Naga keris - original?

[A. G. Maisey]

Henk,

Firstly I would like to break the last 100 years into smaller bite sized lumps, and I am only going to talk about Central Jawa, East Jawa, and Madura, which is in fact a part of East Jawa.

Up until the time the Japanese occupied Indonesia there was still keris making going on. Some very high quality blades were produced in the Karatons of Central Jawa, and keris of a much lower quality were being made in East Jawa and Madura.

These East Jawa and Madura keris were stiff in their form, they nearly always used simple mlumah pamor, if they were picture keris --- ie, with nagas or whatever --- those pictures were pretty crude and often evidence of modern technolgy was there to be seen, such as drilled rather than punched holes.

With the Japanese occupation keris manufacture stopped, and there was no keris manufacture again until perhaps the 1950's, but what did take place during the 1950's and 1960's was only very, very limited, and not widespread.

During the 1970's interest in the keris began to arise again, and in the mid-1970's Dietrich Drescher became instrumental in the resurgence of keris manufacture in Jogja --- we all know this story.

However, prior to this there was at least one man in Jogja who was producing forgeries for the keris trade, and he stayed in business doing this until around 1990.He altered old keris, but he also made new keris and artificially aged them.

After keris manufacture had begun again in Jogja, it became evident in Solo, the keris school was established in the ASKI, then the Madura keris makers decided to get serious and upgrade their operations.Keris production in Madura had never really stopped. It is now often claimed that they only began to make keris after the resurgence in Central Jawa, but this is incorrect. After the resurgence in Central Jawa they modernised and a younger generation recognised a business opportunity, however, relatives of my wife had obtained keris sourced from these Madura makers in the period from the mid - 1920's through to the 1960's.

When the new generation of Madura makers began, their product was pretty ugly, and did not really conform to Central Javanese standards for keris, however there has been consistent improvement in the Madura product, and people from this group now produce perhaps some of the finest keris ever made.

The above is only a brief over-view. I have not attempted to cover all of the minor manufacturing areas, however, any minor operations can be linked to these two major schools of Central Jawa and East Jawa.

To return to the keris in question.

This keris is not in a style that can be associated with the school of Central Jawa, nor the school of East Jawa/Madura in the period 1980 to the present.

In other words it was not made later than 1980.

In some respects it does resemble keris that can be associated with the East Jawa/Madura product of 1920's to 1960's.

The indicators are the stiff pawakan, the flat gonjo, the method of naga sculpture, the pamor style, the luk style.

The pesi is most definitely not "thick and sturdy". This is a weak, poorly formed pesi and has bad proportions. It is very irregular in form demonsrating lack of care in manufacture, probably also the removal of rust.

Henk, you cannot use the degree of corrosion on a pesi as an indicator of age. Sometimes in a poorly maintained keris a pesi will completely erode over a 100 year period, on the other hand, a well maintained keris may show no erosion at all over a period of several hundred years. I have a 18th century keris that went to Holland prior to 1800, and the pesi on this keris is as if it came off the bench yesterday. I have a tombak by Jayasukadgo that has a pesi that looks brand new. The pesi is a valuable indicator when appraising a blade, but it can only assist in an assessment of age under very limited circumstances.

As for photos.

Photographs use a lot of time. I first need to find suitable examples amongst those keris that I am prepared to allow to be viewed; then I need to prepare them to be photographed; then I need to photograph them; then I need to process the photos; then I need to publish them either here or in my site. What you are talking about is probably 3 to 5 days work. Quite simply I am not prepared to do that work, because it takes me away from work that produces income.Something like this post I can write in perhaps 20-30 minutes, but photos are a major committment of time.

Additionally, I have no stake in whether what I write is accepted or not. I've told you what I believe to be true, it is of absolutely no consequence to me if you accept it or not.However, what I have written is backed up by over 50 years of experience, which includes the handling of literally thousands of blades every year for the last 20 years at least. Accept or reject:- up to you.

The question as to whether the naga might have been added to the blade cannot be answered from a photo. It is an outside possibility, but it would be necessary to handle the blade in order to support an opinion.