Kachin Dao

[carlitobrigante]

Hi chaps

I have a few kachin type dao / dha now (and another on its way soon!) that ive picked up along the way. I havent come across many other examples online, the few i have seen all seem of similar proportions and have fairly similar hilts with brass and lacquered rattan common.

Any comments welcome. Particularly interested in pics of others people examples, or links to any online sources regarding this type of dao, and the tribes that wielded it. I imagine all 3 are 1900-1950's but thats a complete guess on my part.

The middle one in the first picture below, is to me the nicest of the 3 i think. Despite missing its bone pommel cap thing, it has the largest and best quality blade, and i like the handle thats split in silver, brass, wood, and 2 different types of rattan in different sections. The blade has a wonderfull looking laminate pattern running strongly on both sides near the spine of the blade, has a tempered edge showing a nice cloudy hamon effect in places.

The red lacquer and brass handled one shows a clearly inserted hardened edge and was the only one that came with a scabbard (which incidently arent that common it seems, unsurprisingly now ive seen the design of the scabbards!!).

The third is plainest of the three, and what i would definately term a 'worker' type, the blade too pitted to show any details in the steel, but a nice solid well made piece i think.

I believe these most come from northern Burma, id be fascinated if anyone could tell me what features on this type of dao can help tell me identify which particular tribe / area / era they originate from.

[carlitobrigante]

Seems i should have searched harder..

found this thread http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?p=68999
with some lovely examples that i hadnt yet seen which was very helpfull..mods let me know if you want me to take my questions there or leave them here.

It seems the red lacquered handle / grip type is the most common along with the plain un-lacquered wood and rattan type like the 'worker' in my pics. Almost every example of the admittedly few ive seen has one of these two types of hilt colouring / decoration.

[Nathaniel]

Missed seeing this thread...nice Naga dao you have going there...that is great you have one with the hairpin lamination...it has an interesting handle too compared to the other two standard types. Can you show a picture of from the handle end looking at their pommels?

[Royston]

Thought I would add a few variations.

I have used Rawson for identification. If anyone knows of other publications with Dao information I would be most greatful.

Photos are, unfortunately taken indoors with a flash as the weather is atrocious at present.

First photo
Top appears to be a transition type in that it is halfway between a Milemnok and a Kachin.
Middle is the Dancing type from the Kubai
Bottom is a Milemnok with the wooden hilt almost completely covered in steel.

Second photo
Top is from the Konyak or Ao Nagas of Assam
Middle is probably Chang
Bottom is Kachin

Third photo
Top and bottom are Kukai
Middle is, I think, from the Arbor of Assam. There is a similar one, plate 38 in Rawson's "The Indian Sword"

Comments, questions and corrections are always welcome

Regards
Roy

[Nathaniel]

That is quite the nice array of dao! Very nice Royston, Thanks for sharing! I haven't seen on the forum a picture of the different varieties side by side like that...great reference of these type of dao!

[DhaDha]

Wow. Amazing collections. Thank you for sharing.
Cheers

[carlitobrigante]

lovely items Royston. Some nice variations there i hadnt seen before.

[Emanuel]

Love these swords. here are three more. The bottom two both have the bone caps and the blades show single hairpin lamination.
The top one is a simple lamination. i assume the wound metal band and the nail holding it are not original.

Emanuel

[carlitobrigante]

is the consensus that these things are general purpose blades or strictly fighting swords of the kachin people? Seem abit unwieldy for anything other than cleaving human sized objects in two to me!!!