Can anyone name this ?

[Royston]

Greetings,
As this is my first thread, please accept my appologies for any mistakes in protocol.

I have owned this for some time, it came from an Antiques dealer in Bristol.
My leanings are towards Indonesian or perhaps Phillipines ( judging by the Scabbard ) but I cannot find it in any of my books.

Overall length is 11" with a 6 1/2" blade. Hilt is bone and horn. The scabbard is rattan bound wood.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks
Royston

[Rick]

Hi Royston, welcome .
Do you have a copy of Stone's Arms and Armor ?
There are two possible matches for your knife in this volume .
One identification could be a Buyo knife fig. 203, pg. 158 or it might be an example of a Tuba knife fig. 815, pg. 641 .

Of course it also could be neither .
I'm not sure if the apparent 'chisel grind' edge is common to the Morolands .

Both examples are listed as coming from the Southern Philippines as the style of the scabbard suggests .

Which edge is sharpened; concave or convex ?

[A. G. Maisey]

I think most western collectors would call this a "buyo knife", which I suspect is a bit of a half-correct western generated name. This type of knife is pretty common in Jawa and Bali, in Jawa its called a pangot or pangruk, in Bali its a pemutik---with the classifier "pisau" or "piso" for "knife" in front; I reckon you'd probably find variations of this knife right across SE Asia. Carpenters, carvers and other wood workers use them , and they're also a sort of general purpose do everything knife---pretty much like I'd use a pocket knife. They're good for splitting rotan, and good for doing very delicate detail work. I've got 4 or 5 of them---not as flash as this one was--- that I use as bench knives or general purpose knives. I don't like chisel grind blades much, and since I never have to split rotan, I've got a couple that I had made using damascus blades that I made myself. The thing I find good about them is the long handle, the fact that you can get your hand down easily onto the blade, and the angle at which the blade is set. Its a very useful design.

[Royston]

Thanks for the information gentlemen.
I have looked in Stones and the closest match is the Buyo. It's strange that I had never considered the similarity to a Piso Raut. The drawing in Stones makes it more obvious.
Handling as suggested does make it a handy carving tool. I don't think I will be using it though !
The blade is not concave / convex, but tapers just like most of the Barongs I have.

[Battara]

I think the buyo knife was for rattan work......