Meteoric iron used for keris's vs. for Indian weapons

[tom hyle]

BTW, I don't advocate the cutting up of old blades for testing; it actually horrifies me, and I think it might be especially bad with SE Asian blades, where I think a concept of "completeness" is important, and especially especially bad to do to a keris. It's a little like you see bigfoot, so you cut him up to find out what he is; seems ironic somehow, and wasteful.