My guess is that in India at the time, Sword hilts were just more bespoke than we are used to. We are used to buying swords for their shapes, their historic style, or just because we think they look cool, but you wouldn't buy pants just because of their shape, their historic style, or because they look cool. those things might affect what pants you buy, but you buy pants because THEY FIT. You would probably talk to your swordsmith and get hand measurements to fit, or at the very least, test out a bunch of grip shapes/sizes to choose one that works for you.
I agree with your suggestion of bespoke construction but I find your analogy to trousers quite weak. With the skinny jeans fad it looks to me that most people buy their trousers several sizes to small and sacrifice comfort for fashion. Cheers!
Right? I mean they didn't go to Swords'r'Us and get one off the shelf. A sword was a significant purchase, kind of like getting a proper suit today. Thinking they wouldn't be at least altered to to fit the wielder is plain unreasonable.
@@kaoskronostyche9939 I mean, the difference in denim between skinny jeans and standard jeans is like 60% spandex lmao, you could argue they're sacrificing longevity or durability for fit and comfort, but skinny jeans are a softer more comfortable material and more fitted cut than straight or boot cut or whatever kinds of jeans you think are "normal" Stretch denim is a completely different material. They "look" too tight to you, but that's an aesthetic choice. Your aesthetic doesn't match, but that's not comfort, that's look, visual appeal. Durable clothes aren't comfortable, and comfortable clothes aren't durable, generally speaking. Both have their own aesthetics and a wide spectrum within.
@@KoroWerks Again I have to disagree. I am a bit of a "fashionista" myself. My ex-wife was a textile artist and a fashion designer and I learned a truck-load about fashion, fabrics and construction reading her books and helping her with her projects. One small hobby I have is collecting "vintage" clothing. I look for "dress" clothing constructed of fine fabrics. Good quality clothing can be extremely comfortable and very durable. Traditional materials and construction methods were far better than todays slave labour manufactured trash. Linen, Kroy wool, Merino wool, lambs wool, Cashmere, Pashmina, Linen, Silk are all far more durable, pliable, easier to work with and far more comfortable and esthetic that cotton and lycra. I have trousers, jackets, and hats that are probably older than you (some are older than me) and look new. They have stood up to regular use for decades, kept their shape and look just fine. I feel far more comfortable and stylish in the vintage clothing I wear than in any of the "fast" fashion, synthetic, off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all, throw-away, mass-manufactured trash littering our garbage dumps today. There are features of design, material and construction which make clothing just as complex and interesting a subject as the swords and weapons Mr Easton so joyously shares with us. That is, there is almost as much to learn about clothing and the intricacies, details of construction, design, materials and history as there is about historical armaments. Again, as Mr Easton is so fond of reminding is it is CONTEXT. I am older and I have a context of true traditional quality, comfort, style, material and construction whereas I doubt that is the case for you. For a night out ballroom dancing I would wear a silk shirt, a silk tie, light wool trousers with a rayon lining held up with a leather belt, a cashmere jacket and a wool felt fedora hat all supported on a foundation of Spanish shoes made with buttery soft leather with millimeter fine stitching and a leather sole. For day wear, I just tone it down a little. And every item I own I found in a second hand shop. When I found those Spanish shoes for twenty dollars I felt about as excited as if I had found an antique sword for a steal. Cheers!
Gripping a tulwar with the forefinger in front of the quillon, was employed purely because the grip was too short for a larger-handed individual. In 15th century western Europe this 'Italian grip' was advantageous because it allowed a greater degree of movement to the wrist. However, using this grip does not give any advantage with a tulwar, because, with or without the forefinger being placed in front of the quillon, the degree of movement of the wrist is constrained by the disc of the pommel.
You are absolutely correct. I have held antique Indian swords and daggers in ways which practitioners of gatka and kalaripayitt said were correct. Some of them were too small. Some or them fit. A few were too big, especially teghas which are 5-7 pound one handed swords and which I firmly believe were carried by yetis, gorillas, or dinosaurs.
I have been to India three times for a total of about 16 months and crossed the subcontinent from Ladhak in the north to "lands end" at the southern most tip and from Mumbai to Kolkata to Chennai and back again. What I noticed is the peoples of regional sub-groups or ethnic subcultures actually varied in size and stature. The Sikhs of the Punjab were as big or bigger than me (6'-0", 220 pounds) while the Tamil of the far south were very short and light framed people. Perhaps these are actually regional ethnic or genetic or dietary variations. For instance, the Sikhs eat meat and wheat and the Tamil eat rice and dhal. Perhaps the large hand grips could by from the northern Sikh and Rajput areas and the smaller grips from the southern Tamil and Malayalam areas. Could be as simple as that. If the actual region of origin of different hilt specimens were known from more detailed "provenance" perhaps the mystery could be solved. If anyone wants to finance a trip for me, I would be happy to scour the sub-continent for specimens in an effort to support or falsify this hypothesis.
This would actually fit for the smaller hilt shown here, which is a local type from the Malabar coast. I also have two older south Indian swords in my collection, both with very short grips, disc like pommels and types of shell guard, so there's nowhere to displace the finger, even if one wanted to.
I would second this with the addition of the fact that there is also the caste system to consider as well as other economic factors that might make local variation a thing.
There is indeed a genetic diversity component to the different peoples of India, and as one commenter points out - a Caste difference - as well. My maternal side are Tamil Brahmins, hailing through Mysore/Mysuru (today: Karnataka) and have members who've often been mistaken for being British or Anglo-Indian. Some members of the family ranged between just under 5 ft. (152.4 cm) to 7 ft. 4 in. (225.55 cm). My sister - for example - has violet eyes, which is a genetic mutation of the gene responsible for blue eyes. Blue eyes as a genetic trait also can be found in the northern part of India due to the Persian/Iran-Turkic dynasty which ruled in India, as well as Greek soldiers which settled in portions of North India even further back (Alexander the Great's incursion into India.) My father's side hails from the Punjab region to the north and even within his own immediate family (siblings), they ranged between 5 ft. 5in. (165.1 cm) to approximately 6 ft. 4 in. (195 cm). They also tend to be fair-skinned though not as fair as in my maternal line. Although the topic of genetic ancestry in India's been a touchy subject, there are some good videos on UA-cam discussing it such as by Robert Sepehr (an Anthropologist), who has such a video on this topic. For some further reading as well: scroll.in/article/874102/aryan-migration-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-study-on-indian-genetics Note: It is a controversial topic in India due to the rise in a form of nationalism that seeks to ignore mentions of outside genetic influence on its people. You will come across counter-arguments in articles as well but genetic studies still have held out in favour of a steady migration-over-time into the subcontinent, which does make more sense!
I can't speak for the Indian hilts, but I can absolutely tell you that I was taught my my kenjitsu sensei that Edo period swords have MUCH shorter hilts and grips because of the Tokugawa Shogunate and prefectural edicts forbidding the hilt/grips to be over a certain length. This is because the ideal grip length for wartime/battle use was taught to me to be (holding from just under the tsuba) the length of your forearm and wrist, with the cap of the grip just touching your inner elbow. The sword techniques were designed and taught with this leverage in mind, but as the Edo period was primarily an era of peaceful consolidation of power, hilts were forbidden to be 'full-length' and what came to be known as 'dueling hilts' were legislated to reduce the number of fatalities and lethal injuries inflicted in a (presumably) sanctioned match or duel. The peacetime hilts were roughly 60% the normal length or sometimes even less, of their Sengoku counterparts. A lot of the surviving antiques were re-hilted during the Edo period from their Sengoku period lengths as a result, which is why you see many mistakenly assuming that is the 'proper' or normal grip length.
@@AdlerMow To my very limited knowledge, no. But then my sensei was very traditional and focused primary on the 'two-hands, one-sword' sword schools. Even if using a wakazashi, the same basic tenets applied. In my limited experience with Japanese swordsmanship, I've never actually seen two-weapon fighting taught. Outside of Niten Ichi-Ryu, it's mostly a literary and cinematic trope to my understanding.
Personally, in south America, dealing with poor natives, in the period between 1980-2010, children would often be a full foot taller than their parents. Diets make a huge difference. Being generally one handed weapons the difference would be remarkable, unlike hand and a half or two handed swords where you would want it long enough to have space between the hands making it useful for larger hands
I think we sometimes look at historical items through the lens of mass production. Things like swords are very personal and require an amount of customization to be effective.
Just a thought on the migration era hilt lengths: I saw some charts a little while back that indicated that average European height (a broad thing to measure, I know) during the migration period may have exceeded average height throughout pretty much the whole medieval period, and I think I saw some charts that said that average height from around 750AD was only exceeded by like 1960 or something. I imagine that found remains from 750AD are more likely to be that of higher status people, so that might take some interpretation, but it's still interesting, and might be something to bear in mind when thinking about sword hilt lengths.
