Keris Blambangan Pamor Nyekrak

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for that explanation Ferry. As I've said, I'd never heard the word used in relation to pamor, but it does make perfect sense, however, I feel that the word is "nyekerak", not "nyekrak". Pronunciation would be virtually the same, but "nyekrak" simply makes no sense. "nyekerak" makes a lot of sense. I have run this past several native speakers of Javanese since I first tendered my opinion on the confusion attached to this word, and all have said pretty much what I'm saying now. None are keris people, but they all speak Javanese every day of their lives.

Karttikeya, the tangguh game is essentially a system of classification, and it involves giving an opinion. However, when we give an opinion that results in classifying a keris as one tangguh or another, we need to be able to substantiate that opinion. When I said that I thought your keris was likely to be Tuban, rather than Blambangan, I was drawing upon a dozen or so indicators that in a perfect example of a Tuban blade would be found to exist. Because I'm only looking at a photo, not holding the blade in my hand, I cannot apply all of the indicators, however, in the case of a blade with tangguh Tuban, the top of the gonjo is very hard to ignore as a primary indicator of tangguh, add to that the cross section of the blade, and there is probably enough evidence from the photo to say I'm better than 90% sure that a classification of Tuban for your blade would be very difficult to disallow.

Now, if we look at tangguh Blambangan, Ki Darmosoegito provides 8 indicators for tangguh Blambangan. The very first of those indicators is:

wangunipun ganja, sebit lontar = the form of the gonjo is sebit lontar

for your keris we need read no further, because quite clearly the gonjo of your keris is not sebit lontar.

You see, it is not sufficient to say --- well my friend has a Blambangan keris, and my keris looks like his keris.

Just maybe your friend's keris is not Blambangan either --- well, at least not by the standards set by the great ahli keris of the past, such as Ki Darmosoegito, and Mas Ngabehi Wirasoekadgo .

If we wish to classify a keris as any tangguh, we need to be able to give the reasons why we favour one particular tangguh above others, and that supportive argument usually includes a number of specific reasons, reasons that we can back up by reference to a recognized past authority. My own usual authority is Empu Suparman Supowijoyo, and he drew upon Darmosoegito and Wirasoekadgo.

With some tangguh classifications we may not be able to quote a past authority, a very sticky tangguh in this regard is Banten, if this is the case, that we cannot quote an authority, then we need to be able to support our opinion with a logical argument.

Yes, tangguh is just opinion, but if that opinion is to have any value, and to be respected by others, it needs to be able to be substantiated.