Gustav's Discovery

[Gustav]

Rasdan, I see, now I got some questions from you.

Before making questions, I would suggest you to do some home work. I have done mine, and that quite meticulously - please do yours.

Actually instead of "I didn't align it with the estimated age" as you described it now, you simply declared the Keris 5 as "much later Balinese Keris", in picture "latest version for Balinese Keris", to fit in your theory. That is a not so fine difference.

Regarding the whole "Bump Dha" thing, I think, at first we must be able to differentiate between external and internal details, which should be not so complicated, because on all Kerisses in question, as distinguished from most Nem-Neman Keris, the Greneng itself is external.

Ron Dha is an indentation, your "Bump Dha" on these Kerisses is an protrusion. You are searching for Ron Dha in wrong place.

[Gustav]

For people lowing questions, finally a couple from me:

If you look at Kembang Kacang on Keris 2, 4 and 6, and compare it proportionally to its Gandhik, what do you see?

Do we associate such proportion on Keris with full Ricikan with North Coast Java (except for Keris 4. Or perhaps it's also a NCJ dressed as Balinese?)?

Or do we associate it perhaps with an other region?

Is the proportion of KK compared to Gandhik (and Greneg/Jenggot) the only conspicuous thing we notice on Keris 4, not associated with common 19th cent. Bali Keris?

Where have we seen something similar?

[A. G. Maisey]

Rasdan, I do appreciate the thought you have put into your posts, and you have raised a couple of interesting points.I'm still thinking about what you have put up, and I'll get back to what you propose later.

Gustav has not given full length images of the keris he has posted, and speaking for myself, if these truly did come into Europe several hundred years ago, I would not know if they were old or new from a photo. In fact, even in the hand I probably could not guess age.

Again, speaking only of the keris, that is the blade, for early keris, keris from the period immediately following the Mojo era, that narrow little strip of water between Jawa and Bali meant nothing in terms of contact:- water was/is a highway, not a barrier. Other things were barriers, but not the water.

Sure, we can look at the dress and we can say the handle or the scabbard demonstrates style that is attributable to a particular area, but we cannot do that with early blades, it is not until Islamic influence got a good strong foothold in Jawa that blade style of Javanese and Balinese keris began to vary.

So lets not try to categorise any of these very small parts of keris, that have no provenance, into "Jawa" or "Bali" or anywhere else. Even if they did have provenance, any provenance is always open to question in the final analysis, and trying to draw too many conclusions from images of keris is perhaps the ultimate folly:- it simply cannot be done, in fact most of the people I learnt from in Solo would not give more than a cursory comment to an image of a keris, they needed it in their hand to form any supportable opinion, and to a large degree, I'm pretty much the same.

All this is a diversion from focus on this newly revealed feature that Gustav has given us.

Might it be possible to return our attention to the difficult matter of identification of this design element?

[rasdan]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

So lets not try to categorise any of these very small parts of keris, that have no provenance, into "Jawa" or "Bali" or anywhere else.

Thanks for your reply Alan. Yes, it is very difficult to come up with a hypothesis about keris that does not have exact provenance and age.

The problem about the keris that have the element that you showed above is that it seems that it was put together very quickly to be sold. The warangka is Palembang, pendok probably Solo, Minangkabau hilt cup, hilt is probably Palembang and ganja from a Bugis keris. It comes from Pennsylvania University Museum collection. It was a gift probably from 1942. I think the website was now updated with larger pictures as the images that I looked before were smaller in size. (Image below) and the link:

https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/244340

Even the ones in KrisDisk, in my opinion we can only use the date it came into the collection. The geographical origin can be diverse as those keris can be brought to the place of collection from anywhere.

About the particular design you mentioned above, an issue that probably may raise is the legitimacy to use a design. Does the design really have a meaning or it simply come from a creative mind that does not need authority to create new designs on a keris?

Actually a greneng somewhat similar to this appeared in Malay kerises where the "gap" is actually a dha (or it becomes a dha) - as far as I am concerned, I think Malay pandai keris does not need authority to introduce new designs.

Then, if the design does has a meaning or it was a Dha copied from Pajajaran, does it have to be in a specific style/location?

To answer/hypothesize these questions, we need something solid to tie it to. and at the moment I have none. I look forward on your insights about this Alan. Thank you.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you very much Rasdan, we now have some idea of the background of the keris that appears to be the best presented example of this variant element.

An excellent contribution to this investigation. Again I thank you.

My inclination is to disregard the hilt and scabbard, and even the gonjo, and just focus on the body of the keris. We still have no usable provenance, but at least we now know that there is no usable provenance.

