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#31 | |
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 3,255
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Hello all,
Sorry for chiming in late. I believe that Alan's initial response sums it up quite nicely: Quote:
However, I'm with Maurice that Rumphius' account certainly needs to be taken into account since it is one of the few very early *and* extensive sources and actually quite similar to the important Chinese reports. Note that he also mentions gold keris hilts filled with resin in an earlier passage. When talking about suasa, he first mentions two other ethnic groups: "Therefore the Malays and Makassarese like to use suasa for keris and their weapons, for luck in war" - obviously this is specifically addressing weapons and not general storage of wealth. I'm not sure wether Rumphius' concept of "Malays" includes Aceh and possibly even Palembang. However, it should be noted that together with these 2 additional spheres of influence, peninsular Malay and Bugis/Gowa weapons are among those which do exhibit suasa decoration most often (and of course, there are many royal/state pieces which are clad in high-carat gold as well)... So there may be some truth to this account. When he goes on to discuss Jawa, he also first focuses on weapons: "the Javanese can produce suasa in thin sheets, and use it to mount their keris sheaths" - with very few surviving examples and likely non-random sampling from that period this may be difficult to verify (pieces remaining inside the Javanese cultures had to be redressed at least several times and this will be done according to the latest fads wiping out any earlier preferences). Only his statement "The Javanese esteem suasa more highly than gold, and their emperor, the Susuhunan, wears it more than gold." seems to run against what we believe to know. I still need to check wether the original context was possibly meant to be restricted to weapons rather than a general comment; since he also mentioned gold keris hilts, I don't think we are forced to decide between 2 different takes on history here... Regards, Kai |
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