Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

A. G. Maisey · 28th September 2012, 09:44 PM

Lombok is always a good guess for something that doesn't quite fit into Bali, or generic Bugis, or Jawa.

There were settlers there from all these places, Bali colonised Lombok, the Bugis people established more than a foothold, and people from Jawa came to there too. They all kept their own style of keris --- and I guess other cultural appurtenances--- and after all the conflict died down there was a good bit of swapping and changing blade and dress styles.

I've handled blades that except for size looked 100% Jawa, the Lombok ones were bigger, but these were definitely Lombok origin. Often Lombok/Bali is simply impossible to differentiate, in fact the Raja of Badung (Den Pasar) had a number of Lombok/Bali keris as part of his regalia.

Bugis keris have certain generic characteristics, but if you mixed up 100 generic Bugis blades I doubt that anybody could identify the point of origin of those blades.

I once made a fool of myself by declaring unequivocally that a particular blade from a world famous museum was not from Palembang, but rather from Mataram. Turned out that it had provenance that made it very difficult to believe it could be from anywhere other than Palembang.

Another thing too:- smiths moved around. If work was slack in one place , they'd move to somewhere else. The chronicle of the Line of Descent of the Empus of the Land of Jawa attributed to Pangeran Wijil is full of the movements, marriages and children of these itinerant smiths.

I have a particular type of very rare Moro style keris that comes from Northern Borneo, it was actually the state execution keris of Brunei, it is of 100% Madura workmanship, and Madurese smiths were very widespread across S.E.Asia. Why? Because Madura was and still is, a pretty hard place to earn a living.

I'm mostly pretty comfortable in identifying Javanese and Balinese blades --- I regard Madura as a part of Jawa--- I'm not all that bad on Lombok blades, other people are pretty good with Peninsula blades, but once we move outside these areas I do really think it becomes a bit of a lottery to try to pin specific origin on generic blades.We can't rely at all on dress to help ID a blade, blades moved from one dress style to another with great regularity. A few years ago it was not at all unusual to come across Balinese and Bugis blades in Javanese dress, old Javanese dress that had been made for the blade. Why? Because the rulers and lords in Jawa used to employ these people as guards and soldiers.

There are a lot of traps in trying to ID non-mainstream blades.

28th September 2012, 09:44 PM	#5
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,991	Lombok is always a good guess for something that doesn't quite fit into Bali, or generic Bugis, or Jawa. There were settlers there from all these places, Bali colonised Lombok, the Bugis people established more than a foothold, and people from Jawa came to there too. They all kept their own style of keris --- and I guess other cultural appurtenances--- and after all the conflict died down there was a good bit of swapping and changing blade and dress styles. I've handled blades that except for size looked 100% Jawa, the Lombok ones were bigger, but these were definitely Lombok origin. Often Lombok/Bali is simply impossible to differentiate, in fact the Raja of Badung (Den Pasar) had a number of Lombok/Bali keris as part of his regalia. Bugis keris have certain generic characteristics, but if you mixed up 100 generic Bugis blades I doubt that anybody could identify the point of origin of those blades. I once made a fool of myself by declaring unequivocally that a particular blade from a world famous museum was not from Palembang, but rather from Mataram. Turned out that it had provenance that made it very difficult to believe it could be from anywhere other than Palembang. Another thing too:- smiths moved around. If work was slack in one place , they'd move to somewhere else. The chronicle of the Line of Descent of the Empus of the Land of Jawa attributed to Pangeran Wijil is full of the movements, marriages and children of these itinerant smiths. I have a particular type of very rare Moro style keris that comes from Northern Borneo, it was actually the state execution keris of Brunei, it is of 100% Madura workmanship, and Madurese smiths were very widespread across S.E.Asia. Why? Because Madura was and still is, a pretty hard place to earn a living. I'm mostly pretty comfortable in identifying Javanese and Balinese blades --- I regard Madura as a part of Jawa--- I'm not all that bad on Lombok blades, other people are pretty good with Peninsula blades, but once we move outside these areas I do really think it becomes a bit of a lottery to try to pin specific origin on generic blades.We can't rely at all on dress to help ID a blade, blades moved from one dress style to another with great regularity. A few years ago it was not at all unusual to come across Balinese and Bugis blades in Javanese dress, old Javanese dress that had been made for the blade. Why? Because the rulers and lords in Jawa used to employ these people as guards and soldiers. There are a lot of traps in trying to ID non-mainstream blades.