Meaning in a Balinese keris

[A. G. Maisey]

David, David van Duuren published two editions of the "The Kris", the first was a Dutch edition published in 1996, the second was the English edition published in 1998. The keris on P.73 of the English edition is a cengkrong with the spiral, and yes, I had forgotten it. But it did come after Mario & Vanna's similar one.

Vanna Ghiringhelli published "The Invincible Krises 2" in 2007.

But in 1991 Vanna & Mario published The Little Red Book:- "Kris Gli Invincibili" ('Kris the Invincible'), the similar one I mentioned is on P.41.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

David, David van Duuren published two editions of the "The Kris", the first was a Dutch edition published in 1996, the second was the English edition published in 1998. The keris on P.73 of the English edition is a cengkrong with the spiral, and yes, I had forgotten it. But it did come after Mario & Vanna's similar one.

Vanna Ghiringhelli published "The Invincible Krises 2" in 2007.

But in 1991 Vanna & Mario published The Little Red Book:- "Kris Gli Invincibili" ('Kris the Invincible'), the similar one I mentioned is on P.41.

Thanks Alan. I have "The Little Red Book", but i never looked at the publishing date and i got van Duuren's book much earlier so i guess i wrongly assumed it was the older book.
But what do you think of the age of the example in van Duuren? It seems very possible to me that it is an antique example, no?

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes David, certainly David van Duuren's example has some age, it has a collection number, and I tried to access it, but it looks as if there is a problem with access at the moment.

[Gustav]

It was donated to the Tropenmuseum in 1952.

There is a Balinese Keris with the same type of Gonjo depicted on Jasper&Mas Pirngadie, Vol. V, p. 229, Fig. 323. The Volume was published in 1930, but the materials for it were collected already before 1920.

We encounter the idea of such Gonjo also on a Javanese Pedang with Gonjo, which is certainly antique and a heirloom.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for that Gustav.

It would be nice to know when that Troppenmuseum example was collected, and when the Jasper & Pirngadie example was collected. As I said, I have yet to see this gonjo treatment on an old keris, and these two additional examples are also recent.

I wonder if there might be some genuinely old examples somewhere.

Gustav, do you have a picture of the pedang you mention?

[Gustav]

Alan, I will ask the Tropenmuseum, if there is any additional information, but I think it quite surely is pre-1940.

The example from Jasper&Mas Pirngadie is pre-1930, quite surely pre-1920. It's quite close to the example from Ghiringelli in the treatment of Gonjo.

I have a picture of that Pedang, but cannot post it. You surely have seen that kind of Pedang - there is a Sekar Kacang directly above the scroll on Gonjo, Gandhik is plain.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

It would be nice to know when that Troppenmuseum example was collected, and when the Jasper & Pirngadie example was collected. As I said, I have yet to see this gonjo treatment on an old keris, and these two additional examples are also recent.

I wonder if there might be some genuinely old examples somewhere.

Alan, i believe i know what your intention here with the word "old" is as you have expressed your usage of the word before, but it might be a bit problematic in general discussion, especially for people who might not be familiar with how you use the word. For most people anything antique (100 years of older) is generally considered "old". I assume your intention here is a bit older than that, yes?

[A. G. Maisey]

Firstly, a clarification:-

in my post #5 I wrote:-

"The first time I saw a keris with this extremely exuberant spiral ornamentation to the greneng was in the courtyard of a very well known Balinese m'ranggi and keris dealer, it was a recently made Madura keris, and it was hanging from the exposed framework of a small pavilion. When I asked why it was hanging there, along with a large number of other newly made keris I was told that all these keris were there to permit them to age naturally.

I have not seen this type of gonjo ornamentation in an old keris, only in recently made ones."

I was not referring to the similar exaggerated style that is shown in The Little Red Book.

It is the spiral treatment that I have only seen in recent keris.

The similar form that we see in the Ghiringhelli book, and again in the Jasper & Pirngadie book, looks like a forerunner of the spiral.

But what do I mean by "recent"?

Pretty spongy sort of expression, isn't it? Maybe I'm doing an imitation of Humpty Dumpty, you know:-

"When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

I need to stop reading Lewis Carroll.

With Javanese keris I probably think of recent as PBX era and later, but I think of post 1980 as kamardikan. Javanese people generally seem to think of keris after Sultan Agung as recent.

With Balinese keris I have come to the belief that after the puputans the rules of the game changed. I think of pre-puputan as still being a part of the old society, & thus an "old keris", and post-puputan as being a part of the new Bali, and thus a recent keris.

These are my own parameters, I'm not using something general here, just my own way of thinking about these things.

I've never given much thought to this spiral treatment in the greneng, but accepting the propensity for Balinese symbolism to be dominated by the number three, I am beginning to wonder just what symbolism might be intended to be conveyed by this substitution of a spiral for the more usual treatments found in the greneng.