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A. G. Maisey · 17th July 2008, 10:43 PM

Michael, there is a lot of differing opinions on just about anything to do with keris.

Ask a group of six keris people in Jawa for an opinion on something to do with keris, and you'll get ten answers---and that's when they're not feeling a bit undecided.

There are a lot of people who call this pamor buntel mayit.They relate it to the corpse wrapping, and then construct all sorts of wonderful stories around the name. However, it is important to understand the way in which Javanese people use language and ideas. Some linguists have commented that each Javanese person believes that the words he utters are his own property, thus there is no need to conform to usual or accepted forms; this results in the substitution of letters, both vowels and consonants, in order to create different words that might carry a different meaning, perhaps a joke, but without making the content of the conversation unintelligible. Words will be altered to express associated ideas, so that there can be one obvious meaning, and one or more hidden meanings. Sometimes a word will be altered simply to make it fun to say, or because in combination with the other words in the sentence, it just doesn't sound pleasant.Sometimes differing syllables will be added to words, usually as an infix or suffix, not often as a prefix, in order to make the sound more interesting, or the sentence or phrase more balanced, but without losing the meaning of the sentence.

So--- yes, buntel mayat, but because of idea associations with the keris, it is not at all difficult to understand how buntel mayat became twisted into buntel mayit.

The reason I always use mayat, is because this word corruption was something that made my teacher, Pak Parman , extremely angry. He regarded the use of buntel mayit, rather than buntel mayat as something insulting and ill mannered.

This was his feeling about this usage, but it does not necessarily apply to other people---but then, other people perhaps are not quite so immersed in keris culture as was Pak Parman.

Your source for buntel mayit probably just went to a different school.

17th July 2008, 10:43 PM	#12
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,991	Michael, there is a lot of differing opinions on just about anything to do with keris. Ask a group of six keris people in Jawa for an opinion on something to do with keris, and you'll get ten answers---and that's when they're not feeling a bit undecided. There are a lot of people who call this pamor buntel mayit.They relate it to the corpse wrapping, and then construct all sorts of wonderful stories around the name. However, it is important to understand the way in which Javanese people use language and ideas. Some linguists have commented that each Javanese person believes that the words he utters are his own property, thus there is no need to conform to usual or accepted forms; this results in the substitution of letters, both vowels and consonants, in order to create different words that might carry a different meaning, perhaps a joke, but without making the content of the conversation unintelligible. Words will be altered to express associated ideas, so that there can be one obvious meaning, and one or more hidden meanings. Sometimes a word will be altered simply to make it fun to say, or because in combination with the other words in the sentence, it just doesn't sound pleasant.Sometimes differing syllables will be added to words, usually as an infix or suffix, not often as a prefix, in order to make the sound more interesting, or the sentence or phrase more balanced, but without losing the meaning of the sentence. So--- yes, buntel mayat, but because of idea associations with the keris, it is not at all difficult to understand how buntel mayat became twisted into buntel mayit. The reason I always use mayat, is because this word corruption was something that made my teacher, Pak Parman , extremely angry. He regarded the use of buntel mayit, rather than buntel mayat as something insulting and ill mannered. This was his feeling about this usage, but it does not necessarily apply to other people---but then, other people perhaps are not quite so immersed in keris culture as was Pak Parman. Your source for buntel mayit probably just went to a different school.