THE KUKRI – TRADITIONAL WEAPON OF THE GURKHA
For centuries nothing very much happened in Nepal. The tribes lived a subsistence existence, occasionally fought amongst themselves, and had little contact with the outside world except for some limited trading with Tibet and northern India. Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan passed them by. There was nothing in Nepal that anyone wanted, and the mountainous terrain and the ferocity of the tribes made invasion not worth the effort. Then, in the 13th Century, began the Moghul invasions of India. These people, (Moghul is a derivation of Mongol) were distantly related to the inhabitants of Nepal but had been converted to Islam. Coming into India as traders and mercenary soldiers, from what is now Afghanistan, the Moghuls eventually stayed, and set about consolidating their hold on the country and converting the inhabitants to Islam. Some, notably the aristocratic Aryan Rajputs, resisted. Eventually, defeated by superior numbers, some of the Rajput princelings fled north, into Nepal. Being educated and with modern weapons, technology, and gold many of them swiftly established themselves as the rulers of the Mongolian tribes, and with them they brought the Hindu religion and what is now the Nepali language.
Nepal was still far from being a country, and by the beginning of the 18th Century there were at least forty-six separate independent states, some only a few square miles in extent, all ruled over by a rajah, a rana, a king or a prince. In 1742 one Prithy Narayan Shah ascended to the throne of Gorkha, a hill state in west Nepal. The Shahs were originally Rajputs who had come into Nepal sometime in the 15th Century and had been kings of Gorkha ever since. Prithy Narayan was a man with a vision; and his vision was to unite the disparate tribes and statelets into one nation. He raised an army of Gurung and Magar tribesmen from his own state of Gorkha – hence the name Gurkhas - commanded largely by Chettri and Bahun officers, and began to make war on his neighbours. He was remarkably successful. He conquered; then he invited the defeated to join him in his crusade for unification. Most did, and although Prithy Naryan died in 1775 his sons continued his efforts and by the late 18th Century Nepal was united under the Shah monarchy. Expansion continued, as it had to. The Gurkhas, as all Nepalis who fought for the Shahs were now known, had a standing regular army. This was an unusual institution in that part of the world at that time, where the accepted way of making war was by calling up a levy, campaigning from after the harvest until the next planting was due. A standing army had to be paid, and the only way to raise revenue to pay it was by a land tax. As more land was conquered, the army got bigger and more land had to be obtained to pay it. The Gurkhas moved east into Sikkim, west into Kumaon and Garhwal and then north into Tibet. For a time the Chinese in Tibet were in retreat, but in the long term the Gurkhas could never hope to compete with China’s vast population and resources, and they were driven back to the Himalayas. Now the Gurkhas looked south, to the rich lands of northern India where a man only had to throw a seed on the ground to see it spring up, where the cattle were plentiful and the women fat and festooned with gold. The Gurkha armies moved, and inevitably this brought them to attention of the British, now rulers of most of India, and led to the Anglo Nepal war of 1814 to 1816.
Now the British met, for the first time, the fearsome kukri. It was described as a heavy curved knife, deadly in close combat where its wielder would duck under the levelled British muskets and slash upwards. The British were the world’s foremost technological military power, they had artillery and cavalry and they had inexhaustible funds. The war ended in a stalemate, but once the British had cut the Gurkhas’ military road from Kathmandu to Garhwal the Gurkhas sued for peace. It had been a strange war. Neither side would run; both sides treated prisoners honourably, and looting was controlled. The relationship between the two sides became almost one of affection, and after the battle of Kalunga, near Dehra Dun, in 1814, when the Gurkhas refused to surrender, charged the British lines armed only with their kukris, and were killed almost to the last man by artillery and musket fire with only sixty of around 300 surviving, the British did something they had never done – before or since – they erected a memorial to ‘Our Brave Enemies’ which is still there. After the war the British decided that these warriors would be better fighting for them than against them. The Gurkhas considered the British to be ‘almost as good as us’, and it was mutually agreed that Gurkhas could be recruited into British raised regiments, a relationship that continues to this day.
The origins of the kukri are obscure. It is probable – nobody knows for certain – that it came into Nepal with the Rajputs. The Arabs certainly had edged weapons with a reverse curve – where the blade curves away from the holder rather than towards him – and these may have been derived from the Greek kopis, a single edged curved sword used in the Peloponnesian War (431 – 404 BC). The Moghuls had adapted Arab scimitars, themselves influenced by Greek military campaigns, and brought them into India, where the Rajputs copied them and adapted them yet again. There is no evidence of the existence of anything resembling the modern kukri amongst early Indian weaponry, but there are surviving examples of swords that might have led to it. The Rajputs may have brought these into Nepal where the tribes modified them to suit their own way of life.
