[A. G. Maisey]

Understood, but Sombros do not have this form.

In fact, there is more than a little confusion about Sombros, even in Ensiklopedi the picture is wrong.

They are thin, thin as a piece of paper, they MUST have the hole in the end of the pesi, or at least the remnant of the broken hole, they do not have strange lumps sticking out from them, technically, the dhapur is brojol. The material from which Sombros are made is usually very select material, although paper thin, the material is dense and tightly forged, what we call "padat". The material in this keris is very hot short material, look at all the cracks in it, this is very poor, probably uncleaned, material. My guess is that the material itself had some esoteric value for the person who forged, or had forged, the blade, so the quality of the material was secondary to its esoteric value.

The childbirth thing with Sombros is that when a woman is about to give birth the keris is placed under her bed, or if just a mattress or tikar on the floor, under that, and the presence of the keris helps an easy birth.

Using the keris, any keris, to cut the umbilical cord is not general, in fact I have never heard of it. Keris are not really intended to cut, and are not regarded in a similar way to any kind of knife.

A lot of the comment we read about keris in both published hardcopy, and on the net is pure invention, imagination, and that invention has multiplied beyond all reason since the advent of the net.

If somebody tells us something about keris, we should always ask who their teachers were. How & where did they learn this previously unknown information.

Info from Kyai Susesewong who visits in dreams on Kamis Legi is just not good enough.