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Originally Posted by Jean
Hello Amuk,
Thank you for your interesting information about the origin of this sheath! So you mean the Interior of West Java (Priangan/ Bandung/ Bogor) but not Cirebon, right?
We often neglect the krisses from West Java because little has been written about them.....
I quite don't understand the relevance of your comment about the blades, the one from Rick does not seem that long nor old?
Regards
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Hello Jean,
I'll be as brief as I can, as I don't like to 'proslytize'.
When I say 'Sunda', I mean it in the 'archaic' sense, i.e. west of the river Pamali in the northern-central to the west of the river Progo in the southern-central.
So, in this sense, Cirebon is included.(Remember, its royal household is descended from Sri Baduga's son, who was it's first ruler after he had caused it to secede from the confederation; even though, today, it is more Djawa than Sunda; courtesy of Sultan Agung of Mataram's pan-Djawaism)
By 'highlanders', I mean the people who lived around 'the mountains' to the west with the Bogor area as its 'hub' i.e. generally 'Old Sunda'.
By 'lowlanders', I mean the people who lived around 'the hills' to the east with the Ciamis area as its 'hub' i.e. generally 'New Sunda' ( Kuda Lalean, his people and their descendants; later arrivals as refugees).
Originally, the scabbard was made after the blade and usually by a different person. Thus the scabbard was made to suit the blade and its size was a 'true' reflection of the size of the blade.
So my comment about blade size was in response to Rick's about 'jumbo sized'.
As for the apparent 'mismatch' of size between the blade and the scabbard above, perhaps the most common example familiar to 'mainstream kerisology' is the 'Keris Tajong' . I refer to such 'anomalies' as 'gertak sambel' ('bluff factor').
Best,