As a reference for hand size. Where I worked, we used work gloves to keep toxic ink/cleaners off our hands (blue nitrile). Medium I could barely get on but then could not move my hand in any useful way. Large I could get on but they were still painful to move my hands in. Extra large I could work with. I am under 6ft. To add to that there were some workmates who could and did wear small. Then there are women (we did have one or two women in tech but not with tiny hands). My wife always looks like she has over size gloves on, no matter the size. Maybe some of those swords are for women..... Surgical gloves do come in extra small by the way. I've seen the boxes at my dentist's office.
it's a lot like bicycle frames, and skis. if you weigh a certain amount, or are tall enough from the floor to pelvis, you'll need to fit within a range of sizes.
I have been told by practitioners in India that we "westerners just hold our swords wrong" as well. Though i would think that the truth is somewhere in between. Maybe we do use our swords different but there are definitely indian sword hilts out there that are far too small for someone of my hand size to use whether i hold/use it differently or not.
You're not wrong in your perspective! It is a mix of both, though while Indian swords come in various types and will be wielded differently in accordance to the sword disciplines used, I will point out that you'll still find a commonality in that some swords arts tend to utilise sword-spinning as a means of harnessing centrifugal force to inflict blows upon their opponents. Although swords vary wildly from the axe/club-like Khanda, to the even more fantastical Urumi, there is quite a focus on sword-spinning. You'll notice that the swords which are meant to be used with sword-spinning have a cylindrical hilt and are rounded for better manipulation in one's hands and palms, whereas some other hilts might be rectangular. Another comparison would be the Chinese jian - a double edged sword - that also professes a rounded hilt, and in certain Chinese sword arts, there is also a focus on sword-spinning (as the blades tend to be lighter). This, in contradiction to say, a Japanese Katana which has a more rectangular hilt and isn't very focused on sword-spinning as part of its techniques (its not to say there are NO sword-spinning, just very few, probably rarely incorporated into any offensive maneuver.) There is also the quite-touchy topic of genetics which in current India, is usually dismissed when discussing things like the Aryan Migration Theory (which, genetic studies have consistently verified did occur). You'll find a mix of people from North to South, including genetic mixes of Iranic-Turkic folks to ancient Greeks (Alexander the Great's incursion into India) and some of their genetic traits still manifest in today's people in the northern region. My own maternal family line hails from the Mysore/Karnataka area and most of my family have been very light-skinned in comparison to others that have origins in South India. My maternal grandmother and great-grandmother (including their children) used to be confused for being British or Anglo-Indian. My sister has violet eyes (a genetic mutation of the gene responsible for blue eyes), and our heights and physiques vary between 5 ft. to 7'4". Roughly a similar deal with my paternal side, which hails from the North (Punjab) and also has varying heights in that line ranging from 5'5" to 6'6".
@@auribusteneolupum2977 just a small correction the greek traits where more theough traders than alexander since he technically didnt cross the north punjab province. Most of the greeek traits where through traders who settled in this land, similar to anglo indians being descendants of settlers to start life here. Another such example is indonesian and south eastern blood is also found not only through distant genetic branches but through dealers and traders of the particular periods and have been documented. When it comes to aryan migration now thats both ways as theory only focuses on inland migration and doesnt talk abt exoduses and outward migration. Did it happen absolutely and it makes sense as to why early hinduism and zorastrian being similar/sister religions. Irs just hinduism merged with tantric snd evolved and devolved into one followed today.
@@auribusteneolupum2977 you sound like a revtard. Indians were known to be taller. Ganga valley skeletons are on average 6'1 tall. Infact for the most history Indians whether in North or south have always been tall. CV napier once made an observation that soldiers from awadh were taller than average european soldier.
Indian swords aren't meant to hold by palm width so yeah you aren't using them right. When it comes to size, Indians even that time, the martial castes were taller than average Euopean CV napier Victoria's Historian has also commented about this that the brahmims from Awadh in bengal infantry beat Europeans in height.
@@auribusteneolupum2977 You are one coloassal cute guy which doesn't understand how genetics works. Greeks female slaves were common in India but even from them the genetic inclusion in India was minimum as you could guess. India and iran had same ancestral population while South had different population. That's the reason why there are differences. Steppe is mostly conc in North India but on average it is higher in India than Iranians but have came to India in different migrations. Second and third migration was female mediated. Thirdly ancient Indian skeletons without steppe were tall, like 6 foot, we have found them in ganga valley. Also sinuli average height was 5'10, at same time frame Europeans were 5'3 and that time we don't find steppe in India yet. So height along with Indians having more Neanderthal diversity which is better genes for muscle growth as many clinical studies shows that Indians put on muscle faster than whites but lose fat on lower rate. This has always been our strengths even before steppe migration which is considered as the aryan invasion though Indian side says that immigration was so small that they could have hardly had any difference in India let alone any culture change. And propose out of India theory, I personally confess I like OIT more cause i don't just pass of anything as true as you guys think that hindu nationalist atent ready to accept the truth while in fact you are thr one not willing to listen their points, OIT frankly is more robust. Anyways anti AIT side says some handful of people came in India and assimilated because some steppe people men and women indeed came to India but numerically insignificant. Second was female mediated amd we also found a remain which had Indian father but steppe mother but even so steppe as a whole is just 12 percent in India. So both sides of the story. Anyways even before so called aryan invasion if you consider as true , the size of Indians was bigger. Also no bunt growed over 7 foot lmao South Indians no matter how maritial they were always shorter than northern Indians. Indian hunter gatherers were tallest in world and South Indians were second tall.
I remember reading about a similar debate about examples of full plate armor tending to have a disproportionate number of small suits. One of the suggestions for this was that, since it was an odd size, it didn't get used as much (ie handed down or sold to be used by other people) so they didn't get worn out and were kept in storage to survive down to the modern day. Perhaps it's a similar situation with these sword hilts.
Given that many Viking and Migration era swords come from grave finds, has there been any archeological study about the grip size of the sword compared to the hand size of the remains it was interred with?
Finding skeletal remnants with all the tiny hand bones preserved is suuper rare. Especially in Norway where bones in general are super rare because of the soil. And while Norway have 2-3000 preserved viking swords, Denmark and Sweden only have a few houndred each. So getting a dataset big enough to make any conclusions with is likely impossible 😅
@@natoroja you don't need all the tiny hand bones preserved though. Just enough to get the proporotions right, and then your approximation will be within an insignificant error margin. This is what is often done with fossils as well, you very often don't find a whole skeleton for each indvididual, but you can scale its dimensions with maths and mostly common sense tbh.
The People of South are in general smaller than the people of North. this applies not only to people, but also to animals, it is associated with thermoregulation.
Occams Razor. If we found a shoe from a person 2000 years ago , the archaeologist wont assume that everyone alive at the time was big or small enough to fit in that shoe. Then there is the bias that comes with custom items built for a person that survived to be studied.
The pommel shape (to me at least) seemed like your hand ridge was meant not to ride on the pommel itself but rather the start of the narrowing before it. Also, all the indian people i've ever met have disproportionately large hands compared to how short they are. They aren't skinny.
I can see age being a factor? If a child were fitted with a sword for his rank, that might help. Also I would guess that a person would chose a hilt to suit them, Family heirlooms don't adjust easily? The pummel is adjustable, right?
The weapon was probably made to fit particular sizes of the hand. Like s/m/l/xl etc. The weapon wasn't necessarily custom made to the user. Not everything is a western medieval suit of armour. My hands aren't particularly big compared to regular sizes you see today. But my palms are about 2cm wider than a roman palm. I would be considered a giant.
see the Indian film "Asoka". Kaurwaki Queen of Kalinga uses a Katar in battle (showing there use by women ie smaller hands) There is also a use of an Urumi ribbon sword in one scene.
This can be brought around to modern era by recognizing that the modern handguns that are being adopted often have provisions made to change the grip’s
Hi Matt. I know it's a bit late being that you already posted the video, but it would be really interesting if you took a ruler and measured the grips and your hand so we can compare it to our own. If I measure my hand straight across at the knuckles, I get 3.5", or 9 cm. I'm a fairly small man at 5'7" or 170 cm tall.
I like my one-hand grips to be slightly less than 4". That's for everything from a short combat knife to an overly long arming sword. Preference and what feels most comfortable goes a long way in a life or death struggle. (At least so I imagine.)
I'm making a migration era sword RN. I keep making the wooden handle smaller and smaller.. a nice twist to the wide pommel feels real nice. A good handshake I only need 3" under the cross. I'm "splitting the difference with a "ring" mid handle. I can place a finger forward and choke up or slide back for "whip" like strikes..
Handle sizes are an interesting thing to study. I began making puukko knives, the general rule of thumb is that the handle should be the width of the palm, indicating a tailor fit for each knife. Im certain other cultures did the same thing, creating a tool to perfectly fit the user is better than the one size fits all mentality of mass produced knives and sword now.
