Over perhaps a few years now I have read the many and various posts and opinions on hilts made from supposedly hippo ivory, walrus ivory, this ivory, that ivory, and some other ivory. I've looked at close-up pictures of dotted lines that supposedly prove that the material is hippo ivory, I've looked at pictures of vague ivory grains that supposedly prove the material is some other sort of ivory. It seems almost everybody knows more about this exotic discipline of ivory identification than I do, so I have pretty much stayed out of the discussion.
However, it seems to me that somewhere, sometime during the last forty odd years of visits to Indonesia and long wandering conversations with collectors and dealers in keris and other objects in Indonesia, I would have heard some mention of hippo ivory. But I never have.
It seems that in my reading on historic trade links with the Old East Indies I would have somewhere stumbled across some mention of hippo ivory coming into what is now Indonesia. I never have.
The hilts that I see presented as hippo ivory seem to be almost universally described by dealers and collectors in Indonesia as "tulang ikan" = "fish bone", or "gigi ikan paus" = "whale tooth". I've never heard even the smallest whisper of "kuda nil", or "badak sungai" = hippopotamus.
Now, I'm not saying that this total absence of any acknowledgement by the people most closely concerned with keris, and most especially with the extraction of money from the trade in keris, is evidence that these hilts of supposedly hippo ivory are indeed, not hippo ivory. But it does seem strange that if the possibility is there, that these incredibly clever traders would ignore the chance to raise the exotica stakes a notch or two by throwing some hippo into the money mix.
So, is it barely possible that this hippo business is just another collector myth?
Where is the beginning and foundation for these claims that some hilts are made from hippo ivory?
Do we have any good, solid, incontrovertible evidence of just one hilt that is beyond the shadow of any doubt made of hippo ivory?
Or do we have opinions that choose to ignore the accumulated knowledge of the demographic most closely associated with the keris?
Quite frankly, I had never heard even the smallest suggestion that those poor old hippos in far away Africa had been contributing their body parts to the glorification of keris in Maritime South East Asia, until very recently.
I'd really like to try to understand how the whole thing happened.
Can somebody point me at an academic paper, or article, or report where an adequate analysis of the materials used in keris hilts demonstrates beyond any doubt that hippo ivory was used to create just one hilt? Or possibly some old trade inventories that list hippo ivory coming into Batavia or some other port in the Old Indies?
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