Thread: Corroded keris
View Single Post
Old 16th May 2018, 11:45 PM   #9
A. G. Maisey
Member
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,675
Default

David, in Javanese terms a blade that lacks luk is considered to be straight.

Some blades that possess luk can be named as a specific dhapur or form, and that form will have the blade characteristics specified as well as the number of luk.

Where a blade is waved but is unable to be classified as a particular dhapur, it is simply referred to as a waved blade with so many luk:- "keris luk lima", for example.

Where a blade is straight but cannot be classified as a particular dhapur it is simply named as a straight blade:- "keris lurus".

OK, so now we need to look at what was published in "Senjata Pusaka Bugis", Ahmad Ubbe.

In his descriptions of Bugis keris with this "sepokal" style blade he uses the word "dapur" instead of "dhapur" to refer to the shape of a blade. In Indonesian "dapur" means "kitchen", in Javanese "dhapur" means "shape, form, design". It is reasonable to assume that he means "dhapur", so I think we can accept that he means design, not kitchen. "Dhapur" is a Javanese word, it is not a Bahasa Indonesia word.

He calls the keris of this "sepokal" form "Keris Sapukala", and in his explanation of "dapur" he gives "dapur" as "Sapukal", which he brings into Bahasa Indonesia as "Sapu Rata", in BI "sapu rata" can be understood as "flat broom".

So Ahmad Ubbe clearly considers the word "Sapukala" or "Sapukal" to be a dhapur.

This is the point at which I disagree with his understanding of exactly what the word dhapur means. Dhapur is a specification. It is not a generic description.

However, Ahmad Ubbe gives the dhapur of "Sapukala" to every straight blade included in Senjata Pusaka Bugis, thus it becomes a generic description, rather than a specification. The description "Sapukala" is given to all straight Bugis blades, it is not used only for those blades with the "young bambu shoot" profile.

Certainly we can accept that specialist collectors of Bugis keris consider the word "Sapukala" to be a dhapur --- even though they use the wrong word to refer to a keris specification --- but it seems clear to me that they do not really understand what the word dhapur means.

Thus "Sapukala" becomes generic, not specific. It becomes a description, not a specification.

Yes, I am being pedantic, and this was one of the thoughts behind my recent "Precision in use of language" thread. If we do not write what we mean, how can we be understood?

Here we have a large, good quality book that has been written by people who are accepted as expert in the Bugis keris, but it seems that they have had some difficulty in coming to terms with the very basic concept of exactly what the word "dhapur" means --- let alone how to spell it.
A. G. Maisey is offline