Javanese machete??

[marto suwignyo]

KIAI yth
Yes, the distinction in terminology could be between usage of a term in a village environment, and usage in a town. As you remark, there is little need for a bendho in a town, but we don`t live in town, we`re in the perumnas, and probably most of our neighbours do have bendho, which we all call bendho. Big ones, small ones, ones with rounded tips, ones with broken tips, ones with pointed tips. If it is a chopper with a curve and the edge on the inside of the curve, it gets called bendho, except by a few recalcitrants who call all big choppers of any type" parang". Possibly not correct, but this is the way language is used.

My wife does have a rural background, but she was never a gatherer of wood and water; I myself have never lived outside of an urban or suburban environment.

I was particularly interested in Sragen area, because I have several workers who come from the villages around Sragen, and in an earlier post you mentioned that you came from near Sragen, however 30km is not all that near, and there is still room for variation.

This usage variation has me interested, and I will follow through on it when I have the opportunity.

In earlier times the bendho was used as a weapon. Examples of weapon quality bendho can be found in the Musium Radyopustoko. Raffles shows a picture of what he calls a "bandul", but what is shown is exactly what we call a bendho. Possibly he meant "bandol" but its not really a bandol. Attached is a photo of a bendho made by Empu Suparman in the early 1990`s; the owner has told me that the head at the point is a representation of the rojomolo.I have heard that in old times a very big bendo was used as an implement of execution in the Surakarta kraton.

Thank you for your charmingly phrased input.

[marto suwignyo]

Oh yes, something else that I almost forgot to mention, but first, to all those who may read this and who will undoubtedly be bored senseless by discussion of language in a Forum supposedly devoted to discussion of weaponry, I most humbly apologise for my part in the generation of this boredom.

In Modern Javanese, that is Javanese as it has developed since the 17th century, the word "yoni" does not, and never did mean the female counterpart of the lingga. Additionally,the word "yoni" is not a part of the Indonesian lexicon.

In Modern Javanese the meaning of "yoni" is "to have magical power, or supernatural power, or devine power"; it can have secondary meanings of "excellent", "distinguished", "sacred", or "to have high knowledge". Usage of the word is literary, it is not a part of ngoko or Krama Inggil.

In Old Javanese one of the meanings of "yoni" was "uterus or womb", but it had alternate meanings of "place of birth", and "origin", it also could be used to mean "perfect".

The word "yoni" has its origin in Sanscrit where it has well over a dozen meanings, including "vulva, womb, birthplace".

The entry for "yoni" in Ensiklopedi is clear enough, and it most certainly does not carry the implications attributed to it by The Most Honoured Kiai. It is very difficult for me to understand how a native speaker of Indonesian could give the interpretation to Pak Bambang`s text that has been given to it by Kiai Carita, whom we all know lives in a Javanese village, 30 km from Sragen.

[Billman]

Hi

Just joined the forum, so a few years late in replying to this post. However, all information is potentially useful - so here is my contribution... Based on my collecting of mostly European billhooks for over 40 years, and a collection of some 4000 + from over 20 countries....

A sickle is generally taken to be a tool to cut grass-like vegetation, and a billhook for woody growth. But hybrid tools for cutting heavy grasses, e.g rushes for thatching, or small wood, e.g osiers for basket making, also exist. So is a small heavy curved sickle really a billhook, or vice versa??

In France we find 'faucillon' or 'faucille à bois' - literally a sickle for wood. To compound matters further, although serpe is the general translation for billhook, dialect names such as gouet, goyarde, poudo, vousge (and many others) exist.

Many French words come from the latin - a faux can be a scythe, a sickle or a bilhook - usually an adjective describes its use, e.g. faux arboria (wood sickle = billhook) - french uses a similar format, a 'serpe de taiilandier' is a cooper's tool, called in some regions a cochoir or a cauchoir. A 'serpette à tailler' is a small pruning billhook, in some regions sickle shaped...

Americans often call a billhook a fascine knife - in the UK it is known as a bill, a hand bill, a hedging bill, a pruning bill, a broom hook, a spar hook etc depending upon usage and where it comes from....

Thus I guess there is no hard and fast rule ref 'arit gedhe' (big sickle) or 'bendho' - what one region call it may differ from another, the shape of the tool similarly (there are several hundred regional variations for French, English and Italian billhooks - not including sickles - one French manufacturer, Talabot, in their 1930's catalogue boasted they held patterns for over 3000, and would make any shape upon submission of a paper pattern or template)..

What hope then is there for a positive identification of what a tool is called or where it was made... Ditto tools that may have also been used as weapons....

If you have any images of locally made billhook type tools please post or send by PM - if you have a local name, and can ID the location of manufacturer or the usage, even better...

[Henk]

Billman,

Thank you for your contribution and identification of my javanese or even indian machete.
I googled on billhook. Never heard of that word before. Wow...... just selected pictures. And there it is.......