A Piso Podang With An Unusual Blade

[Aleksey G.]

Guys, I was wondering if anybody knows what is the meaning or significance of the gold/brass sections on the spine of the blades? I see'em on blades from quite a few cultures? Thank you.

[VVV]

Nice film Maurice!
Aleksey, on the brass/gold some say decoration only, some say metaphysical reasons...
Charles, make a forum search on Iban Pedang for more examples and comments on the Borneo variation.
It´s not that easy with the hilts but here are some hints, not "laws", that mostly seems to work for ID:
- Usually the one with motifs like yours are Borneo.
- The open cup-pommels usually are Batak.
- The closed cup-pommels could be both but seems to be most often Borneo.
- The ones with "crusader-like" cross-pieces are probably Batak.

But some of the ones that fit the Borneo description above could also be Peninsular Malay.
Like everything else it´s a safer guess when you find several hints on the same sword.

Michael

[Maurice]

An old picture in the book of A.W. Nieuwenhuis!
1894-1900.

[Maurice]

Front Cover of Iban Art!

[Maurice]

A picture of an Iban pedang in the book "Living in Sarawak" .

[Maurice]

Old Iban photo's with pedang!

[Maurice]

The Pedang was not only used by the seadayaks (Iban's) in Borneo.
But it was also in use by the Dusun's in North East of Borneo.
Here what I found in the book of Evans (who visited Sabah between 1910 and 1911 and in 1915).
An old photo of a Dusun with a pedang (and the text that belongs to it).

And some phrases in the book that are important regarding the mentioned pedang.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Aleksey G.

Guys, I was wondering if anybody knows what is the meaning or significance of the gold/brass sections on the spine of the blades? I see'em on blades from quite a few cultures? Thank you.

Aleksey has asked a very interesting question here, and I'm surprised nobody has answered with all the expertise here in this field.
While way outside my usual fields of study, it seems that these transverse lines in numerics of three usually ? do occur on various SE Asian swords. I've see them on dha, and some others, but usually scribed lines, not brass filled.

In Borneo there are often pierced holes in many parang ihlang, which are sometimes filled with brass but as if some are filled while some arent. Some have suggested these as tally numbers, but I dont think that has been generally accepted.

Best regards,
Jim

[Maurice]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

In Borneo there are often pierced holes in many parang ihlang, which are sometimes filled with brass but as if some are filled while some arent. Some have suggested these as tally numbers, but I dont think that has been generally accepted.

Hello Jim,

I don't know exactly what you mean by tally number (my english is a bit limited, sorry for that), but I think that you mean that every pierced hole filled, is standing for every head that was taken by the sword.


This is not likely, because of the following reasons:

1. Some swords have so many filled holes, that it is impossible to represent the number of heads.

2. Mr. Tromp wrote in his article around 1887 about Kutai mandaus, that it was denied, when he asked if it could be that the holes representing the taken heads.

3. Also it is not likely that the dayaks did want to heat up a by blood "loaded" sword after taking a head, to put a little hole in it.


Kind Regards,
Maurice

[VVV]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Aleksey has asked a very interesting question here, and I'm surprised nobody has answered with all the expertise here in this field.
While way outside my usual fields of study, it seems that these transverse lines in numerics of three usually ? do occur on various SE Asian swords. I've see them on dha, and some others, but usually scribed lines, not brass filled.

In Borneo there are often pierced holes in many parang ihlang, which are sometimes filled with brass but as if some are filled while some arent. Some have suggested these as tally numbers, but I dont think that has been generally accepted.

Best regards,
Jim

It seems that nobody "knows" for sure why so that´s why there hasn´t been any answers.
There are however some speculations that I find the most probable.
Like I wrote before it looks nice and it could have talismanic meanings.
Some probable talismanic meanings could be:
- the belief that some people are invulnerable to steel. This means that the sword needs to have another metal in it to be able to hurt them.
- the inlay metal could come from a source imbued with special powers.
- the inlay in numbers also have an esoteric meaning like AUM (=3), the trisula (=3), the Archangels (4) etc.
That´s my ideas based on what I have found in the different sources on local beliefs within this region.

Michael

[Maurice]

Charles,


I found another photo of a dayak dancer. It is a photo (for sure before 1955)found in the Tropenmuseum database.
Hard to see, but an increasing photo will show such pedang.

Regards,
Maurice

[Rick]

[Maurice]

Thanks Rick for proving I am telling the truth !

[Rick]

I wish I knew something about my eagle head example .