[Gustav]

Alan, my mentioning of 1965 in Balinese context is only a response of your picture of contemporary Balinese as "friendly and personable" descendants of the friendly and amiable people posing with scary expressions in a 19th century picture. Exactly these friendly and personable people, a personificated dream of tourism in the 30ties, were capable of such violence, that even the troups from Java that had been sent to ignite the action had difficulties to stop it.

There was a specific Balinese touch to this outburst of violence in Bali, and it had its roots within the pre-Puputan Balinese society.

Regarding Balinese Keris, which we are able to understand after understanding the Balinese society, some time ago you wrote:

"In Bali prior to its subjugation by the Dutch, we had an agrarian society. This society was organised under a number of minor warlords who were constantly at one another's throats."

And further:

"In old Bali there was an earthy crudity to the society. Even into the early years of the 20th century, both before and after occupation by the Dutch, much of south Bali was characterised by gangs of toughs and hoodlums who preyed upon the unwary.Alchoholism, prevalent drug use, bashings, casual murders. Bali was not the ordered society of Jawa, dominated by the Dutch, and with its refined courts, its professional courtiers, and its rampant mysticism. The nature of Balinese society, and the magic within Balinese society was closer to the sympathetic and naturalistic magic of the older cultures of both mainland and maritime SE Asia, rather than to the refined magic which existed in Jawa, that owed much of its nature to both Islamic and European influences.

The keris in this society had the nature of weapon, but it was a weapon that could attain the status of an iconic symbol within a kin group, or at a state level.However, first and foremost it was a weapon, a tool for removing the life force from another human being."

So far about Balinese Keris.

You write: "As I previously remarked Gustav, I have no problem if you or anybody else believes that Balinese people were warriors." This is an error, as neither I, or somebody else in this thread has stated something similar. Nobody has said, Balinese were warriors per se (well, M.C. Ricklefs, one of the most important scholars of Indonesian history, wrote "The Balinese were (...) a nation of soldiers" in a certain context), or called their society a "warriors society". Please relax.

And yes, Lalu Djelenga, the iniciator of our trouble: "Atau Cekah Solas yang jaman dulu untuk prajurit."