Kai, please accept my apologies for making this matter more difficult than it need be.
The blade of the keris under discussion bears characteristics that make it utterly impossible to be classified as anything other than a Bugis blade.
I doubt that I need to identify these characteristics, but if anybody does need further clarification, please feel free to PM me.
However, there is one noticeable variation in these characteristics that has generated some comment.
That variation is the width of the gusen.
Variation in gusen width in any keris blade can be due to a wide range of factors.
One of those factors is the accidental widening of a gusen when it has become necessary to remove nicks from the edges of a blade. This cleaning up of the edges of a blade is regarded as normal maintenance.
Some owners of keris, and other weapons for that matter, require that the edge of a blade be raised to a higher level of sharpness. The sharpness of the edge of a blade depends upon blade geometry:- the wider the edge bevel, the sharper the edge.
If we consider both these factors together, and then look closely at the blade in question, based upon what is visible in the photographs, it is perfectly obvious that the bevels of this blade have been worked or reworked whilst the body of the blade has not been reworked since its initial fabrication.
Did the owner want a sharper edge?
Or were there nicks in the blade edge that needed to be removed?
Or just perhaps, the blade was made with wider bevels initially, in order to achieve a higher level of sharpness.
At this remove it is impossible to know with certainty exactly why the blade bevels are wider than normal, but my opinion --- I stress "opinion" --- is that the wider bevels are most probably the result of the normal maintenance procedure of removing nicks from the blade edge.
David, to clarify further, when I use the word "revision" I am not talking about a reshaping of the blade, but only the normal maintenance procedure that involves removing edge nicks by re-filing the gusen.
When the Bugis people spread from South Sulawesi into the Malay Peninsula and established a Bugis state there, they took their culture with them. The same thing happened when they moved into Riau. Yes, they often took Malay women as wives, and this in turn weakened the societal structure that had applied in the original Bugis society of South Sulawesi, so in this sense the Bugis societies that were established outside the Motherland of South Sulawesi were not pure in either societal construct or in genetic inheritance.
However, what we are discussing here is one element of the material culture of the Bugis people, and that element is the blade of a keris.
Wherever the Bugis people are found, the blade of the keris that is found with them bears the same physical characteristics. This is not to say that all these keris are identical, but they are all of the same style although they do bear minor regional interpretations of that style.
So, I say again:- this keris is a Bugis keris.
It may pay to clarify something here for those who are not familiar with the way the word "keris" is understood by the people who wear them.
The word "keris" is used to refer to only the blade, and it is used to also refer to the complete weapon, ie, blade + scabbard + hilt.
When we are using the English language, this distinction can be achieved by referring to the blade as the "keris", and the complete weapon as the "complete keris".
In what I have written above I am only talking about the keris. I am not talking about the complete keris.
But I will now address the complete keris.
In keris study it is essential to evaluate each component part of a complete keris separately.
It is absolutely unacceptable to attempt to affix geographic point of origin of a keris blade by accepting that the point of origin of the blade is the same as the point of origin of the scabbard or the hilt. No student of the keris would countenance this approach for one second.
The keris under discussion has a Bugis blade. Geographic point of origin is unknown, and may never be known.
The scabbard of this keris is what I would call "generic Bugis"; others may call it something else. I have no idea at all of its geographic point of origin.
Similarly with the hilt:- it really quite a beautiful hilt, and I feel that it is from Sumatera, but exactly where in Sumatera? I don't know.
The pendongkok? I don't know.
And from what I can read in all the preceding posts, neither does anybody else know.
We can hypothesise till the cows come home, but is there any supportable argument for solid identification of a geographic point of origin for scabbard, hilt, pendongkok?
So far I haven't seen this.
The blade is Bugis, but all the other component parts of this keris are simply the component parts that are now surrounding the blade.
All these parts could well come from different places.
Now, the icing on the cake is a gonjo unlike any that I have seen in the thousands of keris that have been through my hands, or the vastly greater number of keris that I have seen.
When I consider all of these factors I am drawn to one conclusion:- this keris is a marriage, and quite possibly a marriage that was made outside its society of origin.
This is my opinion. I think I've stated it reasonably clearly, and frankly I have no interest in whether anybody agrees with me or not:- we are all entitled to our own opinions, one of the benefits of living in a free society.
Whilst I am not seeking agreement, I would welcome conclusive evidence that clearly demonstrates that my opinion is in error
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