This is why I think a modern replica of a Pulwar would do quite well. You get all the benefits of the tulwar blade shape and the domed hilt would be much more accommodating to a variety of hand shapes.
What about the age factor ? Could be the weapons have been made for 16-22 years olds (not yet completely physically mature), and just the right age group to be easily marched off to war with heads dizzy with dreams of glory. Small sizes would suit them well.
In the hilts shown, putting the index finger in front of the guard has 2 obvious problems: - The finger is more exposed to get chopped, - and rests against the presumably unsharpened but still narrow base of the blade.
So I think this raises a question of what the economic conditions of sword use were among tulwar/ katar users. I think viking/ migration era swords would have been made for an individual as a matter of course being time consuming to make but I have been under the impression that in 19th century Punjab for example sword use was very widespread. Are all these tulwar custom made for their users? Who pays for that? This seems atypical for cultures where lots of weapons are needed in a short time. The Qing Chinese weren't customising hundreds of thousands of dao, nor are modern armies custom making rifles to fit individuals.
You don't need to customise every hilt for every soldier. All you need is to make a Gaussian bell curve spectrum of hilt sizes, and let the battalion armourer do his job.
Not all archaeologists dig holes. Your experiences of using these weapons help the archaeologists. When my daughter digs up a skeleton she can explain damage caused by weapons. By the way she is an archaeologist not a weirdo. It is nice to be reminded the industrial age is relatively recent. We forget in the past most objects were bespoke and could vary greatly.
I suspect that in India at the time hilt market was somewhat separated from blade market and person would siple buy a hilt that fits his hand from mass market or have it made for him personally if he is wealthy and then desired blade would be fit into it. At least they likely to do it in the army with their duty weapons. Your example sword kinda suggest that aswell.
Indians even today have wildly different hand sizes. I can fit my hand into some fairly small (for most average indians) talwars. What I want to know is how cuts were done with the disc pommel digging into the hand near the pinky. It's difficult to extend the sword point and the sword seems to be locked in almost at a 90-120 degree handle. I wonder how that affected technique.
I like the short crossguard (I learned how to swordfight using shinai with the crossguard removed), but I prefer a longer hilt - 10" is ideal - so that I can easily blend different grips (1 hd, 2 hd, main hand, off hand) as I fight.
The swedish royal life guards sometimes parade in uniforms that are replicas of early 18c unifors made in the late 19c. They have to pick out short slender recruits and women to at all fit in the uniforms. The modern fashion for building muscles also plays a part in this besides the obvious effects of enogh food to allow teenagers to eat untill they are satisfied But handsize is not directly linked to lenght. Diferent poplulations have different hand builds (long narrow ws short broad fx) and it seems to mee that people that started working hard with their hands before their bodies stopped growing often have really large hands.
Well, the question about why is probably more relevant. Swords knives and so on are likely to be covered in blood. Having a rather tight grip was more than likely a means to keep the hand from slipping.
Can you do a full video on putting a finger past the guard? It always seemed stupid to me, unless they add an extra guard for that finger. Otherwise why not move the guard further up and have a pistol grip.
The influence of nutrition on size is really noticeable when groups South Korean and North Korean people are near each other, they are ethnically more or less identical but the people from South Korea are on average a bit larger it isn't a night and day difference but it is pretty noticable.
About the Kathar; I allways wonder when I see these why the bars on the grip run down to the wrist, the tendency to rotate in the hand is there obviously. Can it be that a wrist guard with bar-sized pockets was used to stick the bars in to prevent the rotation?
My wife recently got me, via online auction, an antique North Yemeni Jambya. It has a solid silver hilt that fits my hand like it was made for me. When I grip this weapon it feels like I have steel raptor claw welded to my arm.
How common would it be for a boy at the age of 12 - 14 years to be training with weapons in India at that time? I know that among rich Vikings it was not unheard of that the son got his first serious weapon when they was around 12.. (i have no idea how common that was, but have read about it more then once)
100% agree. Its just the same as clothing or shoe manufacturing today, they make more of sizes that are more demographically popular - and though they make a range of sizes, a bit bigger and a bit smaller are less numerous......in line with the number of people they fit.
I find "real" swords are very comfortable to hold. Many sword hilt's are designed so to aid you in using them in a certain fighting system which Matt touched upon.
I am not Indian, but I am short, with fairly small hands (SE Asian). I do have to find tools and adjust weapons to fit me. A sword comfortable for Matt would be entirely unwieldy for me. I imagine palm-finger proportion would make a difference too. Many of my taller Indian Co-workers also had slimmer palms and fingers than mine but overall larger hands. Also, to my knowledge, there was a N-S divide in haplogroups (more complicated than that, of course) but historically N Indians were part of the Indo-Iranian language groups and would have had builds more similar to Iranians while S Indians were part of the Dravidian language groups and would have had builds more similar to SE Asia (though not part of that group either, I believe). There was then a historical period of mixing between the two groups followed by a reseparation followed by more mixing, so any modern descendant could have any build and the hilt could fit them or not dependent on individual proportions. But unless all swords of that type have smaller grips, it could just be that the particular owner of that sword was smaller, younger, etc.
Yes, and it also aids in the application of the draw-cut because the blade encounters the target closer to the hilt and is then drawn through rather than just hitting with the end of the blade.
Even in modern day Europe handle sizes for knives differ. The same knife can get ratings for grip size that range from "too big" to "too small". If that is true for a group of people from Central Europe, it just is not plausible that it would be much different for a region as big as India. As you have evidence of hilts fitting for bigger hands your theory appears to have some merrit.
I really want that sword.. with a short hilt like that... Cause I see the HUGE benefit of it being sort of small for my hand. I can't believe some people don't see the HUGE benefit of that shorter hilt or handle ..
The smaller grips would indicate an advantage of some sort in keeping them small. I would ask, in traditional Indian sword fighting is there a mechanical reason (such as you indicated with migration era) or is it more likely for cultural reasons or ease of carrying?
Another thing people tend to forget is that hand size can change greatly in the same demographic and that being tall may give you longer hands and fingers it doesn't mean that your hands are also larger. Even your life style change the size of your hands.
If you look at the Ehglish top hats from the Victoria era, most of them are about the size of 6 something, compared with the modern people who tend to wear the sizes of 7 1/8 hats. No doubt that in the 19th century people were smaller than today. Same as in India as well ! That’s my opinion.
Believe it or not, I've heard the same thing about "viking" swords. If the grip is only 3.5" it means you're supposed to hold it a weird way or something. Because Vikings were big. Video games said so.
Do you have a video on the langet-like projections running up the base of the blade on indo-persian swords? I would love to learn the potential uses of them.
Yep people in the past were in general smaller, there were people larger than others but the mean was tending to be smaller. I saw the saber of my country's hero (Honduras) and the handle was small it would not fit my hand.
I would guess there's at least a small number of talwar that were made to be held differently. Some people have preferences... or just want to annoy people who might steal their stuff.
There is a easy answer to your last question. If you get a replica to us by you, make it fit to you and if you like to collect a representation of a historic weapon use the measurements of the original. Thanks for you well presented videos.
This makes a lot of sense. I have to say that making a tight fit seems very limiting, since one of the primary benefits of iron and steel weapons over bronze weapons is that you could expect iron weapons to be passed down for generations, so if you have a kid with bigger hands...
Kinda have to wonder if some swords/daggers et cetera were made en mass to arm up a powerful person's troops and if they made them generally to the size of his troops and if that plays a part in the size,I mean if somebody had a bunch of underfed almost (or literally) slave class for troops then maybe they were tiny and that's why you run into a boat load of swords with small grips.
i have never been able to get my hand in almost every of a sword from that region or even European swords i've held made in the 18th-20th century, but i also am a big guy at around 6ft6-6ft7 with big hands (i where a 2-3xl glove) and i'm not sure if really anyone or at least enough people to find a proper hilt was similar size to me
The average height today on India of males is 5'5", which matches Japan. By that basis I would assume they would share the average height of the Japanese pre 20th century, which for the Japanese was 5'2" to 5'3" for males. Period photographs of Brits standing with Indians show a large disparity in height, and I dare it it was more so than the 5" inch disparity that exists today between avg male heights in the two nations (assuming 5'10" is average in Britain like it has been in the US until the recent influx of shorter Latin demogr!phics - Google avg male height Central America). So even today swords designed for Indians would likely be to small for western hands. This may sound bragadocious, but it is fact. They even sell sell different sized condoms in India, and expats often have to purchase theirs at millitary base stores to find ones that fit. Feel free to research the topic of expats trying to find fitting condoms in India and parts of Asia. Humans vary in size like all organisms that are isolated to different regions and diets for thousands if years. Specially in the less melting-pot monoculture that make up most on The Indian Subcontinent.
@@testing2741Stop pulling shit out of your arse. Average Indian height during the the 18th century was 5'6. It's only due to the famines and starvation induced by the British that the height later fell during the second half of the 19th century.
