small indonésian knife for identification

[kai]

Hello Mohd,

IMVHO the term Bade Bade is either not in used any longer or it never used at all but a misspelling of the earlier orientalist. I believe the term Bade Bade is only found in the old text written by orientalist or it might be found in the net but in websites belong to people from the west!

I guess a good case can be made that bade is just a spelling variant for badik. As the early western visitors (traders, missionaries, physicians, scientists, bureaucrats, soldiers, sailors, etc.) spoke many different European languages (and also had varying linguistic talent) early transliterations are bound to vary (a lot).

Even with a standardized transliteration system the many local SEA languages/dialects will yield differently transliterated spellings (even if the name used has a common origin while many names seem to vary from one village to the next). A name is just something people agree on to ease communication and in many cases it is pretty clear which names are nowadays most widely used (like badik and rencong) while others will go extinct in a generation or two (bade bade); OTOH, some established but erraneous names like parang nabur will have to be replaced (beladah/belabang). However, I believe we need to be careful not to throw the blade out with the coconut water if different spellings are due to different languages/dialects or different names reflect varying local use, respectively.

If you show the the knife in the above picture to any Malay or Sumatran or Javanese then they will simply say that it is a Rencong (i.e. pronounce as REN + CHONG).

While modern Indonesian may be the lingua franka in many parts of the archipelago today (as Malay used to be), there may be a case for the use of local languages/spellings if the traditional use of a blade was geographically/culturally confined. In the case of rencong this would be Aceh, Gayo, as well as Alas; it could be argued that there was a time in recent memory when utilizing the modern Indonesian transliteration was about the least culturally sensitive name one could use for an Aceh blade...

IMVHO the blade doesn't simply become antique just because it is spelled with the old unused spelling!
And IMVHO I'm not simply become an expert just by using the old unused spelling for those blades, am I?

Shhh, don't spoil our trade secrets!

Regards,
Kai