Corroded keris

[Sajen]

It's a Bugis sepokal blade!

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes, I have cleaned a very great number of blades as bad and worse than this, I can show after pics, but I cannot show before pics. I don't record this sort of thing, its just a job, nothing special.

Household vinegar and patience.

The stain process can get a bit difficult, but the clean process is straight forward.

[Sajen]

Yes, I've cleaned also several keris blades in a similar bad condition like the blade in question but I've used citrus acid instead of vinegar. Like Alan said, it's just a job which need patience.

Regards,
Detlef

[jagabuwana]

Thank you Detlef and Alan.

Some questions:

1) What characterises a sepokal blade? The keris books I have on hand (Groneman and Solyom & Solyom) don't mention it. I have done some cursory research on Google and haven't been able to find any statements or descriptions of sepokal blades, and it seems that both keris luk and keris lurus can be keris sepokal. I could be wrong (maybe it's my eyes..) but from what I can see, keris sepokal are slightly convex, if one were to draw a line following the centre of the blade from peksi to penatas. Is my observation correct, a red herring, or entirely incorrect?

2) Without dressings, what features of this blade make you say it's Bugis? My question is not a challenge or a skepticism towards your assessment, and I am asking only so that I may learn. Interestingly, many blades (though not necessarily dressings) that I am drawn to are bugis keris. There is an aspect about them that I can only describe as bold, strong or aggressive to my eye and feeling.

[A. G. Maisey]

1) this "sepokal" thing seems to be something of a Peninsula naming convention. I do not know how the name came into usage, but it is popular with collectors in the Western World for use as a name for this type of blade.

In Jawa there is a dhapur named "sepokal", but it is supposed to be either a 13 luk or an 11 luk, I forget which. I've never seen one, but I have heard it mentioned.

The name used for the dhapur of the keris shown in this thread by specialist Bugis collectors is similar to "sepokal", it is "sapukala" and from what I can gather it simply refers to a straight blade, a blade that in Jawa we would call "lurus", so personally, I would tend to think of the name as a description rather than a dhapur.

2) in accordance with Javanese (ie, Solonese) tangguh naming conventions the form of a Bugis blade is "like a young bambu shoot", and the faces of the blade are flat, with wide, even kusen (gusen). Usually the gandhik is thin and low, the blumbangan shallow, the gonjo is short, there is no ada-ada, sogokan are very seldom seen. When it is clean you will most likely find that the iron has a texture like sand and if it has pamor --- which is probable --- that pamor will be coarse and white. It is essentially a tool designed to end life, it is not a work of art.

Detlef is absolutely correct, it is a Bugis style of blade and it would named as "sepokal" by most collectors in the Western World. But where it might be from it is very probably impossible to say.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

The name used for the dhapur of the keris shown in this thread by specialist Bugis collectors is similar to "sepokal", it is "sapukala" and from what I can gather it simply refers to a straight blade, a blade that in Jawa we would call "lurus", so personally, I would tend to think of the name as a description rather than a dhapur.

I believe that Jagabuwana's observation is correct that blades that are considered sapukala or sepokal have a slight arch or curve to them so while they probably can be referred to as lurus they are not entirely straight. I do believe this is seen more as a dhapur that simply a description of any blade that is lurus.

[A. G. Maisey]

David, in Javanese terms a blade that lacks luk is considered to be straight.

Some blades that possess luk can be named as a specific dhapur or form, and that form will have the blade characteristics specified as well as the number of luk.

Where a blade is waved but is unable to be classified as a particular dhapur, it is simply referred to as a waved blade with so many luk:- "keris luk lima", for example.

Where a blade is straight but cannot be classified as a particular dhapur it is simply named as a straight blade:- "keris lurus".

OK, so now we need to look at what was published in "Senjata Pusaka Bugis", Ahmad Ubbe.

In his descriptions of Bugis keris with this "sepokal" style blade he uses the word "dapur" instead of "dhapur" to refer to the shape of a blade. In Indonesian "dapur" means "kitchen", in Javanese "dhapur" means "shape, form, design". It is reasonable to assume that he means "dhapur", so I think we can accept that he means design, not kitchen. "Dhapur" is a Javanese word, it is not a Bahasa Indonesia word.

He calls the keris of this "sepokal" form "Keris Sapukala", and in his explanation of "dapur" he gives "dapur" as "Sapukal", which he brings into Bahasa Indonesia as "Sapu Rata", in BI "sapu rata" can be understood as "flat broom".

So Ahmad Ubbe clearly considers the word "Sapukala" or "Sapukal" to be a dhapur.

This is the point at which I disagree with his understanding of exactly what the word dhapur means. Dhapur is a specification. It is not a generic description.

However, Ahmad Ubbe gives the dhapur of "Sapukala" to every straight blade included in Senjata Pusaka Bugis, thus it becomes a generic description, rather than a specification. The description "Sapukala" is given to all straight Bugis blades, it is not used only for those blades with the "young bambu shoot" profile.

Certainly we can accept that specialist collectors of Bugis keris consider the word "Sapukala" to be a dhapur --- even though they use the wrong word to refer to a keris specification --- but it seems clear to me that they do not really understand what the word dhapur means.

Thus "Sapukala" becomes generic, not specific. It becomes a description, not a specification.

Yes, I am being pedantic, and this was one of the thoughts behind my recent "Precision in use of language" thread. If we do not write what we mean, how can we be understood?

Here we have a large, good quality book that has been written by people who are accepted as expert in the Bugis keris, but it seems that they have had some difficulty in coming to terms with the very basic concept of exactly what the word "dhapur" means --- let alone how to spell it.

[Paul de Souza]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

1) this "sepokal" thing seems to be something of a Peninsula naming convention. I do not know how the name came into usage, but it is popular with collectors in the Western World for use as a name for this type of blade.

When I first started collecting keris in the late 1980s, if I recall correctly, keris like these were never described to me as sepukal but rather as keris lok 1. As long as there was a curve to the blade like a claw, it was keris lok 1. Sepukal seems to be a "newish" term to describe blades of this sort, coming in the vocabulary here in the 2000s. I am still in the habit of calling them keris lok 1.