Dayaks.

This is coolbert:

Here are some web sites on the Dayaks and their swords.

http://old.blades.free.fr/swords/dayak/parang_dayak_intro.htm

http://old.blades.free.fr/swords/dayak/head_hunting.htm

http://old.blades.free.fr/swords/dayak/mandau_forging.htm

Dayaks are adept at sword making and proficient in use of the edged weapon. Still carried as part of the normal dress and recently used in warfare with Indonesian immigrants transplanted by the “central government” to Borneo.

[textbooks will label the island Kalimantan. I still call it Borneo.]

As to the conflict between the indigenous Dayak and the Madurese immigrants, wouldn’t you know the whole thing started over a woman! How typical. Well, the conflict that raged for ten years in Lebanon began over the rapes of two Christian girls by Muslim men. One hundred thousand dead and one million casualties overall the result of a couple rapes!! There is just something about an “out” group behaving in an aggressive manner toward the women of the “in” group that results in an primitive, visceral, reptilian-part-of-the-brain response.

"Head-hunting

Observers noted corpses prominently put on display all along the road into the interior, some without heads, some with stomachs ripped open apparently as a result of revived head-hunting ceremonies . . . There were even reports of Dayaks eating the livers of some of those they killed"

"The Dayak practice of headhunting, rooted for the most part in religious beliefs, has now disappeared."

[well, NOT exactly, has it!!??]

As with Weyland the Smith in Europe, the inyanga yensimbi of the Zulu nation, the sword maker of the Dayak is said to possess “magical” powers. Pull out of earth [iron ore] a weapon that has supernatural properties. IRON ORE FOUND IN METEOR FRAGMENTS IS SOMETIMES USED TO MAKE SWORDS, TITANIUM ALSO USED WHEN OBTAINABLE!!

"meteorite ore including titanium, was used to make blades"

"nearly all the iron worked by the tribes of the interior was from ore found in the river-beds, and possibly from masses of meteoric iron"

The Dayak might appear as a “primitive”, but THEY DO HAVE EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE OF METAL WORKING THAT IS OF A HIGH CALIBER!!

As for the Madurese immigrants - - DON’T MESS WITH THE DAYAK!!

[the desire of governments to mix different peoples in the same place has quite often disastrous consequences. Globalization is often NOT for the best!!]

coolbert.