For Comment #3

[A. G. Maisey]

Here is another one for comment.

[David]

Thanks for keeping the content flowing Alan.
I believe i have seen this gana hilt before. A very nice one indeed. The wrongko appears to be a Madurese version of a ladrang (formal) sheath. Can we presume the entire ensemble is East Jawa?
It seems that most of the gana style hilts i've seen in the past have been of Sumatran origin and i can't say that i have seen any from Jawa proper. Do you know much about what areas these are likely to come from?
I have posted this hilt before which is on a Sumatran blade.

[Rick]

That's a root burl isn't it Alan?
For a moment I thought it might have been Black coral.
I wonder if it was originally carved at the base to fit a cup-like mendak as David's example has.
I haven't seen that particular pendok motif before; it also is very nice.
The wrongko looks like it may have been re-carved a bit at some point.

The dress has some age to it, looks like.
Could you take a guess at the age of the keris?

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Rick, it is wood, not black coral, and yes, it probably did have a selut at one time.

There's a lot of variation in old pendok motifs Rick, mostly they relate to motifs we find in other craft work, frequently in Batik. I'd need the pendok in my hand to give the motif a name, and I do not have time to look for the keris.

The wrongko probably was cleaned up around the edges, all ladrangs suffer damage with wear, so periodically they get cleaned up and repolished, the shellac on this wrongko is old, I've had the keris itself for over 50 years, so I'd guess that the last time it was re-polished was probably 1930's at least.

I do not remember what keris is in this dress, so I cannot guess the keris age, but the dress is certainly pre-WWII, most likely second half 19th century.

Yes David, I think most people would give this as Madura dress, but the pendok is not typical Madura, and this hilt form seems to crop up in many places, I've seen it mostly on Javanese keris, but also Bali, Madura, Sumatra.

I bought this keris in Australia, before I ever went to Indonesia, the dress is a mixture, but the I seem to recall that the keris is a good fit to the wrongko. I'd be inclined to place it as North Coast, probably Pekalongan and to the East, as a place of origin. Certainly not any kraton wear.

[kai]

Hello Alan,

Thanks for yet another instalment!

Certainly not any kraton wear.

This begs the question: Why do you think so?

Only this specific ensemble, based on its possibly mixed origin? (From old quality examples I get the impression that courtly styles along the North coast and on Madura might have been less strictly controlled than in Jawa Tengah; it is possible that many local centres/ports and faster development of different styles throughout time is confounding this impression though.)

Or this wrongko style in general? (From what I've seen, this ladrang type often comes with very well selected wood of high quality; and excellent craftsmanship, too.)

Regards,
Kai

[kai]

Hello David,

this gana hilt

Just a minor quibble: I believe we should drop usage of this name since it is based on only a single source which (most likely) got misinterpreted in the West:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...&postcount=177
(the whole discussion is certainly worth a look and starts around post #130).

It's certainly unfortunate that we don't have any "genuine" name for these "naturally formed" hilts. However, continued use of an at best ambiguous name does not really help IMVHO.

Regards,
Kai

[A. G. Maisey]

Kai, when you ask for me to explain the reasons for my use of the phrase "certainly not kraton wear" you are asking for a 5000 word paper, and I'm sorry, I'm not going to give you that, but I'll try to clarify my thoughts in somewhat fewer than 5000 words.

The idea that hierarchical indicators were not in use in kratons other than the Central Javanese ones is an interesting idea. Personally I find it peculiar, because the entire spectrum of Javanese society is structured along hierarchical lines, that the centers of power in some places may have watered down the observance of societal placement seems to me to fly in the face of logic. If stratified dress standards were not observed , does this mean that we could expect to see the Javanese language also reduced to a single level ?

If the language is unstratified, that seems to indicate that there was no concept of "kawula - gusti" in these places, and that in turn would mean that in the places where courtly dress standards were not observed, Javanese society itself had collapsed.

