what is it

[Titus Pullo]

Originally Posted by Mark Bowditch

An interesting piece of information possibly pertinent to these swords comes from a comment that the head weapons curator at the Thai National Museum made to our intrepid field operative, Dan Wilke. She said these look a lot like old Thai cavalry polearms.

One wonders if it is a case of derivation, or of convergent evolution. I don't imagine that there is much in the way of cavalry used up in the mountains of Annam, and a longhandled blade has its advantages apart from being able to reach people on the ground from the back of a horse. Still, I have this fantasy of a lost Thai cavalry unit settling down in the highlands and passing down their familiar chopper design to their decendents.

I've heard something like the way that the way they used to fight, in the beginning, was holding a sword with two hands (kindda like the Samurais). Later, ofcourse, the handle was made a lot shorter with the hilt tappering down to a narrow end. This was an advantage because they change from fighting, holding the sword with two hands, to holding it with only one hand, and ofcourse with another sword, or a shield, in the other hand. So this might have been used interchangabally. If you've seen the movie, "The Legend of Suriyothai", she fought on the elephant's back with this type of polearm. Later the blade was made shorter and heavier for using on elephants'.