A Javanese Wedhung

[SidJ]

Here's an antique Javanese wedhung. I've been chasing one for years. Cheers

[Albert]

Originally Posted by SidJ

Here's an antique Javanese wedhung. I've been chasing one for years. Cheers

Looks very nice!

[David]

Hi Sid. Congratulations on finally acquiring a wedhung.
Better, larger photos would be helpful, but i suspect from what i can see that your is probably later 19th century to early 20th. Not a high ranking piece since it does not appear to carry pamor.

[SidJ]

Thanks Albert and David,

I think it had pamor at some time but is now not in stain. David do you have any reasoning to date it as you have as I have not found any guidance. I don't necessarily think that pamor in itself is a 100% guarantee of age or the fact of it being a high ranking piece though as that can easily be replicated in a modern setting. In fact I have seen a few of these pamored ones that look decidely recent.

[A. G. Maisey]

The wedhung is a court knife that is required to be worn by some members of a kraton hierarchy.

In the case of the Surakarta kraton, a wedhung can only carry pamor if it is worn by a prince, people of lower rank are not permitted to wear a wedhung that has pamor.

I very much doubt that this wedhung has or ever had pamor.

Dating this wedhung, blade only, would be very difficult if not impossible. There are a number of reasons for this.

Pamor can be used as a guide in assisting to date any blade that carries pamor, but it cannot be done reliably from a photo.

[SidJ]

Thanks Alan
I will post better images soon. You may well be right. On pamor and princes though it is possible is it not for new wedhung to be made with pamor on them? Most wedhung images I have seen online have pamor. There could be a bias to these being pictured but there must have been a lot of princes about or replicas are being made or all of these may apply. Leaving that aside my knife has very subtle if any, greneng.. The blade is also 8.5 inches. Can that indicate age?

[A. G. Maisey]

This is not a recent wedhung, I have owned & still do own, a number of very old wedhungs & also recent wedhungs. Pamor in recent ones is quite bright, nickel material, pamor in older ones is very often the greyish colour associated with a different type of ferric material.

All the recent wedhungs that I have seen and/or owned have not been "replicas" but have been made on order for a specific person.

Size is not an indicator of age by itself, the recent wedhungs I have handled have all been pretty large, very old wedhungs that I have handled have also been large. Small wedhungs are usually those that have been worn by women.

As for the numbers of princes. In Jawa over the past generations, the number of wives a man had, & the number of children each wife had was one of the measures of prestige. For a farmer it was perfectly understandable that he take the maximum number of wives that he could, he needed multiple wives & multiple children as workers.

For nobles the number of wives & children was pure social pressure & prestige. I know of many cases of lower ranked nobles who had only one wife, but in one case that one wife had given birth to 18 children, the lady concerned died about 20 years ago & she was well into her 90's.

Not everybody could wear a wedhung, it was required court wear for certain officials, but only princes could wear a pamor wedhung, Solyom reported this, & I have found that to be mostly true, however, I have also known higher ranked bupatis to wear a pamor wedhung. One thing is certain, lower ranked people could only wear a wedhung without pamor.

For a ruler, a Sunan/Susuhunan or a Sultan, well, he needed to be in front of everybody else. Pakubuwana XII (Alm.) who passed in 2004, had 6 official wives & an uncounted number of silirs, he had 37 officially recognised official children, 15 male, & 22 female. The males were, of course, princes. One of his unrecognised female children was the mother of my housekeeper during the times I spent in Solo, as a young woman she was a court dancer --- the mother, not the housekeeper.

Correction

PBXII had 6 official consorts, not 6 official wives.
The heir to the throne is traditionally the first son of the wife named as the primary wife, but PBXII never did name a primary wife, so they were all consorts.
He did name an heir to the throne, but the son he named was not the first son of his first wife, & when PBXII passed, this break with tradition caused a great deal of disruption in the Surakarta Karaton.
The primary wife does not necessarily need to be the first woman who was wed.

[David]

Sid, as Alan has mentioned, dating wedhung can be very tricky since it is not a knife that has changed very much over time, though when we get further back in time to Mojopahit and Mataram we do see some differences in the profile of the blade. Again, better photos would be helpful, but no guarantee that a more accurate dating can be determined. I feel confident that yours is at least antique, but could possibly be a bit older than late 19th century.
I have attached some images of mine which probably dates back to the early years Mataram and you will notice a more elongated profile to the blade.
Alan has already addressed your questions about pamor and hierarchy. The other thing i note with yours is that it is a somewhat more simplistic form of the blade since it doesn't really present any wideng (like the greneng on a keris) at the backside of the base of the blade. I could be wrong, but i would image that more attention would be paid to this detail on wedhung intended for higher ranked court officials.