Interesting ideas, but in my opinion, unlikely ones. But then we do have the matter of Cirebon society to consider, along with Cirebon dialect, so possibly a very searching examination of the societal mores of Cirebon might indeed indicate that in this place the Javanese societal structure, as well as the Sundanese societal structure did indeed collapse.( Cirebon is on the border of The Land of Jawa, and The Land of Sunda, it grew out of a fishing village and in reality had only a very brief period of influence, its populace is comprised of people whose ancestors came from a great variety of backgrounds and locations)

What we might be able to hypothesise is that because the power and influence of the North Coast power centers had been eroded from an early date, the populace of these places along the North Coast felt no obligation to follow any lead given by the aristocracy. For instance, when Amangkurat II turned the control of Cirebon over to the Dutch in the second half of the 17th century, the old power center was split into four separate areas of control. I hesitate to name these as "kratons". Why? Because the word Kraton (Keraton, Karaton) comes from the word "Ratu", which means "Monarch". These North Coast entities were hardly under the control of any monarchs, they were under the control of the Dutch.

So, the common people, the merchants, craftsmen, clerks and bookkeepers probably did feel that they had a degree of freedom in their choice of not only their attire, but also in respect of the way in which they dressed their keris.

I find it quite difficult to identify any North Coast location that was home to a legitimate Kraton after the Dutch took control in the late 1600's. Even before that these North Coast rulers only existed at the whim of either Mataram or Banten.

So just where were the North Coast kratons located in the period following 1700?
Can we identify any local ruler who was entitled to be regarded as a Ratu or Monarch?
No Ratu?
Well, that means no Kraton.

If we consider Madura, there is a "kraton" in Sumenep, but this naming of what is essentially an istana as a kraton is colloquial rather than accurate. Currently it is the residence of a Bupati, as Sumenep is a kabupaten (regency) and it was originally built by an adipati (duke) towards the end of the 18th century.

So, if I say, "certainly not kraton wear", what I have in mind is the strict hierarchical dress code of a genuine Kraton, not the perhaps more relaxed dress codes of provincial administrative centers that do not house a monarch. But even in these administrative centers I would still expect to see some observance of dress codes.

In any case, the fact that the dress of this keris displays a variety of styles is in my opinion an indication that it was the keris of somebody who did not have the need to comply with any dress code. This of course raises the question of whether it could be a dealer's montage, and this is always possible where one has not actually bought a keris from a person who was wearing it at the time of sale. My personal opinion is that it is not something assembled by a dealer, but I could always be wrong.

Kai, I read my comments on the "gana" thing, and I think I know more now than I did when I wrote those comments, however, before making any further comment I would like to read all that went before the comments that I made, and your link does not provide access to the entire thread.

[kai]

Hello Alan,

Kai, I read my comments on the "gana" thing, and I think I know more now than I did when I wrote those comments, however, before making any further comment I would like to read all that went before the comments that I made, and your link does not provide access to the entire thread.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12421 - fast forward till post #130!
(There's a link to the full thread at the upper right hand of the linked page, too.)

Any update would certainly be of interest!

Regards,
Kai

[David]

Originally Posted by kai

Just a minor quibble: I believe we should drop usage of this name since it is based on only a single source which (most likely) got misinterpreted in the West:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...&postcount=177
(the whole discussion is certainly worth a look and starts around post #130).

It's certainly unfortunate that we don't have any "genuine" name for these "naturally formed" hilts. However, continued use of an at best ambiguous name does not really help IMVHO.

Thanks for the link Kai. I don't really need to go back an look at the whole thread at this point because, as i am sure you noticed, i was involved in that discussion and in fact completely agreed both then and now that we are indeed probably using this word in error. Here is that last statement that i made on that thread when examining the text found in Groneman.
Actually Alan, from the translations i am reading here i would say that there a are three distinct groups being discussed. There is a comma to seperate each group, at least in everyones translations. First after the human/animal hits, then the corn or flower hilts also called gana, as well as some tree-roots resembling the human figure.
That seems like three groups to me and the natural root hilts seem to have been mistakenly lumped in with the corn/flower hilts known as gana.
However, it is currently the only word we have. Regardless of Groneman's original intentions or if he simply made a mistake or if we simply have misinterpreted him over the years, members of keris collecting communities around the world all recognize the name "gana" and relate it to these natural root formed hilts. The purpose of language is to communicate ideas. Many of the words we use today once had different meanings. But when i say "gana hilt" to a keris collect, odds are that they will know what i mean. This does not mean that we should not keep searching, hopefully to find a more correct word to use, but the sad fact remains that we may never find a better term. What should we do until then when we want to communicate in words that we are talking about such hilts? How should we go about searching this site or the internet when we want to find examples of these hilts. I would recommend that you come up with a better name yourself and we simply just start using it, but that could take many years to catch hold, if at all, and until then we still have the problem of how to communicate what we mean and how to search for examples. This language is certainly not perfect, but it is all we have at the moment.

