Puffer Fish and Plant Fiber Armor
Posted: April 2, 2013 Filed under: art, inspiration 8 CommentsI was reading about Nauru and found this fascinating picture of a Nauruan warrior from around 1880:
His armor appears to be woven from some sort of coaconut fiber or jute and his helmet is made from a puffer fish. I found another picture of the type of helmet:
And someone in a museum looking at another example of the armor — look at the spear/sword weapon:
And a couple other examples of armor made from plant fibers. I really like the helmet on the one on the left:
And then, finally, this picture… which is probably not from some Native Pacific culture but is possibly some weirdo Euro bondage gear… or maybe a suit for protection from weasels of something:
The 'weasel armor' reminds me that ADnD had plenty of swords +1/+3 vs whatever. But I don't recall any armor that worked that way. Maybe there should be.
Perhaps the spiked suit is something like the armor that John Lambton wore to defeat the Lambton Worm:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvewgtTwXK1qzsz6ro1_500.jpg
It would destroy the sofa when you sat down however.
I guess sofa destruction is just the price one pays for worm removal…
Do you know where the Lambton Worm image came from? I'd swear i read that as a kid, but i don't remember what it was.
No, sorry, I just did an 'image search' on Lambton Worm and that was one of the results. I also suspect that if you walked around in that spiky suit, you would pick up a lot of garbage, leaves, etc., on the spikes, which would interfere with the scary look you were going for. Porcupine armor.
Funnily enough, I just incuded that last image on my blog recently
http://middenmurk.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/shopping-list.html
The source from which I leaned it claimed it to be a bear hunting suit, though I'd suggest it is either incomplete or there is some special technique the wearer has of preventing the bear biting off you hands.
As to the others, is not truth a darn sight stranger than fiction? There are other extremely funky primitive armours out there of exotic materials, and weapons too. Someone needs to release an awesome stone age supplement that collects all the intriguing permutations there are out there of arms and armour made without metal.
Tom: Thank you for the amazing list! There are some really amazing things on your shopping list — hopefully the bear-suit gloves are just missing.
I recall the book as well – http://hypnogoria.blogspot.com/2015/06/great-ghosts-of-shelves-special.html?m=1
Nice article