Origin of the Jawa Demam hilt form
 

Hi all,

These questions had been lingering in my mind for a long time..

Where did the 'Jawa Demam' hilt form come from? What inspired it?
By what other name is it known as? local dialect, etc?
How does it evolved?

Any theory, thoughts, stories, folklore.. etc, are welcomed. :)

Sumatran
 

Sumatran styled 'Jawa Demam' hilt variants.

Malay Peninsular styled 'Jawa Demam' hilt variants..

Hello Alam,
I think this will be very difficult to find out from where it come from. But maybe, and this is only a guess from me, it's origin is Cirebon.
You remember this threat:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ighlight=tegal

But maybe it will be nice when we can see in this threat many different Jawa Demam hilts. I also have some.
sajen

Ah! yes.. thanks sajen for that thread, there's a pointer there.. bring the hilt pictures on.. ;)

Probably

Diety(?) form with a garuda mungkur on its back, which evolved into its present simplified form..

Thanks Rasdan for the illustrations. :)

Sorry i have to delete the "captions". Its not related to the hilt.

Garuda Mungkur
 

Hi Rasdan,

I've took the liberty of re-labelling the pic.

Garuda Mungkur
 

2nd pic.

Cool.. Forgot to write blu's name there. Thanks.

#1
 

Here some of my Jawa Demam handles. Please excuse the not best quality of the pictures and the dust. :rolleyes:
The first handle is from ivory and my guess is that it is a North Sumatra handle, maybe Gayo.

#2
 

A very old ivory handle with unusual flat head.
Tomorrow I will upload some more.
sajen

Thanks Sajen,
Nice old ivory hilts.. :)

#3
 

An old ivory ornamental Palembang hilt.

#4
 

A big ivory hilt with a hole in the head, maybe for a jimat stone.

#5
 

A wooden hilt from the nort cost from Sumatra with metal nose and eyes.

#6
 

A molar hilt from Minangkabau I show in this threat:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8761

#7
 

An ivory Pattani hilt from hippotamus tooth.
sajen

Hi Sajen. Thanks for the examples (and everyone else as well :) ) I have an ivory one that is sort of similar to yours so i made some quick shots for comparison. :)

Beautiful piece, it would be nice to see the blade, though. Looks like a malela or carita blade. ;)

Yes, agree with Alam, beautiful handle. Is it also from Hippo? Will be nice to see the complete keris.
sajen

Thanks for the comments guys. I would rather not side track this conversation with blades. Let's keep the discussion focussed on hilt forms. :)
Sajen, i must admit that i just don't know the ivory source.I can usually recognize marine ivory, but i am afraid that distinguishing between hippo and elephant is not something i am very good at. I was going to ask you how you knew yours was hippo. :shrug: :)

Interesting topic Shahrial, and I would like to know more too. Who coined the term "Jawa Demam" and when was it first used? Does "Jawa Demam" really refer to a sick Javanese?
These hilts sure look like some powerful all knowing ancestral squatting figures/ heroes/ gods to me rather than a sick Javanese down with the cold/ flu. The explanation that the hands are wrapped around the legs/ body because he is shivering because of his fever is rather mischievous. Could the Javanese have coined this term to mock their old rivals kerises in the past? if so, why did the people in the malay peninsular accept such a derogatory term for their hilts? Were they trying to distance themselves from their past beliefs?

Good line of questioning Jonng. I have always been told that the name refers to the posture of the abstract figure. One arm goes across the belly and the figure is bent over as if sick to his stomach. But i suppose this jester could just as easily be a bow. :shrug:
I am not convinced that the Jawa Demam is related to the squatting figures. The body positions appear quite different to me. In the squatting figures the hands are generally on the knees and they are, of course, squatting which i don't believe is the intended body position of the Jawa Demam. :shrug: :)

I'm not sure if we will ever get satisfactory answers to this question.

Anyway, here's a hilt I got off ebay a while back. Very interesting form. Dave has a specimen which may even predate this, but I can't find pics. Maybe it is in Spirit of Wood.

