little kris

David · 22nd August 2013, 05:13 PM

Sorry Jimmy. We get used to throwing around certain keris terminology around here without thinking. "Dhapur" refers to the profile of the blade. Picture it as a silhouette. It's one way to ID or categorize a blade. To be a little more specific, some might refer to your blade as Kebo Lajer as compared to Kebo Teki or Kebo Giri, etc which would have long ganders, but slightly different features. This is why i stated this was in the Kebo "Family". Hopefully Detlef's illustration has shown you the area of the blade that is referred to as the "gandik". All Kebo blades have longer than usual gandik areas.
The "gonjo" (often written as ganja as well) is the asymmetrical piece at the base of the blade. Most often this is a separate piece from the blade. On yours it is part of the blade with only an inscribed line to mark an implied separation. This is less common and is referred to as "Gonjo Iras".
Of course, all of these are Javanese terms and are not truly correct when we apply them to keris from different areas, which we tend to do all the time anyway.

Generally i try to use English terms where they are clear, so i will say blade instead of "wilah", hilt instead of "ukiran" of "hulu" and sheath instead of "wrongko" or "sarong", but with a part like the gonjo i have no English word that really describes it well.

22nd August 2013, 05:13 PM	#7
David Keris forum moderator Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 7,240	Sorry Jimmy. We get used to throwing around certain keris terminology around here without thinking. "Dhapur" refers to the profile of the blade. Picture it as a silhouette. It's one way to ID or categorize a blade. To be a little more specific, some might refer to your blade as Kebo Lajer as compared to Kebo Teki or Kebo Giri, etc which would have long ganders, but slightly different features. This is why i stated this was in the Kebo "Family". Hopefully Detlef's illustration has shown you the area of the blade that is referred to as the "gandik". All Kebo blades have longer than usual gandik areas. The "gonjo" (often written as ganja as well) is the asymmetrical piece at the base of the blade. Most often this is a separate piece from the blade. On yours it is part of the blade with only an inscribed line to mark an implied separation. This is less common and is referred to as "Gonjo Iras". Of course, all of these are Javanese terms and are not truly correct when we apply them to keris from different areas, which we tend to do all the time anyway. Generally i try to use English terms where they are clear, so i will say blade instead of "wilah", hilt instead of "ukiran" of "hulu" and sheath instead of "wrongko" or "sarong", but with a part like the gonjo i have no English word that really describes it well.