Zheng Yi Sao Pirate Sword

[piratelady]

Ian; Thank you so much. That was a big help. Another question. The guard on the sword looks like it has 2 pieces. Like it is a split guard. Is there a term for that?

[Ian]

I think the sword has a single D-guard. The semi-circular dark "ring" to the left is, I think, part of the glove on her right hand. I don't think it is part of the sword.
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[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by piratelady

Ian; Thank you so much. That was a big help. Another question. The guard on the sword looks like it has 2 pieces. Like it is a split guard. Is there a term for that?

Hi Pirate Lady,
I'd like to join Ian in welcoming you here! and am very thrilled to see you bring up this interesting area of piracy, and especially this particular female pirate.
She was apparently in control of a huge confederacy of pirates in the South China Sea, and they preyed on Portuguese, as well as Qing and Dutch East India Co. vessels.

As you note, the weapons used by pirates (as discussed in the thread concurrent here) varied profoundly and often included many captured arms which had many cultural and national sources.

A weapon as suggested in the image, if indeed an early photograph, may well have used a weapon other than her own. There may have been any number of these potential European weapons in circulation there and then.
Still, we are discussing what type of sword is depicted, whether used by Zheng Yi Sao or not. As Ian has noted, the blade in the orig. illustration seems very slender, pointed, and somewhat short.....recalling European small swords as he suggests, which were of the 18th century but extended into 19th in degree, typically as court swords.

It would be interesting to look into the actual weapons used by Chinese martial artists, who often became 'river pirates' as well, and the various dao and 'butterfly knives' along with other arms as well.

It seems that a number of Napoleonic French swords had a swing out knuckleguard which added extra hand protection as required. These were an innovation which precluded the eventual style of multi bar guards in the 1820s, until then most sabers had stirrup knuckle guards. As the French had notable colonial presence in the Indo-China regions etc. it seems quite possible this might be one of these.
The attached image of one of these French sabers (Cathey Brimage coll.) illustrates the concept, which was known simply as a folding guard in discussion, as far as local or actual term used on original examples it is uncertain what term might have been used.

[piratelady]

Thanks Gentlemen. I assume she carried a smallsword because the average height of a Chinese woman in the 19th century was 4'10" to 5'2"

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by piratelady

Thanks Gentlemen. I assume she carried a smallsword because the average height of a Chinese woman in the 19th century was 4'10" to 5'2"

That would be a good assumption, but it is most unlikely for anyone Chinese to be using a small sword (rapier type blade), and the hilt looks to me like the swing out knuckleguard I suggested. Many Chinese swords were short for use in close quarters..

[Gustav]

Gentlemen, you are discussing an assumed depiction of a person, who was around 74 years old at the time of invention of photography and died 5 years later.

[Ian]

Gustav, this may not be a photograph. It could be a drawing. I did not look at it as a photograph.

[Gustav]

Ian, that looks not like a drawing from before the arriving of photography from SEAsia (attached a drawing from 1836(?)). To be honest, it doesn't look like a drawing or photography from 19th cent., it does have a look of a film still, not older then 1930'ties, perhaps reproduced as a litography.

[Jim McDougall]

Good points guys, estimating weapons from various depictions, whether art or in the scope of photography from its historical standpoint, is sketchy.
The weapons being worn or held by the subject often, if not typically, were not likely owned or used by them.

I agree the nature of this image certainly does not look like it is of the period suggested, which would have been likely late 18th c. at best. ...and most obviously not a photo, or even an artistic rendering as it does not seem characteristic of the styles then.

This is rather like trying to gauge the style of sword used by Blackbeard or other sundry pirates shown in period woodcut images in the book by Johnson(1724). The swords in these images suggest certain styles of swords presumed in use by these pirates, but often with somewhat fanciful depictions of 'scimitar' type blades.

This does not diminish the desire to better estimate what type of weapons would have been used by this important female pirate, but such details would be better served by looking into the weapons used by the various groups of Chinese martial artists and 'river pirates' of late 18th century.

Quite possibly such weapons would have been the 'double' swords or knives termed these days as hudeidao (butterfly knives) which were halved to fit into same scabbard. While considered a 19th century weapon, these were noted in accounts of c.1820s suggesting they had already been in use for some time.
These seem to have been an innovation of Southern Chinese martial arts such as 'Wing Chun' and the Cantonese term for these appears to have been 'wu dip do', as far as I have found.

The 'double sword' concept extended to full length swords such as the jian as well, however these were dual weapons held in separate compartments in a single scabbard. The concept of course was fighting with two weapons, much as in the west in rapier duels with either sword and dagger or two rapiers (known as a 'case').

The best study of these weapons was compiled by Gavin Nugent some years ago, noting the rather clouded character of these recorded historically and that they were popularized in mid to later 19th c.
Perhaps the most reliable presumption of what type weapon would have been used by these pirates in China would have been the more well known daos etc. of the period.