Metuk (Iras) as an indicator of quality

[Kulino]

This is a part of a thread which started at the keris forum.
It concerns tombak. Therefore it is continuid inthis section
Underneath a quote of Alan Maisey on the enclosed tombak. This tombak has mentuk iras.

When I say that this tombak is of lower quality because the metuk was carved integrally with the blade, the standard I am using is a Javanese standard:- it is their weapon, their art, their icon:- they make the rules.

Its a bit like the Japanese sword thing:- a person from a different cultural background cannot presume to set the quality rules for Japanese swords; similarly only the Javanese can set the quality rules for Javanese weapons.

But we have a bit of a problem here, because there are tombak that come from other areas of Indonesia where the metuk iras is usual, so obviously those people do not consider metuk iras to be inferior.

On the other hand, Javanese culture is now, has been been for at least 700 years, the dominant culture in Maritime S.E. Asia, a fact that gets a lot of people upset. So the Javanese standards tend to supplant other local standards in many ways.

In the world of tosan aji it seems to me that since the revival of keris culture beginning in the 1970's, and which began in Jawa, Javanese standards and terminology have pretty much replaced whatever understanding of tosan aji existed in other areas in the past.

Thus we have a question:- does a collector of tosan aji who is based in a western culture need to observe Javanese standards, or does he invent his own standards?

My opinion, and it is only an opinion, is that if this collector is just a collector of objects he can be perfectly at liberty to adopt whatever standards he wishes. However, if he wants to understand that which he collects then he must adopt the standards of the culture and society from which the object comes. This then becomes a personal choice:- collect things, or understand things? Its up to the individual.

The line of thought that might apply to the distinction between metuk iras and and a separately made metuk is similar to the line of thought that applies to the gonjo of a keris. There are societal and cultural elements involved.

The metuk of a tombak is mechanically fixed in place, not welded.

[Kulino]

This is a part of a thread which started at the keris forum.
It concerns tombak. Therefore it is continuid in this section
Underneath a quote of Alan Maisey on the enclosed tombak. This tombak has mentuk iras.

When I say that this tombak is of lower quality because the metuk was carved integrally with the blade, the standard I am using is a Javanese standard:- it is their weapon, their art, their icon:- they make the rules.

Its a bit like the Japanese sword thing:- a person from a different cultural background cannot presume to set the quality rules for Japanese swords; similarly only the Javanese can set the quality rules for Javanese weapons.

But we have a bit of a problem here, because there are tombak that come from other areas of Indonesia where the metuk iras is usual, so obviously those people do not consider metuk iras to be inferior.

On the other hand, Javanese culture is now, has been been for at least 700 years, the dominant culture in Maritime S.E. Asia, a fact that gets a lot of people upset. So the Javanese standards tend to supplant other local standards in many ways.

In the world of tosan aji it seems to me that since the revival of keris culture beginning in the 1970's, and which began in Jawa, Javanese standards and terminology have pretty much replaced whatever understanding of tosan aji existed in other areas in the past.

Thus we have a question:- does a collector of tosan aji who is based in a western culture need to observe Javanese standards, or does he invent his own standards?

My opinion, and it is only an opinion, is that if this collector is just a collector of objects he can be perfectly at liberty to adopt whatever standards he wishes. However, if he wants to understand that which he collects then he must adopt the standards of the culture and society from which the object comes. This then becomes a personal choice:- collect things, or understand things? Its up to the individual.

The line of thought that might apply to the distinction between metuk iras and and a separately made metuk is similar to the line of thought that applies to the gonjo of a keris. There are societal and cultural elements involved.

The metuk of a tombak is mechanically fixed in place, not welded.

[Kulino]

So to get this straight I've added three tombak.
One with a missing mentuk, one with a mentuk iras and one with a seperately made mentuk. Correct? Is the one with the 'missing'mentuk intended to go without?

[Kulino]

Hello K!

Regarding the tombak with kinatah, it looks like the pamor might be continuing onto the metuk - could this be iras construction, too? (The kinatah obscures the lamination a bit and closely examining this tombak should help to resolve this.)

