Borneo Parang Nabur or Visayan Bolo?

[Dajak]

Originally Posted by VVV

Kai,

I have Juynboll's book on Philippines but unfortunately it only covers the weapons in the Leiden museum. This means that most of them are from Sulu, Mindanao (a lot of Bagobo) and some from North Luzon. And only a handful of swords collected in the region around Manila. No blades from South Luzon and the Visayas.
It's quite thin compared to f.i. Borneo and unfortunately not as useful.

Ben,

I have the second edition of Stone's book and in the beginning you can read about him and his life.
Stone was clearly a remarkable man and his work was of high value when he published it and it still is today.
But unlike Haddon, who based his book on his expedition to Borneo in 1898-1899, Stone actually never visited the island.
His descriptions of f.i. Borneo weapons are based on the litterature that is listed in the end of the book. This means that he only had a small percentage of all the information we have today about Borneo weapons to base his book on. And no Internet!
To list all weapons in all times is an impressive task and I find it very surprising that there are so few errors in his work based on the above.

On the Parang Nabur he writes the source of his description openly for the readers to double check.
Which I have quoted so everybody can make their own opinion and contribute to the discussion.

In f.i. Leiden there are 25+ "Parang Nabur" with credible collection notes and collected in SE Borneo.
None that has been collected in NW Borneo!
Of course there is a bias because North Borneo was British and the rest was Dutch at that time. But there are also weapons in the huge Leiden collection, like the Niabor, collected in Sarawak.
Also don't you find it strange that there are no references to this sword in f.i. Shelford, Evans, Brooke etc. where you can find all the other weapons of the inhabitants of the old British part of Borneo?
Why don't we see it in any of the Iban books that has been published after Stone?
I find it quite probable that the authors of those has tried really hard to find this "Sea-Dayak sword" as described in Stone. But it seems as if all of them failed for a reason...

Why?

I think the only conclusion must be that the weapon wasn't in use in that region?

So Ben here is the "Parang Nabur" challenge:

There are 25+ "Parang Nabur" from SE Borneo with collection notes in Leiden alone.
Show me 5 "Parang Nabur" (only 20% of the amount in Juynboll) with proper scientific collection notes originating from Sarawak and a proven age of at least 100 years (no new tourist copies).
If so you will be the new owner of my 114 cm "Parang Nabur".
If you can't do it who can?

Michael

just start already to make a package Saribas where the pirate s are is north borneo

there is north sarawak dutch say north borneo for them

and north borneo that is british borneo british south borneo is dutch north borneo

so did get the stuf that is in leiden taken from dutch or english people

Don t forget that we are talking about 1850 and not the late 1900

Look at the pic off an iban warrior from 1959
look at the weapon he have

Ben

[Dajak]

Hi Michael
Another pic 2 ibans have these weapons
does it make this an seadayak sword or a weapon that seadayaks sometimes use


Ben

[VVV]

Thanks for the interesting pictures.

It's hard to see the weapons but to me it looks like the regular Iban Pedang (the sword that resembles the Piso Podang that we have discussed several times before)?
It's not the sword we discussed.

And don't try to confuse us with North and South.
The specified region is Sarawak, where you find the Sea Dayaks.

Please try harder.

Michael

[Dajak]

Hi Michael take a look in the book ling rothpage 135

[VVV]

Yes, that's the quote I posted before and the source of Stone???

It's obviously an alternative spelling of the Iban parang aka Niabor, Njabor or Nyabor.
The genuine and old war sword of the Sea-Dayak (see Shelford etc.).
Maybe you could share a picture of it for this thread as a reference because, as you know, I don't have one myself yet?

Michael

[Dajak]

http://old.blades.free.fr/swords/day...ayak_intro.htm


Over here you can look at the parang niabor I think they make an langueage
mistake

Here they talk about parang pedang but is an parang nabur but look it proves that the dayaks also used it

[VVV]

Yes,

In a way it's another language semi-mistake.
This is once again the Iban (parang) Pedang.
Described as having cross guard, not D-guard, and hollow at the hilt etc.
It seems that because Ling Roth puts parang in front of all the names earlier known from other sources it get's confusing.

Can we agree that it's all based on a misunderstanding by Stone, because of what Ling Roth wrote and that Ling Roth didn't show pictures of the swords he describes?

Michael