great details on this kukri

[John Powell]

This 18.5" kukri has a great many high quality details indicating what was being done around 1800. Besides the excellent blade the ivory grip has a very finely engraved spiral design, the ivory gripped by-knives are dyed red & green and they match the pouch which is partially pulled out. The quill work at the locket is very finely detailed and clearly shows how this was done. The long leather lace found wrapped around these pouches was permanently attached to the scabbards to prevent loss.

The most interesting thing is the quill worked strap that is wound around the scabbard and attached to a retaining loop with leather buttons. It seems early styles had these longer straps that could be unwound to secure the scabbard in the wearer's sash. This means the leather was more flexible than I had thought. This system of course translates into the strap/button system that is more familiar.

You can also see the Victorian era catalogue sticker at the chape end of the scabbard. Museums thought nothing of applying glued paper or black ink, white paint or stamped letters directly onto scabbards, grips, blades for referencing these weapons. The damage is now permanent.

 

[not2sharp]

John,

As you are going through the museaum archives, are you finding anything useful in the way of attribution and item records, or do most of them simply attach an inventory number and toss the item in a tray?

n2s

 

[spiraltwista]

They realy were artists back then.

Thanks,
Spiral

 

[Thomas Linton]

Seems like these precise, often almost delicate, chos appear on the really good stuff. Thanks for another inspirational picture of Khukuri art.

 

[John Powell]

N2, most are untraceable. The original numbers have either been switched or lost. As they were moved or displayed the original paperwork was misplaced or tossed out.

Many of the pieces came from a single source: Major General Sir David Ochternoly who was the senior British Official at the treaty of Segauli in 1816 had massive amounts of Nepalese "war booty" sent to the East India Company in Delhi via the 87th of Foot. It is all very hazy and the existing paperwork indicates it was received in 1817 by the Kensington Museum which was also referred to as the India Museum which was expanded to become the Victoria & Albert Museum. I have not seen any orders directly from Ochterlony, but both Alexander Fraser and the first Resident (in Kathmandu) Edward Gardner are connected.

 

[ddean]

Purdy kukri.

 

[Berkley]

was a most interesting fellow - and a native-born American, although a British officer

OCHTERLONY, SIR DAVID, Bart. (1758-1825), British genera], was born at Boston, Mass., U.S.A., on the I2th of February 1758, and went to India as a cadet in 1777. He served under Lord Lake in the battles of Koil, Aligarh and Delhi, and was appointed resident at Delhi in 1803. In 1804, having been promoted to the rank of major-general, he defended the city with a very inadequate force against an attack by Holkar. On the outbreak of the Nepal War (1814-15) he was given the command of one of four converging columns, and his services were rewarded with a baronetcy in 1815. Subsequently he was promoted to the command of the main force in its advance on Katmandu, and outmanoeuvring the Gurkhas by a flank march at the Kourea Ghat Pass, brought the war to a successful conclusion and obtained the signature of the treaty of Segauli (1816), which dictated the subsequent relations of the British with Nepal. For this success Ochterlony was created G.C.B., the first time that honor had been conferred on an officer of the Indian army. In the Pindari War (1817- 18) he was in command of the Raj-putana column, made a separate agreement with Amir Khan, detaching him from the Pindaris, and then, interposing his own force between the two main divisions of the enemy, brought the war to an end without an engagement. He was appointed resident in Rajputana in 1818, with which the residency at Delhi was subsequently combined. When Durjan Sal revolted in 1825 against Balwant Singh, the infant Raja of Bharatpur, Ochterlony acting on his own responsibility supported the raja by proclamation and ordered out a force to support him. Lord Amherst, however, repudiated these proceedings. Ochterlony, who was bitterly chagrined by this rebuff, resigned his office, and retired to Delhi. The feeling that the confidence which his length of service merited had not been given him by the governor-general is said to have accelerated his death, which occurred at Meerut on the i5th of July 1825. The Ochterlony column at Calcutta commemorates his name.

See Major Ross of Bladensburg, The Marquess of Hastings (" Rulers of India " series) (1893).