Interesting, I've seen a lot of swords from many different times and places where the blade was imported and the hilt made locally, and I've always wondered why they wouldn't just buy a finished sword to begin with. But now it makes sense that probably ALL sword handles were supposed to be custom made, tailor fitted to the individual user.
They wouldn't buy a finished sword, among other things, because specialization of labor and the differences of blade steel economic/logics vs other material's and handles. As a rule of thumb for these things, always check logistics first, it is usualy the main or one of the main factors. Medieval steel is fidgety to source good blade grade material, and then you need to have smiths who mastered the specific skills necessary to produce a decent blade of the size and style you're looking for. Not every smith had those or even had access to a master to teach them. Making nails and kettles and horseshoes, etc., uses different skills, can be done with shite steel, and is usually easier to develop even on your own, so chances are you had a local smith, but not a knifemaker. On top of that, the transportation cost was a fraction of the cost of the cost for labor and material (itself requiring a lot of labor). Meaning, either you might not even have access to locally made blades of any quality, but if you do imports might still be better and have comparable price ranges anyway. Handles, on the other hand, not as much hassle. You can make those from a lot of local materials without loss of functional or aesthetic qualities (local woods, leather, horn, bone, and any metals can be crappier quality too), no material availability issues here. Those are also cheaper materials that require less labor to process, and the amount of labor and even overall skill barrier to entry are far lower for making handles, so you have just as good local handles for cheaper pricy point (if I am exporting rather than selling in the local market, it is because I can export for more than I can sell to the locals), and without transportation costs too. In short, imported blades are either the only option or not too different in cost/benefit terms compared to the local ones, while local handles are always just as good as imported ones but usually cheaper.
So only slightly related to the video topic, but any chance on a video about Oakeshott type XVIIID swords? I'm finding very little information on them but it seems exactly what I'm interested in. Incidentally they have smaller one handed grips
Weird thought. Could this be a form of sicurity? I mean if you buy a sword then no problem. But if the hilt is to small it's uncomfortable and gives up a little defense. So you absolutely can use it but they would hinder the user. On the other side sure you have a big one it can be used but it mite be easier to tell if it's stolen. Then all you have to do is check who's missing a sword. While definitely not perfect ideas but having problems one with problem two could be a way to so to speak detain someone while the story is checked.
According to wikipedia in circa 1700 the population of the Mughal Empire was approx. 158,400,000, Kingdom of England - 5,108,500; in C. 1800 the population of the Maratha Confederacy was ~208,250,000, the Kingdom of Great Britain - 10,481,401. This puts into perspective the enormous amount of swords with hilts of various sizes likely made over the last few centuries due to the massive population, so a 20th Century collector is bound to find a quantity of small hilts among those, particularly due to variations in ethnic physical structure !!
I would like to make a caveat, though turns more of a supporting argument anyway. I think the idea of a compromise and grip it "right" (i.e. grip the object you happen to have in a way that makes the thing you happen to have work for you) has some historical merit. Just as today, it would be ideal, and we can assume some people knew (maybe even traditions did teach) how to work with weapons that are not perfectly fitted to you. Sometimes, for a bajilion possible reasons, it is what you have access to right now, so being able to make the best out of it is desireable. And if it works (i.e. you alive, the other guy defeated somehow), I say that is a correct way of using the object. But it also means that these "grip it right" ways are not in fact the intended way of using the weapon, or at least not the standard way of gripping and using it that most people were taught. Furthermore, I think it is one of the reasons why around the world and history blade and blade fittings (handle included) were often manufactured in separate.
For comparison I'm 5'6" and my hand is only 3.75" across measured from the web of the thumb parallel to the knuckles... It's significantly less if I measure from my index to little finger across the knuckles. I suspect your hand is quite a bit larger
Your are taller than the average male in India today - the average is 5'5" today even. Same reason Katana's are short for 2 handed swords. The average male height was 5'2" in pre 20th century Japan. I imagine India was similar back then too.
Matt is right. People in general were smaller on average in the 1800's. I have a repro of an 1860 army cap and ball revolver and the grips on it are small. My stepbrother speculated that the repro company went cheap to save money, but I later read somewhere that the repro was not inaccurate, the grips on that model pistol were small. For those who don't know, the pistol itself is quite large, it was .44 caliber and fired 6 shots.
@@scholagladiatoria Thank you. That makes sense and is not something you would notice in a picture. I was i thought they were like Some more elaborate Habaki you see on some Chinese swords. (rambling a bit as i dont really talk blades much) I have not really had much of a chance to examine a lot of original blades of any style outside of books. I have handled only 1 bare-blade sword in my life so far made by a master modern swordsmith (god it sounds like i am braging but i am not) when i went to take my ABS Performance test for the first time i did not understand edge geometry like i should have a need to...as i had a disconnect for some reason and only recently realized wait...the bevel is part of the edge geometry after forging knives for 7 years 😅. however, I think it was I was taking it as literally as the geometry of the very edge. Thank you again.
Hey Matt, hope you're well. You mentioned the possibility of moving to the US but said there were some hangups with that idea. If you'd like to discuss that on a video, I'm sure there's plenty of viewers who might be able to answer questions or address concerns. I know Drach has toyed with the idea, and possibly Skall as well, but they also had some deal breaking concerns. I know that Drach said it had to do with healthcare, primarily for his wife. Might have been the same scenario for Skall as well. Many people have gotten the impression that healthcare in the US either requires you to be filthy stinking rich, or you're just S.O.L., but there are numerous programs and options in place for people who might need varying degrees of financial help to go along with varying degrees of medical need. I've been partially disabled since I was 12 and I've never needed to pay a penny for healthcare. My options aren't as good as if I were very wealthy, but they're certainly not terrible. In addition to coverage for medical and prescription costs, we've also had fairly adequate financial aid as my mother is mostly disabled as well. We're by no means wealthy, but we have a decent enough apartment and can get by without dire want or need. My point being that contrary to some popular beliefs, our social aid programs are usually pretty adequate, and being dealt a poor hand doesn't mean that we're doomed to being destitute. There are plenty of things here that could do with improving, but it would be uncommon to find another place in the world where we'd find the same balance of being helped where we need it, and being left alone where we ought to be. If moving here was in any way on your mind, it might be worth talking it out with some folks, or coming for a visit if you were able. Although if you were going to visit with any mind of moving, it would probably be better to visit somewhere that's more "liveable" rather than the very expensive tourist cities like New York or LA. I'm in Wisconsin myself, and there are some good offerings here. Vast diversity in landscapes, full spectrum seasons and pretty good weapons laws. Some states do the latter part better, but some most certainly do it markedly worse. Really depends on where you look. Same goes for things like healthcare and financial programs. There're many reasons why so many people try so hard and even risk their lives to get here, and why there's little in the way of exodus. With how enormous the country is and how different things can be state to state, there's somewhere that just about anyone could call home, and someone like you would be most welcome just about anywhere. Worth looking in to if you were even a little bit interested.
My guess is that in India at the time, Sword hilts were just more bespoke than we are used to. We are used to buying swords for their shapes, their historic style, or just because we think they look cool, but you wouldn't buy pants just because of their shape, their historic style, or because they look cool. those things might affect what pants you buy, but you buy pants because THEY FIT.
You would probably talk to your swordsmith and get hand measurements to fit, or at the very least, test out a bunch of grip shapes/sizes to choose one that works for you.
I agree with your suggestion of bespoke construction but I find your analogy to trousers quite weak. With the skinny jeans fad it looks to me that most people buy their trousers several sizes to small and sacrifice comfort for fashion.
Cheers!
Right? I mean they didn't go to Swords'r'Us and get one off the shelf. A sword was a significant purchase, kind of like getting a proper suit today. Thinking they wouldn't be at least altered to to fit the wielder is plain unreasonable.
@@kaoskronostyche9939 I mean, the difference in denim between skinny jeans and standard jeans is like 60% spandex lmao, you could argue they're sacrificing longevity or durability for fit and comfort, but skinny jeans are a softer more comfortable material and more fitted cut than straight or boot cut or whatever kinds of jeans you think are "normal"
Stretch denim is a completely different material. They "look" too tight to you, but that's an aesthetic choice. Your aesthetic doesn't match, but that's not comfort, that's look, visual appeal.
Durable clothes aren't comfortable, and comfortable clothes aren't durable, generally speaking. Both have their own aesthetics and a wide spectrum within.
@@KoroWerks Again I have to disagree. I am a bit of a "fashionista" myself. My ex-wife was a textile artist and a fashion designer and I learned a truck-load about fashion, fabrics and construction reading her books and helping her with her projects.
One small hobby I have is collecting "vintage" clothing. I look for "dress" clothing constructed of fine fabrics. Good quality clothing can be extremely comfortable and very durable. Traditional materials and construction methods were far better than todays slave labour manufactured trash. Linen, Kroy wool, Merino wool, lambs wool, Cashmere, Pashmina, Linen, Silk are all far more durable, pliable, easier to work with and far more comfortable and esthetic that cotton and lycra.
