Pamor thread?

[A. G. Maisey]

Gentlemen, as I understand it, this pamor thread was proposed not as a point of reference to identify a particular pamor, but rather as a compendium of pamor patterns. Thus, its purpose is not to "look something up", but rather, just to look.

It seems to have already been decided that we are to have pictures only in this thread, not pictures and words, the point being that we do not want to have this thread develop into a series of debates as to whether something is Ron Duru, Ron Kenduru, Ron Genduru, or Bulu Ayam --- and so forth.

So, this thread is not to be a reference to assist in the identification of a particular pamor, but simply a series of pictures of pamors, all having an equal but undefined value.

Think of it this way:- if we decided to open a thread that contained pictures of nothing but beautiful young women --- or ugly old men for that matter --- would we attempt to compartmentalise these pictures into Caucasian, Asian, Sub-Saharan African. Mediterranean etc, etc, etc, or would we be quite content to simply look at the diversity of human form? I would suggest that a series of Beyonce Knowles look-a-likes, one after the other might become just a trifle boring. One can even become bored with too much gelato, and fail to differentiate the chocolate from the hazelnut.

Then there is the problem of how we would categorise. Personally I would find this to be an extremely difficult job, because before I could categorise a pamor I would need to understand how it was made, and that is not always easy. In fact, it is sometimes extremely difficult, even for somebody who has handled thousands of blades with various pamor patterns, and who has himself made a number of different pamor patterns, to understand what was done to produce a pamor. Even to be absolutely certain as to whether a pamor motif is mlumah or miring or a combination of both is sometimes not easy, in fact, sometimes not even possible.

I have not seen this "pamor atlas" that has been mentioned, but if the categories listed by Sirek are an accurate reflection of the way in which this book categorises pamor motifs, then I'm afraid I would find it impossible to use. To me, these categorisations are meaningless.

There is one other thing that we need to understand too:- this Forum is open to the entire world: it is not the exclusive preserve of experienced and knowledgeable students and collectors of the keris. We have people here who are regular contributors and experienced collectors who are unable to differentiate between a keris and some other items of tosan aji. These people would be confounded by the task of first having to categorise a pamor motif in their own minds, before they could access a category that somebody else had decided was a particular type.

Categorisation is a fine tool, but only when everybody who uses the data base is aware of, understands, and is able to use the indicators which determine the category. Since there has been no standard established upon which to base the categorisation, the only person who would understand it would be the person who decided to place it in category A, B, or C.

My preference remains as already stated:- everything into one basket, and just look; if one particular example should grab one's attention, lift the image from the basket and commence a new thread for the discussion of that particular motif:- at that point everybody can give it whatever name they know it by, propose solutions for its manufacture, and detail its talismanic qualities.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Gentlemen, as I understand it, this pamor thread was proposed not as a point of reference to identify a particular pamor, but rather as a compendium of pamor patterns. Thus, its purpose is not to "look something up", but rather, just to look.

It seems to have already been decided that we are to have pictures only in this thread, not pictures and words, the point being that we do not want to have this thread develop into a series of debates as to whether something is Ron Duru, Ron Kenduru, Ron Genduru, or Bulu Ayam --- and so forth.

So, this thread is not to be a reference to assist in the identification of a particular pamor, but simply a series of pictures of pamors, all having an equal but undefined value.

Think of it this way:- if we decided to open a thread that contained pictures of nothing but beautiful young women --- or ugly old men for that matter --- would we attempt to compartmentalise these pictures into Caucasian, Asian, Sub-Saharan African. Mediterranean etc, etc, etc, or would we be quite content to simply look at the diversity of human form? I would suggest that a series of Beyonce Knowles look-a-likes, one after the other might become just a trifle boring. One can even become bored with too much gelato, and fail to differentiate the chocolate from the hazelnut.

Then there is the problem of how we would categorise. Personally I would find this to be an extremely difficult job, because before I could categorise a pamor I would need to understand how it was made, and that is not always easy. In fact, it is sometimes extremely difficult, even for somebody who has handled thousands of blades with various pamor patterns, and who has himself made a number of different pamor patterns, to understand what was done to produce a pamor. Even to be absolutely certain as to whether a pamor motif is mlumah or miring or a combination of both is sometimes not easy, in fact, sometimes not even possible.

I have not seen this "pamor atlas" that has been mentioned, but if the categories listed by Sirek are an accurate reflection of the way in which this book categorises pamor motifs, then I'm afraid I would find it impossible to use. To me, these categorisations are meaningless.

There is one other thing that we need to understand too:- this Forum is open to the entire world: it is not the exclusive preserve of experienced and knowledgeable students and collectors of the keris. We have people here who are regular contributors and experienced collectors who are unable to differentiate between a keris and some other items of tosan aji. These people would be confounded by the task of first having to categorise a pamor motif in their own minds, before they could access a category that somebody else had decided was a particular type.

Categorisation is a fine tool, but only when everybody who uses the data base is aware of, understands, and is able to use the indicators which determine the category. Since there has been no standard established upon which to base the categorisation, the only person who would understand it would be the person who decided to place it in category A, B, or C.

My preference remains as already stated:- everything into one basket, and just look; if one particular example should grab one's attention, lift the image from the basket and commence a new thread for the discussion of that particular motif:- at that point everybody can give it whatever name they know it by, propose solutions for its manufacture, and detail its talismanic qualities.

^^^ ummmm....yeah....what he said...

[Rick]

About the only qualifiers I could suggest for this thread would be to identify which pamors are Mlumah method and which are adeg .

[Bjorn]

I think Alan made the point quite eloquently on why categorization would be difficult to achieve.

To this I'd like to add that this is a forum, a medium which has been designed from the ground up for discussion - not categorization. If one would truly want to categorize pamor patterns, I think frequent re-ordering would be necessary. This is something the forum is not suited to as posts cannot be easily re-arranged or edited by all. For categorization, a tool such as labels would be extremely useful - something which is unavailable to us forumites.

I would suggest that a forum is simply not the right kind of tool for any real categorization effort due to its technical limitations.