An Indonesian knife..but what kind ?

[VVV]

Hello Kai,

Originally Posted by kai

I'm not sure a knife-sized rice reaping tool would be practical. I agree that korambi and Co. probably originated from agricultural sickles but I tend to believe these were specialized back-up fighting blades rather than dual-use tools. All the rice harvesting I've witnessed in SE Asia was done with sickle-like tools held in forward grip rather than the reverse grip.

In the old days rice was harvested in a ritual way with a small hand held knife and by women. This out of respect for the "rice-soul". You can read more about it in f.i. the works of Skeat and Winstedt.
Nowadays it's harvested in an "industrial" way with larger sickles and often by contracted men.
The grip depends of course of the size of the tool as well as other preferences both for harvesting and fighting. In the Sumatran style of fighting with the korambi as I have been taught the forward grip is preferred, not the reverse as seen in the US magazines and in the movies.

Originally Posted by kai

Great: Where, when, which ethnic group?

My bird-hilted Kuku Rimau is said to be collected in Lampung.

Originally Posted by kai

I agree that your example is quite different; not quite sure wether it belongs to the same group of blades as Freddy's though. I'd also like to verify wether the use of this name may be too generic or really specifies a subgroup of blades (at least in the area of interest). I've found several Malay websites utilizing this name for typical kerambit...

As I wrote before the meaning of a name is not fixed but what you make out of it, either we or the Malay websites you found.

Originally Posted by kai

I keep wondering wether these blades were just kept secret enough and/or looked too tiny to escape early colonial collecting efforts?

Ha, ha. Have you watched too many Silat vs Ninja movies lately?
Actually you can find a lot of old colonial research on the development of sickles and curved knives in Asia.

Michael