What is this khuk?

V

Vess

Joined
Oct 2, 2001
Messages
583
Hello all! :)

I just got this little khuk today, and it seems very unusual to me. I would have said that it is a not-too-old village-made one, but the carving on the knife and scabbard is very detailed, and the tools it comes with are very nice. Sooo, what do you think? Age, origins? (You can click the image to see a set of closeups)



It's very strange. It is relatively thick, about 3/8" near the handle, and very heavy (dense wood?). The finish of the handles is pretty crude, but the detail and evennes of the carving is very good. If it is a villager, why carve it, and if you've carved it, why not polish up the handle more?

And it is sharp. Very very sharp...
 
My best guess is that it's an older one
since it has the awl
and it looks like a very nice -real- one.
Like here, today,
some people have more money & like more decorated items.
A user khuk seems unlikely [I don't know] to get polished in Nepal/India
except for what polish handling provides.


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Nepal Ho! Intricate, beautiful carving and inlays, and a poor finish--it's par for the course.

What's the length/weight? It looks like a real user. Does it remind anyone else of a GRS?
 
Yes, but it's smaller than our Baby Ganga Ram...this here must be a new born.



munk
 
Yes....looks like a 15" well-fed GRS.....nice!

Very nice kardas!
 
I really like the fact that the kard has a bigger handle than the chakma and all of the side-tools have nice handles.
I wish all the HI tools were more like that.
 
That khuk looks a lot like Hollowdweller's beloved bonecutter.

Vess, you make some nice sheaths.
 
Yeah, I'm pretty happy. It is about 15.5" tip to pommel in a straight line, but I can't weigh it, don't have a working scale anymore.

Now I just need to make a leather frog to slip the wooden scabbard into to that I can actually carry this thing... :)
 
Looks like a great Villager to me , probably post 1950.
most of the villagers in Nepal have the solid wood scabbards & just shove them through there belts.

The carving also adds to thegrip of the grip! :D

Spiral
 
Do we conclude from this that a villager in a leather-covered sheath is older? have two "as-forged" examples of more-or-less sirupati design that I sure think of as "villagers." Both came with karda and chakma and one came with a piece of flint and some fiber of some kind in a removable pouch..
 
It is incorrect to reach that conclusian from my comments Tal.

I was judging the date from the kukri design , not the scabbard.

A 40 year old villager looks a 100 years old to us because they are so used & blackened with dirt & smoke. {even one thats been used evryday for 10 years for evry small holders job looks pretty damn ancient.}

Some have forge scale but most have ingraind grime in the rougher unfinished surface & they polish up easily with chrome polish & wire wool .{which wont remove forge scale.}

Wooden scabbards have been around a very long time!

After all the leather scabbards have wood interiors.

A kami could do the wooden scabbard to go with the kukri & wouldnt need a sarki to do the leather work as well.

A lot of villagers brought out to the west have been sharpened so much most of the blades look like sirupates. They wernt all made as sirupates though. some where,some whernt. They are back to the untempered metal sometimes, Thats often why they got sold to the tourists & visiting western dealers.

I am told by Nepali contacts, that most hill people in Nepal think the wooden scabbards are preferable.

I guess any vulnerabilities in scabbard manufacture are visible & not hidden by the leather that then somtimes gets stabbed or cut through.

Spiral
 
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