[QUOTE=migueldiaz]
I think it's reasonable to add a 4th one: a greneng, i.e., the blade trap, as I know of no Moro kris that doesn't have this.
[QUOTE=migueldiaz]
It has little to do with the discussion of kris origin, yet here I would like to remark, there are Moro kris without greneng.
[QUOTE=migueldiaz]
And let's add a 5th and final one: the tang has to be non-circular, otherwise it won't be an effective slashing weapon.
[QUOTE=migueldiaz]
Yes, but without any doubts there simply are Moro kris with round tang. You can't ignore them.
[QUOTE=migueldiaz]
(1) the 'elephant trunk & mouth' ['C'] on the northern Mindanao gold hilt is for me a key evidence, that the Moro kris must have been homegrown
[QUOTE=migueldiaz]
These ornamentics/symbols are found at many places in SEAsia, as you do remark by yourself. With the same ease you say this feature is Gandhik with 'elephant trunk & mouth' someone could remark it resembles Greneng. For a key evidence of a theory this likeness is a very week point.
[QUOTE=migueldiaz]
(4) finally, the square or rectangular tang ['D'], starting with the 10th to 13th century pieces would round up the picture.
[QUOTE=migueldiaz]
As earlier mentioned, even early Javanese keris forms and pre-keris daggers also have a rectangular tang. It is absolutely nothing unusual&typical only for Philippines.
[QUOTE=migueldiaz]
In summary, since all these big ticket items can be found on archeological weapons artifacts in our country, then it is reasonable to conclude that most of the Moro kris' features are homegrown (the '70%', if we are to pick a number from the air).
As for the 30% (the finer features of the kris, which can't be found on ancient Phil. kalises), that to me is just icing on the cake
And I can attribute those to Java as the source of the design elements (and this is not to belittle Java in any way of course).
Pls. correct me if I'm wrong. But my impression is that you are focusing on the 30% as proof that the Moro kris was not homegrown. But wouldn't that be a case of the tail wagging the dog?
[QUOTE=migueldiaz]
Here I would like to remark, all on Moro kris looks like a typical Keris-culture-periphery product: the symbolic details from Javanes/Balinese repertoire are taken and repeated in a increasingly ornamental way ("just icing on the cake"), with time progressing in features more and more typical for this peripheral region and mixing with the specifical ornamentics and symbols of this region. Such development per se is absolutely normal and absolutely typical.
Regarding the object from Bohol, the ancient japanese spearheads would give a more appropriate forefather of kris: you could find there by far more features similar to Moro kris. As I see, there (Bohol-object) is no Gandhik (ricasso) at all, and terms Gonjo (in this case Gonjo Iras) and Greneng would be need to be very stressed to fit the features of this object. It distantly reminds the silhouette of Keris Sepang or perhaps Keris Puthut, yet there simply are no Moro Kris Sepang and Kris Puthut, and no Moro kris at all, which would look like the Bohol object.