Keris blade styles

[Rick]

Welcome to the forums Green .
When I checked in this morning to moderate posts I inadvertently deleted your other post .

Could you please re-post that one ?
My apologies .

[David]

Welcome to the forum Green.
I think that the emphasis lands on Indonesia and more specifically Jawa because that is the birth place of the keris. But we certainly deal with Malay side keris quite a lot. You will find much in our archives on Malay blades if you search. I look forward to your posts and contributions.

[Green]

Rick;

I can't remember any other recent post in Keris warung kopi that I sent apart from this one (about Malaysian kris blade styles)...

David;

My head is spinning reading all the very instructive and fascinating arguments and comments by so many enthusiasts and experts in the old threads/posts but so far haven't come across any to specifically answer my concerns about the (Malay) blade styles.

As to the comment about Indonesia as the main keris cultural base, I'm sure that will get Malaysians quite mad because they also think that kris is their cultural heritage from the beginning too!


Hilts and scabbards of Malay styles are markedly different from the Indonesian ones . For example the Tajong (Pekaka) hilt style is believed to originally come from the Malay Sultanate of Patani (Now Southern Thailand ).

[David]

Well, there is always room for debate Green, but most collectors and writers i am aware of clearly place the origins of the keris in Jawa. This does not mean that the keris is not a also a piece of Malay cultural heritage, but from all my studies i have never seen keris older that certain examples that are clearly Javanese in origin. Most of the Malay collectors i know seem to agree that the keris began in Jawa and migrated outward to the Peninsula. However, the floor is always open for new information and evidence and i would love to see some Malay keris that have a provenance as early as some Javanese keris i have seen.

Originally Posted by Green

so far haven't come across any to specifically answer my concerns about the (Malay) blade styles.

Perhaps if you voiced your specific concerns you will find someone can answer them. What are you trying to ascertain?

[Sajen]

Hello Green,

here you can see my Pandai Saras blade: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...t=pandai+saras
Here another one: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...t=pandai+saras

Here you can see two Carita blades: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...t=pandai+saras

And here a Melela blade: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=melela

Tok Chu is a pandai keris and not a specific blade form. I hope this help a little bit.

Regards,
Detlef

[Gustav]

For good posts regarding Malay Keris, please search for posts of DAHenkel and BluErf, especially in the old UBB Forum:

http://www.vikingsword.com/cgi-bin/s...i?action=intro

Put "Ethnographic Edged Weapons" in window "Search Forum/Archive" and the two names abowe in "Search by User Name".

[Green]

Detlef;

Many thanks Detlef for the links showing different shapes of pandai saras, carita and malela.

What I hope to understand clearly is how one can differentiate between the different blade styles and each style's characteristics and salient features.

The reason I ask is because some blades that I see named as Malela look (to my untrained eyes) very much the same as Charita or tok chu not much different to Pandai saras etc. and don't know which style is superior if any.

Someone mentioned (not in this forum) the original tok chu lacks the elephant trunk on the blade although I've seen examples of blades referred to as Tok Chu with the elephant trunk present.

And thanks Gustav for the suggestion. I'll go through the old posts bit by bit and learn from there.