Sword "kampilan", "parang landing", "bada"

Description:

Illanun, Mindanao, South Philippines (possibly Borneo / Malaysia), blade probably 15th - 17th cent., handle 19th cent.
L. 88 cm
Steel, wood, textile, hair (goat). This is a historically significant kampilan of great age, which in this form can be attributed with some certainty to the Illanun ethnic group. The Illanun (also: Iranun) live mainly on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao and in the Malaysian state of Sabah, which is located on Borneo. They used to be famous and notorious as warriors and pirates. The blade of this sword is very old. Sources such as the “Boxer Codex” (16th century) and other contemporaneous documents show and mention this form, which has not been in use for a long time. Younger kampilan (mostly 18th, 19th century) are longer and slimmer. The shape is still reminiscent of the pada from Sulawesi and the Moluccas, which have the same origins. The handle with the red tufts of hair (a reminiscence of headhunting in earlier centuries) and the wooden crosspiece is younger (probably late 19th century). Lanun or Illanún-kampilan such as this one appear to have a design that deviates from the usual “crocodile shape” with a protruding pommel section on the back in the form of a rounded “outgrowth”, a type that was apparently also found more frequently in North Borneo (among the Sundayak) and was also known on Sulawesi.
Collected from an old German private collection since the 1950s
It is very likely that the kampilan as a type can look back on a very long history. Surviving gold handles from the Pinoy cultures (around 1000 - 1300) show a very similar design with a crosspiece, the mata (“eye”, round central element in the pommel) and the pommel projecting on one side as well as the crosspiece. The Spaniards first mentioned kampilán in the 16th century for the inhabitants of the Visayas and Luzon. Traditional blade objects are also often called kampílan among the Lumad ethnic groups of Mindanao. In the Kapampangan language, the kampilan is also known as talibong. It is first mentioned in the Visaya epic Hiligaynon Hinilawod, which deals with the mythical prehistory of Panay in the central Philippines and is one of the longest orally transmitted epics in the world. Another early mention can be found in Biag-Li Lam-Ang, an Iloco epic (Luzon) about the hero Lam-Ang. Ultimately, the origin of the word is unclear. Kampilan were known to all southern Filipino groups - including T'boli and Bagobo - each of which developed their own characteristics in terms of grip and sheath design (if the latter were present, which is rarely the case). In the Indonesian and Malayan regions, the sword form is known as parang landung - blade heavily rusted due to weather and age