[M. Flynn]

I am trying to identify this lance head blade.

[Gene W]

My first thought was Phillipine, a 'Budiak'. Is there any activity in the steel (signs of pattern welding)?
Best
Gene

[Timo Nieminen]

Looks Malay/Indonesian. Could be Philippines (Moro). If Philippines, it's a "budiak". If Indonesian, "tombak", if Malay Penisula, then "lembing" (or "tombak").

The "collar" between blade and tang is very Indonesian. Leaf-shaped blades like this are much more common in Malay/Indonesian spears than Moro or other Philippine spears as far as I've seen.

On Indonesian spears, the collar is sometimes a separate piece of metal, and sometimes one piece with the blade and tang. Indonesian spear heads are often stained like keris blades, but if it's old, it may have lost that through polishing.

How large is it? Smallish (like maybe 20cm of blade) would suggest Indonesian, big and heavy would suggest Philippines.

[M. Flynn]

The blade is approx 12.5 inches long and the tang about 4 inches. It was found in an old barn in the Illinios area if I heard correct. I did not note ant welding or patterning. I did compare it with photos of many other Philipene style and could not match the blade style. The tang however did resemble many of the samples I looked at. The only thing I've found that closely resembles it is a Antique Dayak Spear from Borneo. This is the web address. Any thoughts? http://www.ashokaarts.com/shop/antique-spears...nd-weapons

[Timo Nieminen]

From the same dealer, some Javanese spears which are similar.

http://www.ashokaarts.com/shop/antique-tombak...-indonesia

That style of tang is common through the whole region - continental SE Asia, Indonesia, Philippines. It's big for an Indonesian head, but I'd still call it as Indonesian. (I've see Indonesian (Javanese, I think) heads of about 11" of blade.)

[M. Flynn]

Im also told it looks like Atjeh or at least Sumatran. Is the a definitive way to determine origin and age?

[Timo Nieminen]

Definitive, no. Unless you know the details of the history of the particular piece.

The problems are that

(a) Similar types of blades (this appies to keris blades as well as spear blades) are made in more than one region.

(b) They've been made for a long time, and are still made in the traditional way.

(c) Blades move from region to region, and are remounted in local style. Fittings are more regionally distinctive, but are often not original to the blade, so of little use to say where/when the blade was made. (AFAIK it's usual to classify keris according to the fittings, and even experts will re-classify a blade as something different when they see the same blade in different dress.)

So, it can be hard to say anything definitive about Indonesian/Malay spears (and other weapons). There are some particular distinctive weapons localised to small areas (like Aceh), but some weapons are widespread.

That said, there are experts in the esoteric art of identifying these things. While the answer might not be definitive, it might be useful. The best online place I've seen to find such experts used to be the Ethnographic Arms & Armour Forum at http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/ , so you might like to ask there. I don't know of any good English-language resources for this kind of detail (if anybody has suggestions for English-language resources, I'm interested).

[M. Flynn]

Ok, thank you so very much. I picked up the spear on a whim because I liked the way it looked and the price seemed right.

[Timo Nieminen]

Here is a spearhead from my collection. Supposedly Lombok Island, c. 1880. Overall length, 45cm, length of head 34cm. Just looking at it, I'd say Philippines or Malay/Indonesian, leaning towards Philippines. But I've seen other Lombok spearheads with no collar (like this one), so Lombok looks like a reliable attribution.

Was cleaning some spearheads today, and came across this, and thought you might like to see it!