Minasbad

[Robert]

Well, I finally found a traditional minisbad to go with the transitional one with the clenched fist hilt that I found a while back. This one has a 20 inch blade and
looks to show a good age. It is not one of the more elaborate ones covered is silver or brass panels but it does have a nicely carved carabao hilt with only minor damage. Unfortunately (as usual) it does not have the original scabbard. Any comments on this would be greatly welcomed especially ones on its possible age. Auction pictures are below.

Robert

[Battara]

Congrats and looks old and real enough!

[DaveA]

Had my eye on that one too! Congrats.

[tom hyle]

Being a variation on the bat head parang nabur; one of my favorite sword types; I wonder if the pommel represents a fruit bat. Note the ears. I bid on this one. Nice looking sword.

[Robert]

Jose and Dave,
Thank you both for your kind words. I would appreciate any information as to the age of this piece or any other information that anyone would care to offer. Thanks again.

Robert

[KuKulzA28]

Good stuff! Minasbad, as well as other Luzon blades, often get overshadowed by the much more popular Moro weapons... and the minasbad is not a particularly common blade style of Luzon from what I've heard! Good to see it here on the EAA forums.

[Robert]

Good stuff! Minasbad, as well as other Luzon blades, often get overshadowed by the much more popular Moro weapons... and the Minasbad is not a particularly common blade style of Luzon from what I've heard! Good to see it here on the EAA forums.

Thank you Vinny. Have you seen the other one that I posted ? I wasn't even sure as to what to call it when I first acquired it. The thread on it is located at http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=13751 if you are interested in taking a look. I have another sword that I think might be from the Bicol area that has a hilt carved with an animal head that is very similar to the one on this Minasbad. Here are a couple of the pictures of the hilt to show the similarity in carving. I will be posting complete pictures of the sword in its own thread later. One other thing that I would like everyones opinion on is what do you think the hilt carving on both of these represent? I have been told that it could be a dog but with the way that the eyes, ears and especially the nose are represented it looks to me that it could be a water buffalo. Opinions anyone??

[migueldiaz]

Nice patina and classic form. Congrats!

[Robert]

Nice patina and classic form. Congrats!

Thank you. Do you know if there is any way of dating these, possibly by hilt or blade form??

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by Robert Coleman

Thank you. Do you know if there is any way of dating these, possibly by hilt or blade form??

Hello. We are still trying to get more info and see more examples. Hopefully pretty soon we'd be able to date these. Thanks.

[Robert]

Hello. We are still trying to get more info and see more examples. Hopefully pretty soon we'd be able to date these.

Great news Lorenz. Please keep us informed of your progress and thank you.

Robert

[Sajen]

Hello Robert,

nice sword, now I want one also!

Handle could be a horse head as well, but don't know if there have been horses.

Regards,

Detlef

[Robert]

Hello Detlef,
I hope that you have a lot better luck when trying to acquire one of these than I did. I don't know how many times that my bid was second when one of these came up for auction. It alway seemed that someone else wanted it more than I did or bid more than I could afford. I just got lucky with this one.

Robert

[Dimasalang]

Nice one Robert! Glad you finally found one also!
I received mine in the mail last week. Been too busy the past few days to take photos and post. I will within this week. I definitely want to get another, and I am hoping to find one similar to the traditional looking Minasbad like yours.

Originally Posted by Robert Coleman

Thank you Vinny. Have you seen the other one that I posted ? I wasn't even sure as to what to call it when I first acquired it. The thread on it is located at http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=13751 if you are interested in taking a look. I have another sword that I think might be from the Bicol area that has a hilt carved with an animal head that is very similar to the one on this Minasbad. Here are a couple of the pictures of the hilt to show the similarity in carving. I will be posting complete pictures of the sword in its own thread later. One other thing that I would like everyones opinion on is what do you think the hilt carving on both of these represent? I have been told that it could be a dog but with the way that the eyes, ears and especially the nose are represented it looks to me that it could be a water buffalo. Opinions anyone??

Interesting animal head. If it were a carabao, I would think the horns would be included, given the horns are a significant characteristic of the carabao. With the ears drooped like that, I am thinking goat or a calf or cow. Thats only my guess though.

Im finding myself more fascinated with Visayan weapons lately, considering there is sever lack of documentation and history behind them...I kinda like that. It makes them less popular as of now...but I feel in the near future that will all change. Funny how more Filipinos of the north would like to closely relate themselves to the Moro weapons than the visayan ones. Nearly all Eskrima/Arnis/Kali/FMA groups have a Moro weapon in their symbol or their arsenal...and 98% of them practice nothing similar or related to Moro Martial Arts. And they know all the names of the Moro weapons, but not the Visayan ones...and ironically, most of these arts originated from the Visayas region.
The animal carved hilts from Bikol also intrigues me. Were these animals sacred in someway in that region? Even though Bikol is a region of South Luzon, it seems more associated with the Visayas region, since it is in a way separated by mountains and attached to Luzon by a string with only one province connecting to it(Quezon). Also considering Samar/Leyte and Panay are right next to it. Some go so far to say the bottom half of the Bikol region dips in to the Visayas territory.

[Battara]

Originally Posted by Dimasalang

Nearly all Eskrima/Arnis/Kali/FMA groups have a Moro weapon in their symbol or their arsenal...and 98% of them practice nothing similar or related to Moro Martial Arts. And they know all the names of the Moro weapons, but not the Visayan ones...and ironically, most of these arts originated from the Visayas region.

