Actually, there is a Bali-Madura connection.
Way back in time there was a Balinese attempt to invade Sumenep. It failed, and the Sultan of Sumenep gave the invaders the choice of death, or of becoming his subjects. They decided Sumenep was a pretty nice place to live, so the Sultan gave each of the invaders a wife, and land.
It has occurred to me that some of the confusion about keris origins could be brought on, to a degree, by the difference in our European based attitudes as opposed to the attitudes on the peoples of Maritime South East Asia.
We tend to think of water as a barrier:- islands are separate entities , the two banks of a river can well be different entities. This is not the mind-set of the peoples of M.S.E. Asia.
Indonesians of today refer to their country as "Tanah Air Kita" :- "Our Land and Our Water". They do not think of Indonesia as a collection of separate pieces of land, that are islands, they think of the entire area of land and water as their country.
As far as I can determine, this attitude has been ingrained historically. Thus, rivers are not barriers, they are highways, the sea between islands is not a barrier, it facilitates communication.
A good example of this difference in thinking is this:-
we think of Jawa and Madura as separate places, separate islands; for some people Jawa keris are desireable, Madura keris are a little less desirable; however, Madura is a part of East Jawa, and East Jawa is a part of Jawa. Certainly there is water between Jawa and Madura, but that was never a barrier to Madura being considered a part of Jawa, just as the other provinces are all parts of Jawa --- and now there is a bridge that stretches from Surabaya on the Javanese coast to Madura.
Consider:- if all of M.S.E. Asia were to be squeezed into a single solid mass of land, with no water in between the presently existing islands, would we still try to make such a clear distinction between a keris of Balinese style that came from Klungkung, and a keris of Balinese style that came from Lombok?
Perhaps we need to take a step back from our current way of classifying a keris and consider classification along cultural lines, rather than geographic lines. Please note:- this is just the germ of an idea, I am not espousing anything of this nature at the present time.
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