The literal meaning of the word Tuah in Malay (and bahasa Indonesia) is Luck.
When you add the prefix ber as in bertuah it means Lucky or fortunate.
Hence a keris that is deemed bertuah would give luck or fortunes to the owner. That is at least the theory. The opposite is a keris that is cursed, i.e bringing bad luck. Many people believe there exist both types of keris. How a keris has tuah or a curse is something I have not heard people explain .
One time a woman friend told me her friend wanted to let go of a keris. She and her friend have no interest or understanding about keris and hence offered it to me. It is a very old spokal type from the state of Perak Malaysia. She did not tell me about the background of the keris but I quite liked it and hence bought it. Much later I met again with her friend and asked him why he wanted to sell it. He told me that it was a pusaka in his family and has been handed down for several generations but nobody wanted it now. And I asked him why? this time he told me. It is because every family that kept this keris always had fights and bad fortunes. Basically it is a cursed keris! The bugger didn't tell me this when he wanted to sell it before!
But it didn't seem to give either bad or good luck to me as far as I can tell. It is still with me.
|