rencong hilt question
 

I have heard that the rencong hilts that ends in an "L" shape is for ceremonial purposes and the others are for battle. Is there any truth to this?

I have never seen anything on the hulu meuccange ( meucagge) being ceremonial. In fact in a recent correspondance with Barbara Leigh she said that rentcong were often used for assassinations but she did not know of Siwiah being used for them. There are certainly many of them are look functional and are not ornate, perhaps Utami or Albert can offer more.

elephant fossile molar hilt!
 

I have also a question about rencongs!
Where these rencongs made of elephant fossile molar hilts made for use or just for touristic perposes?

Elephant fossil is not a standard material for rencongs, afaik. Your piece, doesn't have the look and feel of acehese aesthetics. The shape at the base of the blade is round instead of a hexagonal profile, the arc of the blade and the shape and design of the sheath... hmmm... perhaps a tourist piece (?) :confused:

I have heard that while a few good Indonesian pieces (keris, as well) are made with fossil elephant molar for a wrongko, it is not a preferred material in Indonesia because it so easily damages the blade during removal and re-sheathing.

For keris, it had been and is currently used as stated, I've seen old authentic examples as well(not touristy pieces). It's a nice material but fragile as stated. Some I've seen with repairs... made in the gayaman fashion and not the ladrang sheath form. :)

For rencong, I've yet to see real authentic old pieces, with fossil elephant molar. ;)

There are rentcongs with the hilt made of the what is called white bone, hulu dandan. They are usually not this shape and I also have not seen any rentcong with fossilized elephant ivory.

That hilt and scabbard style do not say rentcong to me. Does it look more like a tumbuk lada or siwaih to anyone else except me ? I also think ivory is more common on them (though I am not familiar with fossil ivory being used). The blade does have more of the shape of a rentcong. As Alam Shah pointed out the base of the blade ( tampo ? )is round not hexagonal. Hexagonal would point more towards my tumbuk lada feeling. But I think tumbak lada are also found with round bases


Here is the heagonal base on a tumbuk lada blade for reference to what we are talking about

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...l/tum3copy.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...blade2copy.jpg


The round base on a siwaih

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...l/sew02b_s.jpg

If I had to make a pick on Javagolok's piece I would have called it a siwaih.

Alam Shah,
how about sewars?


Michael,

I looked in the book of Zonneveld about your opinion and indeed when I look at the pics and Text, I also think it comes the most near the Siwaih.

Wandering of...
 

Looks like we are wandering of from the question. :rolleyes:

Ceremonial use ? Look at the picture.
Take a good rencong with L shaped hilt. put it in your belt the way the Acehnese wear them. Draw the rencong from the sheath.
It is one of the best close combat weapons I can imagine.

Apart from the fact that I will ofcourse prefer to stay out of any combat ;)

Hello Battara,

I'm with Willem on this.

However, I have to note that hulu puntung and hulu dandan are also very nice to hold/use. Despite their neverending variations, traditional hilts on SE Asian blades seem to be primarily designed for ergonomic function and only secondarily for display purposes...

There are quite a few very basic rencong with hulu meuccange which would speak against this notion: those who only could afford a single blade would certainly make no compromises as to function.

If I recall correctly, the Dutch outlawed rencong and many hulu meuccange got shortened into hulu puntung to make it more easily concealable. Still need to verify this story though...

Regards,
Kai

Hello Maurice,

I believe your blade is pretty recent; I'm not sure it was produced on Sumatra either.

I haven't seen any antique northern Sumatran blade with fossil elephant molar fittings - I'd guess those folks were just too much concerned about durability and other practical issues... ;)

Regards,
Kai

Small addition.

KNIL soldiers where also using the rencong as an additional weapon.
So the rencongs that were taken from the locals were distributed amongst the KNIL soldiers as a personal close combat weapon.

I once had a rencong where the L shaped hilt was simply sawn of and the scabbard was marked with a 'V' not something a Acehnese warrior would do.

Thank you all...

Another question then, what about pamor blades on these - older or not make a difference?

Hello Jose,

I don't think there are any hard rules: blades with contrasting pamor and blades with subtle laminations from forging seem to have coexisted without any strong correlations with estimated age or status: e.g. there are some antique, gold fitted rencong with "plain" blades...

Regards,
Kai

The pamor blade s that are not polished are mosty new ones .

Ben

W :eek: W!
I did not know these things - thank you all very much. :D

Hello Ben,

I assume you mean blades strongly etched and stained with warangan? Also the pamor looks off in those modern repros...

Even worse are those heavily etched blades with raised writing (protected by wax) on them! Often their blade shape is also not traditional.

Regards,
Kai

Yes, I consider those with the wax resist and writing modern if not made for the market.