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Old 26th June 2018, 09:43 PM   #4
A. G. Maisey
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I do not believe I can go that far Bjorn, I think if we took 100 or so of each of these hilts, had them classified by three experienced members of a Jakarta keris study group, and then very closely inspected and compared the hilts in each group, we would find minor stylistic variation that would permit us to say that one varied from the other in identifiable ways.

However, if we did the same thing with a group of hilts and referred them to a group of collectors from other places, I believe that we would get an overwhelming classification of all 200 hilts as "raksasa".

The thing is this:- in Jawa, there was a keris revival that began in the early to mid-1970's and grew from the early 1980's into a major social element in Jawa and in Indonesia overall. Analysis can reveal the reasons , and at the top end of the market those reasons had very little to do with an interest in the keris per se.

From about 1990, classification of all things to do with the keris really blossomed, to the point that respected keris authorities in Solo would sometimes wonder where all this new knowledge with which they were surrounded had come from. Over time it became fairly clear that the new "knowledge" was being driven by prestige and market orientated forces.

It is really very simple:- you can create a naming hierarchy by making variations in style into variations in type. Many, if not most collectors focus on type, style can be split into a number of stylistic or execution or regional variations which then can be recognised as variation in type. The more recogniseable "types" you can create by recognising style variation as type variation, the broader your market becomes.

Most collectors of almost anything love classifying. The collector who can come up with the most names for similar objects tends to move higher in the hierarchy of his group. Invent a few more names and you can move up a notch. The desire for prestige tends to drive an increase in classification in all fields of collecting.

The result of all this is that I can see a lot names used in keris classification that I had never even heard of 30 years ago, and these new names and knowledge seem to appear regularly. As I mentioned above, during the 1990's a number of old-time Solo keris experts were similarly amazed at this increase in knowledge that seemed to materialise from nowhere.

I have a very great tendency to disregard the game that we now know as "The Name Game".


In 1978 Garrett & Bronwen Solyom published a small exhibition catalogue, more of a guide book really, that in my opinion is still the very best publication in English dealing with the Javanese keris. Garrett did the field research, Bronwen assisted in the writing. Garrett's mentor was the man who was recognised in the 1970's as arguably the most knowledgeable collector of keris, and certainly one of the most knowledgeable keris authorities in the country. This man was the man who became Panembahan Harjonegoro (Alm.).

Garrett's major teacher was perhaps the most respected m'ranggi in Solo, a gentleman to whom he refers as Pak Bei ( I forget his formal name).

Think about it:- here we have two highly intelligent academics who were instrumental in the Javanese keris revival of the 1970's. They were very eager to get everything as precise and as correct as it could be. Is it reasonable to assume that if all these names that are now accepted as "keris knowledge" had been known in the 1970's that Garrett & Bronwen would have known those names and included them in their book?

Well, now go and re-read "The World of the Javanese Keris". This is a statement on the level of keris knowledge that was current at the highest level in Solo during the 1970's.

Where did all this so-called "knowledge" that we now have come from?

Last edited by A. G. Maisey; 26th June 2018 at 09:59 PM.
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