keris and spirit

[A. G. Maisey]

In Jawa, meteorites were welded for use as keris pamor by making a package of small pieces wrapped in iron, welding the meteorites into the iron, and then repeatedly folding and welding the iron with the meteorite pieces in it, thus removing the impurities.This produced the base material which could then be used with more iron, or without, for the pamor.

I do not know of any current era keris makers who have welded meteoritic material to make pamor material.

Some years ago I welded some meteoritic material to produce a solid ingot of meteoritic material. I did not incorporate it into iron prior to welding it, but welded the small pieces of meteoritic material together, and then repeatedly folded and rewelded these to produce a solid, clean piece of pure meteoritic material. This was passed to a maker in Surakarta to produce a keris using this as pamor material. I was dissatisfied with this keris and it was sold to (I believe) the Ambassador for Venezuela to Indonesia. There was sufficient material for a second keris, and with this second keris I worked more closely with the maker, and a satisfactory blade was produced.

It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make a piece of pamor material exclusively of meteoritic material, in the usual type of forge used in Jawa.