Khukuri History Question

The khukuri is now both the National Sword and National Farm Tool of Nepal. Through most of recorded history in most places, the sword has been the weapon of the rich and powerful, or at least a professional soldier. As recently as 200 years ago, decent carbon steel was expensive stuff. It doesn't take much of it to make a decent spear point, but a couple of pounds of sword would have been a major investment.

Nowadays village smiths are making heavy duty servicable khukuris for farmers who are a long way from wealthy. 100 years ago there were no recycled truck springs in Nepal, and I don't know about other sorts of scrap steel.

So, say 200 years ago, would the average Nepali, who was not a first-line soldier of the king, have owned a heavy duty khukuri?


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- JKM
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TomF

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Messages
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My guess is, probably. But since metallurgy changes, the "heavy duty" blades back then wouldn't have been nearly as good as now. At one time the strongest blades were made of copper, then bronze, then really crummy cast iron-type stuff that could shatter as often as not. I'm sure the kamis always got the best out of whatever they had to hand, but certainly, that couldn't have been very much.

Tom
 
According to the World Factbook website Nepal has only small deposits of iron. The khuks were probably more expensive then (relative to income) then they are now. I'd expect the average soldier would carry a good (decent) quality khukuri, but as you moved down the social scale you'd find more castoffs, rejects, blems or outright junk. When peoples lives are at stake they invest more in their equipment.
 
My only source for info came from talking with 80 year olds like Ganga Ram and asking them about their grandfathers (and further back). Some of these kami families like Nara, Bura, Ganga, can easily trace their knifemaking heritage back more than 200 years and the fact they were making good khukuris and other stuff 200 years ago tells me there were plenty of decent khukuris around at that time. India always had plenty of iron and steel and it was easily imported into Nepal.

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Uncle Bill
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