[kai]

Hello Alan,

The idea that hierarchical indicators were not in use in kratons other than the Central Javanese ones is an interesting idea.

That's not something I put forward. However, I probably don't understand why you feel this keris does not allow for hierarchical indicators - assuming that they don't need to follow Jawa Tengah mores as indicated by their differing styles to begin with?

You posit that it may be a mixed ensemble from eastern North Java. From what I can see, the fittings - except possibly the pendok - would be compatible with a Madurese origin. Does the pendok make this keris unsuitable for formal/courtly wear on Madura (say, during the 19th century)?

What we might be able to hypothesise is that because the power and influence of the North Coast power centers had been eroded from an early date, the populace of these places along the North Coast felt no obligation to follow any lead given by the aristocracy. For instance, when Amangkurat II turned the control of Cirebon over to the Dutch in the second half of the 17th century, the old power center was split into four separate areas of control. I hesitate to name these as "kratons". Why? Because the word Kraton (Keraton, Karaton) comes from the word "Ratu", which means "Monarch". These North Coast entities were hardly under the control of any monarchs, they were under the control of the Dutch.

Ok, if you don't accept these seats of nobility as kraton, any keris from these regions/periods can't be for kraton wear, agreed. However, also Solo got under Dutch control (a bit later) and nowadays Jakarta has all real power... Today there are plenty of monarchies worldwide which got stripped of political power and still keep representative and cultural functions.

As you mention, also lesser seats of power usually come with rules - either their own or those of the dominating power. Like in Europe, there obviously were local nobilities which tended to claim as much power as they could; allegiances and relationships shifted as did their relative influence on each other; hardly anything was written in stone and new rulers were eager to claim historical legacy (either genuine or made-up on the fly if needed).

So, if I say, "certainly not kraton wear", what I have in mind is the strict hierarchical dress code of a genuine Kraton, not the perhaps more relaxed dress codes of provincial administrative centers that do not house a monarch. But even in these administrative centers I would still expect to see some observance of dress codes.

I agree. So this wronko style would be suitable for dress codes in Madura but against those throughout northern Java, yes?

In any case, the fact that the dress of this keris displays a variety of styles is in my opinion an indication that it was the keris of somebody who did not have the need to comply with any dress code.

Ok, I can see that the wrongko might be out of place for formal wear at the North coast. However, how robust are the underlying assumptions?

Regards,
Kai

[kai]

Hello David,

However, it is currently the only word we have. Regardless of Groneman's original intentions or if he simply made a mistake or if we simply have misinterpreted him over the years, members of keris collecting communities around the world all recognize the name "gana" and relate it to these natural root formed hilts. The purpose of language is to communicate ideas. Many of the words we use today once had different meanings. But when i say "gana hilt" to a keris collect, odds are that they will know what i mean. This does not mean that we should not keep searching, hopefully to find a more correct word to use, but the sad fact remains that we may never find a better term.

Quite likely, indeed. Just with a plethora of traditional technical jargon which got lost in many languages.

What should we do until then when we want to communicate in words that we are talking about such hilts? How should we go about searching this site or the internet when we want to find examples of these hilts. I would recommend that you come up with a better name yourself and we simply just start using it, but that could take many years to catch hold, if at all, and until then we still have the problem of how to communicate what we mean and how to search for examples. This language is certainly not perfect, but it is all we have at the moment.

If there is no established and suitable name, I prefer to use descriptions rather than unsuitable names. This does not exclude the possibility to mention any unsuitable name as a key word for search purposes; in a quality site like our keris warung kopi, such a situation should be clearly indicated/referenced though.

Regards,
Kai

[A. G. Maisey]

Kai, I am not at all partial to the "you said" : "I said" style of discussion that you favour, so I am not going to indulge in it. To be frank, I find this style rather annoying and something along the lines of undergraduate debate, I personally prefer discussion to debate.

