Keris Selit

[David]

Originally Posted by Green

Not to belabour the point, but I need a little clarification about the 'warangan culture' for the malay area.

I believe the warangan process is done on javanese blades periodically whenever the blade is cleaned. But this is not so in the case of Malay blades... i.e it may be stained using sulphur etc during the initial making process, but subsequently cleaning is only done using lime juice etc without further staining using warangan.

Is my understanding correct? If this is so, this essentially mean that 'warangan' is not a part of malay keris culture as I understand it. Hence any blades that show obvious warangan is most likely not a malay blade. Hence my original point.

Well if you will forgive me for belabouring the point, in post #20 Gustav has give a quote from an academic journal for 1839 that clearly establishes that warangan was considered a part of the process by at least some Malay keris owners at that time.
Then Rasdan, in post # 28 gives a quote for a conversation with a Malay keris dealer in a book from 1916 where he clearly describes the use of arsenic to raise pamor pattern.
Did you not read these posts or do you simply choose not to believe them? They seem to more than imply that at least in some areas of the Malayan world at those times warangan was known, accessible and used. I do tend to agree that at this current time this is not seen as a common process in that Malay keris culture. But obviously it once was.
I will also say again that it is also not possible to identify the origin of a blade based solely upon whether or not that blade has been stained. It is quite possible that even in our current era where it is not in fashion to stain Malay keris, a new owner of said keris, possibly one who lives outside that culture, might choose to stain that blade out of their own personal preference. That doesn't then change the origin of the blade. It would still be a Malay blade that has been stained, no?