Two Atayal knives from Taiwan/Formosa

[KuKulzA28]

I have seen pictures of those! Though I had heard that sheaths with those designs are pingpu, but perhaps I heard wrong? I wonder what time period or group within the Atayal had handles like that.... they are definitely not common today.

[yuanzhumin]

Hello Varta,

Can you share your sources, please ?

If I wrote somewhere that this kind of knives may have been Atayal, I was wrong. I definitely think it is Pingpu.

Anyway, I collected some of these knives, but I don't have them anymore: I sold them to refocus on less "cooked" aborigines items. But I can tell you that these are considered Pingpu.

A little explanation for the other readers: 'cooked' and 'raw' aborigines were terms used before to qualify Taiwanese aborigines following their degree of sinicization. The 'cooked' ones had integrated the Chinese/Han culture, and they were mostly plains aborigines (for example, Amis are the biggest plain aborigines tribe recognized today). The 'raw' aborigines were also called 'savages' by colonial power, and were mostly the mountains tribes that resisted colonization/integration till the 30s for the last ones.

Best

Nicolas

[varta]

Pity that you did not sell your Pingpu knives to me! This, above, is the only knife of this shape I have.
The same shape do exist for Pingpu, you are right.
In fact, it is the inverse, I think that the Pingpu had these shapes before and some Atayal used them. From sea level to high montains, the direction of the trade makes sense as the blades were imported, no?
Anyway the decoration is very different when considering Atayal's or Pingpu's scabbard. Atayal use abstract drawings, the same one could observe on tatoos, weaving, bambou earring etc when the Pingpu use flowers, chinese words, in brief, sinizised ornements, sometimes coloured. See below; unfortunately I have no other pictures with me, to show examples with the same curved shape as mine, but for Pingpu people.

(These two are not mine. I would love to have them… any tip?)

In the case of my Atayal knife, the decoration is made of crosses, bars, dots they call "eyes" etc (you could see one example in the" Chen-Cheng Ching collection" as far as I remember, or at the University of Taipei)

When we speak about Atayal, we make a generalization and we gather under the same name a variety of villages with different habits, different weaving, different patterns, different rules. For example, headhunting was a practice which required no ID: an Atayal could cut the head of another Atayal, from another village. It would be romantic to consider each tribe as a coherent identity. From Ylan to Mioli, there are many differences and we should try to find out the geographical origin of items when it is possible.

[yuanzhumin]

Hello Varta and all,

That's the problem with the Pingpu: are we talking only about the plain tribes or also the sinicized aborigines ?

Depending on the definition, we will considere your knife, Varta, as an Atayal knife or as a Pingpu one. Usually, the answer is that all the sinicized aborigines and their items are considered Pingpu -- but as I already said, there could be different interpretations.

For what concerns me, as soon as an item is in between, mixed partly with Chinese/Han influence and aborigines/austronesian influence, I considere it to be Pingpu. And that’s what I feel when I see your knife.

Whatever, if your knife as some special signs on it, I would be interested to see closer pictures, if it doesn’t bother you, Varta.

For this reason -- because Pingpu is very difficult to understand and not clearly defined --, I preferred few years ago to sale all my early collection of Pingpu items.

But afterward, as I was keeping on seeing nice Pingpu pieces coming up and because I had second thoughts, I started once more to collect these items. And the few items forming now my second Pingpu collection are visible here:
http://www.formosatribal.com/all.php?group=5Best

Varta, here is my tip ;-) : without knowing it, you already have seen two of the items from my first and sold Pingpu collection. These are the 2 knives you just showed as an example in the previous post.

Yes, these knives were mine at once. I bought them earlier from a dealer that is still a member of this forum, if I don’t make a mistake. I collected these 2 knives, and few others that I all sold to a Taiwanese private collector. As a collector, I needed the money to buy more stuff from the ‘raw’ mountains aborigines, which I focused on.

I know where these knives are now, and I still see them sometimes with the others I sold, when I go back to Taiwan. Were mine all the Pingpu knives that have been exhibited in 2007 in the prestigious National History museum of Taiwan, Taipei, during an important exhibit about Koxinga (also known as Cheng Chen-kung), the adventurer that drove the Dutch out of Taiwan in the 17th century. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga)

Here are the pictures taken from the catalogue of the exhibit (GPN 1009601014 - the catalogue cover is also pictured here after).

Varta, you can clearly recognize the 2 knives that you just showed us in your previous post, and other knives that were also mine at once. I considere all to be Pingpu, and they are described as such by the museum (see the museum Chinese comments).

Best,

Nicolas

[varta]

There is no doubt that the two knives which were yours are Pingpu, I never discussed the point!
I took them as an example of Pingpu knives if you read me properly.

[yuanzhumin]

Sure, that's what I understood.
May be it's the last sentence of my post that bothered you. It was a long post and taken in the dynamic of writing, I may have not chosen the good words. So let's forget this sentence!
Hope to see your next post.
Nicolas

[majacobson]

I have just joined this forum and have a couple of items to share.

A Tao (Yami) knife with magamoag ancestor figures and a lalaw with red scabbard.

I have very much enjoyed this thread. Thank you all.