Knife & Folk

The Malappuram Kathi has always had a larger-than-life allure to it with its razorsharp blades steeped in history and popular imagination. The knife, used as a utility knife in south Malabar for centuries by people cutting across communities, gained in stature during the 19th and 20th centuries, made its way to traditional lore, and later got ingrained in popular culture, even making its way into cinema dialogues.

Thus, it became our equivalent to the traditional Nepalese Kukri Knives or Oman’s Khanjar dagger, the famed knives of the world that had inspired both fear and fascination. No wonder that a recent note by historian Dr Hussain Randathani, who has dug up more details about the traditional knife, has renewed interest in the agriculture knife-turned-war weapon after he recently shared it on social media. The knife was particularly dreaded by the British during the Malabar Rebellion, with Mappila fighters effectively using it as a close-combat weapon.

Randathani says that the Malappuram Kathi also went by the name Pishan Kathi. The knife, which had a length of 25–30 cm and had handles made from deer antlers, had been inspired by the traditional knives used in Oman and Persia, which made their way to the Malabar coasts on the back of centuries-old trade relations with Arabia.

“It was a knife used by farmers in south Malabar. It became popular among betel farmers and those who were engaged in plucking coconuts. Also, the finer versions of the knife, which had brass embellishments in the handle, were worn as a status symbol on their belts by many, including elders,” says Randathani. Randathani says that he chanced upon extensive mentions of the knife in British records during the research for his doctoral thesis on the “Social and Cultural Life of Mappila Muslim of Malabar (1800 1921)” which triggered his interest in the knife.

“To see such mentions about an ordinary knife in British records, especially in the reports on “Correspondence on Moplah outrages in Malabar,” spurred my interest, which made me collect further details about the knife, especially by looking into oral history. What emerged was the story of an ordinary agriculture utility knife that had an Arabian lineage earning a place in the history of the land,” he said.

Though it was not military-grade or a combat knife, during the Malabar rebellion, the fighters from Malabar, especially the peasantry, used it as a weapon against the British and whatever they could lay their hands on, including sticks. “They used to take on gun-wielding British soldiers and would grab the guns and stab them to death with their knives or beat them to death with the butt of the guns, as rebels did not know how to use guns. The British panicked on witnessing the ferocity with which the knife-wielding rebels pounced on the soldiers and killed them with repeated stabs. Even some believed that the knives had some occult charm,” Randathani says in the note he shared on social media.

The extent of the unnerving the knife caused among the British is evident from the mentions in the “Correspondence on Moplah outrages in Malabar 1849–53,” including the report submitted by British Special Commissioner T L Strange to judicial department secretary T Pycrift on September 25, 1852. “The particular weapon of the Moplahs is a war knife. This is a very telling weapon, having no object but that of taking life. On the occasion of these outbreaks, they made these knives excessively sharp and lashed them firmly to the hand, sometimes bearing one in each hand. All that is needed to make them effective is strength and resolution, which the Moplahs abundantly possess. It appears to me imperative to abolish this dangerous instrument, and if this can be done, the fanatics, when otherwise armed, would be by no means as formidable as they have been,” it is said in the report.

Randathani says that, however, the British officers had differences of opinion on banning the Pishan Kathi as it was a utility knife used for domestic purposes. “Among the clauses of the Act, I have inserted one for prohibiting the wearing of the Pishan cutty or domestic knife. This is in the form of a table or carving knife, but stouter, and is not uncommonly an actual table knife. It is carried out ostensibly to cut coconuts, sticks, betel, etc., but is in effect, really a dagger and has been often used as such. It forms, of course, a most ready instrument of offence, and I need not point out how much the spirit to seek vengeance by bloodshed is engendered and kept up by the consciousness of ever having a murderous weapon like this at hand. I would merely interdict that it is being worn as a weapon and allow the people to make use of it in their houses or elsewhere as their exigencies may require,” the report said. According to Randathani, the Mappila fighters used to take the knives to the religious leaders, who would perform some rituals to infuse them with divine powers and would take them to dargahs or the Thangal and perform prayers, following which the knives were handed over to the leaders of the rebellion.

Randathani says that the knife was confiscated widely in Malabar in the searches held following the killing of collector H V Conolly, along with other weapons. It is another story that to crush the Malabar Rebellion, the British employed the Kukri-knife-wielding Gurkha regiment, which used the knife indiscriminately, especially against Muslims in Malabar. Randathani says that over a period of time, the utility knife from south Malabar, owing to its depictions in literature and cinema, came to be regarded as a weapon or tool exclusively of Malappuram and that too of Malappuram Muslims.

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