Balinese keris advice

[A. G. Maisey]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UneS2Uwc6xw

I respect MW enormously, since its publication I have recommended her work on Bali to perhaps every person who has asked me for guidance in their quest to understand the keris, however, I do not necessarily agree with every single word she wrote, nor with all of her published opinions.

I do not slavishly rely upon academic works to form my own opinions, and some of those opinions do vary from the opinions of academics.

As David has commented, this thread has become an exercise in semantics, but semantics is the study of meaning and truth, and the only way that any word can be understood as it should be understood is to analyse the meaning of that word and the truth encapsulated in that meaning. Ideally language should be used with precision, if it is not used with precision, that inadequately constructed language can generate misunderstanding and ignorance.

If what I have just written is true, then we need to consider this:-

1) A conflict or skirmish is not a war, neither is a confrontation or disagreement a war.

2) Engaging in a conflict or skirmish upon the orders of one's lord does not make a farmer either a warrior or a soldier.

3) Even fighting in a war does not make a farmer a warrior.

4) A weapon that might be used in a war does not make that weapon an implement that was intended for war, thus it is not a weapon of war.

5) The nature of a weapon can be many fold, and although that nature might include the letting of blood, in the case of the keris that letting of blood is not the only purpose of the keris.

The above is probably about as simple as I can make it, and yes, it is all about semantics:- the study of meaning and truth.