[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Jean, many people do like to display their keris and other things on their walls.

I did the same for about the first half lifetime of my keris involvement, before I finally decided it was not a good idea I had around 50 keris and a few pedangs and other things on the walls of a hidden alcove off my lounge room. At the time I was living in the western suburbs of Sydney, a remarkably dry part of the Sydney area.

I maintained these wall hangers pretty much as you describe, and I had done the type of maintenance you describe throughout the entire time I had accumulated keris and other sharp pointy things. I had in fact gone a little further, and wherever possible I had used plastic sleeves over the oiled surface of my blades.

There were two reasons for the sleeves, the first is that an oiled blade kept in a plastic sleeve can survive for many years without needing to be restained, the second reason is that an oiled blade, even if wiped off after oiling will over time corrupt and stain the wood of a wrongko. Quite simply it is very unwise to store ferric materials touching wood, if oil is involved it damages the wood, and always the wood will damage the ferric material. some woods are a bit kinder than others, sandalwood and teak are both a bit oily and adverse reactions are slower with these woods.

However, no matter how diligent I was with my maintenance procedures the simple fact of the matter is that to maintain more than a couple of keris left out in the open, on a wall costs time, and time costs money.

Not only that, but finely finished wood definitely will lose its fine finish if kept in the open when compared to keris that have been kept in singep and a protective environment, such as a drawer or a cabinet.

Perhaps if one lives in an air conditioned house or apartment where both temperature and humidity are controlled this situation might be a bit kinder than the accommodation that I prefer to live in. I have never lived in an air conditioned house, I like my doors and windows open, and in most parts of Australia that means you live with flies and other insects and dust. In the Western Suburbs of Sydney winter temperatures can go to zero C and summer temperatures can go above 45C. No cooling in summer, only localised heat in winter, frankly I much prefer to put on another pullover, I find artificial heat uncomfortable.

I mentioned that I had around 50 wall hangers in the period before I abandoned this practice, but in my drawers and cabinets I had a great many more keris and other, let us say, "security blankets". I was able to compare condition of the items kept in a protective environment and items kept on walls over a population of more than 500 objects. The protected items fared very much better over time than did the exposed items.

I should also mention that by the time I had decided that I would limit my wall hangers to between something like one or two and none at all, I had been exposed to Javanese thought, close up & personal, for around 20 years. It had become obvious to me that the people I associated with in Jawa who were very traditional, and who also had intense involvement with keris did not go in for keris display. At most, they might place a pusaka keris or a particular spiritually charged keris in a position that was open to family, but not to those outside the family, and that very limited display would be for a very limited period of time.

Wanton display was regarded as very kasar(coarse, rough, unrefined) behaviour , behaviour indulged in by those who "were not yet Javanese"(literal translation). In the most simple of terms, open display of keris in polite traditional Javanese society is straight out bad manners and disrespectful.

I must admit, that this alternate way of looking at things has had an effect on the way I now look at the world in general, and at keris in particular.

So these days I pretty much follow what I was taught in Solo to be acceptable behavior where keris are concerned.

I do not condemn the display of keris by others in societies outside of Jawa, they are not in Jawa, they do not attach Javanese values to the keris, they do not feel as traditional Javanese people do about the keris, in short, they can make their own rules.

To a traditional Javanese person a keris is in fact a spiritual object, it is a link between the hidden world and the world we can see, it represents Mount Meru, abode of the Gods and the ancestors, and in the case of the pusaka keris it is a link between this generation of a kin group, and the previous custodians of the pusaka keris.

If a person can really understand what all this adds up to, I rather doubt he would want to hang keris all over his walls. It took me years to come to this understanding, and I no longer decorate my walls with keris.

But that's me. Others can do as they will.