silver keris toli-toli ( comments pls)

[David]

Originally Posted by mykeris

After reading all views, I must say... it is very difficult to determine age of a toli-toli sheath due to lack of research and genuine samples- the new look could be old...and the old could be the other...... I must thank you people for taking the effort posting images of your topi-toli kerises to this forum.

You give up too easily here MyKeris. I am not yet convinced that it is not possible to determine old and "genuine" versions of toli-toli from the flood of new ones that are now all over the web. Right now on eBay i see just the toli-toli for sale as a separate item so that one can simply buy it as an upgrade attachment to your current ensemble. Somehow this seems wrong-headed to me, simply a way to embellish a keris to command more resale value from it. To my mind these kind of thoughtless upgrades are counter to the entire concept of ethnographic collection.
The explanation that Alan puts forth is one that i have indeed heard before and it does make some kind of logical sense. Of course, if that is the case it makes me wonder exactly when this protocol was in place in the palace since Eric's older example is a stylized version that would not allow practical application of the toli-toli (still pretty slick looking though, innit? ). I would also be really interested in knowing what societal level within the culture would wear these. If Alan is correct then it makes some sense that only people who were of a high enough status to actually have an audience with the ruler would have toli-toli on their keris.