Collecting:- opinions sought

[Iain]

If you'll permit a perspective from a non kris collector (African takouba), I find the topic at hand fascinating and it is something I have often thought about.

Q1: Yes

Q2: I think so, although the level of detail any individual collector might find necessary to satisfy their interest will greatly vary.

To expand on Q2 slightly, I still actively collect but have become completely narrow minded. My collecting began as a passing interest in a particular form, truth be told inspired by a boyish desire to own something like a "knight's" sword but quite a bit cheaper. This was admittedly a rather shallow place to start from. However, at the start my knowledge of the cultures, peoples and history that produced this particular form was just about zero. Through collecting I became not only aware that I couldn't understand the objects in the context I wanted to without further study of the cultures that produced them, but genuinely interested in the history of that part of the world. The swords being very much a gateway into a broader desire to learn.

I think in general there are two motivations for collectors - some collect to fill a niche, a spot on the wall, generally a good example exemplifying the particular form being acquired. This, because of a fascination with swords or weaponry as a whole and as a topic within its own right. This is a very valid collecting path to my mind and is a broad approach that I sometimes truly envy! It is perhaps often characterized by an emphasis on classification related to that need to fill particularly categories.

On the other side, as in my case, the sword or weapon is simply a way of achieving a physical connection to the history or culture that interests us and a real and present reminder for continued research. I think I could have started with any sword form and gone down the same rabbit hole. I just happened to start with takouba and got stuck.

I have to admit I am quite lax even with displaying my collection and have quite a few 'piles' around the house. The real joy from each piece is the interest to learn, research and formulate ideas about the history and development of the form. I have happily read about everything from brass working, to leather tanning, textiles, religion, trade and general history in the context of the cultures that produced takouba. I find myself less and less interested in the minutia of each example I acquire but in the context it can find in the overall 'story' of this particular sword form.

I have no motivation to collect other objects and in that sense I am quite limited. My learning is confined to a somewhat narrow scope of what can be seen to directly impact the topic of this sword form, but that has turned out to be quite a lot! I would simply put, not collect if I felt like there was nothing new to learn and contribute. It is the to drive formulate new ideas and theories that keeps me acquiring pieces and the sense that there is always something more to learn about them.

Best regards,

Iain

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you gentlemen.

The responses to my questions are beginning to exceed what I had hoped for. It seems that this is a subject to which many of us can relate.

Iain, I particularly like what you have written; it seems to echo to some degree my own experience, possibly demonstrating that perhaps I am not the keris-compulsive-obsessive that I have sometimes been accused of being.

[ariel]

Sorry for being late and brief, but I am traveling :-)

Q1: Of course, it goes without saying. There is a corollary as well: collecting ethographic weapons in the first place stimulates one to know more about relevant cultures, their histories, beliefs etc. My guess, the latter is more prevalent than the original formulation as defined by Alan.

Q2: Sure, it helps. But not to the point of "going native". One can collect Maori weapons without engaging in cannibalism, South Indian ones without internalizing the idea of animal sacrifice and cutting his ( her) own head off and Persian shamshirs without converting to Shia Islam or dreaming about becoming Nader Shah's valet :-) The same attitude is correct, IMHO, to any other culture, from Sudan to Indonesia.

[A. G. Maisey]

Ariel, I doubt that any reasonable person could disagree with what you have written, but what you have written does not really address my questions.

My guess is that the desire to collect anything can arise from a multitude of sources, taking myself as an example, my knife and keris orientation probably began with visits to the home of my mother's aunt, whose son chose to live in a village in Malaya after he was released from Changi at the end of WWII:- its a long story and doesn't need repeating here. Then there was the uncle who broke all the rules and gave me an enormous handmade bowie knife when I was about 5 years old.

These were beginnings, but there were a lot of forces came into play after that, so yes, agreed, one interest can stimulate another, and to identify which came first might need a little thought.

With your second response, again I agree, and again you have given an irrefutable response to a question other than the one I asked.

Agreed that nobody needs to become a chicken to know what an egg looks like, however, in respect of the knowledge of a society and culture other than the one into which one has been born, I submit that the degree of knowledge sought will dictate the degree of involvement in that society and culture.

A quick read of a National Geographic Magazine article in one's lawyer's waiting room might be sufficient for some people, whilst a life altering obsession may not be sufficient for others. It all depends upon what one desires to know.

I hope you are enjoying your journey.

