traditional (survival?) knife designs

J

Josh Wilson

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Aug 3, 2000
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I have heard on several occasions, "If you want the best survival knife for a certain location, take a look at what the natives have been using there." (or something along those lines.

So here is a partial list of traditional/native knives and their place of origin.

kukuri nepal
ulu alaska
puukko scandinavia

Can anyone add to my list (and can you give pictures or links)? Knife designs that are less than 500 years old need not apply (that age is arbitrary and flexible).
 
If we look at the suggested knives we can see that they all share one ability. It's possible to chop with them (exept for the pukko,but a pukko is often acompanied with an axe or a larger leuko). So an important ability for a true survivalknife is chopping.
What can we say about that?

Daniel
 
Does anyone know where the machete originated (somewhere in South America maybe)?

As for Sgt D's question, there is a difference in the types of materials these knives would be good at chopping. The machette is great for brush clearing where an axe would be ideal for trees. This just goes back to the origin of the knife as to what is more important.

Also I don't think anyone would type to chop with an ulu.
 
a cheap switch blade in east LA, the Bronks or any other urban bario.

a Buck 110 in Dixie

and an icepick in Vegas or Atlantic City

on a more serouis note, a Parang, whereever they come from
 
Sorry didn't check the ulu out,forgot it. But now I'm a knife type wiser. And a Parang is a machete-like knife from Indonesia or that part of the world. A good chopper I think.
I wonder if Bolo and Parang is the same kind of knife.I've seen two models of Parangs. Anyone who knows better?

Daniel
 
Folks,
Just wanted to add a bit more about the Ulu's origins. I was lucky enough to relocate the following information that I received in Jan 99 from Dr. David Morrison of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

[quote:]
The origin of the ulu. hmm... An ulu is a crescentic side-hafted knife, a simple tool and hence widespread. Europeans have long used an ulu-like knife - historically unrelated to the Inuit knife - for cutting vegetables,and a slate ulu (again non-Inuit) 7000 years old has been dredged from several hundred feet of water off PEI. The specifically Inuit ulu can be traced back
archaeologically to at least Old Bering Sea times 2000 years ago in the Bering Strait area. Ancestral Inuit did not move into Arctic Canada from Alaska until about 1000 years ago, and they took their ulus with them. These "Thule culture" ulus were often unhafted - just a crescentic slate blade.
Hafts or handles, when present, take several forms. Some have an interior hole for a handle grip, so that the handle itself is D-shaped. But most common is a simple handle; just a piece of ivory or antler 4 or 5 inches long with an ovate cross-section and inch and a half or two inches thick and a blade slit along one long margin. Occasionally pre-European ulus have native copper blades; iron coming in after the arrival of Europeans several hundred years ago. Beginning in last few centuries too has the appearance of tanged handles such as are now invariably used in the eastern and central arctic: in which the handle per se is joined to the blade by a long shaft or tang, originally made of antler and now of steel.
{unquote]

Diligence
 
South America had very little indiginous metal work. The machete most likely developed from the cutlass used by the early European explorers at sea.
 
Don't forget that some "survival blade" styles are "traditional" not necessarily because they are the best shape/weight/materials for the job, but because that's what the indigenous people had/have to work with or can afford.

As for the ulu, consider that there is very little bush clearing to be done around the arctic circle, but a lot of heavy slicing of thick skinned animals.
 
I would just like to add that traditionally the ulu was a woman's blade, used for cleaning and skinning fish and sea mammals. I'm not sure if it would qualify as a 'survival' blade but it is certainly a distinct style of blade eminating from an ancient culture.
 
Well,

The list I know of looks something like this...

Bolo, Ulu, Parang, Golock, Panga, Barong, Buyo, Kukhri, Klewang, Mandau, Dao, Pira, Opi, Panabas, Piha-Kaetta, Talibon, Tuba, Scramsaxe or Bowie, Wedong, Kyhber, Kard, Choora, Machete, Adya Katti, Khanjar, Jambiya, Smatchet, Spax, Puuko, Billhook

Now, some of these are fighter-utilities, but as I understand it, all of them play a utility role.

And let us not forget the supreme chopper, and the tool that started it all, the Axe. The bi-facial hand axe got the whole thing going, fire was good and all, but it was the knife that really set us on the path to the top of the food chain.

------------------
Thank you,
Marion David Poff aka Eye mdpoff@hotmail.com

My website, guided links, talonite/cobalt alloy info, etc....
http://www.geocities.com/mdpoff

>>--->Bill Siegle Custom Knives<---<<
-http://www.geocities.com/siegleknives-

"To wait for luck is the same as waiting for death." -Japanese Proverb

"Place you clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark." -Lazarus Long

"We cut things to create things" - James K Mattis
 
Marion,

Most of those are new to me, do you know their origins?

This is turning out to be a very educational thread (at least for me).
 
Marion,

I would throw a Bowie or SAX in there somewhere; and if you really feel creative toss in an Ice Axe.
 
"Don't forget that some "survival blade" styles are "traditional" not necessarily because they are the best shape/weight/materials for the job, but because that's what the indigenous people had/have to work with or can afford."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I somewhat disagree. Traditional peoples have a long time- forever nearly- to refine what they use. Even very poor villagers have market power, and over time what they want will be produced. For example, look at the tomahawk. It would have probably been a bit easier to ship carpenters hatchets from England in 1780, but if someone was willing to trade for a pipe hawk, that is what they got.

A common thread in many of the knife types listed so far- ie. parangs, machetes, khukuris, etc. is that they are the tools of agriculturalists who clear brush. Hunter gather types, like the !Kung of botswana, have little use for them. They do seem to like a butcher knife with an easily resharpened, fairly soft blade.

[This message has been edited by GLP-1 (edited 02-01-2001).]
 
I am in agreement with GLP-1. Most of the time the indiginous knives worked well. There was little reason for them not to work well.
 
Josh, I know a little about some of them, and a little bit more about a couple more. I really am not up to going into everything I think I know about them. Maybe I should just concentrate on the ones that I think offer good utility, maybe some images?

MDP
 
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