Use of the Sword by American Indian Tribes

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by David

Though it is clear that examples of cold worked meteorite do exist i believe it is equally clear that many of these Tlingit daggers that are dated to the mid and late 18th century are indeed indigenously FORGED weapons. Again, where how they developed these forging kills remains unknown, but there are daggers that were "collected" in the late 18th century by Europeans that obviously were not European forgings. By the 19th century Tlingit forging skills increased greatly, producing large and elaborately fullered daggers. So while there may not be much evidence of indigenous smelting i believe there is plenty of evidence of indigenous forging.

Thank you David.
My knowledge of metallurgy is pretty shallow, so it in interesting with this to learn more. I know that the use of meteorite iron is a well known attribute in your field of study, the keris, so I am wondering, was this meteorite metal used wholly, or alloyed with other metals in forging?
It does not seem that cold forging would achieve the kind of structure that would allow channeling/fullering etc.

I am inclined to agree with what you are saying on these Tlingit knives, the complexity of the channeling and the shapes of the blades seem to exceed any potential of fabrication with scrap or trade item repurposing. It does not seem that 'cold work' would accomplish this level of detail.

While as you say there is no evidence of smelting in these regions, after more reading on the indiginous peoples across the Bering did seem to have forging skills as noted from Japanese and Chinese influences. With the amount of trade and contact throughout these tribal groups it would be entirely reasonable for them to have at least some degree of absorbing of these skills and from cold working to actual forging is not that great a leap.

The question then would be from where was the iron obtained, and I wonder if there might have been some degree of trade ingots brought in.
The structure of these Tlingit knives is remarkable, and it would be great to examine them more thoroughly.