I have put together the largest known collection of armor related images from the Philippines and Indonesia, many detailed images of Moro warriors mail and plate shirts, also brass helmets based on European models. Some of these images have been newly edited and were not available before this. The Moro's first fought the Spanish and later the Americans using locally produced armor of considerable quality and yet their armor is rarely seen or discussed. These guys were the real thing, feared fighters who were not afraid of death.


http://www.pinterest.com/worldantiques/armor-...rrounding/

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Thanks for sharing, Eric.

These Moro plate-and-mail armours are a prominent example of butted mail intended for battle. (The mail is generally butted brass links, and the plates either brass or buffalo horn.)

Moro arms and armour at the American Museum of Natural History in New York
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Did these guys fight in the Aceh wars?

These arms and armor are true works of art! Thank you for collecting these images. I'm doubtful as to the effectiveness of the brass butted mail and horn plates of kurab-a-kulang, especially against those fearsome spears, but the armor must have worked well enough to be used, especially against swords. The armor really resembles a lot of Turkish plated mail; was there any contact between the Moros and the Ottomans, maybe through Aceh?

I don't know if the Ottomans traded directly with the Philippines (Arab traders went that far), but they did trade with SE Asia, so at least indirect contact. But given earlier Indian trade through the region, and early Indian use of plate-and-mail armour, India is also a possible source. Could have also been adopted from Japan.

Awesome! I know very little about the use of armour in the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos outside of Java (where the evidence shows that it simply wasn't worn), so this has added significantly to my knowledge base on the subject. I wonder if there's any firm dating for the Buginese armors since both VOC and major Javanese kingdoms hired large numbers of mercenaries from Bugis in the early modern period and I have to wonder about whether these mercenaries would have worn such armour in any significant quantity.

Pieter B. wrote:

Did these guys fight in the Aceh wars?

Probably not, since the invasion of Aceh took place long after the Dutch colonial administration had replaced the VOC and established the KNIL as a regular army. The Dutch used local Acehnese allies and brought in semi-regular auxiliaries (trained and equipped in the European manner) from other parts of the East Indies, but I don't think there's any evidence for the continuation of the older practice of using allied/auxiliary troops with local/traditional equipment.

The attribution of those pieces to Java aren't that firm, and it's always possible that they were brought there by mercenaries from the other islands. Not to mention that European accounts of Javanese warriors almost never mention armour -- indeed, some specifically pointed out the lack of armour and contrasted it with the Javanese troops' suicidal bravery and aggressiveness (something they had in common with many other warrior cultures throughout the archipelago).