Yes Milandro, you're dead right, names of pamors --- and other things --- do vary from place to place & time to time.

But there is another factor too, one that is frequently overlooked, or maybe not even recognised outside the central core of keris people in Solo, possibly in other places also, but what I know for certain is Solo.

The importance of a pamor pattern in a keris is not nearly as important as the quality of craftsmanship, ie, "garap", in the appraisal and understanding of a keris.

Whereas for probably the majority of keris collectors outside the heartlands of Jawa, the pamor motif is the first thing they see and perhaps the most important thing they consider, for that hard core of keris connoisseurs, there are other things that come first in the appraisal of a keris.

How might one allow for the wear and tear of decades or centuries of the corrosive effects of time and treatment of a keris, in judging the workmanship of the blade?

Good question Bob, but that question moves us from a simple matter of prioritisation of one element of appraisal to complete appraisal of all relevant factors.

I know two ways in which to appraise a keris, and we are talking only the keris itself, only the blade, the dress is not considered in this exercise. The reason for this is that it is the keris that is considered to be the way in which wealth can be stored, the dress is not thought of in the same way.

The first way is:- sepuh - wutuh - tangguh = age, condition, style/features

sepuh = old, wutuh = whole, unbroken, tangguh = characteristics (in this context)

you will notice that when we get into the world of the experts, the ahli keris, that word "tangguh" tends to have a different understanding attached to it than the understanding that is current with many people today.

To understand this better it is worth noting the Empu Pauzan Pusposukadgo(Alm.) who was a late 20th century maker working in Surakarta and who held a position in the Surakarta Karaton hierarchy gave the tangguh of the keris he made as "Mataram", not "Surakarta", although he worked in Surakarta, and not 'Kamardikan" although he worked during the period following Merdeka.

He described his keris as "tangguh Mataram" because they bore the features of a keris that was able to be classified as Mataram.

So, in a typically Javanese fashion the word "tangguh" means exactly what you want it to mean, no more, and no less. ( I have been told by people who should know what they are talking about, that Humpty Dumpty was actually born in Klaten, Central Jawa, and only moved to Wonderland later in life).

The second, more modern approach to appraisal is :-

morjasirapngun = pamor, waja(steel), wesi(iron), rap (garap), wangun(appearance/shape)

I was taught that this second way is one that was invented in the market place, mainly because it is easier to manipulate to create a favourable impression.

During the 1980's & 1990's the advanced people whom I knew only ever used the sepuh/wutuh/tangguh base for appraisal, but what needs to be understood is this, each of these component parts link together and incorporate other ideas. For example, "sepuh" relates to how old the keris is, but then the characteristics of the keris, including its form, its craftsmanship & its characteristics including its "feeling" relate to "tangguh", the idea of "wutuh" relates to its state of preservation, and that state of preservation encompasses the perceived age. The whole process is circular, which once again epitomises Javanese thinking.

Put into simple terms, we cannot use the same parameters for the appraisal and thus the value base of a Surakarta period keris and a Mataram period keris.

Then there is the concept of "honour".

Not all periods have the same degree of "honour" in Javanese thought, for instance, Majapahit was the Golden Age, it is drenched in honour. Kartosuro is an era of little or no honour. As PBII said after the Kartosuro kraton had been sacked:-

"I will not sit on a throne that has been defiled by dogs".

So the honour attached to any period has a value too:- a pristine Kartosuro keris is, because of its period of origin, worth less than a Majapahit keris that is not in particularly good condition.

The short answer to your question Bob, is that the whole point of appraisal is to establish value, if a blade has not travelled well, then after other factors have been considered, it is worth less than a blade with similar age and the same tangguh but that is better preserved.

Hi Alan,

What is the order of importance in morjasirapngun?

Is garap the most important and pamor the least important?

Thank you

The perspective can change YS.

If I adopt Pak Parman's perspective, I think that perhaps the most important single thing is the thing that is not mentioned:- honour.

But when it comes to what we can see, Pak Parman, and as far as I was able to discern, all his friends & associates placed garap above everything else, but we need to understand that the idea of "garap" does not refer just to the sculpting, it also refers to the way in which the pamor was handled, for example, well handled wos wutah is always preferable to badly handled ron duru.

However, never lose sight of the fact that this is appraisal, that is, the objective is to fix a market price, and that market price must reflect the potential value of the investment, thus the final figure reached by the appraisal is always a balance of all elements concerned.

My own way of thinking of this is in real estate terms:- best house in the worst street or worst house in the best street, and that depends upon what we can identify as the "street" that the keris is in.

This is a decision making process, the guidelines are just that:- guidelines, it does not mean that those guidelines are graven in stone.

