Indonesian keris in Philippines war
 

Hello !!
I have a question about use of indonesian keris in Philippines during spanish philipino war.
I have se en several wall plaque with weapons of this period and sometimes I saw indonesian keris mix between kris, barong, panabas ... in this wall plaques.
Do you think indonesian keris was uses in this war ?
Thanks in advance
Carlos

Hello Carlos:

Can you tell us where you saw these wall plaques and what written comments may have accompanied them?

I would be more likely to accept a Philippines origin if these displays were in a Spanish museum than if they were in a private collection. Of course, finding Indonesian keris among Filipino weapons does not necessarily imply that the Indonesian keris was used as a weapon by Filipinos.

Do you have pictures of Indonesian keris interspersed with other Moro weapons? It would be helpful to post those here so we could talk about specific examples.

Ian.

I have One image from the 1883 Exposicion de Filipinas in Madrid taken by J. Laurent. On display are various traditional Filipino weapon, but is too large to unload. If somete want I send picture I can send by e-mal.
Thanks

Without seeing this, I will say that there was lots of trade between the south Pilippines Moros and Parts of Indonesia, especially from Borneo (not to mention Malaysia)........

Carlos:

If you can send me the file by email I will try to adapt the size to forum requirements and perhaps select the key elements for enlarging.

Ian.

Carlos, Is this the wall plaque of weapons that you are referring to?
The keris is at 3:00 o'clock.

When it is this wall plaque Carlos referring to and my eyes are good enough I would think that this is a Bugis keris. The Bugis are a seafaring nation and since the Philippines not far away from Sulawesi I am not surprised to see this keris at this old wall plaque.

Regards,
Detlef

Yes !!
This is the plaque.
Thanks
Carlos

This is not a really great photo to tell from, but it looks like those might be Indo-keris at 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock on either side of the kampilan at noon as well.
Without any context i couldn't really say what made the person who created this wall display include both Indonesian and Moro weapons. While i would not be the least bit surprised to learn that someone during the Moro insurrection or before in the Philippines has and perhaps even used an Indonesian keris in battle i would say that it is unlikely that the practice was all that pervasive.

I snagged this amazing photo from Filhistory, migueldiaz's Facebook page.
Enjoy.

Yes, this is the picture !!

Kino:

Thank you for finding and posting this extraordinary image. I have taken the liberty of altering the contrast and size of the cropped image that you posted to show the wall plaque with possible Indonesian keris.

I rotated the image so that it would not need to be scrolled and showed the two kris/keris that David identified as possibly Indonesian with arrows.

To my eye, the ones that David identified at 11 and 1 o'clock in your original post look like Moro kris (I think there is a single baca baca on the one with the arrow). The other sword, shown at 3 o'clock on Kino's original post and with an arrow at the top of my rotated picture, is harder to discern and could be Indonesian or perhaps Bugis--the hilt is indistinct. However, based on this picture, I cannot rule out an older form of Moro kris for this one.

Inspection of enlargements of the other plaques did not show swords that resembled Indonesian keris to me.

Regards,

Ian.