Marked Sundanese Pisau Raut: Galuh-Pajajaran?

[naturalist]

Good day Ian, definitely it is not. Myself is really got lost in the world of Pisau Raut, every single time i asked to Indonesian Pisau Raut Group why they are grouping various shape of knives to big group of pisau raut, no one gave clear answer. But they are mentioned several names of pisau raut, such as; jajangkar (from the shape close to the one that use in cut the flower of palm for harvesting the sap), jonggol, teundeut, and pangot. The shape of teundeut and jonggol (Jonggol is a place near to Bogor, West Java) are close to Punal Criollo. They put all knives that for splitting rattan, write on lontar, carving, fighting (just like in in this post) into one group, pisau raut. So it has range on size from few centimeters to close to 35 cm.

Cheers,
Anton

Originally Posted by Ian

Is this actually a pisau raut (rattan knife)?

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[Ian]

naturalist, that sounds very confusing!

It reminds me of the "Filipino bolo," which can be many different shapes and sizes, and used for many different purposes (agricultural tool, brush clearing, wood cutting, general purpose jungle knife, weapon, etc.).

Again, we come up against the futility of trying to understand the "name game" with regard to local usage. An item is called by whatever term its owner thinks it should be called based on common usage within the local culture. This legitimizes the designated name (even if it makes little sense to outsiders, such as collectors).