My question above was intended to consider how to evaluate garap in light of the effects of time and use on a blade, rather than as a determination of monetary value. (It would have behooved me to take a more literal approach to "appraisal"). Sculpting would seem to be compromised over time; my supposition is that deterioration would make the evaluation more difficult.

I presume garap would include elements beyond the sculpting of the blade; would those elements still be capable of evaluation over time's deterioration, and how would that be approached in the cultural context?

Far from being exaustive, I took the enclosed designs of various pamors from the "Ensiklopedi". My intention was to make a sort of handbook to identify pamor designs. The list is incomplete and is missing important pamors (mainly the newest ones). Moreover some designs are very badly reproduced in the book itself.
A great work would be to prepare a file for each pamor as simplified in the drawings and join the largest possible number of photo of real kerises with the same pamor.
My work is included.

thanks, Grazie, :) my mother tongue is Italian (I am naturalized Dutch) so that is an extra bonus

Nice job GIO

Bob, let's look at a couple of words, and what those words mean.

The word "garap" is Javanese and it means "the way of making/the process of production", this is the understanding that we must use when the context of usage is Javanese.

However, the word has come into Bahasa Indonesia, and in BI it is a root word, so strictly speaking it cannot be used as a stand-alone word, but only with prefixes and suffixes. But in colloquial usage, a native speaker of Javanese, when speaking in Bahasa Indonesia, will use the word "garap" to refer to "workmanship" or "craftsmanship", rather than the correct BI word "pembuatan"(workmanship) or "ketrampilan/keahlian" (craftsmanship).

So when we use the word "garap" to refer to the craftsmanship of the maker we are in fact using a word that in the Javanese mind refers to the way in which the object --- keris or otherwise --- was made, and again, in the Javanese mind, that "way of making" includes the physical & mental skill of the maker.

This whole idea of using foreign words interpolated into a different language means that to understand what is really meant we need to understand the meanings in the foreign language. In the case of the word "garap" we --- as English speakers --- tend to gloss that word as "craftsmanship" but in its original language it is understood to encompass much more than the English word "craftsmanship" conveys to a native speaker of English.

When the word "garap" is included into the parameters used for appraisal those parameters move away from the hardcore, original parameters that were used by the people from whom I learnt and become parameters that are more suited to the market place than to the world of Javanese traditional values.

When the older system of appraisal is used:-
sepuh - wutuh - tangguh = age, condition, style/features

sepuh = old, wutuh = whole, unbroken, tangguh = characteristics (in this context)

the garap, that is, the "way in which the keris was produced" does not get a mention, because it automatically becomes a part of the appraisal system used to gauge the core parameters.

However, in the "market-place" parameters of appraisal "garap" does get a separate mention, so obviously, where the passing of time has corrupted the original characteristics of the keris, it becomes impossible to appraise the "garap" because it no longer provides evidence sufficient for appraisal.

In practice, Javanese ahli keris and dealers do not use pencil & paper to come to a determination of value, it is all a mental process, but if we were to use a pencil & paper it would work by starting with, say, ten value points for each element of appraisal , as each element was appraised, the value of ten would be decreased by the number of points by which the appraised keris did not meet perfection, so instead of a maximum point total of 30 (for the three element system) we might finish up with only 15 points, that 15 points would reduce the known or estimated value of a perfect example to 50% of the value.

Of course, all this is pretty rubbery, and subject to opinion, as we know, all opinions are not equal, and this is why Javanese keris appraisers get paid for their opinions. Exactly the same as appraisers of any items of value are paid, be it real property, livestock, jewellery or whatever.

When it comes right down to it, appraisal is about setting a value.

I understand that you were not looking for this sort of answer, you were just curious as to how craftsmanship --- our interpretation of the Javanese word "garap" --- can be appraised if the original form & evidence of execution has been altered by the passing of time.

The short answer to this is that it must be based upon the remaining evidence, if that evidence is insufficient to produce an informed opinion, then it cannot be appraised. In essence, no different to the way a western world appraiser of any art work would form an opinion.

for those who read Dutch (or can use Google translate)

this page shows a compendium , of course some would agree and some would agree to disagree

https://aberkel13.wixsite.com/keris/pamor

Are pedangs welcome on this thread/board? I have only one blade with pamor so far, and it is perhaps not as fancy as some of the blades on this thread (a bit of damage to the hilt), but I really like handling this little sword. The weight and grip angle makes it feel both choppy and stabby (it brings the point exactly in line with the outstretched arm without hyperextending the wrist, and the forward slant makes it feel somehow "eager" to chop, if that makes sense).

Interesting. Try this :D

Actually no. From the start we have reserved this forum solely for the discussion of keris and keris related subjects. But is is an interesting pedang and you should start a separate thread about it on the Ethno Forum. :)

Alright, will do that sometime soon. }|:o)