What Constitutes a Kraton Keris?

A. G. Maisey · 26th July 2006, 12:23 AM

Pak Boedhi, I endorse your comments.

In my experience the Javanese courts did maintain armouries in both the English sense of a place where arms are kept, and the US sense of a place where arms are made. Note the variation in Standard English :"armoury", and US English: "amory".

The "armoury" where weapons were made was, as you note, a "besalen". I believe this would come into Bahasa Indonesia as "bengkel tukang besi" (or pandai besi).

It would come into English as "blacksmith's forge" or "smithy".

The "armoury" where weapons were kept would come into Bahasa Indonesia as "gudang persenjataan".

The Bahasa Indonesia for "anvil" is "landasan". A "paron" is an anvil, thus I feel that an adequate translation of "paron" to Bahasa Indonesia would be "landasan".

The hand powered blower used by smiths in the old days in Indonesia is called an ububan, it consists of two upright bambu tubes fitted with plungers set with feathers. Raising and lowering the plungers forces a stream of air into an expansion box which , when under pressure, delivers a continuous stream of air to the fire.

The fire itself was (and is) often no more than a depression in the ground, and was side blown.

The last time I saw ububan in use was about ten years ago in a coach builder's workshop in Kartosuro.

I`d guess some of the people in the blacksmith`s community up at Boyolali would still be using ububan.

An adequate translation of this word "ububan" to English would be "bellows".

26th July 2006, 12:23 AM	#13
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,019	Pak Boedhi, I endorse your comments. In my experience the Javanese courts did maintain armouries in both the English sense of a place where arms are kept, and the US sense of a place where arms are made. Note the variation in Standard English :"armoury", and US English: "amory". The "armoury" where weapons were made was, as you note, a "besalen". I believe this would come into Bahasa Indonesia as "bengkel tukang besi" (or pandai besi). It would come into English as "blacksmith's forge" or "smithy". The "armoury" where weapons were kept would come into Bahasa Indonesia as "gudang persenjataan". The Bahasa Indonesia for "anvil" is "landasan". A "paron" is an anvil, thus I feel that an adequate translation of "paron" to Bahasa Indonesia would be "landasan". The hand powered blower used by smiths in the old days in Indonesia is called an ububan, it consists of two upright bambu tubes fitted with plungers set with feathers. Raising and lowering the plungers forces a stream of air into an expansion box which , when under pressure, delivers a continuous stream of air to the fire. The fire itself was (and is) often no more than a depression in the ground, and was side blown. The last time I saw ububan in use was about ten years ago in a coach builder's workshop in Kartosuro. I`d guess some of the people in the blacksmith`s community up at Boyolali would still be using ububan. An adequate translation of this word "ububan" to English would be "bellows".