A Very Old Kris

[Sajen]

Very nice archaic blade! And beautiful patinated ivory pommel. Wouldn't be so sure that it never have had minimum one asang. The wrapped part of the handle seems modified at some point of it's history. Do you plan to give it a sheath?

Regards,

Detlef

[Battara]

Great and interesting find! Great to find a tang like this.

I wonder if it had an asang-asang originally but early on was taken off.

[Spunjer]

Too bad that the the "elephant trunk" has lost the tip of it's trunk...

yeah, i was hoping it was intact. i'm always curious about those trunks on older krises; they have a certain look...

Do you plan to give it a sheath?

hello detlef. no, i'm just gonna leave it au naturel, but if i'm always keeping an eye for original scabbards. hopefully, i'll come across for something that would fit this.

I wonder if it had an asang-asang originally but early on was taken off.

i'm with you on this jose. but it appears to be that after it was removed, no one bothered to replace it. my thinking was, at that point, asang2x was probably a novelty somewhat

[Battara]

Also it more difficult to replace one than one might imagine (believe me I've done it plenty of times).

[migueldiaz]

very interesting, ron! thanks.

i'm particularly intrigued by the tang's square to semi-round cross section, because this 10th to 15th century visayan kris which was discussed somewhat extensively here in the forum already shows a square cross section (see illustration below).

on the other hand, i don't doubt the antiquity of the kris above.

but i'm no expert on krises. hence this visayan kris is being shown just for additional inputs ...

[migueldiaz]

for another quick reference, here's a 10th to 13th century northern mindanao gold hilt, where we see the 'elephant trunk' motif.

but my personal belief is that it's a bird's beak-mouth, given that the overall motif of philippine hilts then revolved around the sun, fire, and bird imagery (which all stem from our ancient ancestors' religion).

but anyways, the aim of this post is to merely show that that particular feature, whatever that is, has long been there (i.e., as early as 10th to 13th century).

[migueldiaz]

here's some more of those sun/fire/bird-themed hilts, also from 10th to 13th century northern mindanao ...

but i'm still figuring out how all these much older forms relate to ron's nice archaic kris

[kino]

Nice find. Congrats.

I scour the local gun shows hoping to find such treasures....maybe one day....

It looks like your recent find hasn't gone thru a lot of sharpening, the blade looks like it still has a lot of meat. Wasn't used much or captured early on in it's life..puzzles, like the asang -asang. If they could only talk.

[David]

Originally Posted by migueldiaz

very interesting, ron! thanks.

i'm particularly intrigued by the tang's square to semi-round cross section, because this 10th to 15th century visayan kris which was discussed somewhat extensively here in the forum already shows a square cross section (see illustration below).

on the other hand, i don't doubt the antiquity of the kris above.

but i'm no expert on krises. hence this visayan kris is being shown just for additional inputs ...

Frankly Miguel, i am of the same mind as Alan here that without either a gandik or a gonjo this is not really a kris/keris.

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by David

Frankly Miguel, i am of the same mind as Alan here that without either a gandik or a gonjo this is not really a kris/keris.

Hi David (and all), thanks for the comments. Given the particular features of a kris/keris mentioned, then I think for the avoidance of confusion I should not call the example I posted above as a kris.

And I think the much better term for it is kalis.

Kalis for everybody's info is the ancient Philippine generic term for any war sword or war knife. The first non-Asian written account of the term [kalis] was via Magallanes & company, a term they picked up among others when they reached Cebu in 1521.

But a linguistic study of the term kalis (or karis, as 'l' and 'r' are sometimes interchangeable in almost all of Philippine dialects) will reveal that kalis as a term for war sword-knife was used all over our islands. I'm listing below the references I've personally examined, as support. In summary, the Philippine dictionaries below (spanning the period from the late-1500s to the late-1800s, and covering most the major dialects of the country), all name kalis as the equivalent of the Spanish term espada.

To recap, kalis (and not keris or kris) should be the more appropriate term to use for any ancient Philippine war sword-knife.

And from kalis sprang forth the Moro kris, the Visayan talibong, the Tagalog itak, the Bicol minasbad, the Igorot pinahig, etc. Just to clarify, the above Visayan kalis would not be the only form of the generic kalis. For sure the form factor of kalis then was as variegated as the number of dialects spoken in our islands.

---

BERGAÑO, Diego. Vocabulario de la Lengua Pampanga en Romance. 1732.

BERGAÑO, Diego. Vocabulary of the Kapampangan Language in Spanish and Dictionary of the Spanish Language in Kapampangan (translation done by Fr. Venancio Q. Samson for the Juan D. Nepomuceno Center for Kapampangan Studies and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts). Holy Angel University Press. Pampanga. 2007.

CARRO, Andres. Vocabulario de la Lengua Ilocana. Manila. 1849.

COWIE, Wm. Clark. English-Sulu-Malay Vocabulary. London. 1893.

ENCARNACION, Juan Felix de la. Diccionario Bisaya-Español. Manila. 1851.

HASSAN, Irene U.; ASHLEY, Seymour A.; & ASHLEY, Mary L. Tausug-English Dictionary. Summer Institute of Linguistics. Manila. 1994.

LISBOA, Marcos de. Vocabulario de la Lengua Bicol … . Pueblo de Sampaloc. 1754.

McKAUGHAN, Howard P. & MACARAYA, Batua A. A Maranao Dictionary. Univ. of Hawaii Press. 1967.

MENTRIDA, Alonso de. Diccionario de la Lengua Bisaya, Hiligueina y Haraya [Hiligaynon at Kinaray-a]. 1637.

JUANMARTI, Jacinto. Diccionario Moro-Maguindanao-Español. Manila. 1892.

NOCEDA, Juan de y SANLUCAR, Pedro de. Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala [Tagalog], compuesto por varios religiosos doctor y graves … . Manila. 1754 [Reimpreso en Manila. Imprenta de Ramirez y Giraudier. 1860]

PIGAFETTA, Antonio. Magellan’s Voyage – A Narrative Account of the First Circumnavigation. Yale University. 1969.

_________. [Magellan’s Voyage ...] From the Ambrosiana [Italian] Codex, and translated to English by James Roberston, in ‘Blair & Robertson’, Vol. 1 No. 33.

_________. [Magellan’s Voyage ...] From the Nancy-Libri-Phillipps-Beinecke-Yale [French] Codex.

SAN BUENA VENTURA, Pedro de. Vocabulario de Lengua Tagala [Tagalog] – El Romance Castellano Puesto Primero. Con licencia Impreso en la noble Villa de Pila [Laguna], Por Thomas Pinpin, y Domingo Loag. Tagalos. Año de 1613.

SANCHEZ, Matheo. Vocabulario de la Lengua Bisaya [Waray]. Manila. 1711.

SANTOS, Domingo de los. Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala [Tagalog] … . 1703.

[Spunjer]

i was driving home last night when i was reading the responses.

what lorenz said, david. it might not be the keris as you know it, but nevertheless, it's the term that was used in the archipelago since time immemorial. as an example, when someone hear the term "parang", one automatically thinks it refer to a particular indonesian sword, which is in a way correct, but that same exact term is still used in some parts of sulu. it might not be the parang as we know it, but it is what it is...