I have trousers, jackets, and hats that are probably older than you (some are older than me) and look new. They have stood up to regular use for decades, kept their shape and look just fine.
I feel far more comfortable and stylish in the vintage clothing I wear than in any of the "fast" fashion, synthetic, off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all, throw-away, mass-manufactured trash littering our garbage dumps today. There are features of design, material and construction which make clothing just as complex and interesting a subject as the swords and weapons Mr Easton so joyously shares with us. That is, there is almost as much to learn about clothing and the intricacies, details of construction, design, materials and history as there is about historical armaments.
Again, as Mr Easton is so fond of reminding is it is CONTEXT. I am older and I have a context of true traditional quality, comfort, style, material and construction whereas I doubt that is the case for you.
For a night out ballroom dancing I would wear a silk shirt, a silk tie, light wool trousers with a rayon lining held up with a leather belt, a cashmere jacket and a wool felt fedora hat all supported on a foundation of Spanish shoes made with buttery soft leather with millimeter fine stitching and a leather sole.
For day wear, I just tone it down a little.
And every item I own I found in a second hand shop. When I found those Spanish shoes for twenty dollars I felt about as excited as if I had found an antique sword for a steal.
Cheers!
"I don't wear a belt because I buy pants that fit!" (Wayne, toughest man in "Letterkenny")
Gripping a tulwar with the forefinger in front of the quillon, was employed purely because the grip was too short for a larger-handed individual. In 15th century western Europe this 'Italian grip' was advantageous because it allowed a greater degree of movement to the wrist. However, using this grip does not give any advantage with a tulwar, because, with or without the forefinger being placed in front of the quillon, the degree of movement of the wrist is constrained by the disc of the pommel.
You are absolutely correct. I have held antique Indian swords and daggers in ways which practitioners of gatka and kalaripayitt said were correct. Some of them were too small. Some or them fit. A few were too big, especially teghas which are 5-7 pound one handed swords and which I firmly believe were carried by yetis, gorillas, or dinosaurs.
I have been to India three times for a total of about 16 months and crossed the subcontinent from Ladhak in the north to "lands end" at the southern most tip and from Mumbai to Kolkata to Chennai and back again. What I noticed is the peoples of regional sub-groups or ethnic subcultures actually varied in size and stature.
The Sikhs of the Punjab were as big or bigger than me (6'-0", 220 pounds) while the Tamil of the far south were very short and light framed people. Perhaps these are actually regional ethnic or genetic or dietary variations. For instance, the Sikhs eat meat and wheat and the Tamil eat rice and dhal.
Perhaps the large hand grips could by from the northern Sikh and Rajput areas and the smaller grips from the southern Tamil and Malayalam areas. Could be as simple as that. If the actual region of origin of different hilt specimens were known from more detailed "provenance" perhaps the mystery could be solved.
If anyone wants to finance a trip for me, I would be happy to scour the sub-continent for specimens in an effort to support or falsify this hypothesis.
This would actually fit for the smaller hilt shown here, which is a local type from the Malabar coast. I also have two older south Indian swords in my collection, both with very short grips, disc like pommels and types of shell guard, so there's nowhere to displace the finger, even if one wanted to.
I would second this with the addition of the fact that there is also the caste system to consider as well as other economic factors that might make local variation a thing.
There is indeed a genetic diversity component to the different peoples of India, and as one commenter points out - a Caste difference - as well. My maternal side are Tamil Brahmins, hailing through Mysore/Mysuru (today: Karnataka) and have members who've often been mistaken for being British or Anglo-Indian. Some members of the family ranged between just under 5 ft. (152.4 cm) to 7 ft. 4 in. (225.55 cm).
My sister - for example - has violet eyes, which is a genetic mutation of the gene responsible for blue eyes. Blue eyes as a genetic trait also can be found in the northern part of India due to the Persian/Iran-Turkic dynasty which ruled in India, as well as Greek soldiers which settled in portions of North India even further back (Alexander the Great's incursion into India.)
My father's side hails from the Punjab region to the north and even within his own immediate family (siblings), they ranged between 5 ft. 5in. (165.1 cm) to approximately 6 ft. 4 in. (195 cm). They also tend to be fair-skinned though not as fair as in my maternal line.
Although the topic of genetic ancestry in India's been a touchy subject, there are some good videos on UA-cam discussing it such as by Robert Sepehr (an Anthropologist), who has such a video on this topic.
For some further reading as well: scroll.in/article/874102/aryan-migration-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-study-on-indian-genetics
Note: It is a controversial topic in India due to the rise in a form of nationalism that seeks to ignore mentions of outside genetic influence on its people. You will come across counter-arguments in articles as well but genetic studies still have held out in favour of a steady migration-over-time into the subcontinent, which does make more sense!
Arent Sikhs strict vegetarians?
@@Missile_Crab no, they can eat meat, including pork
I can't speak for the Indian hilts, but I can absolutely tell you that I was taught my my kenjitsu sensei that Edo period swords have MUCH shorter hilts and grips because of the Tokugawa Shogunate and prefectural edicts forbidding the hilt/grips to be over a certain length. This is because the ideal grip length for wartime/battle use was taught to me to be (holding from just under the tsuba) the length of your forearm and wrist, with the cap of the grip just touching your inner elbow. The sword techniques were designed and taught with this leverage in mind, but as the Edo period was primarily an era of peaceful consolidation of power, hilts were forbidden to be 'full-length' and what came to be known as 'dueling hilts' were legislated to reduce the number of fatalities and lethal injuries inflicted in a (presumably) sanctioned match or duel. The peacetime hilts were roughly 60% the normal length or sometimes even less, of their Sengoku counterparts. A lot of the surviving antiques were re-hilted during the Edo period from their Sengoku period lengths as a result, which is why you see many mistakenly assuming that is the 'proper' or normal grip length.
As an effect, did this give rise to techniques using it in single hand? Maybe using dagger or other parrying item?
@@AdlerMow To my very limited knowledge, no. But then my sensei was very traditional and focused primary on the 'two-hands, one-sword' sword schools. Even if using a wakazashi, the same basic tenets applied. In my limited experience with Japanese swordsmanship, I've never actually seen two-weapon fighting taught. Outside of Niten Ichi-Ryu, it's mostly a literary and cinematic trope to my understanding.
I love those Indian katars with their reinforced points!
Personally, in south America, dealing with poor natives, in the period between 1980-2010, children would often be a full foot taller than their parents. Diets make a huge difference. Being generally one handed weapons the difference would be remarkable, unlike hand and a half or two handed swords where you would want it long enough to have space between the hands making it useful for larger hands
I know police officers in Canada whose parents were from the subcontinent who are well over 6 foot.
I think we sometimes look at historical items through the lens of mass production. Things like swords are very personal and require an amount of customization to be effective.
Just a thought on the migration era hilt lengths: I saw some charts a little while back that indicated that average European height (a broad thing to measure, I know) during the migration period may have exceeded average height throughout pretty much the whole medieval period, and I think I saw some charts that said that average height from around 750AD was only exceeded by like 1960 or something. I imagine that found remains from 750AD are more likely to be that of higher status people, so that might take some interpretation, but it's still interesting, and might be something to bear in mind when thinking about sword hilt lengths.
As a reference for hand size. Where I worked, we used work gloves to keep toxic ink/cleaners off our hands (blue nitrile). Medium I could barely get on but then could not move my hand in any useful way. Large I could get on but they were still painful to move my hands in. Extra large I could work with. I am under 6ft. To add to that there were some workmates who could and did wear small. Then there are women (we did have one or two women in tech but not with tiny hands). My wife always looks like she has over size gloves on, no matter the size. Maybe some of those swords are for women..... Surgical gloves do come in extra small by the way. I've seen the boxes at my dentist's office.
it's a lot like bicycle frames, and skis. if you weigh a certain amount, or are tall enough from the floor to pelvis, you'll need to fit within a range of sizes.
I have been told by practitioners in India that we "westerners just hold our swords wrong" as well. Though i would think that the truth is somewhere in between. Maybe we do use our swords different but there are definitely indian sword hilts out there that are far too small for someone of my hand size to use whether i hold/use it differently or not.
You're not wrong in your perspective! It is a mix of both, though while Indian swords come in various types and will be wielded differently in accordance to the sword disciplines used, I will point out that you'll still find a commonality in that some swords arts tend to utilise sword-spinning as a means of harnessing centrifugal force to inflict blows upon their opponents.
Although swords vary wildly from the axe/club-like Khanda, to the even more fantastical Urumi, there is quite a focus on sword-spinning. You'll notice that the swords which are meant to be used with sword-spinning have a cylindrical hilt and are rounded for better manipulation in one's hands and palms, whereas some other hilts might be rectangular.
