Bali Ritual Knife

[Battara]

Greetings folks,

This is a Balinese ritual knife I got years ago, but it has taken this long to restore. The first picture will show how I got it with 90% of the silver inlay gone. Following that the pictures are of the restored piece (most of the inlay is finished).

All the inlay is silver on one side with the hilt covered by thin silver sheet, and there is a copper butt plate.

What little research I have uncovered tells me that this knife is used to exorcise evil spirits as part of burial ceremonys in Bali. These are hard to find pieces and I have only seen 2 examples. Michael Backman has an example on his website.

Enjoy.

[Battara]

Here is the butt:

[mross]

Wow, that is some nice meticulous work, inlay is crazy time consuming and not very forgiving. Nice work.

[Rick]

First one of these I've seen.
Any thoughts on why the pitting follows the inlay lines Jose?
Also noted, the chisel grind.. IIRC the wedung is not chisel ground.

[Athanase]

If it helps, I add the link to the subject of my similar knife :

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=tiuk

And another link to my betel knives one of which is really similar but without silver inlay :

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=tiuk

[A. G. Maisey]

I've just taken the time to follow the links back to see where the chain started, turns out it was a thread I started, but that's beside the point, in that thread there are some really good pics taken by Gavin Nugent, not weaponry so much, but Bali funeral procession scenes, I think they're worth visiting:-

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=13443

[Battara]

Oh yes I remember these pictures, thank you Alan. You can see Balinese priests cutting with knives like this.

The pitting is due to the tool I used on such thin spaces, unfortunately. I learned what to use and not use when working on this specialized type of inlay.

Tough work - that's why it took me a couple of years to finish. Tons of thin super close inlay. Thank you for your kind comments.

Yes chiseled and beveled on one side and flat on the other.

[A. G. Maisey]

The chisel grind is very common in Asian knives, it effectively cuts a cutting edge in half, facilitating an extremely fine edge. It takes a bit of a learning curve to sharpen properly, and also to use properly, but once you get used to the chisel edge it is unlikely you will go back to a conventional edge.

I've been using mostly chisel grind knives as my work knives and bench knives for a few years now, and I find them much better for fine work than knives with the conventional grind.

[Battara]

Here is some of the research I found on an example nearly identical to mine. This is from "The Art and Culture of Bali", with the description on p.74.