A Taiwanese/Formosan tribal gun

[fernando]

The matchlock guns in the pictures don't necessarily have to be the same system as your unvulgar specimen. I would say it is some otherwise percussion system, with a rare or even an exclusive stock.
The action is too dinamic to be matchlock ... it is made to strike, not to lever down and hold. The ignition device looks more like a nipple for caps than a pan for slow combustion.

[Philip]

This is indeed a percussion-based firing mechanism. Clearly visible is a "nipple" which protrudes almost vertically from the breech end of the barrel. It is larger than the nipples found on Western percussion guns (which use a hat-shaped copper cap containing fulminate of mercury which fits over the nipple and is hit by the hammer when it is released by the trigger mechanism). This gun may have been designed to use "pills" of a fulminate compound (the substance used on the heads of "strike-anywhere" matches is adequate). The use of pills instead of caps was also used in Europe during the few short years prior to the development of machinery for mass-producing the little copper caps.

There are several characteristics of this gun which tie it in to neighboring cultures:
1. Pistol-shaped butt which is held against the cheek when the gun is aimed.
2. No ramrod fitted to the forestock, which is typically half-length
3. Tapering smoothbore barrel of small caliber
4. Mechanism utilizing an external leaf- or V shaped mainspring mounted directly to the wooden stock, and a side-mounted trigger

Guns with all these features are found in other tribal groups, including the Miao of Guizhou and Yunnan Provinces (China), the various "montagnard" hill tribes of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and the Kachins of north Burma. Many examples of the Vietnam highland guns exist in the US, having been brought back by American soldiers as souvenirs.

The practice of holding the stock against the cheek was brought to east Asia by the Portuguese in the 16th cent. They were largely armed with a lighter version of the European musket, made at the Portuguese armory at Goa. These guns are considered to be an Indo-Portuguese design, using a snapping matchlock mechanism with an external spring similar to that on the gun under discussion). The short pistol butts became a characteristic of all parts of east Asia which the Portuguese had influence: Burma, Malaya/Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Japan. (see Rainer Daehnhardt, ESPINGARDA FEITICEIRA: A INTRODUCAO DA ARMA DE FOGO PELOS PORTUGUESES NO EXTREMO-ORIENTE (Lisboa, 1994) for more info.

The firearms of SE Asia (and Taiwan) were originally matchlocks, of course, as was the case in neighboring China and Japan. This particular gun is an ingenious adaption of the old matchlock mechanism to the more reliable percussion system. All it took was replacing the priming pan with a bolster and nipple on the side of the barrel, replacing the serpentine or match holder with a percussion hammer, and strengthening the mainspring.

As regards the parts of these guns, I believe that the stock and small metal parts were native-made. The barrels may have been made by Chinese artisans and traded to the natives by Chinese merchants doing business in the area. The native gun barrels are of much smaller bore than anything the Chinese typically used, and generally lack sights which most Chinese guns have. So these would have been manufactured for "export" trade only.

W. W. Greener, in his book THE GUN AND ITS DEVELOPMENT, describes the manufacture of barrels in south China. The gunsmiths were itinerant, carrying all their materials and tools in their carts, and setting up shop temporarily as they travelled. The barrel was forged from strips of iron wound spirally around a mandrel or rod, and forged into a solid tube when in red-hot state. During the hammering process, the breech end was made thicker-walled to withstand the pressures of the exploding powder. The bore was expanded to the desired diameter, and polished smooth, with a succession of hardened steel reamers, square like a chopstick but larger, which were inserted and rotated until the entire length of barrel was bored smooth. After straightening, the breech was plugged and the touch-hole drilled. Greener noted (his observations date to the mid 19th cent.) that the finished barrel was well-forged, of good quality. The manufacturing process is described almost identically in the 17th cent. Chinese treatise on industry and manufacturing, TIANGONG KAIWU.

One thing I have never figured out is why these native guns were not made with ramrods. A rod would have to be carried separately to push the bullet and wadding down to the breech, it would appear cumbersome not to store it under the barrel, in the stock, when not in use.

[yuanzhumin]

I should have written this post earlier but I was busy. So better late than never.
Thanks to all of you that supplied me with all these precious infos and helped me answer the questions I was having on this gun A special thanks to Philip for his very detailed explanations.
For the ones that could be interested, I displayed hereafter the photos of one of the recent addition to my collection.
It's a very nice and old Taiwan aborigines knife (65cm long) from the Atayal tribe, north of the island.
Best,
Yuanzhumin

[Tim Simmons]

How nice to have the carrying strap, it is always a pleasure to see simple things 100% complete.

[Philip]

For those who are fascinated with the relationships between geograpically-dispersed tribal groups, it is interesting to note the scabbard on this knife, with its open front secured by a series of parallel bands or thin bars. Variations on this scabbard concept are found in the Northern Philippines (the Ifugao are one tribe that comes to mind), among the Kachins of northern Burma, and even in the lowlands of Bhutan.

Some years ago, I teamed up with a colleague, the late Sherrod V. Anderson MD, to write an intro essay on Taiwan aboriginal swords. I believe it's still up on www.sevenstarstrading.com . The article does touch upon the relationships between Taiwan's native highlanders with tribes in the rest of SE Asia.

[drdavid]

Hi yuanzhumin
is this blade what is called a mo duan? When did such blades cease being manufactured or are they still made today?
cheers
drd

[yuanzhumin]

- Yes, it's nice to have the original carrying strap, mostly when this strap appears quite original as it is a solid piece of bamboo that has been curved and linked at its extremities with a hemp string to the scabbard. Actually, I have the feeling that this knife is however missing a little something. If I'm not mistaking, it could have had some human hair attached to its extremity before, as it was the case for some knives from this tribe. After a closer look, a darker stripe of patina appears on the narrower part of the scabbard, meaning something had be hanging there long before.
-Concerning the article on Paiwan knives : this article is very interesting and one of the only sources of infos on the Paiwan knives published in English. It would be nice if someone was putting it here on the forum to facilitate its reading. I have myself tried recently to connect to the Sevenstarstrading website from Taiwan without success (I don't why). Fortunately, I keep a copy of this article printed on paper for myself.
-'Mo duan' : I don't know the name of this tribal knife in Atayal language. As for the Taiwanese, they call these knives 'dao zi', that simply means knife in mandarin, translated by 'dou' in taiwanese/min nan language. 'Mo duan' means in mandarin one extremity, without specifying which one. I can't tell you more on the other meanings of 'mo duan'.
-For the tribal knife making : only few artists/artcraftmen working the wood are still making the scabbard and the handle following the tribal tradition. Usually old persons. And they are doing it for their family or the members of their village. It's a very, very limited production. For the blade, I don't think anybody is still keeping on the tradition.

Yuanzhumin