A Keris for slashing...

[A. G. Maisey]

I understand that for many who read what I will now write, I am close to uttering sacrilege, but the simple fact of the matter is this:-

for low quality blades produced as market commodities, as opposed to bespoke blades produced by an mpu for a specific person, the length of the pesi was not set at time of making:- it finished up as it finished up. It was expected that the buyer of the blade would trim the length of the pesi to suit the hilt.

Don't forget this:- many ready made blades were sold to people who made their own dress, they were not necessarily dressed by a specialist craftsman, nor were they dressed according to some esoteric belief that the pesi contained the spirit of the blade, to my knowledge, only a certain segment of present day keris collectors and mystics hold this belief.

There was no bar to the trimming of a pesi in a ready made keris in order that it would fit the hilt.

The same holds true today:- very often the pesi on mid to low quality present day keris will be far too long for the hilt, so the mranggi trims the pesi to the correct length. In a Surakarta keris this length is +/- 7cm measured from the top of the blade, not the top of the gonjo.

Sometimes we find a Javanese blade in Bugis dress. To fit the Bugis hilt the pesi is invariably shortened, and sometimes bent.

It is OK to dream about what is so and what is not so, but the people who actually make, maintain and use keris have not in the past, and do not now, necessarily subscribe to the same dreams that are held by many of the people who collect them.