Butterfly Swords

[Tom Kagan]

Yaksuka,

If what you heard ultimately can be substantiated, then the implication is that the BaatChamDo did not start out created for its ultimate purpose. (Cutlers who make knifes and swords but leave every blade unsharpened?) To leave the initial grinding of every single blade to peasants proves difficult to believe unless the initial piece was not intended to be a weapon in the first place.

KPM,

Interesting. Your astute observation regarding what archaeologists have managed to determine from existing specimens of the knives and swords surviving in history lends more credence to the idea that if a blade, indeed, has a substantial choil of 2/3 of its length, the reason for it has little to do with considerations for "blocking."

Charmingly quaint and eccentric beast of burden whose name won't pass the forum's filter,

I said what I said because I find it difficult to accept what you are suggesting. For myself, I don't mind being wrong; it's one of the reasons I post at all - to see whether what I write can stand the heat of public scrutiny that this forum's quasi "peer review" can bring to the table.

Setting aside the foggy memories of world history floating around in my head which cause me to suspect you've transposed the iron quality of Europe and the craftsmanship of Japan with those of Southern China for a moment, let me also "shoot out some points" as you have. (I'm at work, too, and could be completely wrong on everything I post here. Feel free to rip me to shreds and make fun of me - isn't that why we all post, anyway? ):

Why do the people of a territory need weapons? To conquer other territories or to protect their territory. Why does a territory try to conquer other territories? To obtain their natural resources.

Purely by comparison to other territories, the region where Ving Tsun was born was relatively peaceful throughout much of its history. [Note to historians: I said relatively] This would imply that not only its natural resources were sufficient for its needs, but its resources were not in such abundance or of great quality that other less bountiful territories would be interested enough to obtain them. (Having The Great Wall further north to create archer defensible positions, thus bottling up invaders into "kill zones" surely benefited the region, too. ) It was not until much later in the region's history when the "resource" of trade route access developed more prominence in the region created a stronger need to protect its territory and repel invaders.

By this time, militaries were already well on their way to using modern weapons. Gunpowder, rockets, mortars, muskets, along with the skills of archers and marksmen deploying the weaponry were already changing the face of warfare - making the need for well crafted blades secondary in a battlefield role.

Without a strong need for a good battlefield blade combined with the lack of years in the craft's skill refinement implies the region's craftsmanship was probably low. If there was a need and the process was easy (an ease mainly due to the quality of iron and lack of need for Blacksmiths skilled in press welding or smelting), there would literally be hundreds of surviving blade specimens of the eras for archaeologists to uncover and examine. Since they're aren't, making good blades was probably comparatively difficult. Along with the relative peace of the region, this casts doubt on the desirability of iron quality available for other regions to plunder - or at least the ease of mining it in the region. Also, the comparative dearth of superbly crafted specimens from the region and era implies there was not much ceremony surrounding such weapons which, in turn, implies there wasn't much use for bladed weapons. [NOTE: many other KungFu styles from history exhibit a contradictory path from this. But they aren't Ving Tsun. To determine why would require looking at the situations in the depth of their region's history which surrounded the development of so many varied weapons.]


Now suppose there is a region where the local iron quality was extremely poor and where other natural resources were scarce for hundreds of years before the influence of modern warfare (read: Gunpowder). Due to the very fact that it would be darned hard to make bladed weapons and they still need them, that region will develop:

- high skill in press welding (not enough coal to develop a smelting process).
- high skill in blacksmithing.
- high ceremonial and cultural emphasis on the use of the blade and the weapons themselves.

What region in history fits the above description? Japan.


I'll stop here for now. I've reached the point where I'm starting to annoy even myself at the moment (which is never a particularly good thing. ) Perhaps some day I'll get to the deconstruction of your "weapon making qualities were lost" comment and some of the other items in your post - though I can't imagine the kiddies sticking around for the credit reel to run if I continue along the weak matinee storyline.