David, one big problem with understanding tangguh is that many Javanese traditionalists absolutely believe that a keris with Tangguh Majapahit was in fact made during the Majapahit era and in the locality of Majapahit. This is what I was taught.

The reality is quite a bit different to the traditional belief.

However, one does not chalk up brownie points by disagreeing with people who have traditional beliefs, they simply stop telling you what you want to know.

One needs to be able to become two people:- the traditional believer and the analytical investigator.

I used to know a bloke who was an academic in the Universitas Sebelas Maret in Solo. This bloke was a very clear, logical thinker, he was in his thirties when I knew him, he was a lecturer in business management. He had been born in a little village on the slopes of Mount Lawu, his family lived there and he grew up there.

We were talking about traditional beliefs one day, and he expressed the view that in his opinion it the particular item of belief that we were talking about was stupid superstition. I asked him how he got on with his family if he held a point of view like this.

He responded that when he went back to his village he thought in the way that the rest of his family did, when he was in Solo, working at the university he thought as he needed to think to be a university lecturer.

If we want to understand the keris, and to learn about it, we need to be able to think in a way that is in harmony with the people who own keris culture.

But having gained the knowledge we then need to be able to apply different thought patterns to it.

I completely concur with these thoughts Alan. Thanks you for your comments.