sword (weapons: edged)

General view of whole of Horniman Museum object no 6.4.59/25
General view of whole of Horniman Museum object no 6.4.59/25
General view of whole of Horniman Museum object no 6.4.59/25
General view of whole of Horniman Museum object no 6.4.59/25 General view of whole of Horniman Museum object no 6.4.59/25 General view of whole of Horniman Museum object no 6.4.59/25

Ceremonial axe, dao, with a long, narrow metal blade in a basic triangular shape. It has a single-edged, curved blade,with a ridge along the length on one side near the back/top, and a shallow, concave end. It has a wooden haft about half the blade length, recessed with a short band of yellow orchid stem bound around the haft where the blade inserted, next to a longer band of red dyed cane bound around the haft. The end half of the haft is decorated with up to 15 rows of five to eight long tufts of hair, probably goat’s hair, dyed red.

A large red label with this, handwritten, reads:
`short sword, single-edged, square-ended. Wooden handle decorated with dyed hair, Naga people. Assam. 6.4.59/25’.

fighting

object
MUSEUM NUMBER
6.4.59/25
PLACE
COLLECTION
MEASUREMENTS
overall: 790 mm x 130 mm x 40 mm
MATERIAL/TECHNIQUE
iron; wood; orchid stem; hair
CATEGORY
Anthropology: Ethnography
LOCATION
On display: Horniman Museum > World Gallery > Asia > Nagaland - memory
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Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

The database sometimes uses language taken from historical documents to help research, which may now appear outdated and even offensive. The database also includes information on objects that are considered secret or sacred by some communities.

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