Yes I've also noticed that. Thought it was strange. Luzanos and Visayans have their own blade traditions so why not use them more?

[Spunjer]

Marketing purposes. Due to the almost mythic reputation of the moro warriors of yore, it was just a matter of time before the old stories were implemented by the more market-savvy FMA instructors to garner more students, and of course to gain more notoriety and street cred. The old masters who brought the art here in the states and anywhere else worldwide knew this, but the problem got out of control when their first gen students took whatever their master said as gospel.
What's really embarrasing is when an instructor would do a demo of his visayan art using a moro weapon. Kinda like showing a roomful of students on how to make chicken chow mein, and using spaghetti pasta for noodles. It just don't taste right...

[ThePepperSkull]

*coughcoughbahadzubucoughcough* Oh, sorry, I had something stuck in my throat.

I concur. Some FMA arts are far more guilty of this than others. I believe a good chunk of Ethnographic blade enthusiasts began as FMA students, however. The quest for knowledge with the goal of demistifying these stories is what led me here, personally. (It also led me to seek deeper study in other forms of martial arts like Bruneian Silat and to a lesser extent Silat Mande Muda to gain more inisght into how Moros could possibly have used their blades but admittedly this was less of an academic endeavour and more of a hypothetical exercise in my mind)

Looking back how I used to see things in 2006 versus today in terms of my martial (and cultural) heritage makes me laugh. It also, however, alarms me to think that my fellow Silat men and FMA practitioners still think in terms of these half-truths told for marketing purposes. In my mind it underscores the necessity for resources like this site, and for sites like Filhistory and Morolandhistory for the casual historian who seeks to differentiate truth from myth but does not have easy access to much physical historical text.


(Oh, and that Minasbad is beautiful! I have already expressed to you about how much I enjoy these Bicolano wonders, Robert, but it can't hurt to repeat myself :P )

[Dimasalang]

Thanks for your insight Spunjer and Pepperskull.
I fell in the same line as Pepperskull mentioned. Years ago I bought in to the whole FMA with the Moro motif. But being a student of Philippine history in general, I thought it best to do my own research on general FMA history and their weapons; since some of the storys and fables surrounding FMA didn't make any sense history-wise. Which evidently lead me to this site and really opened my eyes. I just cant believe the beauty of these weapons that come out of Luzon and the Visayas that seem to be long forgotten and are eclipsed by the more popular Moro theme. I can actually see how through the years the Visayan weaponry fell off from the FMA world.

Ridiculous I think how some FMA groups even go so far as to wear some Moro garb as uniform and pose with Moro weapons...then you look at the style it is more similar to what is being practiced in the Visayas or Luzon region. And their background, they lived in Luzon or the Visayas all their life. I have a problem with the idea that most grandmasters do not even document their system; they rather keep it all locked in their head. Somewhat understandable considering most are poor and they fear that a document can be stolen....but, when they die, so does a large part of their system.

One other thing I do not like about our Filipino culture, the way we kept track and past on our history. The older generation told stories the tribal way, which is word of mouth...and as most uncles and manongs do, they tend to really spice the stories up...which through the years just morphs and turns the history in to all these non-sense fables and folklores. None of them wrote out or documented anything with out bias. And this is carried on today by the Masters, Grandmasters, and even the new teachers who pass these stories on to their students[like me]. As fun as many of these stories are, they need to start drawing the line somewhere.

Im gonna shoot myself if I hear another story of Kali coming from Lapu-Lapu, or this art was used to defend the land against the Spanish(which leads people to think we were originally Moro), or how FMA was outlawed by the Spanish, or FMA came from Moro-Moro plays, or the Spanish outlawed swords so the Filipinos began to use sticks. How about telling the real story. The story of the Christianized Filipinos who actually formulated an art to combat Moro piracy and raiding? Or the story how the Spanish used Filipinos to fight against the Moros and other rebellious tribes(which coincidentally happened to be Filipinos out of Cebu, Bohol, IloIlo, Panay, Samar/Leyte, and Negros, where non-Moro FMA gained a strong foothold and spread. Or the story of Katipunan bolomen during the 1896 Revolution and later against the American forces? The outlaw of MA and blades by the Spanish is only true to a certain extent...Filipinos were farmers and a bolo is a required tool the Spanish knew we needed...and also there is proof the Spanish converted and trained many of these warrior tribes. It is just a great injustice to the past eskrimadors of the Spanish era, to simply gloss over this part of FMA history, and rather just go with something that is more marketable today[the Moro theme]. Those eskrimadors who actually fought against the Moros must be spinning in their grave right now. Funny how most of these FMA schools try so hard to say how pure their tradition and system is, that they go so far to exclude anything and everything Spanish era influenced; and some evidently embraced the Moro motif, and even more ridiculous how they just exclude these great Visayan and Luzon weapons of their past. And nearly all of them can not even trace their system to the 1500s(pre-hispanic era); let alone the 1600 and 1700s!...so how can most of them say their system is actually a pure native art. Sorry, Im just peeved to see this part of our culture and heritage go down the wrong path like this.

Sorry Robert for side tracking this thread!!!
Maybe we should of started our own thread. hehe

[Robert]

Sorry Robert for side tracking this thread!!!

No problem at all. I am quite enjoying this discussion. Never turn down a chance to learn something new as it may never come again. Keep it going.

Robert