Hi Mates,
I'm writing this thread to share with you some information about H’mong people and their knives. And this is also a gift from me to a new friend in HI forum – MilliePop (Jimmy Yang), a H’mong descent.
H’mong is a group of ethnic people, living in the hilly regions of South China, North Laos and NorthWest Vietnam. They are famous for their craftmanship, especially in bladesmith, gunsmith, cloth weaving and dyeing. Tough as life goes, the knives are with them since the early ages. A man is not complete without his knife. There are “3 most precious thing to a H’mong man: his wife his gun and his knife”.
As the H’mong people scatter in different regions, then there is variation in the knife they make. The H’mong knives are famous for sharpness – “as sharp as water”. The material they forge the blade are from bomb/artillery shell, railway track, tank steel, but the most often used is leafspring. They are hand forged in charcoal oven with very simple tools, quenched in water and sometimes in boiling oil. Some documents also report an interesting way of quenching by using the red hot blade to cut into the trunk of banana tree. This is to me similar to quenching in oil as it reduces hash temperature difference somehow. Quenching is an art that is practiced for hundreds of years. “You have to know the steel grain/texture before quenching. Different steel has different quenching temprature/color. Take the leafspring alone, in a single truck, the steel grain of the longest leafspring is different compared with the shorter and the shortest one”. Handles are often made full tang from buffalo horn and rivets, some are made from wood. Scabbards are made from 02 pieces of pine wood, often attached by rings in various materials like brass, plastic water pipe, rattan, bark of a certain tree… The knives they made are purely functional and they don’t invest on appearance, then, most of them are in villager finish. They are bought from different regions, so you’ll see the variation in shapes, sizes and even functions.
The hilly regions of North Vietnam – home of the H’mong people. Pix taken by me in Nov ‘06
A peaceful house in the valley. I love the fence with rock and bamboo
A picture of a black H’mong lady I took in Sapa. She is embroidering her cloth.
A weekend market selling everything. Here you see black pig. I heard this kind of pig is intelligent, of proper size to be a good pet in the house.
This is the puppy corner. About $5-$10 per puppy
And this the men’s corner - the H’mong flute
The village forge where the knives are born. In the green mat, I saw some blades, some hoes and some bells for hanging on livestock neck.
I'm writing this thread to share with you some information about H’mong people and their knives. And this is also a gift from me to a new friend in HI forum – MilliePop (Jimmy Yang), a H’mong descent.
H’mong is a group of ethnic people, living in the hilly regions of South China, North Laos and NorthWest Vietnam. They are famous for their craftmanship, especially in bladesmith, gunsmith, cloth weaving and dyeing. Tough as life goes, the knives are with them since the early ages. A man is not complete without his knife. There are “3 most precious thing to a H’mong man: his wife his gun and his knife”.
As the H’mong people scatter in different regions, then there is variation in the knife they make. The H’mong knives are famous for sharpness – “as sharp as water”. The material they forge the blade are from bomb/artillery shell, railway track, tank steel, but the most often used is leafspring. They are hand forged in charcoal oven with very simple tools, quenched in water and sometimes in boiling oil. Some documents also report an interesting way of quenching by using the red hot blade to cut into the trunk of banana tree. This is to me similar to quenching in oil as it reduces hash temperature difference somehow. Quenching is an art that is practiced for hundreds of years. “You have to know the steel grain/texture before quenching. Different steel has different quenching temprature/color. Take the leafspring alone, in a single truck, the steel grain of the longest leafspring is different compared with the shorter and the shortest one”. Handles are often made full tang from buffalo horn and rivets, some are made from wood. Scabbards are made from 02 pieces of pine wood, often attached by rings in various materials like brass, plastic water pipe, rattan, bark of a certain tree… The knives they made are purely functional and they don’t invest on appearance, then, most of them are in villager finish. They are bought from different regions, so you’ll see the variation in shapes, sizes and even functions.
The hilly regions of North Vietnam – home of the H’mong people. Pix taken by me in Nov ‘06
A peaceful house in the valley. I love the fence with rock and bamboo
A picture of a black H’mong lady I took in Sapa. She is embroidering her cloth.
A weekend market selling everything. Here you see black pig. I heard this kind of pig is intelligent, of proper size to be a good pet in the house.
This is the puppy corner. About $5-$10 per puppy
And this the men’s corner - the H’mong flute
The village forge where the knives are born. In the green mat, I saw some blades, some hoes and some bells for hanging on livestock neck.
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