i was just browsing thru Youtube after loading a video of my hooded poncho liner and i had a look at the "big knives" movies.
outside of the safety issues i was thinking that whacking away at a log to cut it was a major calorie burn,these guys were really working up a sweat.i would think you would want to save as much energy as possible in a survival situation.
any ideas about that?

You must be refering to that nuttin fancy dude on youtube. According to him a knife is useless unless it can baton through logs a couple of feet in diameter.

I used to be a big knife fanatic, But I have long since realized I can achieve the same result from breaking dry wood by hand/foot and that most of the value in batoning/chopping with a knife is just for show and not really necessary.

It is kinda fun dropping a tree and batoning it up into pieces for the fire. It isn't a bad thing to know how to do but in a true life or death situation I believe I would try to get the fire going while expending the least amount of effort.

I think there is considerable value in batoning wood to get appropriate thickness of fuel to get a fire started.

Personally, I am not in favor of chopping a branch to get it to length. Let the fire do the work and burn it in half.

If I have to get something to length a small folding saw will usually do a far easier job of it than chopping with anything - even an expensive Scandinavian ax.

I disagree with ILbob's first point and agree with his second.

Wood grows in all sizes in nature. There is some thought that you can split dry kindling from the center of a larger piece when everything is wet, but if you have good, long burning tinder you don't need to.

On the second point, you're dead-on. Start at the top of a long dead tree and work your way down to the thick end, burning as you go.

Given the same thickness a split piece will be a lot easier to ignite than round branch, make getting a fire going much easier in less than ideal conditions. But for that you really don't need a big knife.

I think it depends on where you live but for me I have never needed to baton wood ever. I think it has something to do with the romantic and burly man survival BS that people get fed.

It becomes a "idea" that If you have nothing but your knife and your firesteel suddenly Round dead branches and twigs and such become Fire retardant and the only thing that will burn is that nicely split manly wood logs the size of 100 year old tree trunks.

On the other hand if you DO live in a area where maybe there isnt a whole ton of fallen limbs or trees or such there may be a reason to split wood if only to ration it. Where this kinda place would be I have no clue as if you have trees Im sure youll have fallen limbs.

I also forgot to mention that you can always make a wedge and use a small blade to do the same job and ditch that extra pound of weight.

I just don't "get" batoning. I have built countless fires, using the local resources, and I have never, ever had to baton anything, not even close. Several of these have been under what could charitably termed adverse circumstances. Stomping wood with your boots or dropping a rock on a branch and gathering up the pieces works every time. Maybe it is an excuse to purchase a nice manly blade.

Nowadays, for the weight of the axe, hatchet , or knife, I can carry a stove and enough fuel to go for at least two days, if not more.

Most, if not all, primitive cultures who actually lived in the woods had big knives.

Examples include parangs in Malaysia, kukris in Nepal, tapangas in Africa, and machetes in South and Central America.

Lest someone would say that these are all just 'jungle knives', here is a reproduction of a knife from Europe used between the 13th and 17th centuries. It is over 10" long.

I think the question should be; What did they know about survival knives that we don't?

I think the elephant in the room is the adjunct use of a nice hefty knife as an effective weapon. To that list you could add the Roman gladius, or short sword. It wouldn't surprise me if the groups you list are also more actively engaged in active harvesting and processing of their surroundings than the typical person in our current society.

It's a lot easier to open a coconut with a forward-weighted blade, and that's important because you can't make haupia without coconut milk. ;D

I have the suspicion that in the original cultural context these blades are not regarded as "survival knives," which to us is somehow a special category. They are probably just tools people use regularly, and if you go into the jungle or the woods, you carry the one you normally use for chopping, because you might have to do some chopping there. It wouldn't be unimaginable to carry a smaller knife also, for the more delicate tasks. Alternatively, one could try to make do with the big knife and throw delicacy to the four winds.

A caveat: my familiarity with the original cultural contexts usually involves fruit vendor grannies using the sort of big knife we're talking about to open fruits for me.

A thought: maybe this is environment-dependent? In tropical areas, there are more vines and soft branches, which a machete-like instrument can chop. In northern woodlands, however, you may prefer a hatchet/knife pair.

Can you cut soft hanging vine with a hatchet? Maybe that's a problem.