A foundation for examining the quality of a keris blade

[David]

Originally Posted by ganjawulung

It is still sound discriminative to me, and regarding that westerner is more perfect than the easterner, or even Javanese.... Soryy for this impression.
Ganjawulung

Ganja, i am sorry that you get this impression from Alan's words, but i hardly think that was his intention. Rather than implying that the Westerner's view is more "prefect" it implies to me just the opposite, the tendency of the Westerner to be drawn to a keris merely for it's visual appearence rather than having a better understanding of it's spiritual nature or the cultural context that a particular keris may have within it's own particular Indonesian society. In other words, we Westerners have a tendency to like something for it's surface appearence, because it is "just another pretty face" without getting to know the deeper truth behind the "face". Now this isn't true of all Westerners either, it is merely a generalization. I don't, for instance, believe it is true for myself. I own many keris that certainly wouldn't win any "beauty contests" in the Western mind set, but they definitely have a kind of character to them that make them very valuable to me. But as a general rule of thumb i would agree that most Westerner collectors look for a keris that will "wow!" them visual first without taking into account concepts of social prestige and spiritual power.