BEATING A DEAD HORSE ICON :cool: WE HAVE NEEDED ONE OF THOSE FOR A WHILE :D

WHILE ALL THAT HAS BEEN SAID SO FAR IS TRUE AS TO TYPES OF KERIS HULU CARVINGS. I WOULD PUT FORWARD THE IDEA THAT WHEN THE MOSLEMS TOOK OVER IN JAVA PERHAPS THE LEADERS WERE UNDERSTANDING AND DIDN'T RULE WITH A IRON FIST AND ALOWED THOSE WHO WISHED TO REMAIN HINDU TO LIVE AND DO SO AFTER ALL THEY ALLOW BALI TO REMAIN HINDU. THAT WAY THE CHANGE WOULD HAVE TAKEN PLACE SLOWER AS THE CHILDREN AND YOUNG WERE EDUCATED IN THE WAYS OF ISLAM AND THE POPULATION GRADUALLY BECAME MOSLEM. DURING THIS PERIOD SOME THINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN MADE IN THE OLD WAYS AND WOULD HAVE STILL HAD A MARKET AMONG THE HINDU POPULATION. A MOSLEM WOULD BE PROHIBITED BY HIS FAITH FROM OWNING OR PRODUCING BANNED STYLES OF ART SO THE OLD STYLES WOULD HAVE FADED OUT AND THE NEWER ONES HAVE TAKEN THEIR PLACE.

JUST MY THOUGHTS FACT OR FICTION? I DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THE HISTORY OF INDONESIA TO SAY BUT IT MIGHT OFFER AN EXPLANATION. WHEN DEALING WITH MANKIND AND HISTORY THERE ARE FEW ABSOLUTES PERHAPS ONLY BIRTH ,DEATH AND TAXES.

Beating a dead horse... :rolleyes:

Here are two hilts from Indonesia, the first is from northern Jawa (a Jinn with Naga attributes) and the second is from Madura (Semar).

I too have been confused by the presents of these in light of the cultural ban. They do not appear to be made for the Hindu market, just my opinion.

It would not be the first time that the ban was "bent." There are numerous examples of Islamic art depicting human and animal figures - I found a couple here: http://www.lacma.org/islamic_art/lia.htm.

Was this a total ban on depicting the human form, or was it specific in some way? I remember seeing painting that contained the figure of the Prophet Mohammed, but with his face completely hidden by a veil, which I think was how the ban was complied with in that case. How strictly it was enforced might have just depended on who was in charge at the time.

Here's an article on the subject.

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;...lam&sbid=lc03b

Thank you Micas for that exellent article. As i stated, not so cut and dry as some might think. :) I believe you will even see hadith enforced differently in different areas of Indonesia. Certainly it doesn't apply in Bali, but other areas are more strict and i believe it would be much harder to find an unabstracted human form on, say, a keris from Sulawesi.
Those are interesting examples that you show Wayne. The second one i think is a fairly recent example of a wayang figure and i have frequently seen whole collections of these characters in hilt form on ebay. I am not sure if they are being carved in Jawa or Madura (or perhaps elsewhere), but they are clearly being made for Javanese or Madurese keris, not Balinese ones. They are still carving these today AFAIK.
The horse and the winged horse (not to beat a dead horse, mind you :D ) is a common motif in Madura and i have one that is probably mid 20th C, so it seems obvious that these laws are not enforced in these areas in the modern age.

Human figures appear on many Persian carpets in the times before the 20th century, they always seem to be on the very best. Money talks :rolleyes: .

Actually Sulawesi has a beautiful form of Bima in gold as one of thier Keris Handles.

That sounds cool Mick. CAn you point us to any examples? :cool:

Hello Mick,

I guess you're referring to that gorgeous keris which is shown for example in van Zonneveld (p. 58). However that one was "collected" by the VOC before the middle of the 18th century or more likely during the 17th century. Thus, this is probably a pre-islamic piece...

I don't doubt that some of these hilts persisted after the conversion of the Bugis to Islam but are there any later examples (like 19th c.) known?

