Nothing at all to do with keris.

[A. G. Maisey]

This post either has absolutely nothing to do with keris, or it has absolutely everything to do with keris.

How you percieve its relevance to the keris is dependent upon how your mind works.

At the heart of keris understanding for the modern collector, both within keris bearing cultures, and outside keris bearing cultures, is the question of origin in both geographic terms and in terms of age of the relevant keris.

The way in which we address this question of origin can very often be quite humorous if we care to take two long steps back from the matter and address it in a purely objective and logical way.

Without becoming too involved in discussion of the source of humour, it may be sufficient to observe that as a group, and individually, we tend to either take shelter in vagueness, or regard vagueness as certainty. We swim in a sea of vagueness.

Recently I was lent a really wonderful book. Possibly the best bit of reading I've had in front of me in a long time:-

Not Exactly: In praise of vagueness --- Kees van Deemter (Oxford University Press)

As I have been reading it, I have constantly been amused by the matters treated in this book, and the attitudes and conventions of those of us who have an interest in the keris.

If your mind functions in a way that relates ideas, characteristics, information , that is relevant to one sphere to similar ideas etc that are relevant in other spheres, and thus provide better understanding of the functionality of concepts within disparate spheres, you will enjoy this book:-

http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~kvdeemte/NotExactly-book

Here is a sample:-

http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~kvdeemte/...eemter-c01.pdf


However, if you seek clear-cut answers that progress in a straight line, you will very probably not enjoy it at all.

If you do bring yourself to read it, you may better understand what we are dealing with when we set out to categorise keris.