Another comparison would be the Chinese jian - a double edged sword - that also professes a rounded hilt, and in certain Chinese sword arts, there is also a focus on sword-spinning (as the blades tend to be lighter). This, in contradiction to say, a Japanese Katana which has a more rectangular hilt and isn't very focused on sword-spinning as part of its techniques (its not to say there are NO sword-spinning, just very few, probably rarely incorporated into any offensive maneuver.)
There is also the quite-touchy topic of genetics which in current India, is usually dismissed when discussing things like the Aryan Migration Theory (which, genetic studies have consistently verified did occur). You'll find a mix of people from North to South, including genetic mixes of Iranic-Turkic folks to ancient Greeks (Alexander the Great's incursion into India) and some of their genetic traits still manifest in today's people in the northern region.
My own maternal family line hails from the Mysore/Karnataka area and most of my family have been very light-skinned in comparison to others that have origins in South India. My maternal grandmother and great-grandmother (including their children) used to be confused for being British or Anglo-Indian. My sister has violet eyes (a genetic mutation of the gene responsible for blue eyes), and our heights and physiques vary between 5 ft. to 7'4".
Roughly a similar deal with my paternal side, which hails from the North (Punjab) and also has varying heights in that line ranging from 5'5" to 6'6".
@@auribusteneolupum2977 just a small correction the greek traits where more theough traders than alexander since he technically didnt cross the north punjab province. Most of the greeek traits where through traders who settled in this land, similar to anglo indians being descendants of settlers to start life here. Another such example is indonesian and south eastern blood is also found not only through distant genetic branches but through dealers and traders of the particular periods and have been documented.
When it comes to aryan migration now thats both ways as theory only focuses on inland migration and doesnt talk abt exoduses and outward migration. Did it happen absolutely and it makes sense as to why early hinduism and zorastrian being similar/sister religions. Irs just hinduism merged with tantric snd evolved and devolved into one followed today.
@@auribusteneolupum2977 you sound like a revtard. Indians were known to be taller. Ganga valley skeletons are on average 6'1 tall. Infact for the most history Indians whether in North or south have always been tall. CV napier once made an observation that soldiers from awadh were taller than average european soldier.
Indian swords aren't meant to hold by palm width so yeah you aren't using them right. When it comes to size, Indians even that time, the martial castes were taller than average Euopean
CV napier Victoria's Historian has also commented about this that the brahmims from Awadh in bengal infantry beat Europeans in height.
@@auribusteneolupum2977 You are one coloassal cute guy which doesn't understand how genetics works.
Greeks female slaves were common in India but even from them the genetic inclusion in India was minimum as you could guess.
India and iran had same ancestral population while South had different population. That's the reason why there are differences.
Steppe is mostly conc in North India but on average it is higher in India than Iranians but have came to India in different migrations. Second and third migration was female mediated.
Thirdly ancient Indian skeletons without steppe were tall, like 6 foot, we have found them in ganga valley.
Also sinuli average height was 5'10, at same time frame Europeans were 5'3 and that time we don't find steppe in India yet.
So height along with Indians having more Neanderthal diversity which is better genes for muscle growth as many clinical studies shows that Indians put on muscle faster than whites but lose fat on lower rate.
This has always been our strengths even before steppe migration which is considered as the aryan invasion though Indian side says that immigration was so small that they could have hardly had any difference in India let alone any culture change. And propose out of India theory, I personally confess I like OIT more cause i don't just pass of anything as true as you guys think that hindu nationalist atent ready to accept the truth while in fact you are thr one not willing to listen their points, OIT frankly is more robust. Anyways anti AIT side says some handful of people came in India and assimilated because some steppe people men and women indeed came to India but numerically insignificant. Second was female mediated amd we also found a remain which had Indian father but steppe mother but even so steppe as a whole is just 12 percent in India. So both sides of the story.
Anyways even before so called aryan invasion if you consider as true , the size of Indians was bigger.
Also no bunt growed over 7 foot lmao
South Indians no matter how maritial they were always shorter than northern Indians. Indian hunter gatherers were tallest in world and South Indians were second tall.
I remember reading about a similar debate about examples of full plate armor tending to have a disproportionate number of small suits. One of the suggestions for this was that, since it was an odd size, it didn't get used as much (ie handed down or sold to be used by other people) so they didn't get worn out and were kept in storage to survive down to the modern day. Perhaps it's a similar situation with these sword hilts.
It's also possible the smaller hilted weapons were made for adolescents, like the children of higher status or warrior castes.
Joining the army at 15 may have made sense for some people
Or average Indians were the size of children
I have an Indian college that is smaller than my 12-year-old son.
I'm glad you're going more into indian weaponry. I'll happily wait for the Zaghnal video
Given that many Viking and Migration era swords come from grave finds, has there been any archeological study about the grip size of the sword compared to the hand size of the remains it was interred with?
Finding skeletal remnants with all the tiny hand bones preserved is suuper rare. Especially in Norway where bones in general are super rare because of the soil.
And while Norway have 2-3000 preserved viking swords, Denmark and Sweden only have a few houndred each.
So getting a dataset big enough to make any conclusions with is likely impossible 😅
@@natoroja you don't need all the tiny hand bones preserved though. Just enough to get the proporotions right, and then your approximation will be within an insignificant error margin. This is what is often done with fossils as well, you very often don't find a whole skeleton for each indvididual, but you can scale its dimensions with maths and mostly common sense tbh.
The People of South are in general smaller than the people of North. this applies not only to people, but also to animals, it is associated with thermoregulation.
... in the Northern hemisphere
@@Priapos93nope, OP spoke about india. People in the north of india are generally bigger then those in the south.
Also North India has better agricultural practices and they on an average eat more.
What about the Nepalese then? They're very short. Yet Keralans (from the south) are tall.
@@GTMarmotbro exceptions are every where
I was thinking about the comparison of tulwar to migration era hilt, and there is a definite comparison
in the way they can feel in the hand.
Occams Razor.
If we found a shoe from a person 2000 years ago , the archaeologist wont assume that everyone alive at the time was big or small enough to fit in that shoe.
Then there is the bias that comes with custom items built for a person that survived to be studied.
The pommel shape (to me at least) seemed like your hand ridge was meant not to ride on the pommel itself but rather the start of the narrowing before it. Also, all the indian people i've ever met have disproportionately large hands compared to how short they are. They aren't skinny.
I like all the historically accurate swords!
I can see age being a factor? If a child were fitted with a sword for his rank, that might help. Also I would guess that a person would chose a hilt to suit them, Family heirlooms don't adjust easily? The pummel is adjustable, right?
I think one of the Indian generals that fought Alexander the Great was said to be 7 feet tall
Alexander was definitely short.
The weapon was probably made to fit particular sizes of the hand. Like s/m/l/xl etc. The weapon wasn't necessarily custom made to the user. Not everything is a western medieval suit of armour.
My hands aren't particularly big compared to regular sizes you see today. But my palms are about 2cm wider than a roman palm. I would be considered a giant.
see the Indian film "Asoka". Kaurwaki Queen of Kalinga uses a Katar in battle (showing there use by women ie smaller hands) There is also a use of an Urumi ribbon sword in one scene.
You're putting out great content here Matt!
This can be brought around to modern era by recognizing that the modern handguns that are being adopted often have provisions made to change the grip’s
Hi Matt. I know it's a bit late being that you already posted the video, but it would be really interesting if you took a ruler and measured the grips and your hand so we can compare it to our own. If I measure my hand straight across at the knuckles, I get 3.5", or 9 cm. I'm a fairly small man at 5'7" or 170 cm tall.
Do you think he could use a ruler?
I like my one-hand grips to be slightly less than 4". That's for everything from a short combat knife to an overly long arming sword. Preference and what feels most comfortable goes a long way in a life or death struggle. (At least so I imagine.)
I'm making a migration era sword RN. I keep making the wooden handle smaller and smaller.. a nice twist to the wide pommel feels real nice. A good handshake I only need 3" under the cross. I'm "splitting the difference with a "ring" mid handle. I can place a finger forward and choke up or slide back for "whip" like strikes..
Handle sizes are an interesting thing to study. I began making puukko knives, the general rule of thumb is that the handle should be the width of the palm, indicating a tailor fit for each knife. Im certain other cultures did the same thing, creating a tool to perfectly fit the user is better than the one size fits all mentality of mass produced knives and sword now.
"it's not a question of where it grips it, it's a question of weight ratios".......
This is why I think a modern replica of a Pulwar would do quite well. You get all the benefits of the tulwar blade shape and the domed hilt would be much more accommodating to a variety of hand shapes.
What about the age factor ? Could be the weapons have been made for 16-22 years olds (not yet completely physically mature), and just the right age group to be easily marched off to war with heads dizzy with dreams of glory. Small sizes would suit them well.
2:33 "Woah, the Japanese must have had huge hands and really long arms!"
13 1/4 stone? What kind of archaic measurement is that? Here in America you would say "I weigh about 370 bigmacs, or 24 AR-15."
