Maguindanao twistcore Kris.

[RobT]

Ian,

Save for the functional superiority issue, your conclusions and mine generally agree. I would have put the one piece version’s first appearance as in the last quarter of the 19th century if not later because five of my examples have a ganja iras and the other three have ganja fitted very closely to the blade (think crankshaft bearing tolerances). However, I’m not really sure whether these ganja iris and tightly fitted ganja first appeared in the mid or in the late 19th century.
I am not very good when it comes to using the Cato classification but, of the eight kris in my collection with a one piece baca baca, five appear to be Maguindanao, two appear to be Maranao, and one appears to be a crossover. One of the Maranao blades tapers distally in width from 2” (5.08 cm) at the baca baca to 1.5” (3.81 cm) at the last luk and has 19 luk in its 22.75” (57.785 cm) length. An odd looking blade for sure.
My reasons for thinking that the one piece baca baca was deliberately created as an improvement over the two piece version are as follows: I don’t think that there can be any question that, all other things being equal, the one piece design would provide greater torque resistance than a two piece version. A blow struck with a large and wide blade can be expected to generate more impact and torque forces than a blow struck with a smaller and narrower blade. As you noted, the one piece baca baca appears most often on large, wide blades and, in the examples I have, only the crossover is of average size. The other seven blades are large and wide. A closely fitted ganja (or better yet a ganja iras) would also have helped the kris hang together during the rigors of combat. I suspect that the one piece baca baca was more than just a style and the smiths were trying to sell the notion that a single one piece version could perform as well as a pair of the two piece kind but were perfectly willing to fit a pair of the two piece baca baca should the customer be unconvinced.

Sincerely,
RobT

[Ian]

Hi Rob, I think that it is really difficult to pin down 19th C kris to a specific part of the 19th C. Pre-1800 styles may still have been made in the first half of the 19th C, or perhaps even later, and more "modern" versions might date back to the mid-19th C or earlier. I do think we underestimate the age of some Mindanao kris that are on the larger side. Unfortunately, these swords carry no dated inscriptions like some Eastern swords do.

The paucity of clearly provenanced pieces always makes it hard to know when these were made. Of course, when a kris was made and when it was collected can be very different times. Obviously, a sword may be already old when collected. Thus, a kris entering a Spanish collection in the 19th C, for example, will be given a date for its acquisition but not for when it was made (which is almost always unknown). For this reason, I believe there is a systematic bias to attributing an age to swords that is less than their true age. Such bias might be out by decades or more than a century in individual cases.

I find it difficult to talk more specifically about age than a sword likely coming from the first or second half of the 19th C.

[RobT]

an,

Your belief that there is a tendency to underestimate the age of kris is supported by the fact that there are a large number of blades still available today. This argues for a period of manufacture a lot longer than early 19th to mid 20th century (even when factoring in good preservation of existing swords within the culture). Since earlier styles persist and coexist with later styles, I have to agree with you that early and later 19th century or later 19th into 20th century is the best age estimate we can give for most kris

Sincerely,
RobT

[Ian]

Thanks Rob. Key data are missing regarding the dating of kris. This may exist for pusaka kris maintained in families for long periods of time as heirlooms. Even though I have traveled to the Philippines and visited Mindanao a few times, I have not had the opportunity to sit down with a Moro family and talk about great-great-great-grandfather's kris. Those swords are probably out there for some investigator to discover, but that requires a particular entrée to Moro society that I didn't have as a foreigner in a strange land. We may get there eventually.

In the meanwhile, I have been exploring in what way the modern kris was developed incrementally from the Indonesian/Bali keris. My reasoning is that the more features a Moro kris has in common with the keris of 16th C Indonesia, then the older the kris is likely to be. That may be overly simple, but at least it provides a rationale for beginning to date Moro kris.

This requires definitions. What is a Moro kris? I suggest those kris that were made in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago (and perhaps Palawan) are in this category, but what about Sabah, Brunei, and Sarawak? At one time most of Sabah and Sarawak were part of the Sultanate of Brunei. I would group Brunei kris with Moro kris because of this Brunei Sultanate's longstanding, close ties with the Moros of Sulu (particularly) and Mindanao.

Then what about the "cousins" of Moro kris made in the Malaya States (now Malaysia), formerly the Sultanate of Melaka? I define the Malay kris that resembles some Moro kris as a separate group. The Malay sundang style is usually sufficiently different to warrant a separate classification, but some Malay examples are almost identical to Moro kris. There is another reason to consider the Malay sundang as a separate entity. Malay culture is also a keris culture and has its own forms of keris that continue to be made today. That, in turn, has likely influenced the style of sundang in ways that the Moro kris has not.

Whether the Malay sundang and Moro kris are examples of parallel development, or one departed from the other at an early stage, is unclear. Also, to what extent trade and cross over of ideas may have influenced each over the centuries is hard to know.

Lastly, with respect to trade, I have attached a map of some of the trade routes in SE Asia during the period from 1200 to 1450 C.E. There was a lot of commerce happening in the region before the arrival of Europeans in force.

So this is the environment I'm trying to understand from an historical perspective, while thinking about how the "Modern Indonesian Keris" was transformed into a Moro kris over the following centuries.

While there are some similarities between "early" Moro kris and the keris, there are some important differences too. Some of these may be put down to style, but others are clearly functional and developed from practical experience. Indeed, there are so many major and minor changes from keris to kris that these changes must have occurred over a substantial period—I would suggest several centuries.

I'm in the process of trying to document what all these changes are and in what sequence they may have occurred. I'm looking at online pictures and my collection of kris as primary sources of information. It is a time consuming process!

Regards,

Ian
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