A Very Old Kris

[migueldiaz]

as an aside, so when did we [in our islands] start calling kalis-karis as kris? i think this is just recently -- and as far as i know, kris as a term first appeared only in the 1890s, in cowie's sulu-malay-english dictionary in particular.

thanks by the way to the person who pointed me to this cowie book -- yo, you know who you are!

then in capt. woodard's account of his imprisonment in sulawesi (celebes) by malay 'pirates' in the 1790s, 'cress' was mentioned as the local term for sword (see below, and note that the sulawesi kris has a rather curious placement of the half-wavy portion of the blade -- but the birdie was already there on the pommel).

back to our shores, in the 1700s spanish dictionaries of local dialects, we don't find the term kris. rather, it's always kalis or karis.

thus in conclusion, i think it's safe then to really call the pre-moro kris (as well as the excavated artifacts i showed above from other parts of the country), as kalis.

p.s. - but how did karis become kris? as in many languages, contractions happen. for cebuanos out there for instance, they can easily cite gayud, which became gyud over the decades, and now jud.