Sword “takit”

The object presented here belongs to the group of takit and embodies the traditional culture of the ethnic groups of southern Taiwan, especially those of the Rukai and Paiwan, whose blade objects are essentially similar and cannot be reliably differentiated today. Takit are traditional blade objects of the Paiwan ethnic groups on Formosa. 

This takit has a simple horn handle and a red lacquered scabbard, which is decorated in the lower part with a row of heads and a human double figure holding heads in his hand. This conveys a fairly clear statement about the purpose of the knife, which is to be addressed as a weapon of a higher-ranking warrior, since the depiction of a mythical pair of twins culminating in one person here and which introduced head hunting in primeval times is only permitted to the aristocracy. The carrying element applied to the scabbard is missing here; it seems – although this has not been proven – that this element was only attached after the head was successfully removed or was partly “modularly” handled, i.e. removed and attached to other weapons, as it is conspicuously often missing from old takit.