A Very Old Kris

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by Battara

The tang is a square and tapers to a point at the distal end.

Jose, thanks for the info. Would you or anybody have any idea as to which one is harder to make -- a square tang or round tang?

Originally Posted by Spunjer

...please keep it up. i really thought we could get together for some sarsi and sisig this coming january for my bro's wedding...

Ron, well you throw me so many curved balls and so I have to keep up! Hope to bump into you one of these days here in Manila so we can further refine these theories (or reject some, and develop another). Or if I can have a US trip soon (but there's no plan yet), then maybe we can just have the sisig there in Ohio.

Originally Posted by David

I'm not sure who is sharpening whom here, but you have certainly presented much food for thought. I am certainly grateful for all this info on Visayan swords and daggers, but i do wonder just how much connection we can truly draw to Ron's kris that started this post or the Moro kris in general as we know it today. While i am not in a position to debate whether or not there is any real connection between your Visayan examples and the Moro kris, simply from observation the similarities are rather superficial. When we look at at Ron's sword we are able to draw very clear and solid connects to the Javanese and/or Balinese keris. These similarities are rather exacting, down to minute detail of the various features of these blades. We see in these early "archaic" Moro kris both a gonjo and a gandik. But even more we see most of the detailed feature that are contained in the diagram of Javanese keris that you posted in earlier in this thread. Clearly we see a developed kembang kacang (whether or not meant to be an elephant). We see a well developed double sogokan and greneng. So while i would not discount that Visayan swords may have had some influence on the development of the Moro kris, it is clear to my eyes at least that these early "archaic" Moro kris developed directly from the form of Javanese and/or Balinese keris. It's about so much more than the shape of the tang for me and i am afraid that all you have stated here has done little to invalidate the theory that the Moro kris is a direct development of the Javanese form. You have to look at the entire design of the keris/kris, not just the shape of the tang. I am afraid that i remain unconvinced that the Bohol kalis is the proto-type of the Moro Kris.

David, thanks. I agree with you that the subject matter has much more to do than the shape of the tang. And with regard to the 'invalidation' thing I mentioned, I was definitely not referring to the Indonesian keris' influence on the development of the Moro kris.

What was invalidated to my mind via what I presented, is the theory that the 'smoking gun' insofar as the inferred transition from a Javanese keris to a Moro kris must have been a Moro kris with a round tang.

That can't be, because as we've seen our square or rectangular tang came about centuries even before our kris was born.

I also agree with you on the Javanese influence on the development of what eventually became the Moro kris (and earlier, on the Javanese influence on the development of the Luzon, Visayan, and Mindanao-Sulu kalises).

I'm now reading a nice book on numbers and units in Old Tagalog by Dr. Jean-Paul Potet. And in there (see excerpts below), the very close ties between our islands and Java was mentioned several times. We can also see that he also mentioned that there was a period where our forefathers were using Javanese currency, given the far-reaching influence of the Javanese economy. Thus, we can surmise from all these that there must have been a tremendous amount of cross-fertilization going on within our region (which region eventually became Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines).

And so I think we should always remember that it was and will always be a two-way street.

When I had the opportunity to interview the weapons expert of Museo del Ejercito in Toledo, Spain in 2010 (and our subject was antique Phil. blades), he suggested to me that one important area of study is the influence of Filipino sword design on Spanish blades. Because precisely he is emphasizing that the influence of one region to another will always be reciprocal.

Thus in my humble opinion the proper perspective is to think in grayscale and not in black and white. Or put another way, the approach is to think in percentages, rather than all or nothing.

To put it more concretely and by way of an example, I think the Moro kris' origin is 70% local (with the Visayan kalis, as my personal proof, which kalis form must have also existed in Luzon and in Mindanao-Sulu, and perhaps even before the advent of Islam in our islands) and 30% Javanese.

I suppose the alternative view is to think that it's lopsided the other way around -- e.g., the Moro kris' origin is 90% Javanese and only 10% local.

I don't have any problem with the two views above, hypothetically. My only issue is for anybody to claim that the influence on the any design is 100% local, or 100% Javanese, or 100% whatever

Next, I'll present some more info why I believe that the influence on the development of the Moro kris' design must have been predominantly homegrown.