Unknown Philippines or Javanese chopper

[naturalist]

Originally Posted by Tatyana Dianova

Thank you for the picture and detailed information!
Perfectly the same blade and scabbard! Any ideas, why a farmer's tool has sometimes a highly decorative handle like in my example?

We have community activities called "gotong-royong", it is very common in rural villages.
The purpose of gotong-royong mainly maintaining the environment-tidiness-cleanliness in the village, it can be cleaning all of the branches that have grown over the road, clean and maintain the irrigation, clean the cemeteries or building/repairing houses for the poor.
That kind of activity sometimes has less chance for your blades/tools will be damaged or hitting hard objects (rock etc) but definitely, in most cases, you have to prepare for the worst.
Many of them, if they knew that will have less chance for their tools will be damaged then bring the fancy one. And in every community, there will be some one that just wandering around giving order do the smart ass job with his mouth, most of the time he will have the fancier tool.
In West Java, where some of us believe that golok historically is a weapon but of course the others may thought that golok historically just a farming tool.
For golok, there is ordinary golok and golok sorenan.
Golok sorenan is a keeper or called as "simpenan" (it can be sacred or just because of high quality and truly dedicated as a weapon and also made from valuable high-quality material). The other just ordinary golok that you bring around your garden/forest.
What i would like to say is, men knew when the time to dress up or just play simple.