Old Tajung Keris(es?)

[Gustav]

The Pendokok of Tajong was a bipartite construction, consisting of Teming (one of Tajong kayoba84 show has a proper Teming) and a hilt cup. If we see a suassa Teming, we can be sure hilt cup was made of equally valuable material, and in most cases has been sold, pawned... or whatever. Somewhere on forum there is a picture of such hilt cup in a Malayan museum (or ACM?). A museum in Basel owns one complete ensemble, the best Tajong ever.

Becouse of the loss of hilt cup the Tajong hilt (with or without Teming) sits to low on Pesi.

The second example kayoba84 shows us in his last post is quite typical hilt cup from Terengganu, yet with slightly elongated proportions. I doubt though, it was originally intended to be a hilt cup for this Tajong (which had a Teming in his past). The rest are Malayan Bugis style Pendokok, not intended for Tajong, and one specimen, which could be a younger version of Tajong hilt cup. Difficult to judge from the picture.

[Gavin Nugent]

Gustav,

Thank you for the enlightenment in your post.

If I understand the detail you have written and I use the image attached, the Teming is only the plain metal wrapping and the Pendokok is then the more decorative cover over the Teming?
What is the reference citing this? I ask as 90% of my books are currently in storage and the best reference I have at hand being "Spirit of Wood" does not note this in the glossary of terms?

With thanks

Gavin

[Green]

Originally Posted by Gavin Nugent

If I understand the detail you have written and I use the image attached, the Teming is only the plain metal wrapping and the Pendokok is then the more decorative cover over the Teming?

Gavin

Treming is an accepted standalone as an alternative to pendokok for tajong hilt. Many tajong keris in Kelantan and Patani have suasa or silver teming and in fact some prefer teming rather than pendokok. Once you decide to put teming, you do not put pendokok over it.

incidentally the a friend recently made a watercolor of the hilt you showed. I was wondering where he based his warercolor from !!! ...

[kai]

Hello Nik,

Treming is an accepted standalone as an alternative to pendokok for tajong hilt. Many tajong keris in Kelantan and Patani have suasa or silver teming and in fact some prefer teming rather than pendokok. Once you decide to put teming, you do not put pendokok over it.

Just to clarify, treming was just a typo, isn't it? BTW, what does teming mean?

A pendokok seems to work well with a round buah pinang which is quite rare with tajong hilts; would you agree that tajong with slender/conical buah pinang look better with teming?

The splendid Basel tajong hilt shown above does have a double construction of a simple cup (a bit different from the usual teming) and, apparently, a separate de luxe pendokok from gold... Any other antique high-end examples extant that exhibit complex hilt fittings?

Regards,
Kai

[rasdan]

Originally Posted by kai

Hello Nik,


Just to clarify, treming was just a typo, isn't it? BTW, what does teming mean?

A pendokok seems to work well with a round buah pinang which is quite rare with tajong hilts; would you agree that tajong with slender/conical buah pinang look better with teming?

The splendid Basel tajong hilt shown above does have a double construction of a simple cup (a bit different from the usual teming) and, apparently, a separate de luxe pendokok from gold... Any other antique high-end examples extant that exhibit complex hilt fittings?

Regards,
Kai

Kai, teming/temi is a variation of pronounciation spoken by East Coast Malaysian. The correct word in standardised Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia is Temin. Which means some sort of a metal sleeve to reinforce hilts or spear shafts. Below are the entry for temin in both in Bahasa Malaysia and Indonesia.

http://prpm.dbp.gov.my/Cari1?keyword=temin

http://kbbi.web.id/temin

To digress a bit. Recently collectors in Malaysia have started using the word "akuk" or "akut" (which does not appear in the dictionary) to refer to belalai gajah. I think this word is also pronounced according to the Malaysian east coast dialect.

In my opinion the word is actually "angkup" (which is listed in the dictionary) where it refers to the shape of the belalai gajah that resembles a small picker. This instrument is however, modern. Probably in old Malay the word angkup was used to describe something that is shaped like a picker, or it means "closed" - "bertangkup" in Malay. Below is a picture of an angkup.

[kai]

Hello Rasdan,

Thanks, that helps!

teming/temi is a variation of pronounciation spoken by East Coast Malaysian. The correct word in standardised Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia is Temin. Which means some sort of a metal sleeve to reinforce hilts or spear shafts.

So basically we can just translate this into English as ferrule since it has no specialized connotations and concentrates on function rather than stylistic details.

Regards,
Kai

[rasdan]

Originally Posted by kai

Hello Rasdan,

Thanks, that helps!


So basically we can just translate this into English as ferrule since it has no specialized connotations and concentrates on function rather than stylistic details.

Regards,
Kai

You're welcome Kai. Yes, the direct translation is ferrule.

[Gustav]

Originally Posted by kai

The splendid Basel tajong hilt shown above does have a double construction of a simple cup (a bit different from the usual teming) and, apparently, a separate de luxe pendokok from gold...

Kai, may I ask you to explain the bit of difference of the Basel Tajong's "simple cup" and an "usual" Teming?

Thank you very much.

[kai]

Hello Gustav,

Kai, may I ask you to explain the bit of difference of the Basel Tajong's "simple cup" and an "usual" Teming?

In the tajong hilts with slender/conical buah pinang, the temin/ferrule seems to have the function to avoid damage to the buah pinang (which seems to be very prone to fatal splitting - more so than in most other keris hilts IME).

The cup style is close to a plain Sumatran selut/pendokok and without offering any structural support it won't really help to avoid splitting of the buah pinang.

Arguably, the functional difference of a ferrule vs. cup may not be much of a consideration for the very high-end examples like the one in Basel since a splendid look may be much more important than function...

Regards,
Kai

[Gustav]

Thank you, Kai.

It seems to me we are looking at the same thing, Teming. In visible parts there is no difference, about the part hidden by hilt cup we can only speculate. Kayoba's Teming is a little bit elongated (for an example, which doesn't cover whole Buah Pinang).