Is This A Royal Keris?

[DAHenkel]

At least in the Malay context, the presence of gold in a keris is a fairly good indicator that the piece was at least meant for noble wear. Early textual accounts usually proscribe wear of gold for anyone other than the ruler and those who were granted the favor to wear gold by the ruler. Later on, particularly by the early 20th century this seems to have been relaxed somewhat although only to the point where people who could afford gold could have it and in the colonial period that wasn't many people.

That said though the traditional aesthetic was commonly quite low key, with only major 'state level' keris being fully covered in gold. Authentic, provenanced examples of such keris are very rare and most are in museum collections. One must also remember that several Islamic schools of thought proscribe the wear of gold by males, which could be problematic depending on which set of rules and how willing one was to bend them.

Many high quality keris with just a bit of gold exist and many of these would have been the possessions of the nobility (bangsawan) the quality can be measured not merely by the presence of gold fittings but also finely worked and better quality materials overall. Indeed often one finds very good keris with missing or lower quality fittings that are obvious replacements for high value (gold, silver, gem-set) ones sold off for ready cash.

This also doesn't even begin to account for a completely different and parallel set of "aesthetics" for talismanic or amuletic keris which were meant to look old and time worn.

Today modern keris makers (and many fakers) are blowing up the traditional boundaries and making quite garish, often poorly crafted pieces with gold (or silver and gilded silver) fittings to try to emulate the great state pieces. This I fear skews the traditional aesthetic. I fear that fewer collectors and enthusiasts in the future will be able to recognize and celebrate the understated beauty of older pieces and most will only recognize the inherent value of the raw materials involved.

[Gavin Nugent]

Battara,

Here is a Royal Malay keris from my collections for viewing in part. Similar images on Face Book for those who follow there.

I have shared it with several privately, it is one that is well received by visitors.

As Mr Henkel mentions, beyond the gold there are often special features too...in this instance note the different faces with completely different, separate and important features, including the perfect 25 luk.

Gavin

[David]

I am not sure that the prohibition against commoners wearing gold extended to places like Jawa, Bali and Sumatra, at least not as a general rule. Perhaps someone has more information on these areas. It is also certainly known that gold kinatah could could be awarded to certain people such as valiant warriors for their deeds.
I completely agree with Dave Henkel on some of the over use of "garish" materials on new keris that anyone with the money can own. I especially see this on Bali style keris dressed in gads of gold and gemstones. That said, however, i think we can still see many old examples of keris with kinatah that were not necessarily once the property of members of the royal court, at least outside Malay Peninsula influence.

[A. G. Maisey]

The keris has been around for a very long time, and one of the reasons it has survived through the centuries is that it has changed in style, nature and social perception with the passing of time.

That which was reserved for specific ranks or purposes in the past is now available to all.

Is this a bad thing?

Personally, I do not think so. I'm going to limit my comments to consideration of this matter from a Javanese point of view, one reason being that I do not believe that here is the place for a 5000 word analytical paper.

When the keris changed from the early (Buda) form to the form that we recognise now, along with that change, its position in Javanese society changed. Changes continued, and the keris that we see being made today have a quite different position in society, and are recognised as having a different nature to earlier keris.

In times past not a lot of people could afford gold, but the position of gold in the Javanese perception is not just as a substance of value, it has the nature of a substance that carries honour. During the early classical period the celebrations held by Javanese rulers were accompanied by the distribution of gold, this was a recognition from the ruler of the worth of the minor lords who supported him. The position of the ruler in early Jawa was only firm as long as he had support from those he ruled, to ensure this support he paid respect to those below him in the hierarchy, just as they paid respect to him. Gold was the how a ruler gave honour.

Today, this overt perception of gold has to a very large extent disappeared, but I am certain that it still is carried in the sub-conscious of many Javanese people, especially those who cling to traditional values.

The Javanese people possess their own culture, and it the Javanese people who set the values within their own society. It is not the place of those who are not a part of this society and its culture to criticize the values of the society.

Certainly, we can all express our own likes and dislikes, but it is important that we recognise that these likes and dislikes may be quite the opposite to the likes and dislikes of the people who own the cultural artifact upon which we level comment.

So, if it is currently seen in Javanese society as a desirable thing to adorn something with gold, we should accept this as a legitimate expression of today's societal values.

We may or may not like this use of gold, but we cannot influence the values of a society that does enjoy seeing gold wherever it deems it to be suitable, be that on a keris, or somewhere else.

As to the confusion that might be caused at some time in the future by the current production of fine keris, I rather think not. This production in later periods of earlier keris styles has been happening for a very long time, and it doesn't really cause those who understand the keris much of a problem.

