[A. G. Maisey]

I have been following this discussion, and several times I have felt inclined to add a comment or two, but I've held back on that because really, I have nothing particularly positive to add. The reason for this lack of a defensible opinion is that I do not know exactly what the indicators are for a keris blade that is generally held to originate in Chana.

Chana?

Everybody has been referring to a place called Chinok, but my understanding is that the correct Thai name for Chinok is Chana. I have this understanding from a friend who is of Thai descent and who is currently living in Bangkok. He is mystified as to where the name "Chinok" comes from and his only suggestion was that it might have something to do with helicopters.

However, he is a pretty experienced collector of Peninsula & Bugis keris and he tells me that the keris that are generally attributed to Chana vary quite a bit in form, so much so that it is very difficult to find sufficient consistency in the tells (or identifiers) of these keris to be able to be definite about geographic point of origin.

My experience is principally with Javanese keris, and the Solonese tangguh system only recognises Keris from the Land of Jawa as being worthy of attention, the consequence of this is that when I try to classify a keris from outside Jawa all I have to help me is my own knowledge, and in keris from places other than Jawa/Madura & Bali that knowledge is slight, in my defence I plead that during the 70 or so years I have held an interest in keris, I have never been able to find the time, nor the motivation, to learn much about keris that originate in places other than those places that encompass the core keris culture.

If I apply my admittedly slight knowledge to Detlef's keris blade there are several things that are obvious:-

1) the kembang kacang is a very non-typical form.

2) the shape of the blumbangan varies on each side of the blade, on one side it is boto rubuh, on the other side it appears to be boto adeg; this in itself indicates that the maker of this blade had neither the necessity nor perhaps the ability to carve a keris that could be regarded as being of reasonably high quality. I would regard this blade as of village origin.

3) the very shallow luk if considered from a Javanese point of view do indeed tend to point towards a West Javanese or South Sumatera origin, but definitely not Segaluh, because the sirah cecak of a Segaluh keris is very rounded, and based upon what I believe I can see in the photos, this keris has a somewhat pointed sirah cecak. Additionally, even on the side of the blade with the boto rubuh blumbangan the distance between the center of the pesi and the front of the gandhik is insufficient to permit a classification of Segaluh.

4) If we set aside the Banten keris, the dominant West Jawa keris style is Pajajaran, there are several classifications of the Pajajaran keris, type 1 can have either boto adeg or boto rubuh blumbangan, but it is usually boto rubuh, type 2 has only boto rubuh blumbangan, but that blumbangan normally does nor display pamor, type 3 usually has a boto adeg blumbangan. Detlef's keris displays pamor in the blumbangan.

5) the way in which the pamor of this keris has been worked is not common in either West Jawa or in the Land of Jawa, but it is fairly common in the Peninsula, and in Sumatera, and in culturally Bugis keris.

If I consider Detlef's keris and bear in mind what I have written above, I feel that I would tend towards South Sumatera as the geographic point of origin for this keris. The peoples of the Archipelago did not & do not regard water as a barrier, but rather as a highway, thus West Jawa and South Sumatera are in Archipelago thought very close together.

One thing could cause me to form a different opinion, and that is if we could point to a number of keris that have a kembang kacang like the one on Detlef's keris, and that we definitely knew came from some specific place.