A sword design theory (Phil., Indonesia, & Malaysia)

[migueldiaz]

More on the concept of the Austronesian tripartite cosmos as the primary design motif on many things, and for now let's focus on the traditional Austronesian house on stilts ...

As can be seen below, traditional archipelagic Southeast Asian houses would often feature the bird deity on the roofs. Indonesian houses (and even houses of Thailand and neighboring countries) are also found with the same.

In the sarimanok of the Moros (thanks to 'dimasalang' for the pic below), a fish [an Underworld icon] can also be found on the bird's beak and/or claw. This would be reminiscent of the traditional Thai roof design where the a sculpture of the bird is found on the apex, and the serpents' image on each side of the roof eaves are supposed to represent nagas being held by each claw of the said bird ...

In any case, it's still all about the bird-deity and the naga-deity, and the bird would always be above the serpent/s, based on their 'vertical' positioning in the tripartite cosmos ...