There was a thread a while back that wanted to find black or non-white knifemakers and see what sort of contribution they made to the industry as a whole.
That got me to thinking. Some cultures are just synonymous with knives and bladed instruments, but some are not. You have the Nepalese Kukri, the Japanese Katana, Norwegian Puuko (did I get that one right?), European medieval swords, Russian Boar spears, Chinese bladed weaponary of every description, etc.
But I don't think I have heard anything about traditional edged equipment from Australian aboriginals, or most African tribes (could be wrong about this one).
I guess that most cultures, being involved in trade, would have had some form of access to steel or other hardenable metals and would have, out of necessity, developed edged tools to best suit their needs. However, there have to be some who, because of their remoteness or lack of trade or accessibility to steel, would not have been able to develop any sort of edged tools.
Is anyone able to identify any cultures or people groups who either have no knives or edged tools in their traditional culture, or who, because of some reason or other, developed edged tools but never had them become synonymous with their culture?
For the first case, I can think of the Australian aboriginals who never had easy access to metals, were too remote for regular trade and who mainly lived in such a harsh environment that day to day survival took up too much time and energy to spare any for developing technology. Their main tools were fire-hardened sticks both as spears and as boomerangs. Some of the tribes did get as far as flint knapping, but flint and obsidian was not widely available, so many tribes never even had the chance. Sharpening of sticks before fire-hardening tended to be on rocks (weathered limestone rocks have good edges for scraping).
In the second case, I can think of the Incas who built up a huge and widespread civilisation, but have no edged tools that are synonymous with them. The probability of this is that much of their culture was lost when their civilisation collapsed (for whatever reason, I'm not sure), so much of their technology was lost. I don't think they had steels either. Most of their edged tools were probably copper based which would have been less desirable than steel tools. And many archeologists seem to be finding knives used for ceremonial purposes such as blood letting and sacrifices (whether human or animal). This is never a good start for a knife to be held in high esteem in cultural lore.
(Please correct me if I am mistaken in any of my representations.)
BTW, it would also seem that war was always a good catalyst for developing technology. Most of the well-known knives seem to come from cultures with much history of war or fighting.
That got me to thinking. Some cultures are just synonymous with knives and bladed instruments, but some are not. You have the Nepalese Kukri, the Japanese Katana, Norwegian Puuko (did I get that one right?), European medieval swords, Russian Boar spears, Chinese bladed weaponary of every description, etc.
But I don't think I have heard anything about traditional edged equipment from Australian aboriginals, or most African tribes (could be wrong about this one).
I guess that most cultures, being involved in trade, would have had some form of access to steel or other hardenable metals and would have, out of necessity, developed edged tools to best suit their needs. However, there have to be some who, because of their remoteness or lack of trade or accessibility to steel, would not have been able to develop any sort of edged tools.
Is anyone able to identify any cultures or people groups who either have no knives or edged tools in their traditional culture, or who, because of some reason or other, developed edged tools but never had them become synonymous with their culture?
For the first case, I can think of the Australian aboriginals who never had easy access to metals, were too remote for regular trade and who mainly lived in such a harsh environment that day to day survival took up too much time and energy to spare any for developing technology. Their main tools were fire-hardened sticks both as spears and as boomerangs. Some of the tribes did get as far as flint knapping, but flint and obsidian was not widely available, so many tribes never even had the chance. Sharpening of sticks before fire-hardening tended to be on rocks (weathered limestone rocks have good edges for scraping).
In the second case, I can think of the Incas who built up a huge and widespread civilisation, but have no edged tools that are synonymous with them. The probability of this is that much of their culture was lost when their civilisation collapsed (for whatever reason, I'm not sure), so much of their technology was lost. I don't think they had steels either. Most of their edged tools were probably copper based which would have been less desirable than steel tools. And many archeologists seem to be finding knives used for ceremonial purposes such as blood letting and sacrifices (whether human or animal). This is never a good start for a knife to be held in high esteem in cultural lore.
(Please correct me if I am mistaken in any of my representations.)
BTW, it would also seem that war was always a good catalyst for developing technology. Most of the well-known knives seem to come from cultures with much history of war or fighting.
