Ethnographic Arms & Armour
 

Go Back   Ethnographic Arms & Armour > Discussion Forums > Keris Warung Kopi

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Old 28th April 2022, 12:55 PM   #1
milandro
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2022
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 410
Default An introductory video on how the Balinese Kris tradition was revived

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dFLZvveYGI


I found this video on how the Balinese Kris making tradition was revived or at least how this was narrated in the interpretation offered by the honorable Jero Mangku Pande Ketut Mudra , Master Swordsmith .

I hope this video wasn’t published before but forgive me if it was, I did my best to search that it wasn’t.

I think it would be very nice for everyone to watch especially those, like me, are novices at the kris.

Naturally, as everything else, there will be criticism. But again, I believe the advantages of the video form are many at least for those whom have time and patience to go through the video, the others probably won’t even open this thread and that’s good too.

It would be ever so nice if the videos could be embedded in the posts here but this v bulletin forum software, probably, cannot support this publishing form.
milandro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28th April 2022, 03:22 PM   #2
Anthony G.
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Posts: 457
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by milandro View Post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dFLZvveYGI


I found this video on how the Balinese Kris making tradition was revived or at least how this was narrated in the interpretation offered by the honorable Jero Mangku Pande Ketut Mudra , Master Swordsmith .

I hope this video wasn’t published before but forgive me if it was, I did my best to search that it wasn’t.

I think it would be very nice for everyone to watch especially those, like me, are novices at the kris.

Naturally, as everything else, there will be criticism. But again, I believe the advantages of the video form are many at least for those whom have time and patience to go through the video, the others probably won’t even open this thread and that’s good too.

It would be ever so nice if the videos could be embedded in the posts here but this v bulletin forum software, probably, cannot support this publishing form.
This video was on youtube for sometime already. It is also shared in my keris group at FaceBook (FB).

Nice video and do watch at 7:12 min, he is holding my keris.

Last edited by Anthony G.; 29th April 2022 at 02:09 AM.
Anthony G. is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28th April 2022, 04:30 PM   #3
milandro
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2022
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 410
Default

that’s nice to know and see Anthony.

What I get from this video is that each one can or may live his or her spirituality or meaning of the kris their own way, the kris is done for good things but it is ultimately the bearer ( I carefully avoided the term “ owner” ) to give the kris his nature.

I find very nice the notion that the art was lost but that it survived if not as skill but as mission in the bloodline of the Pande.

In my mind we all are our ancestors and they survive within us.

Metals were the first artifacts which allowed mankind to shape matter into something different. However one sees (it is in my mind a personal thing) it, this is the first act of transmutation known to mankind (although some cultures see pottery in the same way). Including forms and shapes in the metal increased its mystical form and gave it more meanings. Ultimately one develops his own way to live the kris experience.
milandro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28th April 2022, 10:30 PM   #4
David
Keris forum moderator
 
David's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 7,012
Default

Interesting video. Not a great deal of information though and some questionable "facts". For instance, as far ad i know there were quite a lot of keris made in Bali during the Dutch colonial period. So i am a bit confused by the assertion that keris were not made there during that time.
David is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28th April 2022, 11:16 PM   #5
A. G. Maisey
Member
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,676
Default

In 1982 --- or maybe 1983 --- I visited Mangku Pande Made Wija near Klungkung. He was Pande Ketut Mudra's father.

When I visited Pande Made Wija, Pande Ketut was assisting his father in forge work. The forge was very traditional, a hollow in the ground, side blown by ububan. Pande Made Wija's principal work was the making of the small axes used in ceremonies.

Some time before my visit, Pande Made had been visited by Dietrich Drescher, who had learned that Pande Made Wija was descended from a line of pandes who had served the Klungkung Puri (Balinese equivalent of "kraton"), and Mr Drescher placed an order with Pande Made as an attempt to encourage him to make keris again.

At that time I had had some sporadic correspondence with Mr. Drescher and he requested me find out from Pande Made if the keris he had ordered was completed. It was and I duly advised Mr. Drescher of this.

I think there might be one or two more keris made by Pande Made Wija in the Neka Museum in Ubud. However, to the best of my knowledge Pande Made Wija did not become a prolific maker of keris.

