[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you for your response Gustav.

You're right I do not have much interest in this form of keris, but I do have an interest in how it is possible to be so definite about wrongko age & replaced gonjos and the age of hilt cups from photos.

I cannot do this sort of thing from photos with keris forms that I know very well, I need to handle the objects in question and sometimes keep them with me for a few days. I'm just not much good with photos.

Your response on the wrongko seems to indicate that you have based your opinion of age on style. Thank you for making this clear. The buntut I agree is not correct, in fact, I believe that the buntut is probably something done out of the originating society, perhaps even in Europe or Britain, a knowledgeable examination of the material used might be useful in helping form an opinion with this. I very much doubt that this buntut was made in any part of SE Asia.

The filling of hilt cracks also looks like out-of-culture work.

As for the "hilt cup", I'm more than OK with this terminology, in fact I have on many occasions been critical of the name game; in this part of the world, ie, SE Asia, and also especially in respect of keris, names of things vary a lot, so it verges on being pretentious to use names that might or might not be correct for area of geographic origin, particularly when we don't even know where that precise area of origin might be.

The Bugis keris is a cultural classification, & what I have been told by people who are knowledgeable in this keris form is that there is much variation in the manner in which basic forms are rendered in the various geographic locations where Bugis style keris are found.

But to return to the age of this hilt cup, I have had quite a lot of Bugis style keris in my possession, I bought most of them during the 1950's & 1960's, when I was still interested in anything that looked like a keris. Some of these keris had hilt cups the same, or similar to, the hilt cup on this keris. I have one keris that has been in Australia since about 1920, and that was already old when it was purchased back then, that has a hilt cup that in its details is quite close to the one on Sid's keris, it is well patinated certainly, but not really very different.

But still, the hilt cup on Sid's keris could well be recent, people do replace damaged, inferior & missing minor parts of a keris when it comes to sale time.

As for the gonjo, I can understand why you feel that it might not be original, but personally I can see no solid reason why I would not accept it as original to the blade, yes, the greneng details are not clear, but I would accept this as natural age erosion, the material a rather porous wrought iron, it could have done with a few more folds & welds thrown into it, but nothing about it tells me that I should doubt that it is original, or at worst, an old replacement.

In respect of my lack of interest in Bugis style keris, I'd like to try to explain why this is so. Over the years my keris interest has moved away from the object itself and has increasingly focused on historical, sociological & anthropological aspects of the keris. When I learnt of the way in which Javanese people who were knowledgeable in the keris regarded the Bugis style keris, I was forced to re-evaluate my own position. Later still, only about 25-30 years ago, I came to know a couple of families living in my area who are from Sulawesi, what I was told by people in both these families was that to all intents & purposes , keris culture is dead in Sulawesi, and most families had transferred responsibility for keeping any family keris from the men, to the women of the family, keris had become like any other inherited or heritage item that had come from past generations, it was now the responsibility of women to look after, not men.

I do understand that the keris renaissance has taken hold in Bugis society, just as it has in Jawa, Bali & other places, but the solid societal & cultural foundation is simply not there when it comes to the Bugis keris. Hence my lack of interest.

Thank you again Gustav for clarifying the way in which you formed your opinions.

EDIT

One other thing that I should have mentioned but failed to do so, is that I believe this hilt & wrongko have been sanded and refinished with varnish.