Which came first - Knife form or empty hand?

[fa_jing]

I'm wondering what was the driving concern when wing chun was created? Empty hand fighting or double knife fighting? Was the intent to make a system that would provide advantages of both? Or was is first designed for one type of fighting, then extrapolated to the other? Judging by the relative importance of weapon fighting to weapon-less fighting, I'd say the butterfly swords was more importance and thus came first, then the empty hand came about as a way to safely train the skills for the double swords. But in evidence of the exact opposite, there is the sophistication of the Sil Lum Tao form, which seems to clearly have come first :confused: .

[old jong]

The knifes are everywhere in southern Kung Fu .
I'm no historian but I would risk saying that they were adapted to Wing Chun,not the opposite.

[wingchunalex]

hands first, knives stem from hand techniques.