[ariel]

Alan,
I found myself in front of the computer and felt that I had to answer you.
Yes, there are as many collections as there are collectors, and we all have our own ways to engage in this mild form of insanity. I can imagine a person whose ethnographic interests lead him to collect weapons of the culture of his original interest. I may even know one. But I bet that for every such sequence of events there are 1000 people who started as collectors and only later on began digging into history, ethnology, beliefs erc of the original owners of his wll hangers. You yourself, - what would have happened to you had it not been for your politically-incorrect uncle? :-)

As to the degree of involvement... I still find it mildly amusing to see perfectly normal Mid-Western guys trying to act Persian, Japanese ( ninja, here I come:-)) or Indonesian as if they have a hope in the world to pass for the legitimate inheritors of totally foreign traditions. Perhaps you, who spent a lot of time in Indonesia, may feel some understanding and involvement with the Javanese "society and culture", but for the rest of collectors it is a pretend game. As you have seen from the answers, most people here prefer to maintain their sanity and be "involved but not committed": the difference between the chicken and the pig in the process of creation of scrambled eggs and bacon:-)

So, I am perfectly happy to leave all esoteric functions and fearures to the native collectors of all ethnic swords: it is their patrimony and they are the legitimate owners of it. Most of us are just outsiders and enjoy purely military, historical, metallurgical or decorative components. More than enough, to my taste.

[Bjorn]

Originally Posted by ariel

Alan,
I found myself in front of the computer and felt that I had to answer you.
Yes, there are as many collections as there are collectors, and we all have our own ways to engage in this mild form of insanity. I can imagine a person whose ethnographic interests lead him to collect weapons of the culture of his original interest. I may even know one. But I bet that for every such sequence of events there are 1000 people who started as collectors and only later on began digging into history, ethnology, beliefs erc of the original owners of his wll hangers. You yourself, - what would have happened to you had it not been for your politically-incorrect uncle? :-)

As to the degree of involvement... I still find it mildly amusing to see perfectly normal Mid-Western guys trying to act Persian, Japanese ( ninja, here I come:-)) or Indonesian as if they have a hope in the world to pass for the legitimate inheritors of totally foreign traditions. Perhaps you, who spent a lot of time in Indonesia, may feel some understanding and involvement with the Javanese "society and culture", but for the rest of collectors it is a pretend game. As you have seen from the answers, most people here prefer to maintain their sanity and be "involved but not committed": the difference between the chicken and the pig in the process of creation of scrambled eggs and bacon:-)

So, I am perfectly happy to leave all esoteric functions and fearures to the native collectors of all ethnic swords: it is their patrimony and they are the legitimate owners of it. Most of us are just outsiders and enjoy purely military, historical, metallurgical or decorative components. More than enough, to my taste.

You bring up an interesting point, Ariel: outside versus inside. I suppose you are correct in assuming that the masses of collectors outside of Indonesia operate on the outside. I myself fall somewhere in between the two extremes as my family is of mixed Dutch and Indonesian descent; but as I was born in Holland I'm sure I fall more on the outside than on the inside of it all. Even so, I have a greater familiarity with Indonesia and Java than the average collector (although I imagine that, especially in Holland, there are many collectors with a similar background to my own).

For me, collecting keris started as an interest to learn more about it beyond the usual stories, and as I started to explore and read, it soon turned into a starting point to dig deeper into Indonesian history and culture. It's allowed me to learn more about symbols and world views that I've been familiar with on a superficial level since I was young but am only now starting to understand on a deeper level. I suppose for me collecting keris is also somewhat of a personal journey in that regard.

I've always had a vague and rather incomplete knowledge of Indonesian history, touching mainly upon the broader strokes of the existence of Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, the coming of Islam, the Dutch colonial period, the Japanese liberation/occupation, and finally independence. Delving deeper into these broad categories has always been somewhat of a daunting task but I find that the keris allows me to do just that. Perhaps because it is one of the, if not the, Indonesian symbol pur sang (or rather Javanese but to me - even if incorrectly - the two overlap to a significant extent). It's existed since ancient times and has undergone continues changes since then; changes that reflect the period and associated cultural values and world views that it was made in. It's a portal into Indonesian history and culture throughout the ages, a focal point, an eye in the storm of historical change.

While within the keris community outside of Indonesia not many people will have a similar motivation for collecting keris, I do feel it is a motivation for at least a part of the community. This likely also holds true to a certain extent for people with other cultural backgrounds (e.g. an ethnic Japanese collecting katana or an ethnic Chinese collecting calligraphy scrolls). There are collectors on the outside, on the inside and everywhere in between.

[Tim Simmons]

If you do not learn you are always in the dark even if it appears of a quality, pretty or even kitsch. Also you pay to much for a common standard of production and availability but that seems to be what people like .