sword preferences?

Can you do a close up of the handle on your kriss? Is that a large coin or medalion?

 

here ya go, crucible...

front:


back:


yes, it's a medallion. this kris is contradiction (that's why i like it!)
why? because the medallion is of an anglo guy (no offense) which is why would a moro use an image of his worst enemy on his sword?

 

I prefer to use a short Ninja sword, or Ninja short-sword. I prefer straight swords over long swords, because it seems that I'm able to be more precise with them, although that's probably just an illusion. Smaller swords are easier to handle than the long 50" katanas people tend to go for.

I haven't tried many kinds of swords; curved katanas, Ninja swords, Ninja short-swords, and various daggers are all I've worked with, so far.

 

I like using the ninja-to. It's history, and it's flow and it's appearance apeal to me. I don't use the authentic low quality tool, I use the newer battle ready lengthened version, and the style of kenjutsu.

 

yes! yes! ninja-tos are very common in fma! wait! no they're not!

 

This isn't in my style, or yours (probably), but the urumi- the 3 bladed sword with flexible blades which are paper thin

 

The katana- single or double, I am proficient in both. (also wakizishi, single or double)

 

uh guys, this is the fma forum. we're talking about swords found in the philippines.

 

Nice sword.

The "Anglo guy" looks like a Renaissance-style portrayal (though it also frankly looks rather "new") of a warrior wearing a "neo-classical" parade helmet--perhaps some variety of burgonet. Do you know the history of that specific sword?

As to such an "image" of the Moros' "worst enemy" being a "contradiction", I'm not so sure. The Moros made straight copies of Spanish burgonet helmets, though they made them out of brass, as opposed to steel.

The following site has photos of a couple of Moro helmets, which are brass copies of Spanish burgonets:

http://home.earthlink.net/~federicomalibago/armor.html

 

thanks esgrimador,

what you're looking at is the "after" photo. this is what it looked like when i first acquired it:



the medallion was added after. when? well, that's the mystery part. notice how the kakatua is shaved, plus part of the topmost band. i want you to look at the blade, tho. neat tiger stripes, huh?



incidentally, the sword on federico's website (http://home.earthlink.net/~federicomalibago/_uimages/Maguindanaocollage.html)

is now a part of my collection. now that's a kris with history!

 

Thanks Spunjer!

If that is the barong, yes! that's the one my family once used as a utility tool.

 

Probably as a mark of respect, he may well have killed a few of them and may well have killed a very important one, hence the medallion. It is not unusual for an opponent to want to posses something of they enemy, many feel it gives them power or Anting Anting over them. So you never know, the sword you have there may well be more important than you first realise.

Just a thought.

Regards

Pat

 

It's like certain tribes that take the heads of their opponents and keep them to show the rest of the tribe, the more heads of your enemy you posses, the more respected and the higher your possition becomes within the tribe.

Taking trinkets such as medalions can and is veiwed in the same way, the guy that owned the sword originally probably took the life of an important opponent and wished to make sure his village and / or tribe knew this. Or on the other side of the coin (excuse the pun), it could just be his ego that made him feel he should show his people just how good a fighter he really was. e.g. "this item here on my blade was taken from *insert important name here*"

Regards

Pat

 

interesting angle, pat. never looked at it that way. another interesting aspect of this sword is the 'tiger pattern' which looked like it was sprayed. the other side has the same pattern as well but it also has caked blotches on top of the stripe pattern. i try to picture it as someone hacking an opponent with it, with blood spraying the blade, then the owner getting killed in the process, dropping the kris. since blood is highly acidic (thus the term 'blood rust'), it got etched on it permanently, with the side facing the ground ruining the pattern.

 

Ah see, now we are building up a possible history of the blade, you may want to also look at the other side, not all Moro's fought the Spanish, some actually sided with them in alliance against other tribal enemies. Maybe this is why the buttress has a medallion with a European on it as a mark of their alliance. The owner may well have been killed by his fellow countrymen and his body and blade left on the ground to rot as a mark of disrespect for his colaboration with the enemy.

I think a little more reseach could well benefit on this matter, the blade looks as though it may well have a very interesting story to tell.

Regards

Pat

 

How did this sword come in to your hands and when. Then I think you need to back track it's history from there, you never know you may well have found an item that could well change historians out look on the History of the PI.


