An Injun swordy thing

kronckew

kronckew

Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Messages
3,409
well, i mean an Indian Katar

Found this poor lonely katar looking for someone to love and care for her.

she's a little old lady at around 400 yrs. old (17c)

Antique Katar Dagger South India
Interesting South Indian Katar dagger . Early 17th century.
General dimensions:
505 mm – Total Length
330 mm – Blade's length
70 mm - Handle's Width

blade may be from a broken rapier blade. on arrival she will get a nice bath, scrubbing and a rubdown with baby oil.

Katar April 2015 03.jpg Katar April 2015 02.jpg

Katar April 2015 04.jpg Katar April 2015 05.jpg

Katar April 2015 07.jpg
 
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...and some in-hand shots from the vendor that wouldn't attach above.
Capture 001.jpgCapture 002.jpg

edge on view of where the blade is riveted in.
Katar April 2015 01.jpg
 
Yeesh, according to the wikipedia article they used to hunt tigers with these things! Crazy. Lovely piece, though.
 
I'd hunt tigers with one of them but I'd be a praying hard I didn't never find one.
 
I'll stick to not encountering a tiger. Most savage they get here in Maine is Mountain Lions. Wait, maybe you need to let me borrow that for a bit.
 
Well let's not be ridiculous. The article said they'd hunt tigers with TWO katars, not one. That'd just be silly.
 
blue lander said:
Well let's not be ridiculous. The article said they'd hunt tigers with TWO katars, not one. That'd just be silly.
Click to expand...

I'd still bet on the tiger. Also, I'd root for the tiger. They are an endangered species; humans are not. Tigers hunt for food, not for sport. It's true that Indian villagers sometimes hunted tigers to protect themselves or their livestock, but I'll bet they didn't use katar daggers.

It'll be a sad day when the last tiger is gone from the wild. Probably around the same time that humans reach the ten billion mark.
 
On the one hand, if you've got to kill a tiger to protect your livelihood, you're definitely not using katars to do it. On the other hand, hunting a tiger with katars might have been frivolous, but at least the tiger stands a fighting chance. But how much do you want to bet that the "hunting" was a team of people wounding the tiger and holding it down while the "Hunter" dispatched it with katars so he could brag to his friends?
 
I'm not sure where people get the idea animals don't kill for fun. They most certainly do, especially any of the cat family. They just don't do it to the extent that we do. I worked with big cats for years and they would kill other animals that got in their enclosures even though they were well fed. They wouldn't even gnaw on it, but they would play with it until finally killing whatever it was. Snake, rat, birds, etc.
 
tedwca:

What you say is true as far as it goes.

In my case, however, I said "Tigers hunt for food, not for sport." Sport and fun are not the same thing, nor would I call it "hunting" if a tiger kills an animal that is put into its cage. Typically, sport is something that is organized (whether as a commercial activity, a boxing match or a pick-up game in a schoolyard). The kind of tiger hunts that I and some others referred to are highly organized "sport" in the true sense of the word, whether one approves of that particular sport or not. When people use elephants and beaters, or high powered rifles and guides, or exotic weapons like an Indian Katar to prove bravery .... this is quite different from a tiger (or a house cat) playing with and killing a prey animal for fun. Especially a tiger that spends its entire life in a cage or "enclosure" and doesn't get much opportunity for sport or fun. :(

Just to be clear: I am not opposed to hunting in general. I am opposed to hunting a magnificent animal like the tiger to near extinction. Likewise for wolves and some other species whose main transgression is that they infringe on a percentage of the profits of large livestock businesses. At some point in the future our children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren will only know of those species from pictures in old books.

My apologies for thread-drift. Tigers or no tigers, I think the Indian Katar is fascinating weapon, and Kronckew's acquisition is a fine specimen.
 
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