Just in case you ever need to know, 1 Stone = 28 Big Macs.
Please show the other types of Indian swords. They have many different types please have a good day and your channel is excellent.
Matt off topic question :
Were the Khanda and Firangi used like a Tukwar ?
In the hilts shown, putting the index finger in front of the guard has 2 obvious problems:
- The finger is more exposed to get chopped,
- and rests against the presumably unsharpened but still narrow base of the blade.
So I think this raises a question of what the economic conditions of sword use were among tulwar/ katar users. I think viking/ migration era swords would have been made for an individual as a matter of course being time consuming to make but I have been under the impression that in 19th century Punjab for example sword use was very widespread. Are all these tulwar custom made for their users? Who pays for that?
This seems atypical for cultures where lots of weapons are needed in a short time. The Qing Chinese weren't customising hundreds of thousands of dao, nor are modern armies custom making rifles to fit individuals.
I would think a wootz tulwar with an inlaid silver handle would have been ordered.
You don't need to customise every hilt for every soldier. All you need is to make a Gaussian bell curve spectrum of hilt sizes, and let the battalion armourer do his job.
Not all archaeologists dig holes. Your experiences of using these weapons help the archaeologists. When my daughter digs up a skeleton she can explain damage caused by weapons. By the way she is an archaeologist not a weirdo. It is nice to be reminded the industrial age is relatively recent. We forget in the past most objects were bespoke and could vary greatly.
I suspect that in India at the time hilt market was somewhat separated from blade market and person would siple buy a hilt that fits his hand from mass market or have it made for him personally if he is wealthy and then desired blade would be fit into it. At least they likely to do it in the army with their duty weapons. Your example sword kinda suggest that aswell.
Indians even today have wildly different hand sizes. I can fit my hand into some fairly small (for most average indians) talwars. What I want to know is how cuts were done with the disc pommel digging into the hand near the pinky. It's difficult to extend the sword point and the sword seems to be locked in almost at a 90-120 degree handle. I wonder how that affected technique.
I like the short crossguard (I learned how to swordfight using shinai with the crossguard removed), but I prefer a longer hilt - 10" is ideal - so that I can easily blend different grips (1 hd, 2 hd, main hand, off hand) as I fight.
The swedish royal life guards sometimes parade in uniforms that are replicas of early 18c unifors made in the late 19c. They have to pick out short slender recruits and women to at all fit in the uniforms. The modern fashion for building muscles also plays a part in this besides the obvious effects of enogh food to allow teenagers to eat untill they are satisfied
But handsize is not directly linked to lenght. Diferent poplulations have different hand builds (long narrow ws short broad fx) and it seems to mee that people that started working hard with their hands before their bodies stopped growing often have really large hands.
Well, the question about why is probably more relevant. Swords knives and so on are likely to be covered in blood. Having a rather tight grip was more than likely a means to keep the hand from slipping.
Can you do a full video on putting a finger past the guard? It always seemed stupid to me, unless they add an extra guard for that finger. Otherwise why not move the guard further up and have a pistol grip.
The influence of nutrition on size is really noticeable when groups South Korean and North Korean people are near each other, they are ethnically more or less identical but the people from South Korea are on average a bit larger it isn't a night and day difference but it is pretty noticable.
About the Kathar; I allways wonder when I see these why the bars on the grip run down to the wrist, the tendency to rotate in the hand is there obviously.
Can it be that a wrist guard with bar-sized pockets was used to stick the bars in to prevent the rotation?
My wife recently got me, via online auction, an antique North Yemeni Jambya. It has a solid silver hilt that fits my hand like it was made for me. When I grip this weapon it feels like I have steel raptor claw welded to my arm.
How common would it be for a boy at the age of 12 - 14 years to be training with weapons in India at that time?
I know that among rich Vikings it was not unheard of that the son got his first serious weapon when they was around 12.. (i have no idea how common that was, but have read about it more then once)
100% agree.
Its just the same as clothing or shoe manufacturing today, they make more of sizes that are more demographically popular - and though they make a range of sizes, a bit bigger and a bit smaller are less numerous......in line with the number of people they fit.
It's almost like weapons were often made to fit the commissioners specifications and people come in all shapes and sizes or something
I always wondered if these swords are ever comfortable to hold. They don't look like it from just looking at them
I find "real" swords are very comfortable to hold. Many sword hilt's are designed so to aid you in using them in a certain fighting system which Matt touched upon.
Also, aren’t a lot of those hilts fixed on with Pitch? Therefore it’d be easier to swap out for a grip better fitted to the hand?
I am not Indian, but I am short, with fairly small hands (SE Asian). I do have to find tools and adjust weapons to fit me. A sword comfortable for Matt would be entirely unwieldy for me. I imagine palm-finger proportion would make a difference too. Many of my taller Indian Co-workers also had slimmer palms and fingers than mine but overall larger hands.
Also, to my knowledge, there was a N-S divide in haplogroups (more complicated than that, of course) but historically N Indians were part of the Indo-Iranian language groups and would have had builds more similar to Iranians while S Indians were part of the Dravidian language groups and would have had builds more similar to SE Asia (though not part of that group either, I believe). There was then a historical period of mixing between the two groups followed by a reseparation followed by more mixing, so any modern descendant could have any build and the hilt could fit them or not dependent on individual proportions.
But unless all swords of that type have smaller grips, it could just be that the particular owner of that sword was smaller, younger, etc.
Indian swords are supposed to be snug.
All right. That makes sense.
What advantage is there to cut with a indian sword using the arm rather than the wrist? Does it impart more power into the blow?
Yes, and it also aids in the application of the draw-cut because the blade encounters the target closer to the hilt and is then drawn through rather than just hitting with the end of the blade.
Even in modern day Europe handle sizes for knives differ. The same knife can get ratings for grip size that range from "too big" to "too small". If that is true for a group of people from Central Europe, it just is not plausible that it would be much different for a region as big as India.
As you have evidence of hilts fitting for bigger hands your theory appears to have some merrit.
I really want that sword.. with a short hilt like that... Cause I see the HUGE benefit of it being sort of small for my hand.
I can't believe some people don't see the HUGE benefit of that shorter hilt or handle ..
The smaller grips would indicate an advantage of some sort in keeping them small. I would ask, in traditional Indian sword fighting is there a mechanical reason (such as you indicated with migration era) or is it more likely for cultural reasons or ease of carrying?
I want that katar so badly it looks so cool
5:58 KATAR! I love Katars......I want one.
Ever done a video on push daggers?
Another thing people tend to forget is that hand size can change greatly in the same demographic and that being tall may give you longer hands and fingers it doesn't mean that your hands are also larger. Even your life style change the size of your hands.
I've also held an antique katar and I could only get 3 fingers on the handle. It must've been even smaller than yours
it helps enormously to wield a sword with the correct hilt for your hand
If you look at the Ehglish top hats from the Victoria era, most of them are about the size of 6 something, compared with the modern people who tend to wear the sizes of 7 1/8 hats. No doubt that in the 19th century people were smaller than today. Same as in India as well ! That’s my opinion.
Believe it or not, I've heard the same thing about "viking" swords. If the grip is only 3.5" it means you're supposed to hold it a weird way or something. Because Vikings were big. Video games said so.
Thanks for the video 👍🏻
Little hands?
Do you have a video on the langet-like projections running up the base of the blade on indo-persian swords? I would love to learn the potential uses of them.
Why? It's just another Turko-Islamic single-edged curved sword with a fancy handle. They just cared about the quality of the blade.
Yep people in the past were in general smaller, there were people larger than others but the mean was tending to be smaller.
I saw the saber of my country's hero (Honduras) and the handle was small it would not fit my hand.
I would guess there's at least a small number of talwar that were made to be held differently. Some people have preferences... or just want to annoy people who might steal their stuff.
There is a easy answer to your last question. If you get a replica to us by you, make it fit to you and if you like to collect a representation of a historic weapon use the measurements of the original.
Thanks for you well presented videos.
This makes a lot of sense. I have to say that making a tight fit seems very limiting, since one of the primary benefits of iron and steel weapons over bronze weapons is that you could expect iron weapons to be passed down for generations, so if you have a kid with bigger hands...
Soo they were used for fencing by bigger people?
Kinda have to wonder if some swords/daggers et cetera were made en mass to arm up a powerful person's troops and if they made them generally to the size of his troops and if that plays a part in the size,I mean if somebody had a bunch of underfed almost (or literally) slave class for troops then maybe they were tiny and that's why you run into a boat load of swords with small grips.
just turned this on but i thought i would some extream curve saber-sharpening videos would be fun and informative.
i have never been able to get my hand in almost every of a sword from that region or even European swords i've held made in the 18th-20th century, but i also am a big guy at around 6ft6-6ft7 with big hands (i where a 2-3xl glove) and i'm not sure if really anyone or at least enough people to find a proper hilt was similar size to me
I recon most white English people born in 1877 hands would fit 80% in the Tulwar as the average height back the was about 5.5 "
The average height today on India of males is 5'5", which matches Japan. By that basis I would assume they would share the average height of the Japanese pre 20th century, which for the Japanese was 5'2" to 5'3" for males. Period photographs of Brits standing with Indians show a large disparity in height, and I dare it it was more so than the 5" inch disparity that exists today between avg male heights in the two nations (assuming 5'10" is average in Britain like it has been in the US until the recent influx of shorter Latin demogr!phics - Google avg male height Central America).