One could well ask why this is so, and this is a valid question. If we debate, the intention is to destroy the opposing point of view and very often the person or party that holds that point of view. Debate is ideally suited to a situation where one person or party wishes to dominate the other, to gain the recognition of being superior in one way or another. As our politicians so frequently demonstrate, debate is the ideal vehicle for the type "A" personality to create a false impression.

I personally favour discussion, the reason being that in discussion the objective is to put forward varying points of view without the objective of domination. In discussion everybody can win, a completely different situation to debate where it is inevitable that one party to the debate will lose.

The difference between debate and discussion is the difference between aggression and harmony, and I personally regard this Forum as a discussion group, not a debating society.

I'm going to attempt to make a couple of points, and to put them as concisely as I am able, something I'm not very good at. It takes a lot of time to write both clearly and concisely.

In my post #4 my comment "Certainly not for kraton wear" was directed at the complete keris, not the wrongko alone. The atasan of the wrongko is a ladrangan style, and is suited to wear for formal occasions, those formal occasions could relate to something taking place under the aegis of a kraton, or a local center of power, or of national government, or of some commercially generated need, such as the opening of a new factory, or of some private need, such as a wedding.

There is another way in which formal dress can be used also, and that is to indicate the state of mind of the wearer. If a business owner were to visit one of his places of business in formal dress, rather than in his usual jeans and T-shirt, it would be a message to all concerned that today they had better be on their best behaviour, today's visit is serious. However, if elements of keris dress, or of personal attire are mixed, or if motifs used in personal attire are recognised as carrying a particular meaning, that also will carry a message, a message which might intensify the perceived impression, or of ameliorating the perceived impression.

The vast bulk of all formal keris dress is in the care of ordinary people and is used for ordinary purposes, and this has probably been the case since at least the middle of the 18th century. To look at a keris, any keris, and form the opinion that it could be a keris that was suitable for wear in a kraton, or of any lesser court, is fatuous speculation in the absence of a detailed knowledge of the internal regulation of the particular entity that one has in mind.

As to why this particular keris has a quite nice quality wrongko atasan, a pendok that would not normally be associated with this style of wrongko, and a hilt that tends toward the indigenous belief systems of Jawa and Madura, I have no idea at all, and I will refrain from putting forward any speculative propositions in this regard.

In respect of my use of the phrase that has generated such intense attention on your part:- "Certainly not for kraton wear".

I could have used any number of combinations of words to generate the idea that I sought to generate with this phrase, but I did not want to use more than a bare minimum of words --- in retrospect, an error on my part, as I have now written somewhere around 100 times more than I wished to write.

The idea I was attempting to generate was this:-

"In my opinion the way in which this keris is dressed is a style that I would expect to see used by a person who was not a part of the aristocratic elite of any place, but rather a middle class person who was not bound by the dress codes of the elites who held sway in the centers of power."

Please note Kai, I am stating an opinion, I am not hypothesizing, I am not putting forward the foundation of an upcoming paper, I am simply putting forward an opinion, and that opinion is founded upon my experience. Moreover, I do not really care whether anybody accepts my opinion, and I am most certainly not going to try to convince anybody that my opinion is either valid or invalid. Each of us can have our own opinion, and if your opinion varies from my own, I respect your right to hold such opinion.

Your question in respect of "underlying assumptions" seems to indicate that you assume that I have formulated some hypothetical matrix that permits me to slot this keris into its own little box. Not so Kai, no assumptions, no scholarly examination of books written by people from foreign societies, no academic analysis. Simply reliance upon more than 50 years of personal observation.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you for the link to the complete thread Kai. I've read through it from the point where the term "gana" first appeared. The entire discussion is about the validity of the term "gana" being applied to these natural form hilts. I have nothing to add to this matter of naming.

[Jean]

Just my contribution to this thread:
. The name "gana" for this style of hilt is known and used by all hilts collectors (including Indonesians) so it should be sufficient to validate it.
. According to the reference book from M.M Hidayat "Keris Indonesia - Estetika dan Maknna Filosofi" page 98, this style of Madurese wrongko is locally called daunan (leaves, foliage) and not ladrang (a distinct East Java style). The wrongko from Alan is peculiar because it does not include the carved motif at the back but it seems to be an old style (see a similar piece before and after refurbishing which was collected during WW1 according to its known history).
Regards

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Jean, some people do refer to this wrongko style, when found in Madura as "daunan", personally I have a bit of a problem with this, because the word "daun" is actually Malay, the word "daun" does not appear in Javanese, and the Javanese language and Madurese language are closely related. I do not understand or speak the Madurese dialect.