My current opinion is that we have a North Coast Jawa blade, possibly able to be categorised as Banten. I may be wrong, but for the moment that is where my thoughts will start.

Anything in a European collection can only be dated as before the date that it was first catalogued. There can be assumed provenance for a period before this, such as we have with the kerises in the Bargello that came from the Medicis, but prior to a catalogue date, we're really only guessing.

You have raised the question as to whether we have an artistic contribution to keris design, or whether we have a socio-religious contribution to design, that is to say, do we have art, or do we have symbolism that can be tied to belief?

Certainly, after Islam much of the Hindu-Buddhist symbolism was corrupted and often interpreted in a different way to the way in which it was understood as a Hindu-Buddhist icon. Of course, this probably occurred even before Islamic domination also, so the question is always there:- art or symbol?

Then again, as in Western artistic traditions we can have art and symbol:- elements of a work of art that are most certainly artistic elements can very often be interpreted also as symbols, and carry a message that can only be read by those people who have been educated in this symbolism.

At the moment we have a few keris with examples of a design element that has not previously been commented upon by people who are qualified to do so.

Actually, that's all we have.

But from my perspective this is more than enough to commence a determined effort to try to align this new element --- for the sake of convenience, let's call it Gustav's Element --- yes, let's try to align Gustav's Element with known forms from old Jawa, say, pre-1700 Jawa.

I at least intend to follow this route. A few months, or years of keeping this form as a template in my mind may some day result in a match with something. There is no hurry, we have a form, let's see if we can find out what that form is.

The last thing we need is to get bogged down with non-productive quibbling.

[Gustav]

Alan, I checked my outgoing mails, and see, that I actually have sent you a mail about that Keris with the link to Penn Museum back in 06.11.2012. We had a correspondence about it and spoke about "three prong Ron Dha".

[A. G. Maisey]

Please accept my most sincere apologies for my lapse in memory Gustav.Its only 5 years ago, and I really should have remembered. I guess it slipped my mind because of all that has happened since that time. In fact, in view of the fact that I average around 20 emails each day, and some of those emails generate multiple exchanges as well as phone conversations about keris, the forum discussions, catalogues, appraisals & etc, I might not even remember a discussion about this unusual feature if it had only happened last month.

It is possible that in 2012 I was using yahoo, and for the last few years I've been using AOL, in any case, I need to clean out my old emails every 12 months or so, so I would not have a copy either in yahoo or AOL.

But that doesn't matter, it seems you have a copy, so if we came up with anything worthwhile back in 2012, throw it into the mix.

[rasdan]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Thank you very much Rasdan, we now have some idea of the background of the keris that appears to be the best presented example of this variant element.

Thanks Alan. It was just internet "research". Yes, I agree we don't have much to say at the moment about this element.

[Gustav]

Perhaps, because we lack the right understanding of it at the moment?

[Paul Duffy]

Gentlemen, this is a fascinating discussion. I'll have to go somewhere quiet while I contemplate the issues raised.

[Johan van Zyl]

This goes to show how new collectors can become swept up in the enthusiasm of the old collectors: when the old collectors become engrossed in their fascinating discussions over "every pimple", we newbies get enthused and want to participate in like fashion. I, as a retired lecturer, who frequently made use of practical examples in classroom discussion, was however quick to bring in an actual keris so that what can be said about the greneng is directed to a point. (Recall our posts concerning the Penn Museum keris?)

I don't think the ENTIRE subject has become confused; what might need to be done is that the confusion where it surfaces should be addressed. We now & then tend to leave discussions hanging in the air.

I glean from what has been said about the greneng in the pic, that there ARE indeed three elements of which two are ron dhas and one cannot be interpreted. Especially appreciated is the bold statement by Alan that "the greneng is not the typical Javanese greneng we are accustomed to, and the element that takes the place of the kanyut is not nameable under present convention."

[Jean]

Personally I see a (worn) ripandan above the rondha located on the wadidang (blade side) and another ripandan or protrusion below the rondha located on the ganja but it is not really important.
Regards

[A. G. Maisey]

Johan, when we undertake to study the keris we have a choice:- we can limit our study to the information that can be found in books, and if we live in a western country, for most people that means an even further limitation of limiting our study to books printed in a modern European language.

Alternatively we can immerse ourselves in SE Asian languages, including their archaic versions, and to do that effectively we need to learn how the people who are born into these languages as native speakers of the languages think. Just knowing the words is not sufficient, to understand the way a word is understood by a native speaker we need to adopt the native speaker's world view and terms of reference. We need to understand the content of the word, not just its sound and meaning.