Pande Ketut Mudra, who is Pande Made Wija's son, works from a fully equipped forge and produces keris and other traditional Balinese knives. He is very approachable, he always has some of his work for sale, and he welcomes visitors.

He will accept orders for non-sacred keris, but he will only make an empowered keris for a pura (temple), at least, this is what he told me in 2016. I had met him when I visited his father outside of Klungkung, and when I visited him again in 2016 he remembered me immediately, which I thought was pretty remarkable.

The idea that a keris can become what its custodian wants it to become cannot be understood in the words used to present this idea. To understand this idea one does not need to understand the words, but rather to understand polite Balinese society.
A. G. Maisey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28th April 2022, 11:21 PM   #6
A. G. Maisey
Member
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,676
Default

David, it is never very useful to try to understand what Javanese & Balinese people are actually saying by simply listening to the words and attaching dictionary meanings to those words.

The message in many spoken or written messages can be very different to the message that one might think the words carry.

In conversation, face to face, body language will tell you a lot more than the spoken words.
A. G. Maisey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29th April 2022, 12:55 AM   #7
Anthony G.
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Posts: 457
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by milandro View Post
that’s nice to know and see Anthony.

What I get from this video is that each one can or may live his or her spirituality or meaning of the kris their own way, the kris is done for good things but it is ultimately the bearer ( I carefully avoided the term “ owner” ) to give the kris his nature.

I find very nice the notion that the art was lost but that it survived if not as skill but as mission in the bloodline of the Pande.

In my mind we all are our ancestors and they survive within us.

Metals were the first artifacts which allowed mankind to shape matter into something different. However one sees (it is in my mind a personal thing) it, this is the first act of transmutation known to mankind (although some cultures see pottery in the same way). Including forms and shapes in the metal increased its mystical form and gave it more meanings. Ultimately one develops his own way to live the kris experience.
Hi there,

Awesome comments.

Nowadays many young Balinese are learning and making keris to earn a living as well as to continue their Balinese keris culture. I found it awesome.

These are a few favorite Balinese keris culture video on youtube. Hope this forum members like it.


https://youtu.be/QOoo1uRZ5tM

https://youtu.be/Jpmj-ExY5Gw

Last edited by Anthony G.; 29th April 2022 at 02:11 AM.
Anthony G. is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29th April 2022, 07:07 AM   #8
jagabuwana
Member
 
jagabuwana's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 275
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey View Post
The idea that a keris can become what its custodian wants it to become cannot be understood in the words used to present this idea. To understand this idea one does not need to understand the words, but rather to understand polite Balinese society.
This is a point that has been subtly raised on more than one occasion in this forum. I can't speak for others, but at least for me, when I really understood it it was quite poignant.

The keris is a pretty special thing, and it has clearly attracted and moved us all in some way. But we do not all have a claim to what it really is and the function it really serves, for the people it was made for, and from those who hold the right position in these societies to make them. We can only reach a point, do our best to observe and appreciate, and recognise the limits and boundaries.
jagabuwana is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29th April 2022, 11:16 AM   #9
milandro
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2022
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 410
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony G. View Post

These are a few favorite Balinese keris culture video on youtube. Hope this forum members like it.


https://youtu.be/QOoo1uRZ5tM

https://youtu.be/Jpmj-ExY5Gw
I have ben watching these videos and especially the second (which continues in another video) impressed me, not quite so much for the technical aspects of forging any kris as for the story of this healing kris made to purpose for this person whom went to great lengths and a complex journey to arrive to acquire this kris.

Despite being a positivist and rationalist, a part of me not only admires and has studied the relationship between the things of heaven and earth ( I am convinced that there is more to it as Hamlet suggests ) and I have felt attracted to these themes since my youth.

I arrived very late to the kris, but a part of me thinks that the kris arrived to me for a purpose. Although contradictory and difficult to combine with positivism and rationalism as it is , I just take it at face value. Certain krises are now with me, I am not so quite sure of their “ objective” quality but that is, to some extent of relative concern to me.
milandro is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 02:49 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Posts are regarded as being copyrighted by their authors and the act of posting material is deemed to be a granting of an irrevocable nonexclusive license for display here.