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Throwing Daggers

Dawn o the Shed

Senior Registered
Hi!

OK, so I've been thinking about a particular PL dream which I've spoken about here before, in which I am a guy who is killed by having knives thrown at him.

It occured to me to try to find out about the knives which were used, as thy seemed unusual, rather than being a single knife blade with a handle they seemed to have two or three blades each, very thin and pointed, and the "handle" was just two spikes, with a small bar between them. The whole piece was quite small, maybe 7 or 8 inches long, and he appeared to have a lot of these weapons, of slightly varying design.

Last night I trawled through hundreds of pages on the net about knife throwing. The man in my dream was a professional thrower with some kind of travelling show, so first I wanted to know if throwing knives were, as in my dream, thin, bare metal, and kind of skeletal looking. Check, most of the popular designs have exactly the feel I was looking for. The next thing was this multi-bladed, spikey handled business. I'd certainly never laid eyes on anything like that, and they definitely weren't throwing stars. Long story short, I found some pictures which are just about spot-on, it's called a katar
View attachment 380

The thing is, these were described as "fist daggers", so I presume they weren't actually thrown...

So, within our ranks is there anyone who knows about knives, throwing, travelling shows, or anything else relevent, who could shed any light for me? Could these katars be thrown? Anyone know if Indian knife throwing acts were common at any time? (it's from India, different designs from different regions but all the same principle) Any famous murders associated with knife throwers? I don't know, anything you feel might be relevant...!:thumbsup:

As for the time period of the dream, maybe 1700's? The people I was around weren't your fashionable types, more your harlots and ruffians! The men wore long , dark coats, shirts with baggy sleeves, waistcoats, and I think britches and long boots, although it was pretty dark, so the upper halves of people were easier to see. The women wore long dresses, shawls and bonnets, all in drab hues. I don't remember any street lights as we know them, but I think certain houses had lamps in the windows which shone out into the street, with big dark patches where there werent any lamps.

God, I could add so much more, but I'm trying to stick to the knives bit!

OK, over to you guys...:D

Dawnxxkatar.jpg
 
Thanks BessieA and MoonDansyr,

I'd already got as far as the fact that Katars were punching daggers, but having looked at things from ninja weapons to African throwing axes, it seems just about anything with a sharp bit and enough force/technique behind it can be thrown pretty accurately...I even found an article on how to make throwing weapons from bits of sharpened wire coathanger, nails, you name it!

What I was thinking was that perhaps this chap would have these katar-type punching knives as back up weapons and just decided to throw whatever was on his person. If he was a professional it wouldn't be that hard a task to make a katar whizz past my ear into the wall. Although he threw maybe six knives at me before he went ahead and killed me, they were of different designs, possibly mostly just skeletal-style throwing knives, but I remember at least two of the katar-type ones because they seemed unusual.

Come to think of it, they were the last ones to be thrown too, maybe he'd run out of "kit"!

Anyway, you don't learn if you don't ask, so I wondered if someone might know what kind of people might carry this kind of knife/be in that kind of show, if it was indeed possible to throw a katar, or if anything sounded familiar to anyone. I feel the setting was European, in fact probably Britain, the show had a prize fighter and knife thrower that I remembered in the dream , I'd gone up against the prize fighter and done something really serious to my right wrist, then gone off drinking and womanising, my lovely evening culminating in getting stabbed in a strumpet's room over a pub and stumbling out into the street to die in front of my drinking buddies... I'd been suffering with pains in my right wrist for a couple of years before this dream, so that bit stuck in my mind too. I had the dream as a teenager and since then my wrist pains have developed into arthritis, but apparently the bones of that wrist have always been slightly malformed.

I'm steaming towards 37, it's the first time I've spared much time thinking about it as there weren't any names or starting points to speak of, apart from the time, the travelling show and the knives...

Anyhoo, thanks!:thumbsup:
Dxx
 
Hi Dawn, Sorry I can't help you much on the weaponry, only to say I've toured many museums in Europe and know many such instruments are preserved.

I believe early bizaars and festivals were filled with entertainment such as this. Caravans of "entertainers" roamed the countryside, many unfortunately were less than honest.

Peace, The Tinkerman
 
Dawn,
These travelling shows were very, very common, all through British history and only died out at the end of the Victorian era.
They would often pretend to be Indians, Egyptians etc (or actually would be...). The evening that you describe is entirely typical-after the show there would be drinking, carousing and fighting-all a part of a good night out for these folks. The occasional stabbing was just par for the course!
 
Thanks everyone..!

Hi,
Sorry I haven't been around much lately, my TV work has kicked in big-style, plus my night job, plus a stinking cold, just had a couple of days off and spent most of it sleeping!

Thanks for your helpful posts, but I haven't really got much further. One thing struck me the other night, I was watching, completely by chance,"Mystery Men", a comedy super-hero film, Hank Azaria plays this chap (for some reason dressed as an Indian with a turban!) who's "Thing" is throwing forks... The idea stuck in my head because as I mentioned before, people can throw most sharp objects quite accurately. Well I looked up some articles on fork designs and history, and discovered that originally forks only caught on in the 16th century, most people just impaled their food on a knife point, so they evolved from knives into utensil a little different to what we have now, two long spikes.

These are 16th and 17th century forks..

They were also carried around as part of a set of utensils carried in a scabbard. Exactly the sort of thing a travelling man would carry, and a knife thrower could fall back on if he got caught short.... I wonder!!

Just speculation based on the odd design in my dream, but interesting. In the dream I remember laughing at this guy and saying something like "No, you wouldn't dare..", and the combination of my laughter plus his sidekick (I just remember a slim, weasely little man, quite effeminate really) egging him on, wound him up to the point where he just threw everything he had on his person.

Well anyway, have to go to work in 1/2 an hour, but I'll still be online, might only be able to lurk though!

Dawnxxxcapture1121200480602_pm.jpg

twistedfork.jpg

tn_antiqueforkmotherofpearl.jpg
 
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