A rare Burmese dha

[Iain]

Originally Posted by Ian

Hi Iain,

Thanks for your reply and the pics of your other sword. The hilt and scabbard of your second one are unusual and might well be from an area to the north of Burma/Myanmar or Yunnan. The blade with its slightly concave tip and those particular curved marks just below the spine are features that can be found on swords from HuSa. [A friend calls these curved-bladed dha, with the curve following through to the hilt, "grinning dha." There are similar Thai examples.]

There is a documented history of the Achang people supplying blades and complete swords to the Kachin (in northern Burma and neighboring Yunnan) when the latter transitioned from their traditional dao in its open-faced scabbard to Shan style dha in the second half of the 19th C. The Kachin sword was, however, straight and had either a squared off or a concave tip similar to your second example. The blade width was fairly uniform from hilt to tip, as your second example appears to be. It is this feature of consistent blade width that led me to think that the tip of your original example may be missing a little steel on the edge side at the tip--the blade seems to narrow there.

Lastly, I don't recognize the hilt style on your second sword. As you say, it could be from north of Burma of Yunnan. I have found HuSa marks on blades in Tibet, Assam, and neighboring areas. They seem to have been traded widely.

Regards,

Ian

Hi Ian,

Just to be clear the ruby decorated sword is not one I own, it was sold by a high profile dealer some years ago who did a good job of researching it. It's almost certainly part of a Shan leader's regalia. You can seen a very similar sword in the attached picture on the left.

These didn't always have the squared off tips, some were pointed as well. So I wouldn't use the tip style alone as a regional identifier. The same with the blade decoration on mine, its a pretty common motif and can be found on Laos and Thai work as well. The tip I think was often simply a personal choice of the owner, one of the reasons I enjoy dha/daab so much is the seemingly endless variety.

Achang and Husa sword blades tend to be rather straight rather than curved like mine. So while we can't rule out it, it would be unusual for Husa work.