The use of garish materials? Old Bali keris, and even more recent ones can be about as garish as garish gets.

Consider this:- all those wonderful stone temples in Bali and Jawa did not look anything like what we see today when they were originally built. Not at all. They were overlaid with plaster and brightly painted --- you could see them from miles away.

Our tastes are most definitely not the tastes of those who lived and live in different places and different times.

Flamboyant display and garishness are part and parcel of Javanese society.

This sort of brings me back to something I've said many times:- if we wish to understand the keris, we must first understand the culture and society of the keris.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

As to the confusion that might be caused at some time in the future by the current production of fine keris, I rather think not. This production in later periods of earlier keris styles has been happening for a very long time, and it doesn't really cause those who understand the keris much of a problem.

Well Alan, i like to think about those that don't really understand keris as well. That and the fact that as time goes on it seems to me that there are less and less people who really understand the keris. Where i see the problem is that these gold and jewel encrusted current era creations are often being sold under the headline "Royal Keris" to western collectors. It's not a matter of my own personal preferences vs. the existing culture. As information unfortunately fades this general mis-information gets past along from owner to owner. That it is a royal keris because it is dressed in "royal" materials. It isn't really a matter of whether or not you or i can recognize that such keris have no actual royal affiliation. The stories grow like tales of meteoric ore or other keris half-truth we have come to know. So i think i can at least partially see where Dave Henkel is coming from with his statement.

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

The use of garish materials? Old Bali keris, and even more recent ones can be about as garish as garish gets.

Well, i used the word "garish" in quotation marks for a reason. Frankly i don't really consider expensive old Bali dress to be as much "garish" as extravagant. I do find some of the more recent examples a bit more on the garish side though. They manage to somehow use valuable materials to create an end product that somehow looks cheap. I am, of course, talking about items that come up for sale to the Western market, mostly on auction sites like eBay. I am sure that the really high end work never gets seen by the West in such venues.

I was hoping that you might add some information about any known proscriptions against wearing gold in Jawa, Bali or Madura. Dave has already expressed that in the Malay world gold was strictly reserved for the royal court. I did not think such a restriction existed in Jawa or Bali. The only thing i found on this in Bali is the following from Wiener's Visible and Invisible Realms:
"...in precolonial Bali no one, not even the Déwa Agung, was allowed to wear gold to the top of Mount Agung, to the shrine called Tirtra Mas (Golden Holy Water). The sanctions for doing so , as the narrative shows, are supernatural...Another prohibition involving gold marked social hierarchy. Only members of the royal family were allowed to wear gold on their head."
However, none of this seems to prohibit having gold on your keris or keris dress.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes, David, of course you are correct if we consider this question from the perspective of people who have little or no knowledge of the keris, but this same problem exists in probably every field involving art and collectables.

I also collect paper weights. The very best of the current paper weights produced in China will fool anybody but a fully qualified expert into thinking they've got Murano or Caithness, when in fact they've got Beijing.

The protection against being duped?

Learn.

Learn how?

You can never ever get enough field experience, and this does not come easily, nor cheaply.

In respect of restriction on the use of gold in Jawa, there are a lot of perspectives from which to consider this question.

I think we all know the grant of battle honours by Sultan Agung after the Pati conflict, so although there may not have been a specific prohibition in place that prevented somebody not granted this honour to have a keris with a similar kinatah motif, within the context of court wear it simply would not have been done, because the honour had not been given.

Think in terms of a present day civilian creating his own Victoria Cross and then wearing it to a Royal Reception with Her Majesty. Just not going to happen.

What would have happened if it had been done would probably have involved blood and pain.

But that's within the context of the court. How about if a wealthy Arab merchant living in the world outside the court created a look-a-like a few years later? I sincerely doubt that anything untoward would have happened to him.

So with a question like this, we need to consider not just "Jawa", but the specific part of Jawa, the specific time, the specific people involved, the specific ruler. All relevant aspects of the question need to be considered on a case by case basis. We cannot generalise.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

So with a question like this, we need to consider not just "Jawa", but the specific part of Jawa, the specific time, the specific people involved, the specific ruler. All relevant aspects of the question need to be considered on a case by case basis. We cannot generalise.

Well of course not Alan. That is why i stated in post #9 "I am not sure that the prohibition against commoners wearing gold extended to places like Jawa, Bali and Sumatra, at least not as a general rule."
I suppose when i ventured a few posts later that "i was hoping that you might add some information about any known proscriptions against wearing gold in Jawa, Bali or Madura" that is might be those very specifics we'd be talking about.