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Originally Posted by Jean
I visited the Toraja area 15 years ago and there were absolutely no genuine or even tourist piece for sale so these pieces are quite rare to find.
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I wonder if this is not because Toraja really has no long standing keris culture to speak of. When did the keris first come to Toraja? It has obviously been incorporated somewhat into their rituals (i believe into their elaborate death ceremonies), but it seems to me that this didn't take place until the 20th century. This particular highland culture of Sulawesi was rather insular before then. Their culture, architecture, symbolism, specific animistic beliefs and rituals, are very unique to the area. Even to this day they are different from the majority of Indonesians as their culture has, for the most part, adopted Protestant Christianity as it's religion, with only a 5% muslim population. Has anyone seen a well provenanced 19th century Torajan keris?
I searched through some photos looking for some Torajan keris culture. It is interesting to note that in the photos below keris are only carried by very specific women in the ceremonies shown. In some of the overview ceremonial images i see no keris present. The keris held by the singular woman is clearly in Javanese dress. I cannot see the dress clearly enough in the image of the two women w/keris to know if there is anything specifically Tojaran about them or if they are Bugis style keris.
Here is a nice overview of the Tojara.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toraja