Nan Dao

[Conal]

I have read that this is a made up weapon for Wushu only but there are a number of swords which have a ring pommel, an S shaped guard and straight single edged blade.

Has anyone found one which exactly follows the shape of a Nan Dao?

If so I'd be intersted to see a pikky

thanks

[Peter Dekker]

There are certainly a lot of blades out there with S-guard and ring pommel, but I personally haven't encountered a variety with a straight blade yet. A few were probably made, one sees S-shaped guards and ring pommels combined with many blade shapes in the 19th century.

All I've seen come with curved blades. Those with liuyedao blades are rather rare and for some reason have gotten associated with the Yang taiji family, although hard evidence lacks. I've also seen one with a niuweidao-shaped blade. More commonly blades with this hilt style are shaped like standard dadao or being a variety of dadao with a raised backedge. The latter is so close to the feature found on Turkic kilic that it is probably a Turkic influence. They are referred to by Chinese collectors as "xibeidao" or "North Eastern sabers" because they most frequently seem to turn up in that region which is inhabited by (indeed), Turkic people.

Straight-bladed weapons with ring pommels were encountered in earlier dynasties, but then always without the S-guard and with a long and narrow blade of facetted cross-section. Not like the elongated hudiedao shape associated with today's wushu nandao, so there is probably no connection here.

-Peter