Is it a Tajong?

[David]

I think that this all brings me to the question of what exactly describes a proper tajong? Is it merely the name of the dress form or does it also describe the blade as well? I have never seen a tajong with a blade like this. Does this mean this is not a tajong? If it is merely a name for the dress form regardless of the type of blade within then i think we must approach the original question from an examination of just the dress. In my limited scope in the understanding of tajong hilts i look at this hilt and it doesn't look quite right to me. That is to say that the eyes don't seem to be in the right place and the carved patterns don't look particularly like what i have seen on other hilts. So i wonder, is there something that would be considered to be like a "pakem" for the design of these hilts? Does this hilt meet the standards for that "pakem" if such a guideline exists? If not, is it still a tajong?
I do not mean any of these questions to be interpreted as a general condemnation of this keris as Alan suggests. I am merely approaching the original question, "Is this a tajong?". Even if it is not i don't believe that that necessarily means it was not worth the money you paid for it.

[A. G. Maisey]

David, I do not know if it can be called a tajong or not. I do not know exactly what a tajong is,or what this word denotes or means, and although I have collected keris for a very long time, I had never come across the word "tajong" until a few years ago when I saw it mentioned on this site.

The original question was :- is it a tajong?

My answer is that I do not know.

But I do think it has a bit of age, I do think that it has some characteristics that also belong to the type of keris that is called a tajong, and I do think that it is a less than elegant production.

To me, this is an interesting keris. Purists in the field of tajongery may well disallow it membership of the group, just as I and some others would disallow some village Javanese keris recognition as legitimate Javanese keris.

But this is coming back to that "name game" that we are all so familiar with.

In my book, names do not mean a hell of a lot:- you accept and appraise something for what it is, not because you can hang some name or other on it.
Yeah, OK, I know I'm the odd man out, but if something has quality I really don't care what it is called, and if something lacks quality, I care even less.

By any measure this keris is interesting, simply because it is an oddity.

PS:-

http://www.kerisarchipelago.150m.com/webpage/Tajong.htm

[David]

"Tajongery" That's very funny Alan.
Obviously i am with you in the i don't know or the i am just not sure category. It has always seemed to me that the name "tajong" mostly relates to the dress and even more specifically to the hilt form, but maybe some of our friends on the Peninsula can verify this.
Thanks for the link to Dave's site. I had lost track of it and have been looking for the link ever since this thread first appeared.
I do agree that this keris is never-the-less interesting.

[BluErf]

Actually, this tajong, though crude, has all the essential features of a tajong, right down to the crown, the garuda mungkur on top of the head, the swirl motifs on the side of the head, the beard, the eye lashes, and stylized arms in front of the body. So it is tajong.

[David]

Originally Posted by BluErf

Actually, this tajong, though crude, has all the essential features of a tajong, right down to the crown, the garuda mungkur on top of the head, the swirl motifs on the side of the head, the beard, the eye lashes, and stylized arms in front of the body. So it is tajong.

Thanks Kai Wee, that's part of what i wanted to know. Now, is it your opinion that the term tajong merely refers to the hilt, or is the rest of the dress as specific? Is there more than one blade form that is acceptable in tajong dress? Can you tell from the features of this tajong hilt approximately how old it is?

[BluErf]

The term tajong can refer to the hilt or the keris as a whole. But as a whole keris, the sheath form needs to be that as shown in both specimens in this thread. Any other sheaths would be inappropriate (sometimes, we see tajong hilts plonked onto sampir tebeng, i.e. the trapezoid sheath type, which is inappropriate). The blade is usually a pandai saras or a carita and shd be proportionate in length to the overall sheath and hilt. The overall aesthetics of a tajong keris needs to be 'long and lanky'. Short stumpy ones don't look right.

[BluErf]

I can't tell how old the tajong is.

[milandro]

Another Resurrection

Originally Posted by David

I think that this all brings me to the question of what exactly describes a proper tajong? Is it merely the name of the dress form or does it also describe the blade as well? I have never seen a tajong with a blade like this. Does this mean this is not a tajong? If it is merely a name for the dress form regardless of the type of blade within then i think we must approach the original question from an examination of just the dress. In my limited scope in the understanding of tajong hilts i look at this hilt and it doesn't look quite right to me. That is to say that the eyes don't seem to be in the right place and the carved patterns don't look particularly like what i have seen on other hilts. So i wonder, is there something that would be considered to be like a "pakem" for the design of these hilts? Does this hilt meet the standards for that "pakem" if such a guideline exists? If not, is it still a tajong?.....

Having acquired a Panjang which came with a Tajong hilt I am now looking to acquire informations about Tajongs.

I too am somewhat confused from what I see for sale as a Tajong.

Some show only a Tajong hilt mounted on krises which could be Bugis or I found even one were a Yogyakarta keris has a Tajong hilt (not unlike My Panjang which came with such an hilt ).

Aside from what the pendongkok should look like and the hilt is there any typical characteristic of the blade?

Perhaps the answer is contained in this post.


http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...6&postcount=11



"...Hi Jeff,

Your tajong hilts are the real stuff. The blades you have shown in the 2 links above are not the normal type of blade normally associated as tajongs. The most common forms are the straight "pandai saras" blade form, followed by the wavy "pandai saras" blade form and the "carita" blade form, in approximately similar rarity. Please note that the use of the term "carita" (pronounced "cher-rita") is not the same as the Javanese context. "Carita" in the Malay keris world refers to blades with shallow fullers running nearly the full length of the blade. If the fullers had been deeper, they would be called "melela". Again "melala" here is different from the "melela" used in the Javanese context, which is often used to describe "besi melela", or metal without visible pamor patterns. I am not good with Javanese kerises, so I would defer the explanations on these to the other members who are more knowledgeable in Javanese kerises.

Anyway, the 3 common keris forms for tajongs are attached below. Please ignore the hilts, as these hilts (of the jawa demam form) can also be appropriately paired with such blades, but then of course, the keris would not be called a tajong. There are other Malay keris forms found on tajongs, but would be the exception, rather than the rule.

Kerises and keris parts travel in the archipelago. This exchange of parts is also what fuels the exchange of aesthetics and forms, contributing to the variation of keris blades and keris dress/hilt forms, and they also cause mis-matched kerises to turn up all the time. And of course, we cannot discount dealers and collectors who swap hilts and blades around for all sorts of reasons, even if they don't really conform to the archetypal forms. I'm afraid your question would not be easily answered. You have to learn from good books, good teachers, and from handling as many kerises as you can, and that is a long hard but fun road.

A proper tajong - hilt, sheath and blade - is illustrated in the 4th and 5th pic. Arguably, the defining characteristics of a tajong are the hilt and the sheath. Any other types of hilts and sheaths would make it hard for us to call the resulting keris a proper tajong. Note that Northern Malay aesthetics dictates that the sheath must be long and lanky, with the sheath stem much longer than the blade. I have seen some people (I refuse to call them "collectors") shorten the stem so that it is just slightly longer than the blade. This was because they liked the keris that way. But in my opinion, that is just destroying the original aesthetics of the tajong keris, not to mention, ruining a perfectly good antique sheath....."



and these are the pics from that post (linking those here shouldn't be a problem since they are on the forum vaults)

[Sajen]

Yep, these are typical tajong blades!

Puh, you remembered me for a bad buy!

Regards,
Detlef

[milandro]

Originally Posted by Sajen

Yep, these are typical tajong blades!

Puh, you remembered me for a bad buy!

Regards,
Detlef

well the blades are very nice