Dear Hana,
From the Buginese & Javanese's perspectives, the cracks are just forging flaws like Pak Ganja & David had said earlier. And as you mentioned, to the Malays, it's different ball game altogether
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You know what they (the Malays) say, the cracks are actually the channels that your fragrant oils can seep into the body of the keris, thus feeding the spirit......
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David, re the cause of the "problem" I faced in another forum, it's nothing like this at all. Contrary to what you believed, it was caused by them insulting my personal belief / ways in treating keris that contained spirits. To them, the traditional ways (including smoking your keris) was blasphemous to Islam. These ppl could have misinformed you via pm etc thus your infering that I was the trouble maker...