Regards

Pat

 

that's why i love collecting these weapons. each one has a story to tell. did you know that there are different varieties of krises? it could be classified as battle kris, ceremonial and gentry class. the last two could be the same. battle kris are no nonsense, most likely, straight blade and unadorned hilt. here's an example:


close up of the hilt:



it's almost as big as my kampilan. it's rare in a way since just the blade itself is 28.5" long! normally, krises blades range from 20" to 26". so here we have one of those what possessed this moro to have a kris made this big. even if he's 5'8", which makes him agiant among men at that time, this sword would still be hefty.
here's a gentry or datu class kris. notice the gaudiness. when sheated, it tells people that 'hey, i'm a datu and look at my kris':



the hilt or handle is totally encased in silver, with very exquisite okir designs.

i have to disagree with that statement, pat. the moro of yore would never side with the spaniards. did you know at one point that if you were a spaniard and stationed in mindanao, you were considered a dreg or a criminal in the spanish army and this is your punishment? nobody would want to be stationed there in their right frame of mind. it has been reported that spanish soldiers can only venture a couple hundred feet from their fort, lest they have a death wish! the moros despised the spaniards so much that one of their original reasons why they started pillaging the central and northern islands of p.i. was due to the fact that they look at the other filipinos as cowards for siding with the kastilas. but later on, they were doing it for the sake of piracy, having concluded the northern neighbors as wussies. which leads me to my personal theory:

was arnis/escrima developed by the visayans as a form of self defense against the pillaging moros? i really don't subscribed to 'it's been there before the spaniards came'. even pigafetta's report was vague. i know it's common knowledge on FMA that lapulapu used some type of kali art to defeat magellan, but if you read pigafetta's report (google it!), in a roundabout way, he got hit with a spear, and when the natives saw him fall, they bumrushed the guy. so where's the kali skill on that? also if you looked at where escrima is predominant in the map, it's centered at panay/negros/cebu area, direct access from mindanao. another clue are the masters. did you ever noticed that majority are visayans? if there were masters from somewhere else (luzon and northern mindanao), they either;
a)learned it from a visayan.
b)their family migrated from the visayan region.
c)saw it from their trip to the visayas

you see my pattern here? so to sum it up, arnis/escrima originated in visayan region within the last 300-400 years ago, out of neccessity, to defend themselves from the marauding moros. the visayan must've been so terrorized and at the same time enthralled by the way these moros handled their barungs, krises, kampilans, piras and bangkungs that they have to come up with a way to defend themselves. they saw a pattern/patterns on how the moros fight, and exploited that angle. how is that first practiced? by using sticks. and then later on the skill being transferred to binangons, tenegre, pinuti and some other indegenous visayan weapon.

i know i'm opening a can of worms here, but not after i started collecting moro weapons did the whole picture started to make sense. you see, after starting collecting, i started reading about our forgotten brothers, to learn more about their history and within just these past few months, i've learned so much about them and their weapons. the sad thing about it, i used to live in mindanao...

should this be a separate post?

 

It has actually been suggested by several FMAists that eskrima was developed because of this, and was a combination of native fighting arts and Spanish fencing. Celestino Macachor has noted this, and I have posted links to his article on other threads here. Macachor also pointed out when the Spanish actually defeated the Moros, during the 17th century.

That's something I've always wondered about myself. If anything, Magellan and his men seem pretty darn formidable in that engagement--less than 50 men dealt with well over 1000, for a couple of hours according to Pigafetta, IIRC.

Check out Macachor's article, I think you'll find it interesting.

 

esgrimador,

this is interesting that someone laid out this theories before! could you please give me some links? i know FMA has been romanticized. that all good, but the truth is still out there somewhere...

to me however arnis/escima evolved; whether it was taught by the gods, blind princesses or one-arm bandit, or out of necessity as i've outlined earlier on this thread, it doesn't matter. all i know is, it's effective, and more importantly, it's part of my culture...

 

You make some good points but you have to remember that when the Spanish first invaded the Philippines the vast majority of the islands were inhabited with Moro tribes, it is only after 300 years of subdigation that the Moro was more secluded to the Mindanao and Sulu areas.

Take Raja Lakandula of Tondo for instance, he and his decendants were granted special advantage such as exemption from paying tribute and free from labour force. During this time a Govenor called Lavezares cut off these priviledges and Raja Lakan Dula declaired war against the Spaniards.

Salcedo another Spanish leader promised Rajah Lakandula and his relatives the reinstatement of there priviledges and for a time they once again lived in relative peace as allies.

Magat Salamat, son of Rajah Lakandula only headed a rebellion against the Spanish because they failed to live up to their promises to Lakandula and his decendants.

This is just one case that shows there was some working relationships with some of the Raja's and the Spaniards, even if these relationships fell apart they were there. As with all invasions against a tribal area, the invador will try to win freindships with certain tribes who are at war with other tribes in order to use the divide and conquer mentality, the Spanish were well known for utilising this method around the world in places such as South America and the Philippines. We cannot assume that all Moro's opposed the Spanish invasion, some Moro's would have used the Spanish power in order to better themselves and their tribe but forming alliances to be able to overcome there rivals and surrounding tribal lands.

As with all invasions, the invador will find even a small proportion of the nation that will colaborate with them, the fact that a very large proportion of the Philippines has become Catholic is proof of this fact to a certain degree, for if the population of the Philippines did not colaborate with their invadors even to a minor degree then the Philippines would still be a muslim state even to this day. So maybe I am not that far away from assuming that the blade you have with the medallion on it may well have come from a Moro colaborator, but then again it would be more romantic to assume that it was merely a trophy from an important invador that he had killed in battle, but until you reseach the blade we will never know.

regards

Pat