim McDougall. I don't recall the exact number--perhaps someone can post that reference.

Otherwise, I think this site and its archives have some very helpful information as well as excellent pictures of weapons from all over the Philippines. Just recently we identified a knife of mine that Robert found a reference to showing it was an Aeta (Pinatubo Negrito) knife of unusual form. It's a matter of piecing things together from various sources.

Regards,

Ian.

[F. de Luzon]

Originally Posted by Ian

An early 20th C. edition of National Geographic also had some useful information and showed hand colored pictures of native groups with their weapons. .

Hello! Here's the reference details:

National Geographic Magazine, XXIV, Nov. 1913, "The Non-Christian Peoples of the Philippine Islands" by Dean C. Worcester. pp. 1157-1256.

[F. de Luzon]

For photographs, you might find this link useful:

http://www.natgeocreative.com/ngs/ph...ch/explore.jsf

F. de Luzon

[Jim McDougall]

Marcus,
Found another title.
"LAND OF THE MORNING: TREASURES OF THE PHILIPPINES"
by D. Barados 1995
It is an art exhibition which included a lot of weapons apparently.
Hope this helps.
Jim