The Men Who Used to Store Ninja Disks On Their Turbans

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Turbans are badass, they’re like the bastard child of a crash helmet and a wizard’s hat, made of silk. As if that wasn’t awesome enough, a hundred years ago, some people used to store kick-ass weaponry on top of and inside them.

If the image of a Sikh man with a glorious flowing beard whipping a ninja disk from the towering mountain of silk resting on his head and winging it towards someone’s throat like a more bearded version of Xena the warrior princess doesn’t make you immediately picture the word “BADASS” written in Iron Maiden album covers, you should probably close your laptop and think about how you really live your life.

For everyone else, this very specific and rare type of turban was known by Sikh warriors as a dastaar boonga which literally translates into our, lesser tongue as “towering fortress”. It wasn’t unheard of for some warriors to carry dozens of different weapons ranging from throwing knives to actual swords in these luxurious silken head holsters.

Even more amazing is that a single towering fortress turban usually consisted of nearly 40 metres of material, which was expertly wrapped around a warrior’s melon and then stuffed full of weaponary, because when you’re carrying over a hundred feet of silk around your head, you need to fill it full of knives and things you could use to straight up stab a guy in the colon. Because reasons.

Unsurprisingly, Sikh warriors wearing such elaborate turbans are a rare sight today, however, some men do continue to wear them, albeit with far less sweet-ass ninja weaponry shoved inside. Now be honest, did you really click this link expecting to learn that there are people alive today currently wearing 6ft tall turbans possibly filled to the brim with knives?