hi all,

i'm new here, so pardon me if i'm being too brash. also, i would like to thank you in advance for reading this post. one of my hobbies is preserving our ancestor's legacy. it's one thing to consider these items as mere objects, but to our ancestors that made these with pride and honor, these were the weapons that protected our homeland for centuries. they were so adept in it, that to this day, the arts that developed are sought after by today's warrior. on the same vein, a funny experience happened when i was in davao last year. i was taking some private from an arnis master when he informed me two days in a row, i just missed a couple american soldiers that was just going ga-ga when he did a demo on his knife fighting skill. they were so impressed that they wanted to take some private lessons as well. doesn't surprise me a bit, i told him. here in the states, traditional martial arts like karate, kungfu and taekwondo (take-your-do) are being scoffed as unrealistic eversince mixed martial arts was introduced in the early 90's. it was exposed to the public, that your basic boxing, muay thai, and brazilian jiujitsu was all that you need to protect yourself out in the street. it was proven in the early UFC. all arts were invited. well almost. when the infamous dog brothers decided to take the challenge, they were turned down. gues what art they wanted to use. that's right: arnis... here's the UFC's letter to the dog brothers:


as you can see, our art, as traditional as it could get, is getting lots of respect over here. this is our heritage.
another part of our heritage are the sundangs of the past. let me ask you this: how many sundangs are any of you familiar with? you've prolly seen the barong, kris, and kampilan of our moro brethrens, but what about their pira, bangkung, budiak and panabas? going to the visayas, we have the binangon, tenegre, sansibar and sanduko to name a few. the luzon has the baraw, itak, pinuti, falfeg, etc. when our ancestors made these bladed weapon, it was made for the individual warrior. a lot of rituals go behind this process, to assure the warrior that it's going to help him in times of need.


the really sad part in all of these is that we are losing this part of our heritage. when i visited the national museum in manila, they had about four sundangs in display. that's right, folks; apat! and this is even the sadder part. spain, who were our occupier, has a bigger collection that we do.
here they are:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v672/eng...0and%20helmets/
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v672/eng...Madrid/Weapons/
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v672/eng...apons/?start=20
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v672/eng...tar%20Montjuic/
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v672/eng...tjuic/?start=20
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v672/eng...0and%20helmets/
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v672/eng...Madrid/Weapons/
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v672/eng...apons/?start=20

enjoy; and would love to hear everyone's feedback on this.
regards