If we opt to study the Javanese keris, this means that we need to learn Bahasa Indonesia, basic Javanese in at least 3 levels, and to be able to read and understand romanised Old Javanese. Nice additions would be Balinese, Madurese and Sundanese, but these are probably not essential as there is a degree of mutual intelligibility between these languages and Modern Javanese.

Now, one of the peculiarities of Modern Javanese is that it is a very socially focussed language, in matters concerning human interaction it becomes very finely tuned, for example, depending upon what part of the body bears a pimple, that pimple will in all likelihood have its own explicit name.

This overburden of definition is something that permeates the Javanese soul, and when we look at the lexicon that is attached to the keris we can clearly see this very fine focus on categorisation and detail.

Perhaps this would not be a problem, if the Javanese people as a whole thought in a similar way to Europeans, but they do not.

The Javanese language is what is known as a "non-standardised language" by linguists. Moreover, it is a language that is at its finest when it is spoken, as body language, inflection and tone can carry meanings that words alone cannot.

It is as if every Javanese person has the belief that every word he or she utters is his or her personal possession, and that word means precisely what the owner of the word wants it to mean, no more, and no less. Humpty Dumpty.

The enchanting nature of the language is coupled with a rather confusing national characteristic whereby total agreement and cooperation on all levels and in all matters is perceived, but the actions which follow very often do not relate in any way to the previous perception.

When we come to the keris, what we find is that all over Jawa there are keris study groups. The purported function of these groups is the study and better understanding of the keris. The real function is social, and as with most social groups in any society, that group becomes a vehicle for the advancement of the alphas within it.

There is propensity for these groups to either adopt a lexicon and philosophy of their own, or to adopt one from some obscure long forgotten text. Why? Because they like to be different, to differentiate themselves from others.

Sometimes these lexicons of keris terms get published, and the result is that if we pick 20 keris books published in Indonesian, or especially in Javanese, and over a span of time what we find is an amazing variation in terminology. Even very highly regarded publications are not exempt from this. For example, the foundation stone of dhapur at the present time is the Surakarta Pakem, that was issued under the aegis of the Surakarta Kraton in the 1920's. It can be quite enlightening to go through that Pakem and compare the characteristics of the listed dhapurs with what is currently accepted.

When we get to the names of the various elements of keris characteristics, the ricikan, we again find no small degree of inconsistency.

Is this important?

Well, since virtually all the names of the various features are either descriptors or euphemisms that have absolutely nothing at all to do with keris, in my opinion it really doesn't matter what words are used, except insofar as it is necessary to communicate with somebody who is within our own keris group.

What is important in the study of the keris is not the names of the various little characteristics, these names carry no information, they give no hint of any meaning, and they vary from place to place and person to person. They are close to useless.

What is important is to gain an understanding of the keris in all its dimensions.

Nothing else is worth the effort.

Now, to return to our choices in keris study.

You maintain that when confusion surfaces it should be addressed.

A very admirable sentiment Johan.

Do we include the cultural owners of the keris, that is to say, the Javanese, Balinese and so on in our attempts to address confusion? Because that is where the seat of the confusion lays, and it is deeply entrenched in the nature of the society.

Or do we acknowledge that to understand the keris we need to first understand the world view of the cultural owners?

Perhaps if all we want to be is a collector of curiosities from places we do not understand it might be best to simply adopt our own lexicon, and our own points of reference.

If we did this there would be very little confusion, and when that detestable beast did raise its ugly head we could very promptly address it.

But then we face another problem:- the nature of the keris has been deliberately confused in Jawa itself, ever since the time when it was adopted by people other than its originators.

[Johan van Zyl]

Well, I must say this: that these sentiments of yours should be regarded as required reading by all new and not so old keris "students". Keris 101, if I may call it that. I thank you warmly for your efforts to instill this insight into our members. I especially admire your patience. I regret that I did not have such patience as a lecturer. Some of my students wanted me to lower my standards so that they need not study so hard. Some would request a remark to get them an extra mark to help them come into the running for a re-examination. I tell them: "You already know so little; you want me to help you know even less?" Lecturing sometimes became a laugh a minute though: In Afrikaans we have the word for "cow udder", which, when you misspel the word by one vowel, it becomes "chicken egg". I warned my students that I would negatively mark them if they should write chicken egg where they mean cow udder! Yes, keep the standard high, I agree, and this also goes for our keris knowledge.

Still, I love it when a ricikan like in the pic above is discussed and members tell what they see and understand.

(I can't think what a "kanyut" could be - but I shudder at the possibilities!)