Regards,
Kai

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Old 22nd December 2016, 04:35 PM #36

Kulino

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Hi K!
Looks like it. The kinatah looks genuine. The tombak looks like a quality object. Wutuh, sepuh and maybe even a bit tanggu. If this is the case this could support the idea that there might be tombak of quality with mentuk iras. The tombak now showing has seperate metuk with the same kinatah.

[Kulino]

Hello Kulino,



Quote:

The tombak now showing has seperate metuk with the same kinatah.
(Maybe less intricate)

The center motif seems to correspond, indeed. I'd agree that the iras metuk looks nicer than the separate one in these 2 examples (even when ignoring the kinatah).

Without wanting to hijack Paul's thread - great to see some tombak here for a change!

Regards,
Kai

[Kulino]

Dear all,

I tried to move the thread about tombak as best as I could. Hope I didn't leave out significant parts. If so, please excuse and correct.

Looking the tombak, my question still stands. Is the seperate mentuk an indication of quality?

[David]

Kulino, i am moving this over to the Ethno Forum since it is not about keris specifically.

[A. G. Maisey]

Separate METUK.

The word is "metuk", not "mentuk"

I did not previously attempt to correct this, because we were just exchanging a few comments in a discussion relating to keris, but if we now have a full-blown, legitimate thread about tumbak, let's get it right:-

metuk

[kai]

I believed the or the main reason for keris gonjo iras of decent quality was to counter magick against the wearer of such keris. Granted, there are many gonjo iras blades which fall way short of any kratons' standards; however, there are also heaps of keris with separate gonjo that are of low level quality.

I'd have expected pusaka tombak to follow the same basic symbolism as keris (originally linga/yoni, etc.) with possibly the same, rare exceptions to the rule (i. e. usually with separate metuk but a few quality examples with metuk gonjo iras). Out on the left field on this one?

Regards,
Kai

[kai]

QUOTE from Ensiklopedia Keris:
"Kalau dibuat menyatu dengan bilah dan pesinya disebut metuk iras. Yang memakai metuk iras biasanya adalah tombak-tombak tangguh lama, atau tombak-tombak yang mutunya tidak begitu tinggi."

=

If made with blade and nya [integral?] pesi, it is called metuk iras. Spears from old tangguh typically exhibit metuk iras and their quality is not so high.

(Please do correct me if my attempts at translation are too gruesome!)

Regards,
Kai

[A. G. Maisey]

Kai, "nya" on the end of a word should be read as "the", or "its", so:- "the pesi", but this of course is quite wrong if read in isolation, there should be another phrase or sentence before the quoted text that makes it clear that this sentence refers to the metuk.

"biasanya" is better as "usually" or "normally"

"atau tombak-tombak yang mutunya tidak begitu tinggi." = (literally) "or spears which quality its not so high" = "or spears which are not of a high quality".
Many more ways to express this idea in English, no need to be a perfect translation to get the general idea.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kai, a lot of the "mystical/magical" beliefs associated with keris are in fact very recent, superficial research indicates that many such beliefs are no more than a couple of hundred years old, and date from colonial times, I have heard many Javanese people express the opinion that in fact many of these beliefs were generated in one way or another by the presence of the Dutch.

My personal opinion for the existence of keris that are gonjo iras is that dependent upon available material and the degree of technological advancement, it is much quicker, much, much easier, and enormously cheaper to make a gonjo iras keris than it is to make a keris with a gonjo. I have made several keris, and I can assure you, the time involved in making and fitting a gonjo is far in excess of the time it would have taken me to forge the gonjo into the blade.

The metuk iras probably followed the idea of the gonjo, mostly after relevant symbolism started to be attached to keris construction. In Bali I don't think the separate metuk ever became popular, in fact I cannot recall having seen a Bali tombak with a separate metuk.

Make no mistake about it:- the keris is a magical object, but that magic in its true sense has almost nothing to do with the popular idea of magic that is associated with the keris. This popular idea seems to have its roots firstly in the influence of Sufic beliefs that took root in Central Jawa during the 1500's, and secondly in the influence of the Dutch colonialists. We need to look to Bali to understand the true magic of the keris.

