Arit Bendo
 

Hello! I don't understand: Bendo it's a knife or a sickle (arit). Or this is two different weapons? Please, help me.

An arit is a tool, similar to a sickle or a reaping hook. Lots of different sizes and shapes and designs lots of different applications, from light grass trimming to splitting wood. Probably more murders done with these in Jawa than all other weapons combined. Why? Because in rural areas virtually no man is ever seen without one.Its always there, more often than not dangling from his left hand.

See photo "A". this one straight out of my garden shed

A bendo is a heavy knife, in Central Jawa most households would have one, its sort of a cross between a machete and a pruning hook. Used for all sorts of rough chopping and cutting. In olden times this form was also used as a weapon, and the Surakarta Karaton had a super size one that was used for executions.

See photo "B". again, straight out of the shed --- doesn't get much use, I prefer an axe.

Photo "C" is the one you didn't mention, a Madurese celurit.

These are the Madurese arit, but unlike the arit they are definitely identified as weapon. During the communist purges of the 1960's whole villages were lined up in East Jawa while an executioner walked behind them and cut their throats with a celurit. This one pictured has a dark pamor blade and has been made as a weapon, it is very sharp.

As with the arit, celurits come in many shapes and sizes, the ones intended as tools cover the whole range of farm and yard duties from cutting flowers to splitting wood.

van Zonneveld shows a completely different type of little chopper and identifies it as bendo, I suspect this is a Sundanese attribution, because it most definitely is not a Javanese bendo.

This link will take you to photos of the exhibits in the Museum Radya Pustaka in Solo, Central Jawa; scroll down and you will find a display of arits, celurits, and one very large bendo, as well as other weapons/agricultural implements.

http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/radyapustaka.html

It is important to recognise that much Javanese traditional weaponry has its roots in agricultural tools.

A. G. Maisey, thanks a lot!

I'd suggest that the English analog for the bendo is a bill-hook.