Thank you buddy! :) Glad that I can help. :D Thank's to Ketut for his kind help.

Regards,

Detlef

Michael, I do not speak Balinese, I only know a few words, so I cannot give an accurate interpretation of "pengentas".

It would come from the root "entas" which I think has the sense of walking in Balinese, "mentas" means to walk. Logically, "pengentas" would signify a "doer" of the action.

There are some similarities between Balinese and Javanese and in Javanese "entas" can in some usages carry the sense of freeing or moving something or someone from one state to another, for instance "ngentas" is to take something out of something, like taking tempe out of cooking oil, or taking shoes out of the rain; "ngentasake" is to marry your daughter or son to somebody.

Possibly a blakas pengentas is a machete for clearing a way or for freeing something. Tiuk pengentas a knife for freeing something. These are guesses only, as I said, I do not speak Balinese.

With the the explantion from Alan and the description Ketut Karang has given in post # 29 as follow: "...we use tiuk pengentas which symbolize to open another word for the soul,and hope that the soul will get a good way. after we bring the body to cemetery..." is maybe given a free translation.

Alan and Detlef,

Thanks for the further explanations. So I assume that these blades are for freeing or clearing both physical as well as metaphysical objects.

Michael

Good evening.

Found a picture of 4 examples from an auction at Christies 1997.
Maybe nice for reference / comparisson.

Best regards,
Willem

Ps. here is my example.