# Communities > Antique Arms & Armour Community > Chinese, South-East Asia (CSEA) >  Is this a Chinese short sword?

## Greg Kitchens

The blade is about 19.5 inches long and looks quite old. The grip has a highly carved wood(?) end and is wrapped in what looks like silver but does not have adequate tarnish for it to be very pure. THe scabbard is also accented with the same metal.
   Is this a Chinese Sword? If so, from what era and for what purpose?

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## josh stout

No that is a sword from Indonesia.  There are many types of Indonesian swords, but that one might be from Sumatra.  If so, then the blade is quite unusual.  Also, it is almost certainly in backwards.  The guys at the Ethnographic Sword Forum will be able to give more details.
Josh

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## Kai W.

Hello Greg,

This is usually called a pedang (type 3 - van Zonneveld's book) and from somewhere along the Indonesian island chain: Could originate from Sumatra, Java, or just as well Lombok and surroundings.

Blade is nice and genuinely old; the fuller is a bit different than most and edge orientation is correct. The pommel is often horn but wood is also possible; carving seems to be of good quality (can be much more elaborate though). An honest warrior piece; I'd guess.

Scabbard may be a later replacement and the metal work could be quite recent restoration. Looks like a brass-like alloy to me but only testing will tell for sure.

It may be worth to polish the blade by hand and give it an etch - some of these blades have very nice pamor patterns!

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## josh stout

Thanks Kai, it is always educational to hear from you.  I thought the cutting edge and the curve of the pommel always went in the same direction like they do on a golok.  

There is always more to learn :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 
Josh

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## Kai W.

You're welcome, Josh! The tip can go both ways with these swords.

Here's a classic thread with quite a few examples to show their diversity: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4682

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## kevin.feng

will anybody advise how to display pictures like above instead of a thumb nail?  :Wink:

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## Glen C.

> will anybody advise how to display pictures like above instead of a thumb nail?


Hi Kevin,

To make a picture appear in your post as above, the image must be hosted/uploaded at a server/site. There are many free imaging hosts. If they are more than 800 pixels wide it is nice if you just provide a link or thumbnail, as many are still using that size display. You use BB code to make the image appear in your post, or click the little landscape button and paste the image url in there. The code in brackets is 
img url /img
http://forums.swordforum.com/misc.php?do=bbcode

You can also resize/compress photos to less thn 100kb and attach five per post by clicking manage attachments. Compression allows quite dimensionally large images yet reduces the amount of data.

Cheers

Hotspur; _let's see if I have a handy one or two. Both these are less than 50kb before uploading here_

Click to enlarge

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## Kenneth, H.

> No that is a sword from Indonesia.  There are many types of Indonesian swords, but that one might be from Sumatra.  If so, then the blade is quite unusual.  Also, it is almost certainly in backwards.  The guys at the Ethnographic Sword Forum will be able to give more details.
> Josh


I suspected the same.  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 
A couple of months ago, I wouldn't had any idea about this weapon, but recently I've picked up an interest in the headhunters of Borneo, and thus also been looking a bit into the local weaponry.
It seems that all the edged weapons from that part of the world share quite a bit of similarities, especially when it comes to the handle.

May I ask what differs this knife from a so called "barang" (parang) ?

Oh, if anyone else is interested in head-hunters, especially the Dayak tribe.. I want to learn more.  :Big Grin:

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## josh stout

> I suspected the same. 
> A couple of months ago, I wouldn't had any idea about this weapon, but recently I've picked up an interest in the headhunters of Borneo, and thus also been looking a bit into the local weaponry.
> It seems that all the edged weapons from that part of the world share quite a bit of similarities, especially when it comes to the handle.
> 
> May I ask what differs this knife from a so called "barang" (parang) ?
> 
> Oh, if anyone else is interested in head-hunters, especially the Dayak tribe.. I want to learn more.


So first, just so it is clear, I was wrong about the blade being backwards, it is just curved the other way from what I expected, and I couldn't see the edge :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 

I have been slowly growing my knowledge of ethnographic weapons and Indonesian weapons have always had a special place in my heart.  My kung-fu school comes from there, and Indonesian metalwork is some of the best, with modern smiths still producing amazing patterns.

That said, there are so many types of Indonesian weapons that my casual study has only given me a drop of knowledge in an ocean of information.  I can't cite any specific definitions of different saber types but I would say klewang and parang are usually seen as working machete type knives.  I have a hard time defining and differentiating klewang, but parang usually have sharp points and relatively wide blades, often with a curved broadening of the blade toward the tip.  The golok is another working chopping knife, usually without a sharp point, and usually more of a straight line broadening toward the tip.

The pedang is more of a blade for war, though it could be dual use (like the Torajan "dua lalang").  The blades are usually narrow and less forward weighted than the more dedicated chopping knives.  The tips are sharp and often have a back edge.   The pedang larus is the classic sword of the Javanese warrior, having a single bend that puts the tip in line with the hand, and a long tip that can be used like that of a jian.  As is true for most Indonesian swords, pedang rarely exceed a blade length of 24 inches, and a 20 inch blade is most common.  

The barong is a blade from the Philippines that appears to have linguistic and stylistic connections to the parang.
Josh

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## JTCrosby

> I suspected the same. :May I ask what differs this knife from a so called "barang" (parang) ?


Parang( Barang) is a catch all term used in many places in the indonesian archipeligo. Pedang ( peudeung, pedeng,podeung, etc ) tends to be used more as a catch all term for sword in Sumatra particularly in the Gayo and Alas regions ( Von Zonneveld pg 101) If you are thinking of dyak head hunters you are probably thinking of the parang Ilang or mandau

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