"Daunan" does not mean "leaves, foliage", it means "leaf-like"; "daun-daunan" means foliage, "daun-daun" means leaves, and this is Bahasa Indonesia, not Basa Jawa. I cannot definitively state that in formal, high level Madurese the word "daun" does not exist, but my guess is that the word "daun", and its derivatives, when used in Madura, form a part of the lower level of language, that would be the Madurese equivalent of Javanese ngoko, in other words, "daun" would be a loan word from Malay.

Now, since this wrongko form is one for formal level use it follows that the word used to describe it must be acceptable for use in a level above common colloquial Madurese. My feeling is that if we were to investigate this matter, we would find that the common people use "daunan" to refer to this wrongko style, but in a higher level of language another name will be used. In view of the historically close relationship between Surakarta and the regencies of Madura, it would not surprise me if that higher level was found to be "ladrangan".

The word "ladrang" actually refers to one of the musical gamelan gendhing structures, there are several gendhing structures, and the basic structure is a cycle of 16 beats, the ladrang cycle is of 32 beats, or twice as long as the basic cycle.

Javanese names for things relate to other similar things, it is a remarkably onomatopoeic language, often the name for something will sound like the thing it refers to, so the elements of the language and the things that the language refers to are in a sense, interconnected.

Now, we all know that a gayaman wrongko is named thus because it looks similar to the fruit, or nut, of a gayam tree. So why is a ladrangan wrongko named after one of the gendhing (colotomic) structures in gamelan music? Simply because the ladrang cycle after which it is named is twice as long as the basic cycle, just as the ladrangan wrongko is twice as long as the gayaman wrongko, it is "like a ladrang cycle".

In the Javanese language, ideas do not stand alone, they relate to other things and ideas.

I considered whether or not I should use the "daunan" term to refer to this wrongko, but since I feel that this keris is not 100% Madura, but rather probably was worn on the North Coast, and since ladrang, or ladrangan is the generally accepted term for a wrongko that has a leaf-like form, I opted for the Javanese term.

Really, I'd be quite happy to call this for simply a formal wrongko, we are writing in English after all.

As to the validity of the name "gana" for this natural root-wood hilt form, I'm with you Jean, the name is entrenched now, even though the name for it might have been different in the long past, why not stick with what people use now? I think David said something similar too, didn't he?

But then was the name "gana" incorrect in the long past? Just maybe it was not. In Javanese the word "gana" has a number of different meanings, and a couple of these meanings seem to me to fit this type of hilt quite well.

[David]

I will add one more example of this sheath form for view and possible discussion. This one holds a beautifully crafted patrem, which to my understanding is a contemporary blade, though i thought at the time of acquisition that i was also told that the wrongko was an old one. This also does not have any carved motif at the back like both Alan's and Jean's examples. Obviously the pendok is more contemporary though. My source is a forum member so if he remembers more about this he might have more to add. Given this discussion i wonder if this pendok would be considered in keeping with East Jawa form or not. Regardless, i do love this little gem.

[A. G. Maisey]

I'd have no problem at all in accepting this pendok as suitable for East Jawa dress, however, even though Madura is a part of East Jawa, and even though a pendok of this type could be used on a Madura keris, it could not really be thought of as a Madura pendok, which means --- I think --- that if we came across this complete keris without knowledge of its provenance we would be in a similar position to the one that I'm in with the keris I put up for comment, and in all honesty, this is the reality of keris collecting and of keris wear, on the ground, in Indonesia.

In certain locations and situations people wear keris that have all elements of the dress correctly matched, but in other less elevated locations and situations people wear keris that are frequently comprised of conflicting elements of dress.

Real life is often very different to what we read in books.

[Bejo]

Hi,

Attached is the picture of the warongko which I think looks similar with the previous photos.

Regards,

Joe

[A. G. Maisey]

Yep, and what we have here is an absolutely typical Maduro pendok.

Tuban pusaka?

[Bejo]

Yes. I was told that the tangguh is tuban. It is quite hard to find East java warongko in good condition but in affordable price, so I also use Madura warongko for my East Java keris.


Regards,

Joe