How to read a greneng

[Bjorn]

Originally Posted by Johan van Zyl

I am very much intrigued by this thread. I've gone to my two krisses and inspected the grenengs minutely. My Javanese kris has two identical ron dhas, but the Bugis kris seems not to have even one.

I suppose the clarity/readability of the greneng message can get reduced by age & honest wear, just like a set of letters which have become worn.

Johan, also keep in mind what Alan wrote above: "When we move outside of Jawa we find that the greneng of keris from other areas is often just notches that have no meaning at all. Because of this, and for other reasons, many old-time traditionalists in Jawa would not recognise that these "keris" from other areas were in fact genuine keris, these other "keris" were merely keris-like objects that had been made by people who did not understand what a keris truly was, and the people who carried these keris were simply trying to copy their betters without understanding anything. They were in fact children who had not yet learnt anything."

The Bugis are an ethnic group from outside of Java and thus not made in accordance with the same rules and regulations. Actually, apart from Bali perhaps, I don't recall ever hearing that there are such rules and regulations in areas outside of Java.