Hello Alan,
Quote:
Perhaps my problem with this term "gobang bandung" was that the word "bandung" actually means "two things together" & also "a pair", & apparently can be understood as "a friend" or "a brother". In Javanese we have "bandhung", same word but a slightly different pronunciation, and that means the same as "bareng" = "together".
Those meanings cover B.I., Sundanese & Javanese, but the word occurs in other Malayo-Polynesian languages also.
So, if I'm looking at a single sharp pointy thing and it is being called by everybody, including old records and museums, by a name that seems to imply "two", where is the other one?
Then of course there is the city.
It would be nice to know what the people who used these gobangs actually called them back when they were popular.
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Gobang seems to be the only somewhat substantiated name for these highland blades with gobang Bandung certainly meant descriptively and referring to the town, one of its main production centers.
There are other types of blades/swords also referred to as gobang (as evidenced from old museum notes). Thus, this name is not really specific, at least not all over Sunda.
Most likely it just is/was a generic moniker for sword-like thingie as in golok, pedang, etc.
Regards,
Kai