Richard, you're 100% correct about never being able to see it.Keris pijit that are accepted as genuine all come from the very distant past.
I've seen genuine things in Jawa that are totally inexplicable, not parlour tricks, but manifestations of powers that cannot be explained with reason, nor logic.
Bear this in mind:- by profession, I'm an auditor. Not a bean counting auditor, but an auditor who deals in areas involving subterfuge, confidence tricks, and other rather interesting things. By nature I'm a sceptic, and better than 50 years in my profession has made me even more sceptical.
Knowing Javanese culture as I do, I am prepared to accept that keris picit could have in some cases been made in a similar way to the way I experimented with. The ones that we accept as genuine are in all cases paper thin sombros, or similar.
I do not believe that it would be possible to actually forge a blade by finger pressure, or by hitting with the hand. I see this as the mixture of myth and reality that is perfectly normal in Jawa. It may be culturally real, but that does not make it fact.
The empus of the distant past were akin to shamans.
They were in some cases, nothing like the current crop of people who can make keris.
Rick:- yes, of course, and the vast bulk of "keris pijit" are the result of coming into contact with something like a ball pein hammer. But there are a very few that we do accept as most probably real.
However, nobody needs to believe that they're real. Its all a matter of how you measure something based upon experience.
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