National exibition of Keris 2012
 

Hello all,

I have just started studying Keris and came across this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af3PCzdNCoQ
The Indonesian narrative is over my head, but can any one describe what this competition is all about? Who are the judges? I found it a wonderful video of some of the making process and examples of current work. I found it curious some of the Empu identified work so casually smoking a cigarette at the same time? Perhaps it is a cultural thing. Amazing craftsmanship though.

Welcome to the forum Mitsu.
Thanks for posting this video. I also wish i understood the language, though viewing the video is educational non the less.
It is my understanding that smoking tobacco is indeed very popular in Indonesia so i don't find it surprising really. :shrug: :)

That's some of the best footage of the process of making that I have seen so far; thanks ! :)

Are Modern made Keris not considered legitimate? Or not desirable by collectors for being too new or expensive, since you are paying a a craftsman a living wage compared to buying an antique?

Forgive the editing note above. I hit "edit" when i meant to hit "quote". :o

Quite the contrary i believe that contemporary keris have a rather large following of collectors both in Jawa and other parts of Indonesia as well as the rest of the world. The value of a keris isn't necessarily based upon antiquity vs. newness either. You can no doubt pay great amounts for certain high level keris of considerable age and very little for lesser quality keris of a similar age. You can likewise find rather cheap, newly made keris as well as brand new masterpieces of the art that can set you back a pretty penny.

Hello Mitsu,
Thank you for showing us this very interesting video which introduces us to the kris making process and to the active Indonesian kris makers and experts.
The purpose of this competition was to award a prize to the makers of the best new krisses (tangguh kamardikan) selected by the jury of experts, among them is Toni Junus who is the author of a very good kris book.
I was surprised to find that the first kris shown in the video is actually part of my collection since more than 5 years but I think I understand why....
I only regret that some essential steps of the making process are not shown, and it is interesting to note the extensive use of power tools as compared to the traditional empus of the past...
Regards :)

Good video, thank you for posting the link MitsuWa.

As to tools..this shows me that they and the art will most likely survive as they are taking advantage of faster ways of doing the grunt work. I am sure that they would make the Keris entirely by hand with all traditional tools if one were to pay the difference in time/effort for doing so.
We tend to have a romantic idea of craft production. We want to have an item which was worked by a village of masters for a year and lovingly handed down through the generations for us to find and treasure (and if we find it for a bargain price mores the better). The reality may well be that war was coming and they needed to get out two of them a day or the local King said "you will by the end of the week or else..." and you did.

I recall an illuminated image on parchment of a Northern European using a 3 foot rotating grinding wheel on a sword blade...from about 1000AD. I have not looked, but I would bet there is an analog in Indonesia carved in stone relief on a minor temple.

Almost all of the traditional techniques I have seen are the most efficient way of performing a task given the technology of the time and the desired outcome. If you change one of those parameters then so too changes the technique.

Ric

There are a lot of ways of looking at tools. Would you pay your carpenter to walk to the lumberyard to buy your wood for the project because he enjoys the process? In the first world there are people who are of the opinion angle grinders are unacceptable for blade making and one must own a belt grinder, drill press and hydraulic press or power hammer to make laminated blades. Of the smithing videos I have seen Indonesian smiths work with sledge hammers.

Romanticism is all well and good, but i believe that a smart craftsman will use whatever is available that works best for completing that job. Many factors come into play when deciding what is "best". :)

It maybe that the smiths can not afford a power hammer and human labor is the more cost effective way to go. I have quite an array of tools in mu shop...none of which work when I am not in the shop. Machines do not make the work..they allow me to to do so either faster, larger or with less strain on my body.
I have rarely met other craftsmen who have a greatly different view on this, though I often meet collectors who do.

Question:
Where do the current Empu get the raw materials? The steel mostly. Is there yet a steelmaking from ore tradition in Indonesia?

Ric

That was my point, in a place where a scooter or motorcycle is the family car, smiths can not afford power hammers, stationary power tools, water jet machines etc. Collectors begrudge them the use of angle grinders, hand drills and pencil grinders, where in more industrialized nations, hobbyist think these simple tools to be inadequate.

Hi Ric,

The Indonesian uses modern steel and some uses steel from overseas. Normally from the customer. Its depending what quality the final results. If we order high grade, high requirement and detailed instructions than it will be more expensive n longer time and more failures.

The iron ore has been tested again a few times on recent years but i believe its not done commercially for keris making. The smith also tested iron sands from few location for keris making.


Quality pieces needed old iron material (the smith should be experienced as well with this material on hand) then the carver Could be the Smith as well then the warangan guy is important and the accessories guy to put the blade into the scabbard.

Thanks
Rasjid

Richard, from 1980 through to the present, every maker of keris that I know in Solo, Central Jawa has used old iron or steel, that has been purchased from scrap metal yards. A couple of well-known makers whom I know particularly well have used iron from old bridges, and iron from old ships. Usually when they get lucky with the material they've bought they go back and buy as much as they can.

I have taken good quality wrought iron from 19th century carriages, and given it to a maker to use for special orders, normally I have cleaned this by folding and welded 7 or 8 times before I take it, this reduces the weight of the material necessary to carry.

I have been told, but I am unable to vouch for this information, that it is common practice in Madura to use ferric material from old motor bikes and bicycles:- mufflers, spokes, sections of frame.

The smiths in Koripan, and also in a village near Boyolali (I've forgotten the name) mostly use motor vehicle springs to make tools. These craftsmen are not keris makers, but blacksmiths.

I was taught keris making in Solo, and for the forgings that I made there I bought the material from a scrap metal yard. For the kerises that I made in Australia I used old carriage iron that I scavenged from a couple of farms. I was taught to make keris using only hand tools, no electricity, no shortcuts. No electric grinders, no power hammers. In Jawa I paid two strikers, in Australia I used a 4 pound hammer and a 12 pound hammer with a hold-down tool. In fact, the actual forging is the easy part of making a keris and doesn't take all that long, even using 1000 year old technology. The hard part is the interpretation and the carving.

During the 1970's smiths in the area around Prambanan were in habit of raiding grave sites and scavenging iron from the graves, which was recycled into modern tools. I once bought a medium sized box full of badly damaged, excavated old tools, arits & etc, that I welded into a billet and intended to use to make a copy of a keris Buda, regrettably this billet was stolen. When I say "old" those excavated tools I welded into a billet were Buda age tools.

In my experience, every smith or keris maker I've ever known in Jawa has used recycled material.

I am not contradicting Rasjid here, Rasjid has different contacts to my own, and he operates at a different level. What he relates is undoubtedly correct in accord with his own experience.

Historically, keris were probably made from material recycled from tools imported from principally China.

Going back into very early history, there was smelting activity at several sites in Jawa, but regrettably it seems that most of the material produced was very probably high phosphorus iron. This material was not really suitable for use as either tool or weapon, so it was combined with the precious imported irons from outside Jawa, in order to extend the quantity of useable material, and the result was pamor.

Nickle bearing irons also entered Jawa from Luwu in Sulawesi, but this material was not around during the early years of the keris.

A few years ago Dietrich Drescher did some experimentation/research in company with one of the Solo keris makers --- Subandi I think --- and his results confirmed both the possibility of iron production in Jawa, and the quality of the material produced.

President Obama's mother, S. Ann Dunham wrote:-
"Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia"

For anybody with an interest in Javanese smithing, this work probably should be at the top of the reading list. It deals more with sociology than the mechanics of smithing, but it permits an insight into the life of Javanese smiths, and in the absence of that there can be little or no understanding of how they work.