So even today swords designed for Indians would likely be to small for western hands.
This may sound bragadocious, but it is fact. They even sell sell different sized condoms in India, and expats often have to purchase theirs at millitary base stores to find ones that fit. Feel free to research the topic of expats trying to find fitting condoms in India and parts of Asia.
Humans vary in size like all organisms that are isolated to different regions and diets for thousands if years. Specially in the less melting-pot monoculture that make up most on The Indian Subcontinent.
@@testing2741Stop pulling shit out of your arse. Average Indian height during the the 18th century was 5'6. It's only due to the famines and starvation induced by the British that the height later fell during the second half of the 19th century.
Even if your hand fits in a katar those narrow bars look very uncomfortable to be delivering a punch stab with.
Regarding the katar, some of them were in fact designed to be held in 2 fingers. So that doesn't support your case.
Interesting, I've seen a lot of swords from many different times and places where the blade was imported and the hilt made locally, and I've always wondered why they wouldn't just buy a finished sword to begin with. But now it makes sense that probably ALL sword handles were supposed to be custom made, tailor fitted to the individual user.
They wouldn't buy a finished sword, among other things, because specialization of labor and the differences of blade steel economic/logics vs other material's and handles. As a rule of thumb for these things, always check logistics first, it is usualy the main or one of the main factors.
Medieval steel is fidgety to source good blade grade material, and then you need to have smiths who mastered the specific skills necessary to produce a decent blade of the size and style you're looking for. Not every smith had those or even had access to a master to teach them. Making nails and kettles and horseshoes, etc., uses different skills, can be done with shite steel, and is usually easier to develop even on your own, so chances are you had a local smith, but not a knifemaker. On top of that, the transportation cost was a fraction of the cost of the cost for labor and material (itself requiring a lot of labor). Meaning, either you might not even have access to locally made blades of any quality, but if you do imports might still be better and have comparable price ranges anyway. Handles, on the other hand, not as much hassle. You can make those from a lot of local materials without loss of functional or aesthetic qualities (local woods, leather, horn, bone, and any metals can be crappier quality too), no material availability issues here. Those are also cheaper materials that require less labor to process, and the amount of labor and even overall skill barrier to entry are far lower for making handles, so you have just as good local handles for cheaper pricy point (if I am exporting rather than selling in the local market, it is because I can export for more than I can sell to the locals), and without transportation costs too.
In short, imported blades are either the only option or not too different in cost/benefit terms compared to the local ones, while local handles are always just as good as imported ones but usually cheaper.
So only slightly related to the video topic, but any chance on a video about Oakeshott type XVIIID swords? I'm finding very little information on them but it seems exactly what I'm interested in. Incidentally they have smaller one handed grips
Weird thought. Could this be a form of sicurity? I mean if you buy a sword then no problem. But if the hilt is to small it's uncomfortable and gives up a little defense. So you absolutely can use it but they would hinder the user. On the other side sure you have a big one it can be used but it mite be easier to tell if it's stolen. Then all you have to do is check who's missing a sword. While definitely not perfect ideas but having problems one with problem two could be a way to so to speak detain someone while the story is checked.
This video is a perfect example of a weapon/antique dealer's advantage in having many items to show and compare.
Another outstanding video!
According to wikipedia in circa 1700 the population of the Mughal Empire was approx. 158,400,000, Kingdom of England - 5,108,500; in C. 1800 the population of the Maratha Confederacy was ~208,250,000, the Kingdom of Great Britain - 10,481,401. This puts into perspective the enormous amount of swords with hilts of various sizes likely made over the last few centuries due to the massive population, so a 20th Century collector is bound to find a quantity of small hilts among those, particularly due to variations in ethnic physical structure !!
I would like to make a caveat, though turns more of a supporting argument anyway. I think the idea of a compromise and grip it "right" (i.e. grip the object you happen to have in a way that makes the thing you happen to have work for you) has some historical merit. Just as today, it would be ideal, and we can assume some people knew (maybe even traditions did teach) how to work with weapons that are not perfectly fitted to you. Sometimes, for a bajilion possible reasons, it is what you have access to right now, so being able to make the best out of it is desireable. And if it works (i.e. you alive, the other guy defeated somehow), I say that is a correct way of using the object. But it also means that these "grip it right" ways are not in fact the intended way of using the weapon, or at least not the standard way of gripping and using it that most people were taught. Furthermore, I think it is one of the reasons why around the world and history blade and blade fittings (handle included) were often manufactured in separate.
Ever test a d2 tool steel sword yet? Nothing came up when I searched your channel.
For comparison I'm 5'6" and my hand is only 3.75" across measured from the web of the thumb parallel to the knuckles... It's significantly less if I measure from my index to little finger across the knuckles.
I suspect your hand is quite a bit larger
Your are taller than the average male in India today - the average is 5'5" today even. Same reason Katana's are short for 2 handed swords. The average male height was 5'2" in pre 20th century Japan. I imagine India was similar back then too.
old Indian saying -it's not the size of the weapon that matters, it's how you use it
Matt is right. People in general were smaller on average in the 1800's. I have a repro of an 1860 army cap and ball revolver and the grips on it are small. My stepbrother speculated that the repro company went cheap to save money, but I later read somewhere that the repro was not inaccurate, the grips on that model pistol were small. For those who don't know, the pistol itself is quite large, it was .44 caliber and fired 6 shots.
too big, too small
doesn't matter, one size fits all!
Interestingly the Langets-like extension of the guard is not tight to the blade in that example you have been holding. is there a reason for that?
Langets are never tight to the blade, or you wouldn't be able to put it in a scabbard. Langets have a gap with the blade on almost all swords.
@@scholagladiatoria Thank you. That makes sense and is not something you would notice in a picture. I was i thought they were like Some more elaborate Habaki you see on some Chinese swords. (rambling a bit as i dont really talk blades much) I have not really had much of a chance to examine a lot of original blades of any style outside of books. I have handled only 1 bare-blade sword in my life so far made by a master modern swordsmith (god it sounds like i am braging but i am not) when i went to take my ABS Performance test for the first time i did not understand edge geometry like i should have a need to...as i had a disconnect for some reason and only recently realized wait...the bevel is part of the edge geometry after forging knives for 7 years 😅. however, I think it was I was taking it as literally as the geometry of the very edge. Thank you again.
Hey Matt, hope you're well.
You mentioned the possibility of moving to the US but said there were some hangups with that idea. If you'd like to discuss that on a video, I'm sure there's plenty of viewers who might be able to answer questions or address concerns. I know Drach has toyed with the idea, and possibly Skall as well, but they also had some deal breaking concerns. I know that Drach said it had to do with healthcare, primarily for his wife. Might have been the same scenario for Skall as well. Many people have gotten the impression that healthcare in the US either requires you to be filthy stinking rich, or you're just S.O.L., but there are numerous programs and options in place for people who might need varying degrees of financial help to go along with varying degrees of medical need. I've been partially disabled since I was 12 and I've never needed to pay a penny for healthcare. My options aren't as good as if I were very wealthy, but they're certainly not terrible. In addition to coverage for medical and prescription costs, we've also had fairly adequate financial aid as my mother is mostly disabled as well. We're by no means wealthy, but we have a decent enough apartment and can get by without dire want or need. My point being that contrary to some popular beliefs, our social aid programs are usually pretty adequate, and being dealt a poor hand doesn't mean that we're doomed to being destitute. There are plenty of things here that could do with improving, but it would be uncommon to find another place in the world where we'd find the same balance of being helped where we need it, and being left alone where we ought to be. If moving here was in any way on your mind, it might be worth talking it out with some folks, or coming for a visit if you were able. Although if you were going to visit with any mind of moving, it would probably be better to visit somewhere that's more "liveable" rather than the very expensive tourist cities like New York or LA. I'm in Wisconsin myself, and there are some good offerings here. Vast diversity in landscapes, full spectrum seasons and pretty good weapons laws. Some states do the latter part better, but some most certainly do it markedly worse. Really depends on where you look. Same goes for things like healthcare and financial programs. There're many reasons why so many people try so hard and even risk their lives to get here, and why there's little in the way of exodus. With how enormous the country is and how different things can be state to state, there's somewhere that just about anyone could call home, and someone like you would be most welcome just about anywhere. Worth looking in to if you were even a little bit interested.
were there any Katars/ push daggers with single edged or curved blades?
Yes