Very Old Moro Kris

[Bill]

Rick, if you mean, no "trunk" at all, the answer is no.

[Rick]

No Bill , I meant the surface that the hilt meets ; the top of the separate piece (gangya) always seems to have an upward curve to it .

[Federico]

Rick, the lack of carving/fretwork kris I have seen fall into two categories. Those whose fretwork were removed purposely through either corrosion or a misguided owner (Cecil had a scary story about an owner who filed off all the fretwork on his kris), and then those whose shape/proportion would fit fretwork, but the fretwork was simply just never done for some reason or another. The second category has always fascinated me, and Cecil had mentioned it was something that struck him as interesting as well. However, in the few pieces Ive stumbled on (unfortunately never won) they all seemed to be newer pieces (circa late 19th early 20th century) and very new (eg. they looked like they had been collected shortly after being made).


This mystery piece, on the other hand, lacks the proportions to be of the second category (trying to do fretwork there would simply not be enough blade to work with). So then it would seem then that the fretwork either corroded off, or was removed purposely. Anyways, if it still has the gangya intact, I would vote against a Moro attribution. From the pics it would just be too dainty, even for some of the most corroded of archaic styled kris (regardless of who we attribute the form to). On my own archaic style piece, the gangya had fallen off, and when examining it I noticed that the wall were the gangya and the pesi met the walls were paper thin from use of wear, and it would seem far far far more robust shape than this piece given the pics. So if there is a gangya, then I would imagine the tang would be extremely tiny, again not going in line with archaic kris/keris, which have very robust tangs (even when round). I guess we could argue this could be a Moro keris before the change to kris, but it just strikes me funny. I dunno, thats just my opinion, and its hard to work off of pics.

[Spunjer]

a spaniard's attempt to recreate a kris from memory, perhaps? kinda odd seeing a kris without fretworks and "elephant's" trunk. also the numbers "1" and "3" looks to be mechanically stamped...

[Ian]

Just a note to let you know I added the dimensions of the Mystery sword and the other old Moro kris to the pictures above. As Bill commented, it is a very consistent feaure to find the blade lengths on these early Moro kris to be 18 +/- 1 inch. These two lie within that range, with the blade of the mystery sword being 18 inches from the tip to the hilt.

The mystery sword is a little thinner and slimmer than the other kris. Not sure this adds anything to the discussion. We know that it is corroded and may have lost some thickness relative to the better preserved sword. It is also possible that kris became generally "beefier" over time. Certainly the late 19th C. Mindanao kris became much heavier than earlier examples -- perhaps the mystery sword predates the other one shown beside it.

I think Bill's comments come closest to my own thoughts about this mystery kris.

BTW, I keep this one out of my bedroom and certainly not under my pillow. Who knows what stories it has to tell.

Ian.

[tom hyle]

The straight back edge to the ganga is odd, isn't it? But it is seen on k(e)ris, so might be in line with an evolutionary form, as proposed. I don't know that it does lack an elephant trunk. The elephant trunk is the central protrusion within the large cutout at the front edge, yes? I see a protrusion within this area on the discussed sword. It is small (perhaps broken and/or rusted off), and is unusual in its placement, as it departs from the (krisly speaking) top side of the depression partway along, rather than from the center back. The angle seems similar to that on the other shown piece. Can we get a closeup?
Rick might be onto something on how to orient the writing.
The mark looks in a way like a lot of mysterious marks I see on PI and other Spanish colonial stuff; letters or numbers with things that don't seem to be and whose meaning is hard to figure, often seeming to have been chiselled, or to have been struck with (handmade?) stamps that are not entirely standard forms. Both the end characters are odd looking. The center ones do look more like stampings; a 3, an E, an m? and an s? that seems to be obscured by another striking or some sort of damage? I suspect the marking is contemporary with the rehilt.
Rick, it's real hard for me to tell forge scale, especially forge scale with rust, from heavy rust in a photo.

[tom hyle]

Also odd how that front notch slants out all the way across the ganga, huh? The steep angledness is very similar to the other one though.

[Bill]

here are a couple that are similar to Ian's, also they both have had surgery, the new tang in one & an elephant trunk added to the other. re-placing the tang may have been at a time where it was critical to get the blade back into service, if so, certainly would highlight the lack of blades available. by the end of the 16thC, there must have been great effort to produce swords. Eventually there will be hundreds of Pandays making the kris, the early ones all would have to make thier first one. the tang is very secure, the blade is very thin, so there is little room to file a channal, for expansion of the new tang. the hole in the new tang had a iron peg pounded in to expand the tang, i'm amazed they were able to do it. the hilt appears to be very old, a crack in the bottom is discolored from leaching tang rust. strickly a thrusting sword, i suspect they blackened from being retired so long, surprised they did not get re-cycled. the ratten hilt wrapped one has had a "trunk" welded on to what appears to of originally been a beak. perhaps so as to add a baca-baca stirrup. the ganja goes straight accross. has a tulip/acorn towards the tip. the sheath is wrapped in a large leaf, tied with rattan, looks like work was always being done to it, likely has had a long life.