[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you David.

I'm not sure that Gronemann's idea of a "good keris" came from the fact that he was a European, but rather, he had seen what the ruling elite considered to be a "good keris", he was working with kraton makers, and he attempted to provide the material that these makers needed to be able to continue to produce what their lords wanted.

Yes, undoubtedly he considered the high contrast pamor a characteristic of a "good keris", but this was because he had seen this characteristic in the keris that he had been told by both the elites and the makers, were good keris.

He was undoubtedly influential in the later perception of the keris in Europe, so this idea of high contrast pamor being a characteristic of a good keris flowed from him to the interested people outside Jawa.

However, he only passed on what he had learnt, and perhaps he did not get the full story. What has been impressed upon me many times by keris conscious people in Solo is that within the Surakarta ethic, garap, that is, craftsmanship, is given much greater weight in the appraisal of a keris than is the colour of the pamor, if any exists at all.

Whether this same value applied at Gronemann's time, I really do not know, but I feel that it very likely did, as I have never seen even slightly inferior garap in keris that has been attributed to a known mpu of the 19th through early 20th century.

I do understand your unwillingness to state an opinion that you cannot support. I've already said that I'm not able to do this --- which is a pity --- but too often I've said or written something that is really only a thought for further examination and then had it quoted back to me as one of my firm opinions. It just wastes too much of my time trying to explain exactly what I meant when I made the statement in the first place. Probably you also get all those private emails that want to argue about half formed ideas.

You have asked what I hope to gain from this line of enquiry. Valid question.
I was hoping to gain a couple of things:-

Firstly I wanted to get some sort of an idea about the way that people who were not specialist scholars, but rather more or less generalist collectors, thought about and saw the keris within the context of the society and culture from whence it came.

In other words, the perception of these people of the perception of the Javanese people.

This is something that can definitely be argued as being right or wrong, there is an enormous volume of work that has been done on the characteristics and attitudes of the Javanese people, their culture and their society, so if anybody stated something that was obviously wrong in the opinions of the authorities in this area of knowledge, it could generate a lengthy debate.

This was the reason for the rider that in this thread there is no right and no wrong, only opinions. In other words, no debates. If we differ in opinion, simply state the different opinion and let both opinions stand, don't try to prove that one is right, and the other is wrong. We're not scoring points here.

The second thing I had hoped to gain is relative to the idea of the keris gaining more and more attributes as it moves through time. In my "Interpretation" article I stated a hypothesis of what I believed the Modern Keris to be at the moment of its appearance in Javanese culture. Put very simply, it was an hierarchical indicator with the character of a religious icon. Its use was limited to people who formed a part of the hierarchy of the Karaton of Majapahit.

Now, perhaps the first characteristic that the keris acquired from outside influence was its spread from an elite group of people where it had a very specific purpose to a broader group of people who did not understand much about it all.

These people were the traders and merchants who lived in enclaves along the North Coast of Jawa. It is on record that these people, many of whom were either foreigners or first generation descendants of foreigners, copied the style, ways, and dress of the Majapahit Karaton. They adopted the keris and began wearing it, copying the style of the lords of the Majapahit Karaton.

We must not forget, that some of the princes and lords of the kraton were also traders and merchants who were in competition with the people from outside Jawa. These Javanese traders would certainly have known the relevance of the keris, but the foreigners could not have known much at all. They simply copied:- monkey see : monkey do.

The keris then spread from the traders and merchants to lesser people, those who could afford a keris copied the leaders of their society, but these lesser people knew nothing of the relevance of the keris to the kraton hierarchy.

Then eventually Islam replaced the old Hindu-Buddhist Javanese society, original understandings were lost, new understandings were generated.

So, here is what I presently see as the first attribute of the keris that came from outside Javanese society and that produced a new way for the Javanese people to perceive the keris:- from being a hierarchical indicator of the elites, with the nature of a religious icon, it became a characteristic of Javanese dress, something that was worn and used by anybody who could afford it.

Now, we have all these other attributes. Are any of them attributes that might have come from outside Javanese culture, or been generated by ideas from outside Javanese culture, or generated as a reaction to influences from outside Javanese culture?

These questions are constantly running at the back of my mind, and have been for as long as I can remember. What I am now seeking are the ideas of other people. I acknowledge that it may require a little bit of concentrated thought and perhaps a smidgen of research to generate those ideas, so what I'm really trying to do is get people sufficiently interested to take a more or less serious approach to their declared interest:- the keris.