Two Sumatra kerises

[BluErf]

Next up is a nice Sumatran keris, possibly from some where near Indragiri (?? really not sure). The main reason why I acquired it was the silver pendok. It is made by a Chinese silversmith. If you notice the way the pendok was fitted to the sampir, the joint is rather too stiff and parallel to the bottom of the pendok, showing that the silversmith doesn't really get the keris aesthetics. The other interesting thing is that if you count the number of flowers on the pendok, it numbers eight. An auspicious number for the Chinese, but hardly what we associate with keris/Malay preference for odd numbers. This keris is an example of cross-cultural mixes that went into the keris, and the larger cultural environment in the archipelago.