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"I'm afraid that what I read here does not provide me with any sort of solid evidence that this "gana" or "gana-gana" is a legitimate usage ...... "
I agree completely that there is no real evidence that the term 'gana' is a legitime usage and under the the scholary view - I for myself - in scientific essays would prefer to describe such hilts as "natural grown hilts in abstract forms associated with .......". For myself I never heard the term 'gana' used by Javanese persons. Anyway, the articel from Huyser shows, that the term 'gana' was known in1917/1918.
"...... European languages, not only because of the physical absence of the publication, but also because of the inability to read Dutch, German, French & etc."
Naturally many people cannot speek or read a lot of languages but this literature exsists and if somebody wants to research seriously he has to find a way to arrange it, otherwise there will be a great lack in reseaches - just think about the articles and books written in Javanese or Indonesian. The sources are possible to get as - I can order copies in the Australia library and other states have the same system.
Nobody can expect that foreign researchers who are working deep and seriously translate their results into English - too many faults might happen in the translation which could leed to misunderstandings not wanted by the writer. There is a lot of old literature - important literature - about ethnographic studies in generell written in Dutch, German, French, Portugiese and other languages due to the fact that these countries have a long history. Literary research - a difficult and time eating matter, a full time job. So, the people prefer to take the easy literature (unfortunately uncritically) and I am nearly sure that in 20 years the serious informations among collectors are lost - sadly lost.
Thank you
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