To wear versus to hide

[kai]

Hello Neo,

I believe that in the beginning, kerises are meant to be worn as part of the owner's attire in order for its supposed power to work - charm, protection, prosperity, etc. Despite the lack of historical manuscripts about this from the Majapahit era and earlier, I am taking the liberty of making this deduction as some keris designs are definitely not combative - some have elaborate carvings that will definitely break in high-impact situations. I am supposing that these kerises are made for talismanic or amulet purposes.

There are enough historic sources that Malays/Indos were just too willing to pull out their keris and to stab with them at any perceived slighting. Thus, besides all those other functions of keris, don't write off their function as an EDC self defense weapon for most of the archipelago until fairly recently. Even in central Jawa, the cultural change that a keris should never be used as a weapon seems to be not that old (and possibly was not universally followed anyway ).

For the pre-Islamic keris, there seems to be no doubt that keris were meant to be worn and seen as well as to protect their owners by scaring away evil (demonic hilts, etc.) one way or another...

For those who could afford more than a few keris which could be worn at the same time, there will always have been the tendency to store them away from the public, especially in the keraton setting (not limited to central Jawa but again hardly more than common sense if your ruling position was based on your posession of a pusaka). However, I suspect that the notion of hiding a keris for it becoming more powerful (rather than hiding the blade to avoid broadcasting one's intentions in life) is a modern development (possibly limited to certain circles?).

Regards,
Kai