Regards,
Kai

Here is a scan of one piece in the museum in Jakarta. I took it from Hamzuri's Petunjuk Singkat Tentang Keris.

A dear friend of mine (who has departed this earth) had a piece which was similar to this one. I do not know where this piece is today.

Don't know what happened. I'll try again.

One more time.


Looks like I'll have to read the instructions again. This thing is under 100kb. I don't know why it isn't taking.

The one from Hamxuri's booklet (based on the Jakarta Museum) is much better than the one in Zonneveld's. However, if I don't get this one to take after I mess around with it a bit, you all get the general idea.

800 max width ?

Did you clicked on the upload button?

Thanks Rick. It waas 847.

Thanks for the extra effort Mick. Well worth the wait. :)
Do you have any idea of the age on this piece. Obviously we DO have figurative hilts from Jawa and Madura that were made well past those island's conversion to Islam. I wonder if the same holds true for Sulawesi.

According to Pelras' "The Bugis", the Bugis people retained their pre-Islamic belief of white-blooded divine rulers and red-blooded commoners, as set out in the I La Galigo sacred text, even after conversion to Islam. The old Bugis religion was somewhat in a class of its own. The white-blooded rulers were descendants of Bataru Guru, who in turn was the descendant of Datu Patoto, who in turn was the descendant of a pair of solar deities who were the descendants of another pair of solar deities, who were created by the original supreme god in the Bugis context (talk about pedigree. :) ). Bataru Guru had a grandson - Sawerigading, who in turn sired La Galigo, the character after whom the epic was named after. Actually, the story mainly revolved around Sawerigading.

The famous calabai (transexual men) Bissu priests were still very much in existence, even today. A couple of years back, there was a play based on the I La Galigo cycle that came to Singapore. The play was blessed by a Bissu priest at the beginning, and I read that the Bissu priest also insisted on finding the exact centre (the 'navel' of the earth) of the Esplanade Theatres to perform his rites before the rehearsals could begin.

Most Bugis carried out 2 wedding ceremonies, one in accordance to Islamic requirements, another according to tradition, involving the Bissu (if the couple are 'white-blooded'), which is reminiscent of the courtship trials of princess We Cudai by Sawerigading. Some more Islamically-inclined Bugis only carry out the Islamic wedding ceremonies, while some non-Muslim Bugis only carry out the traditional wedding ceremonies.

My understanding is that when the Bugis rulers were contemplating whether to convert to Christianity or to Islam, they considered which religion would accord more flexibility for them to retain their 'divine ruler' status. Christianity had an early advantage because the rulers thought it was more flexible. However, they were mistaken, and the Christian instituition was slow to follow-up with the conversion of the rulers, which resulted in the King of Luwu, the legendary 1st Bugis kingdom, converting to Islam. The conversion had profound impact on the rest of S. Sulawesi, which had always regarded Luwu as the spiritual leader state of sorts. And hence, most Bugis became Muslims. However, the old deities did not disappear; they were accorded lower status, and sometimes, given different names.

Great Information Kai Wee! Thanks! :cool: :)

nechesh

The piece illustrated is (or was in the mid 70s) in the Treasure Room of the Jakarta Museum so it might be old. It was left to the museum by the Dutch before they left the islands.

As I said I know that a friend of mine had one of these kerises and I remember a photograph published in the 60s of several of them tied to a canopy attached to the top of funeral conveyance in Toradja. I can't remember where this picture was published as I saw it in passing between twenty and thirty years ago and have done more than a few things since then.

So there are a few of them around, but I reckon that they are scarce.

So what your saying then Mick is that you don't have an extra one you could sell me, eh?
;) :D

The hilt posted by Mick - someone actually took a picture of that picture, developed and laminated the photo. Then, went around showing it to dealers and saying that it was the picture taken off a real keris he had handled. The story went that some playboy scion of one of the Sulawesi royal families needed money to fuel his decadent lifestyle, and was willing to steal the keris for a price. Hmmm... unfortunately for him, most of us saw that the photo was taken off a book/catalogue. :rolleyes:

I would have been tempted to say that I'm interested and see what sort of 'shock' I'd get. :D