A KONYAK NAGA SLASHING KNIFE OR AXE "DAO"

Description:

North-East India or Myanmar, 19th century / early 20th century
L. 76 cm
This is a dao, a traditional Konyak-Naga knife axe. It has a long shaft made of medium-weight wood and a blade that is ground on one side and flattened at the front. The handle is covered with dyed goat hair - once the mark of a successful warrior and headhunter. The blade is in a wooden sheath, open on one side, on a wide leather belt. The knife belonged to a high-ranking owner due to the splendid belt. The belt can be attributed to the Konyak-Naga groups on the basis of the carvings on the waist belt holder. The cowrie scroll was used to decorate the wide leather waist belt, giving the wearer prestige and wealth. It is, among other things, a historical form of primitive money that was widely used in Africa, East and South Asia and the South Seas as a pre-coinage means of payment, although its use in South Asia ended in the 19th century. Because of its resemblance to the female genitalia, the cowrie is considered to be a fertility symbol. In Japan and India, the cowrie is still sometimes held in the hand of the woman giving birth as a talisman. The dao is an all-purpose tool widely used from the north of Assam to the south of Burma and Siam. It is used for everything from shaving and cutting hair to felling trees and processing wood of all types and thicknesses. Apart from small knives, it is often the only tool available. The dao is carried on strong rattan or bark fibre straps in the back over the buttocks; a box-shaped wooden or rattan element serves as a sheath. The sheaths can be closed or open on the side facing away from the wearer. The Konyak people - also known as Konyak Naga - are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group of the Naga people, mainly located in the north-east Indian state of Nagaland. The Konyak Naga languages - also known as Konyak languages or Northern Naga languages - form a sub-unit of the Bodo-Konyak-Jingpho languages, which belong to the Tibeto-Burman languages, a primary branch of Sino-Tibetan. The seven Konyak-Naga languages are spoken by around 300,000 people in north-east India in the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland.
From an old German private collection, assembled since the 1950s - Minro traces of age and use, partly missing hair strands and pearls