[Battara]

........and just a side note Alan, I have loved your keris work for a couple of decades now - absolutely henomenal !

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks mate.

Objectively, my work is quite plain, but in just a couple of areas I did achieve very close to perfection.

However, the thing I am pretty pleased with is this:- except for the blade I made under the supervision of Empu Suparman, and for which we used a blacksmith in the welding, although I worked as striker for that keris, all of the other keris I both forged --- by myself, without the assistance of a striker --- and carved using traditional tools, not electric grinders. Additionally, all my blades have been properly heat treated, which is something that very keris makers of the current era can claim.

I set out to learn how to make keris, not to become a maker of keris, but rather to better understand the keris.

Along the way I also made a lot of mechanical damascus, I made a few blades of welded cable, and a few other nondescript blades using sanmai construction.

[Kulino]

Nice to read the elaborations. I would like to post some of the tumbak again and continue the discussion. As far as I can see, metuk iras could be connected to age and quality.
Looking at the two tumbaks posted, the one with metuk iras appears to be of finer quality then the one with separate metuk.
Is this a correct assumption?
And then there is the tumbak without metuk. Missing of intended to go without? What could be said of the quality/age?

[kai]

Hello Kulino,

Looking at the two tumbaks posted, the one with metuk iras appears to be of finer quality then the one with separate metuk.

I'd love to hear Alan's take on your examples! I still suck at "reading" tombak blades and often enough have problems to establish from which island/culture they originate from...

Thus, do take my comments with a lump of salt:
All 4 seem to be nice examples with above average quality; I believe that the one without metuk once had one (no clear indications from the pesi though).

Based on the metuk of the 2 above, I'd agree that the iras example is of higher quality. I'm less sure about the blade/pamor quality though.

Regards,
Kai

[Kulino]

Hello Kai,
I checked the correspondence I had some thirty year ago with Peter van Hien the grandson of the writer of De Javaansche Geestenwereld. ( The Javanese world of spirits- 1896), https://archive.org/details/dejavaanschegee01hiengoog ) considered him an ahli keris. His grandfather had trained him in the kejawen way. At that time he was, as an abdi dalem, in close contact with Yogja kraton perawat keris. When I asked him about the kinatah keris he replied among others with a quote of the Babad Tanah Jawi (I tried to re trace the quote but couldn’t find it in my translated copy…. https://serbasejarah.files.wordpress...anah-djawi.pdf):
‘During Mataram time golden ricikan were applied on the ganja indicating status, for panewu mantri lions and elephants, for princes and patih dalam there were orchids.’
He mentions more like ricikan: for wedana kaliwon, lunglungan and ron-ron-an… but it is sometimes hard to decipher his handwriting. (Mind you, this was before the computer age )
Looking at this quote, the orchids on both tumbak should point at a decent quality.

I’m not sure the tumbak without metuk once had one. Looking at the spine of the blade, the diameter simply doesn’t allow for anything circular to be placed at the pesi without sticking out dramatically. But a tombak without anything like a metuk?

Best,
Kulino

[Ian]

For some reason we ended up with two threads on this topic. The two have now been merged into this one. Apologies to the contributors to this discussion for any confusion.

Ian

[David]

Thanks Ian!

[Kulino]

Indeed,
Thanks and for next, Happy New Year!

Kulino

[A. G. Maisey]

A few answers:-

1) the tombak without a metuk was originally fitted with one, there is not the slightest doubt about this. It is a Javanese tombak, and a tombak of this form and quality would most definitely have been fitted with a metuk. The metuk is necessary because the tombak is a thrusting weapon, and without the metuk to anchor the blade against the shaft there is insufficient resistance against a powerful thrust into the objective, be that human or animal. Without a metuk, either integral with the blade or mechanically fixed, a tombak lacks the necessary strength for use.

The crop I have posted below shows a shoulder that has been cut into the base of the blade, this shoulder may have originally been the anchor point for a metuk, but I am inclined to think that the metuk was lost, and then the tombak was used with just a steel washer as the anchor point for the blade, these shoulders permitting a firm anchor.