When you look to the first pic of my handle you see on the left side of his back a line of black dots, this you only can see by hippo ivory.
sajen

Very interesting handle, the hands rest on the knees. Never seen before by a Jawa Demam.
M. Kerner write in his book "Keris-Griffe aus Museen und Privatsammlungen" about basic position I and basic position II. Position II is when the figure crossed the arms over the breast like the Jawa Demam and position I when the hands rest on the knees like the Cirebon handles and he guess that the position I is the more old form.
sajen

Hi David,

That the gesture is a bow is I think probable (and could have evolved later?). That the "arm goes across the belly and the figure is bent over as if sick to the stomach" is to me a bit difficult to accept because I cannot see any in my collection or those that have been put up here having the arm going across the stomach. All of them seems to have the right arm going across the chest (or do I see them wrong?!).
Have the carvers made some mistakes in their carving or interpretation some time in the past? If not, regarding posture I often see these two:
1. squatting or sitting on something (very low) with both knees up, right elbow slightly over or resting on the right knee.
2. semi-kneeling/ half squat position, right knee up with the right elbow resting on it and left knee on the ground.
The right arm looks to be above the stomach in all these forms. Of course I could have seen them all wrong so I'm really grateful this thread came up.

Jonathan

Hello Jonathan,

from the same book is this reduced drawing of this position. So the left knee is not on the ground. The leg is more or less straight. When you see the handles from the North-East coast of Java it is correct.
sajen

some Jawa Deman
 

Here some from my collection.
Sorry for the poor quality of the pics.
This was all I could do at the moment...

Regards, Erik

Jonathan, i am not asking you to accept that the arm goes across the stomach or the chest as i am not making a case for either. It doesn't seem to me that you can really be sure way or another considering the abstractness of the hilt form. My point is that at some time, someone apparently saw the arm as being across the stomach in a stooped over posture, ergo the name Jawa Demam, the "sick Javanese". At least this is what i have been told. This does not in any way prove what the original intent of the body posture may have been. If it is possible we might want to try to nail down when this name for this hilt form first came into fashion and explore what other names, if any, may have been used for it.

G.B. Gardner, Keris and Other Malay Weapons, 1936.

The Jawa Demam.

The legend is as follows:-

A certain raja called his pandai besi and ordered him to make a keris hilt that was unlike any other, or lose his life. The keris maker could not think what to do , but as night came on, it grew cold and the raja who had a fever (demam) pulled his sarung up, and hugged himself to keep warm. Then the keris maker carved a hilt in his likeness. This, at any rate is the story; but I think the use of a figure is to give luck to the keris.

Alan, is this name found in any writings that you know of previous to Gardner?

Off the top of my head, no, David.

Stone calls these figural demon-like hilts "raksha". I can't remember reading these terms in any other early writings. Might be a good idea to have a look at Raffles. The Ying Yai Sheng Lan --- 15th century--- refers to "--- human or devils faces---", so the Chinese percieved them as such also.

You could also call some of these "raksasa" style hilts "buta".

Checked Raffles:- no reference there that I can find.

This is just my personal observation, but i really think we are looking at 2 completely different hilt form developments here. I can't help but think that the figures crouching with their hands on their knees are a distinctly different intention than the ones most often referred to as Jawa Demam, with the one crossed arm. To me these are 2 completely different postures that seem to convey different cultural attitudes. Though i can't claim to know what exactly, each of these postures seems to be telling me a different story. It is the squatting, hands on knees variety that i am more likely to associate with raksasa.
I do find Kai Wee's example in post #26 puzzling though as it does appear to be a hybrid of both these forms, but i have not seen too many that do that. :shrug:

I'm sorry David, but I cannot pursue this discussion.

I know too little about the subject to make any worthwhile remarks or to formulate any even vaguely supportable theories.

But I will say this:-

I can see more than just two sources for keris hilt origin. There are the giants, the ogres, the spirits, the demons, the deities, the wayang characters, and perhaps even the ancestors. Then there are the purely vegetable forms and purely animal and bird forms. There are also the rarest of the rare:- the naturally occurring forms that are adapted for use as keris hilts. There are many sources for keris hilt motifs.

But how, when, where and why I simply cannot theorise on.

Here are a few of my hilts of this type, mixed in with others---sorry.

I will put up some of my hilts for further discussions later when I have the time to photograpgh them. But I need to point this out. I think the carvers are quite observant and they do not carve without taking the natural body posture into considerations. To me the Minang and Palembang (Sumatra), and Malaysian "Jawa Demam" forms are quite similar. They have the right elbow over the right knee and no matter what the posture is, I think it is extremely awkward to be able to get the right forearm across the stomach!

Yes Sajen I agree the left leg of hilts from the north east coast/ Cirebon? or Raksasa form is more or less straight. These tend to have the right elbow just touching or just above the right knee and the toes pointing downwards which would suggest sitting on the edge of something high to me.

I have seen only a few suggesting the left knee touching the ground and these are I believe Sumatran in origin. Will try to find them.