The kukri is a broad-bladed, leaf-shaped knife with a single edged eleven-inch blade that curves away from the holder rather than towards him, as would a conventional knife. The blade is heavy, affixed to a bone handle and feels unbalanced to the European. It weighs one and a half pounds and the blade is just over an inch wide at its narrowest part and one and three quarters at its broadest. The scabbard is leather and in the rear are two smaller knives, one for skinning animals and one for use as a sharpener. Near the bottom of the blade is a small, curved, indentation. It is said that this represents the Sanskrit symbol ‘Om’, which has significance for both Hindus and Buddhists, but it is much more likely that the notch is there for the very practical purpose of preventing an opponent’s sword from sliding down the blade of the kukri and cutting off the Gurkha’s knuckles. It also makes blood drip off the kukri before it runs down the handle, which would make the weapon slippery and hard to use.
Most Gurkhas carry a kukri at home and there is a standard issue version for the Army. The kukri is an all-purpose tool, used for chopping wood, digging holes, butchering meat, opening tins and as a weapon of war. It has no mystical or religious connotation and, contrary to the cherished belief of the rest of the world, once a Gurkha draws his kukri it is not necessary to draw blood – (if necessary his own blood) - before returning it to its sheath. It is, however, a most effective weapon in skilled hands. Employed in a combination of a chop and a slice, one blow of a kukri will sever arms and remove heads. Contrary to press reports from the Western Front in the Great War, where there were six Gurkha battalions from September 1914 until they were redeployed to Mesopotamia in late 1915, Gurkhas do not and never have thrown their kukris. The weapon is quite unsuited as a throwing knife.
Every soldier of the British Brigade of Gurkhas today is issued with two kukris. One is highly burnished and its scabbard polished until it gleams, and is worn on parade. The other is the working kukri, worn in combat uniform and used as a weapon of war. Unlike the rest of the British infantry, Gurkha units do not carry bayonets; they prefer the kukri. There is no training manual for the kukri, it is not needed as every Gurkha becomes accustomed to using a kukri at his father’s knee.
Gurkha battalions have around 600 Gurkhas and twelve British officers. These officers also carry kukris, but by custom they may not do so until they have passed the language examination in Nepali. While the modern Gurkha soldier is taught English so that he can communicate with the rest of the army and with NATO and UN allies, everything within a regiment is conducted in Nepali, which the British officer is required to speak fluently.
There is much myth surrounding the Gurkha and his kukri, most of it untrue. One tale, told repeatedly when old soldiers get together, concerns the Italian campaign in World War Two when Gurkha units took part in the Anglo American drive up the peninsula. A German paratrooper met a Gurkha during the fighting for Cassino. The Gurkha slashed with his kukri. ‘Ha’, said the German, ‘you missed’. ‘Shake your head’, replied the Gurkha. While the foregoing is, of course, nonsense, the Gurkha kukri was very much feared by the Germans. Small Gurkha patrols would go out at night and creep behind enemy lines. As there were British, Polish, Free French and Moroccan soldiers all fighting under British command, and as positions were often very close together, it was important to be quite sure that the post infiltrated was actually that of the enemy. All troops equipped by the British laced their boots crosswise. The Germans, having replaced jackboots, laced theirs diagonally. The Gurkhas would feel for the boots of the slumbering men, and if they were laced diagonally they would silently slit the throats of the sleepers with their kukris. Gurkhas are humorous people, and sometimes they would leave one lucky soldier to sleep on, until he awoke in the morning to find all his comrades dead. The occasional eccentric Allied soldier who preferred to lace his boots in the German fashion soon decided to conform to British regulations.
Army kukris were traditionally made in Nepal, hammered out by local tradesmen using what steel they could find – in more recent times from old car springs. On Indian independence in 1947, when the British Brigade of Gurkhas transferred from the (British) Indian Army to the British Army proper, it was considered by those who administer the army that a British army weapon could not be manufactured in such a haphazard way. Tenders from all over England were called for, and detailed specifications for a kukri were laid down. The contract to supply kukris was won by Garrards, better known as the crown jewellers. The product was impressive; made of stainless steel, beautiful to look at and very smart on parade. The problem was that the Gurkhas didn’t like it. It was too heavy, it did not balance in the Gurkha hand and it could not be made sharp enough to shave with. The Gurkhas accepted what was issued, put the pride of London’s kukris away in their lockers, and took to carrying the Malay gollock, a short machete, instead. The army gave in gracefully. The new kukris were withdrawn and contracts let to the bazaars of Nepal, from where kukris still come, at a cost to Her Majesty of less than £5 each.
There are lots of kukris advertised in magazines and on sale at military fairs. Most are not genuine army kukris, but made for the tourist trade. A real kukri will have a bone, rather than a wooden, handle, with brass mountings, and it will feel right. If the blade is longer than twelve inches or shorter than nine, it is not the genuine article. Unless it is a kukri issued up to the end of the Second War it will not have a War Office arrow etched into the blade: many fakes do. The kukri is a general all-purpose tool used by all Gurkhas, in the army or out of it. It requires years of practice to use it effectively, which is probably why other nations have not taken it up. In skilled Gurkha hands, however, it is one of the most effective weapons for close quarter fighting ever developed, and wherever the march of military technology may take us, the kukri will still be there, unchanged in appearance, in mode of manufacture and in use, for killing quietly, suddenly and cleanly.