But whatever the story behind it is, this tombak would most definitely have had a metuk originally. No doubt at all in my mind about that.

2) I was given this story originally by a brother of Sinuhun (PBXII), but I have also read it somewhere, maybe Babad Tanah Jawi, but maybe Centini, in any case, it is more than 30 years since I read it and I've forgotten the details, this here below is from my notebook, as given by Sinuhun's brother.

"About kinatah given by Sultan Agung. The background was that the district ruler of Pati, which was a part of the Mataram Empire, refused to send taxes to the court of Mataram, a punitive force was raised and the erring Bupati (?) was punished. When the force returned to Mataram Sultan Agung gave the following gifts, which were in the form of kinatah that could be worn on a keris:-
A) to a mantri:- keris gonjo kinatah
B) to a penewu (leader of 1000 men), kinatah gonjo gajah-singo (elephant-lion)
C) to a bupati kliwon, kinatah kamarogan
D) to a pangeran and a bupati dalem kinatah anggrek, kinatah singo barong, and kinatah naga"

In this instance it can be understood that the keris was representative of its bearer, thus the battle honours were given to the keris as a representative of the bearer.

3) Kinatah anggrek is kinatah that uses a stylised representation of an orchid, to interpret the kinatah work shown on these tombak as "kinatah anggrek" I would need to look at several pattern books, all I can currently see are some rather poor quality generic kinatah ornamentations.
We cannot tie these tombak and their kinatah work to battle honours given by Sultan Agung to his officers, the Sultan Agung case was quite specific and had absolutely nothing at all to do with kinatah work on tombak or anything else, only on specific keris carried by specific men.

To determine the tangguh of a tombak is even more difficult than it is to to determine the tangguh of a keris. The general approach is that we try to envisage the tombak as if it were a keris, and attempt to identify similar indicators.The single major indicator is the shape of the metuk, but the variation in shape can often be so slight that it becomes almost impossible to use this from a photo.

In the case of the tombak without a metuk , it is possible that we are looking at a Senopaten classification.

The plain iron tombak with metuk iras is probably Bali.

The straight tombak might be Surakarta, or Surakarta influenced, I would need to handle it to form a firm opinion.

The tombak with two kembang kacang is peculiar, I am not at all certain that this metuk belongs with this tombak, and I think the tombak itself is relatively recent, perhaps after 1875.

From the tombak shown, only the one lacking a metuk might perhaps be a Mataram tombak that pre-dates Sultan Agung.

4) I think I said somewhere in this thread that the presence of a mechanically fixed metuk was one requisite feature for a tombak to be regarded as "high quality" according to Javanese standards.

I emphasise:- "Javanese standards", and the presence of this mechanically fixed metuk could well be based upon a cultural requirement, rather than anything to do with the actual objective appraisal of the functional or artistic qualities of the tombak:-
it is a "Javanese standard" --- with all that this implies.

Additionally, it is only one indicator amongst many. Just having a mechanically fixed metuk does not necessarily mean we are looking at a quality item, it only means that we might be looking at a quality item, and if the tombak is a really old one, or from some place other than Jawa, the metuk does not count at all as an indicator of quality.

[Kulino]

Another riddle to close of the year.
This looks like a miniature tumbak. Or it could be a bedor. A bit long to serve as bedor and it is different from the bedor I have seen before. So...?
It has metuk iras. Dapur?
The metuk doesn't have a bungkel. Looks more to what I have been told, like an 'older then SultanAgung metuk'.

[A. G. Maisey]

A talisman reshaped from an old badly eroded blade.

[Kulino]

Dear Alan,
I completely forgot to thank you for your extensive comments on the tumbak item and now again on this new item. Sorry to keep you occupied, but I hope you don't mind I'll keep posting new curiosities.
To all on this forum and specially to you, my best wishes for this coming New Year.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks Kulino.

My best wishes to you, and all, for the coming year, may it bring all that you could wish yourself.