I went to Jawa for the first time in the late 1960's. One of my objectives was to try to learn a little about keris, and of course to add to my collection. I found keris everywhere, in markets, used as trade marks, in museums, used in dress by virtually every man when he dressed formally.
In the mid 1970's I decided that I really wanted to get involved in intensive keris study, but I was undecided as to whether I should go to the Malay Peninsula for this, or whether I should continue with my visits to Jawa.
I investigated the keris situation in the area of Malaysia that was comprised of Old Malaya, and what I discovered was that a combination of the British presence, very aggressive Islam, and a national character that was pushing to modernise had reduced the conscious presence of a keris culture to virtually nil.
I decided that it would simply be too hard to try to learn anything at all about the keris in Malaysia, so I concentrated my attention on Jawa and to a slightly lesser extent on Bali. In retrospect it was very fortunate that I did so.
During the 1970's keris culture in Jawa got a shot in the arm, when the efforts of several people:- Deitrich Drescher, Garrett & Bronwen Solyom, Panembahan Harjonegoro ( he was not a Panembahan at that time) Djeno Harumbrojo and his brothers, Empu Suparman Supowijoyo, Empu Pauzan Pusposukadgo, saw a revival in keris culture in Jawa.
This revival was accelerated by economic and societal conditions in Jawa, right up until the present time. The Javanese keris culture has now returned to a vibrant part of the overall societal structure.
In Bali the revival was not so aggressive, and probably did not start to really move until about 20 years ago.
However, in Malaysia it is very difficult to identify exactly when there was a revival of interest in the keris, and just what the extent of this is, even today. Yes, there is an awareness, but the impression I gain from the people I correspond with in Malaysia is that the keris movement there is still feeling its way, and that if there ever was a deep cultural knowledge of keris in the past, this has pretty much been lost because of the social conditions I referred to earlier.
It has even been said to me by more than one person living in Malaysia that the keris culture in present day Malaysia has very little to do with keris and more to do with social climbing. It has also been remarked that people raise their own societal position by pretending to have "secret knowledge" when in fact they themselves are inventing this knowledge.
There can be not the smallest doubt that the core of keris culture is to be found in Jawa, and since Jawa is where the keris originated, and where the culture has never died, this is as it should be. However, although I do focus my attention on Jawa, I would be more than willing to gather information from some other areas if I were to be convinced that the information I was able to gather was genuine, old, grassroots information.
Regrettably my efforts to gather information of this quality have invariably failed and investigation has indicated that the information I have gathered from, amongst other places, Malaysia, has almost invariably been of quite recent origin.
This is one of the reasons for my disinterest in keris from outside the Heartland of Keris Culture :- Jawa/Bali.
Personally I look askance at any information in relation to keris that has originated in present-day Malaysia. Possibly some things might be accurate, but then how can that be verified? If some things are modern inventions how many of these modern inventions are there? How do we differentiate between the true and the false?
Perhaps 30 or 40 years of continuing investigation, using the audit approach might be able to give us some answers, but at the present time there are too many unanswered questions for any certainty to be attached to any information coming out of Malaysia.
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