What do the holes mean??

[A. G. Maisey]

David, the blades that Dave has shown are fair enough representations of kudi and kujang, of course the arit-like blade does not belong, and possibly that one is not Madura, although the carving of the sheath looks pretty much like Sumenep work.I do not know of anywhere else in Indonesia that produces things that look like these other than Madura. The stuff that comes out of Bandung looks totally different.

There is a lot of variation in kudi, I haven't handled all that many kujang, but according to what is written on them, there is a lot of variation in kujang forms as well.But anyway, what we are looking at here can be taken as good representations of kudi and kujang. But that arity thing is more contemporary.

Regarding the holes, its as I said:- there are variations. I think Harsrinuksmo shows a drawing of a kudi with six holes. Yeah, sure, we could reasonably expect to see all odd numbers, but the simple fact of the matter is that we do not know what was going on with the holes. Before Mark drew my attention to the holes, I'd never much thought about them. There are many ways the numbers can be interpreted, and its no big trick to move in a different direction and interpret in ways other than the maculine identity.

One thing that Javanese culture does provide is multiple ways to interpret anything, but when there is nowhere to start no one way of interpretation can be more favoured than any other.

Hindu? Islamic? Indigenous? Who knows?

Religion? Magic? Numerology? Who knows?

The people who did actually know all died a few hundred years ago.