Timoho (Kleinhovia hospita L)

[Raden Usman Djogja]

dear Alan,

I've heard but never seen motif of "bosokan" (decomposed "fruit"). As far as I heard that it was called bosokan motif because all or most of part of sheath was pelet. Perhaps forumities who have sheath with bosokan motif can share its picture. Merci par avance.

I just heard slempang motif. Do you think it is different from sampir (as if a long scarf or a shoulder-belt) motif. I have timoho sheath with sampir motif. I will upload it for this forum. Some people said it had 5 strips of sampir motif whilst others said it had 4 strips of sampir motif. What do you think wheter it has 4 or 5 strips?

Centini? Would you please to share what advices dan wisdoms that readers can get from Centini Book? I've never read it eventhough I've heard it thousand times.

Warm regards,
OeS

[A. G. Maisey]

G'day Usman--- yeah, sampir is the same as slempang. As to how many strips your wrongko has, I guess it depends on how you count them, I personally would count four, but if I did not want four strips for some reason, I could easily convince myself that there were five, by counting the double one in the middle as two.Five is a nicer number, so let's just say it has five.

Centini is riddled through with good advice, wisdom, and a nice strong lading of soft porn. Interesting read. However, the one little bit of advice that is more relevant than any other to a student of the keris is that if he wants to learn the keris, he needs to go to the market place to learn.

[fearn]

Hi All,

Putting on my botanical hat, the "pelet" pattern in the wood looks like fungal growth, and the english term for it is spalting (here's the wikipedia link). Spalted wood is weaker than unspalted wood, because it has been (or is being) rotted by a fungus. The pigment changes are being produced by fungal activity, either staining the wood dark or bleaching it, depending on the species. As demonstrated here, spalting can often be so pretty that it commands a premium price.

Note that I'm talking about the underlying phenomenon that's producing the patterns, not the way they are classified. That is your forte, not mine.

Most of the fungi that produce spalting patterns are wood rotters, and unless the wood in the keris and sheath have been treated to kill the fungus, they will keep rotting away, albeit slowly in most cases. I'm not an expert on treating wood rot, but please be aware of the possibility, and check to see if the pattern changes over time. If it does, you may want to have it treated at some point.

F

[Raden Usman Djogja]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Five is a nicer number, so let's just say it has five.

G'day Alan

Five is a nice number after Indonesian independence espicially in new order era. It is related to number of pancasila (five moral principles). Before independence, it could be related with Pandawa brothers (pandawa=five) in Indonesian mahabharata version. Even in Indonesia, pre-WWI, mahabharata was not as famous as ramayana. Only after the spread of militeristic culture adopted from Japanese soldiers, people loved mahabharata especially in chapter the 18 days bharatayudha (war amongst bharata family members).

In ancient jogjanese keris' sheath made from timoho wood which had sampir motif (shoulder belt motif; it is not a precise translation), the 5 sampirs was
nicer than 4 sampirs. Only high elevated person was allowed to use it in public space. In private room, everyone could do freely. Furthermore, the same rule was also applied for bosokan (decomposed) motif. That is why, based on kraton/palace sources, the sheaths of several heirlooms were made from spalted timoho woods which had bosokan motif. So, colleagues who have bosokan motif, please share its picture with us. merci par avance.

warm regards,
OeS

[Marcokeris]

OeS
Some timoho sarongs with different patterns....

[Marcokeris]

....others

[Marcokeris]

one more

[Battara]

Is pelet wood endangered or extinct?