Interesting.
My thoughts were (gotta give credit, it was after reading a lot from Vector001), that a longish handle on a light head is the way to go. You get speed and reach, and although the head is light, it does the trick due to the speed gotten from the longer handle. I suppose one meant for throwing would have a shorter handle, but I may be wrong.
alright, i am going to blab and rant - go get your beers and coffee, my brothers in zombie-chopping.... 
:thumbup:
i've challenged a lot of the throwing-enthusiasts who bought my early hawks to buy the longer ones - i wouldn't say that they throw
better or worse, they throw
different, if that is an apt description.
tomahawks are a
very technique-intensive tool - they are also friendly to novitates with them -
but they can do so much more compared to other great things! - once you start knowing your way around them, you tend to start gravitating towards the proper long hawks.
for instance, as with double-edged knives, a lot of
experienced hands fixate on the hawks' edge-holding abilities
(which is reasonable, i feel - but not optimum) when they should also consider that a hawk and a dagger are great when used more like
a Fang.
there are anologues of this concept in our daily lives;
you see people breaking their plastic forks all the time on a chimichanga or something similar to eat,
trying to cut with the dull edge of the tines, etc. - when all they have to do is use a
sewing-machine motion with the fork, and it will cut more surgically through what you are doing than most crap knives will.
no different going to work quartering out a moose.
yet they fixate on
the cut,
ignoring the tooth-like stab advantage.
the
sharpest knife slashed at my
leather jacket is going to take time and energy to get to me -
your hawk is going to hook my knee or smash my foot which will send me into autonomic manipulation by you, while you are
outside my crosses or slashes, and you are going to fluidly transition with your hawk to my sternum, neck, kidneys, hips, or spine,
...and then do it to all my gang behind me who by this time are runnning, and you are cutting them all down with your bit like
super-glued-to-the-earth chickens....
a delicious visual, ain't it, brethren?
winning usually looks real good.
....har...!
.......
there is a danger of comparing apples and oranges too...;
you also have to consider: in the case of the interpretation of
Magua's character in the last iteration of the movie Last of the Mohicans
(stipulating the writers and prop guys did their research correctly, for the purposes of this conversation) - the indians with the long hawks were
high-speed cross-country-travellers (remember the grueling run at the end of that flick?) and they fought in
lots of cover and tangle foot and fought as individuals, in
a poverty of firearms (sounds like Pelosi Paradise and Unintended Consequences to this vector) - they were adapted perfectly to their environment, and that's why the British took such huge losses.
meanwhile, Benjamin Martin's character in
The Patriot, had a tomahawk, which could barely be considered a tomahawk except for the
knife-like bit, compared to belt axes of the time that had a similar profile to his weapon,
but were more massive. - note that
Martin's hawk was almost
perfectly equal in length to his blade (- which i won't go into the advantages of here, in combatives, but there are many to consider) -
anyways!...;
...Magua's hawk was his
Primary.
Martin's hawk was his
SECONDARY.
if you were in
Martin's position, in Magua's environment, with the
same gear as their respective stories -
you know what you sagely would do with that Martin hawk first? you'd probably make a Club the length of Magua's hawk and
go collect a long hawk like the indians on your first Native Camp raid, if you knew what was good for you.
do you remember in Last of the Mohicans, when the surrendered British walked down the wash, while the enemy Natives stuck to the trees
religiously and cautiously? -
only coming out of C & C after attention was drawn away from them? go back and look at that scene, i think it was initiated very accurately in such a situation -
it was probably adated from old firsthand accounts of such attacks, in fact. - that's what i strongly suspect.
both had good reasons why they chose what they did.
"Long Hawk" is a poor description - i use it so that folks can immediately grasp the
main part of what i am trying to convey, in the absence of their experience with proper hawks - my
Mass Ratio/Continuum Observation of a
General Purpose Hawk being "One Ounce per Inch" is really more key than saying
"you need to try a Long Hawk."
Again - look at Daniel Day Lewis' hawk in Last of the Mohicans -
super lightweight head, super thin hardwood handle - no massive head to make that neck snap in combat, or daily use - he made cooking fires with a hawk like that - if a person like that was asked to chop down a tree in those days, he'd cake the trunk with mud, light a fire around the base and
knock that tree right down while he had his daily ration of tobacco lazily nearby.
all i have done with my
fiber-aligned composite handles is make them more idiot-proof
without adding all this ridiculous weight which one must do
(usually) with traditonal woods and steels
to increase absolute strength (and added the accessories like weapons and camera mounts, walking feet, airtight storage chambers, etc.), while keeping to where a hawk shines - as a
General Purpose tool, with a few exceptions
(like the fighters i have done, monsters all IMHO - one of those and a 1911 and you'd be able to take over South America..., just add brain power).
...
I just remember everyone going GA GA over the Patriot hawk when the movie came out, but it seemed rather short to me. However when LOTM came out, I don't remember guys falling over themselves to get a "Magua" hawk.
i definitely went GA-GA over the Magua hawk.
guilty. -
my little rat/engineer brain just instantly told itself to lose the unneeded weight and stress risers in the design of course ...
i am a sick puppy, no need to remind me when Erica does about every fifteen minutes...
....
And again, I'm talking weapon purposes here, not using them as camp tools.
and i think what you have said is rather good, brother.
very good.
with modern materials and a little brow sweat, there is an approaching potential to have it all though IMHO.
and i want it all. 
vec
