Mendakery

[A. G. Maisey]

Slow day --- wet, cool, bit of wind, not nice outside, sick of work.

Here is some more mendakery to think about.

I took 9 recent Solo hilts, all very good quality, carved recently, ie, within the last 50 years, by several highly regarded Solo tukang jejeran, I added 4 old, ie, pre-WWII, hilts of very ordinary quality, then I grabbed 6 Jogja hilts, all old, one good quality, the other 5 just ordinary.

Then I went to my stock of mendak --- I've got a lot of mendak, several hundred without counting my collection of mendaks. I sorted out all the mendak in my stock that I would call parijoto. I sorted these parijoto mendak into groups of the same type. Then I matched each mendak against each hilt.

This is what I found.

Group "A" mendak --- there are 23 of these mendak, they are all new and all with the larger ball type. 20 of these mendak were a good fit to the Jogja hilts, 3 of these mendak were too big for the Jogja hilts, but acceptable for the Solo hilts.

Group "B" mendak --- there are 6 of these mendak, they are all new and all of the larger ball type. All 6 were a good fit for the Jogja hilts, they were too small for the Solo hilts

Group "C" mendak --- there are 12 of these mendak, they are all old, and most have been repaired, all have been gold plated. All these mendak are of the type that have small balls. Of these mendak 2 are too small for Solo, but all are too big for Jogja.

Group "D" mendak --- there are 6 of these mendak, they are all old mendak in unrestored condition, all are of the type with small balls, 4 of these mendak are a good fit for a Jogja hilt, 2 of these mendak are a good fit for a Solo hilt.

Group "E" mendak --- there are 8 of these mendak, they are all old mendak in good condition and gold plated, they are all a good fit for the Jogja hilts, but are too small for Solo.

Group "F" mendak --- there are 9 of these mendak, 2 are of the big ball type and are recent, 7 are of the small ball type and are old in good condition. All 9 mendak are of superior quality. 5 of the small ball type are a good fit for the Jogja hilts, but are too small for a Solo hilt, 2 of the small ball type are too big for a Jogja hilt, but are a good fit for a Solo hilt, the 2 recent, big ball type mendak are a good fit for the Jogja hilts, but too small for a Solo hilt.

Group "G" mendak --- there are 9 of these mendak, they are all of the small ball type, they are all old and of varying levels of quality. 2 of these mendak are a good fit for a Solo hilt, all 9 mendak are far too big for a Jogja hilt. This type of mendak is usually found along the North Coast, through into East Jawa, and in Madura.


I've never done an exercise like this before, but now that I have done it, it seems to me that the only mendak that have big balls are new or recent. All the old mendak have small balls and appear to have been made to suit hilts of at least several different types.

I think that the conclusion that must be drawn is that we cannot place a parijoto mendak as belonging to any particular location simply by looking at profile and design --- but of course, anybody else can draw whatever conclusion they may wish to draw.