Ideas?

[A. G. Maisey]

This is interesting speculation, Tim, but you are working from a photographic image, I am working from the actual object in my hand, and a knowledge base that can call upon thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of keris hilts, handles of pelecoks, handles of other various small Indonesian implements and related artifacts.

I also have some limited experience in Melanesian and Pacific art.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this carving is a keris hilt. I think it is most probably from Jawa, but I would not rule out Madura and Sumatra, or one of the small islands off the north coast of Jawa.

The features that puzzle me are the headband, which is something I cannot place, and the representation at the lower end, which could be a sarung, or some other item of clothing, or simply artistic convention to close the figure.

It is a piece by a non-professional carver, probably something that somebody has made for himself.

I was rather hoping that somebody may have been able to identify the headband as an item that could be associated with a particular era, religious group, cultural group, or location.

The nose is distinctly "roman" in profile, which seems to me that it might have an Arabic input, and by association, an Islamic inference.

Possibly we have a grass-roots interpretation of one of the Wali Songo?

The reason I posted the pic was to generate discussion, so your idea that it could be Melanesian is well and truly within the bounds of my original objective, but you can rest assured that it is most definitely not Melanesian.

I know what it is:- it is a keris hilt; I know the approximate area of its origin, and I have given this above; what I do not know---and probably can never know with any certainty--- is what it might represent.