Bitten by the Keris Bug
 

Hello! I purchased what I hope is a high quality keris as a souvenir during a recent visit to Kuala Lumpur. I have been searching for information about it online and so far, I’ve gathered that it is a Bugis style Keris Melayu manufactured in Terengganu. The hilt is the “anak ayam teleng” type. I was told at the time of purchase that the hilt and scabbard are made of rosewood but similar scabbards I’ve seen online are described as made of kemuning. Attached is a photograph of the keris and scabbard.

I cannot identify the pamor and I don’t know if this keris is truly high quality. Does the number of layers on the blade indicate much time and effort to manufacture? Any additional information shared will be greatly appreciated.

Best regards!

F. de Luzon

Welcome to the forum. From what i can see you have purchased a decent keris, worthy of collection for sure. Keris can be found in many quality levels and i would not necessarily classify this as "high" quality, but it seems fairly well made. What determines a high quality keris goes a bit beyond just the number of layers of the pattern welding. I will leave it to other to speak to the origins and classifications of this particular keris since Bugis keris are a little outside my focus. Better and more detailed photographs would certainly help though. ;)

Thank you for your insights, David! I really appreciate that you spared some time to comment. I am happy that I was able to purchase a decent keris. It was a poor choice of words on my part when I asked about it being "high quality." I think "decent" is really the more appropriate term.

I collect Moro krises and I didn't know much about the Keris Melayu when I went to Malaysia. I based my choice on similarities that I saw from samples at the Islamic Arts Museum in KL. This was the closest I could find to what were on display. I also liked it because I was told that this keris is at least 80 years old. The Moro krises in my collection are mostly antiques.

Your words are very reassuring and this keris will serve as a reminder of my pleasant visit to Malaysia. I am attaching a few more pictures. Thanks again and I hope to be able to contribute to the forums.

Hello, welcome to the forum!

It does look like a nice blade. I'd second David's request for more pics! Close-ups are really needed to evaluate a blade and also try to narrow down the type of wood utlized.

As already indicated, it would also be necessary to define "high quality" - the highest quality was usually reserved for royalty. Even then, the highest quality for one region/sultanate might not be valued exactly the same elsewhere (and vice versa)... (Same-o with different eras, so period may also be an issue to keep in mind.)

Regards,
Kai

Thanks for the warm welcome! I'm beginning to understand that keris culture is highly sophisticated. I was mistaken in my choice of words for I should have stated "decent" or "acceptable" rather than "high quality." Please pardon the continuing vagueness of the terms and I hope you understand what I mean.

My intention was to purchase a keris as a souvenir but I wanted one that was of better quality than the ordinary tourist keris. I recently started an antique Moro kris collection and I wanted a keris melayu that would fit in.

I saw a wide variety when I was searching but this was most similar to the ones I saw at the Islamic Arts Museum. I am happy, based on your comments, that this appears to be of an "acceptable" standard. Your words are very reassuring.

I've also looked at many keris online and I saw some very refined examples. The ones for royalty are probably (surely) of a much higher standard than the one I got.

I find this a very interesting topic. Especially how standards vary across time and space. There's so much to learn! Thank you for your insights. I am looking forward to learning more. I will post close ups soon.

Definitely a nice piece. The scabbard looks very recent (normal for most keris) and the hilt is rather crudely made. But it is the blade that matters.
If it were mine I would only change the hilt. Impossible to attribute an age from a photo and very difficult on visual examination. Few experts can do that. (I don't give you the names as I would not forget somebody....)
Best wishes for a new keris-addicted.

I agree :)

If this is a souvenir, you could say that this keris is certainly acceptable and decent. Well done!!
The ukiran is more Jawa Deman. A good Bugis ukiran is more the pistol hilted grip. I would try to get such an ukiran.

But it is a very nice keris suitable for every serious keris collection.

Hello Henk,

The anak ayam teleng is a JD variant from the Malay East coast. I'm attaching an antique example from my collection (sorry, pre-restoration pic with hilt still turned in non-typical direction).

Note the selut which would be typical for the Terengganu region and more suitable for this hilt type.

Regards,
Kai

This confuses me Henk. This is a Bugis form of blade, but the Peninsula. As far as i understand it the right Bugis hilt would depend upon the area of origin for this particular Bugis style blade. I have seen many Peninsula Bugis blades dressed with Jawa Deman hilts. The style of hilt you seem to be describing is more correct for Bugis blades from Sulawesi and certain areas of Sumatra as far as i know.
:shrug:

Sorry for the confusion gentlemen. The english language is not my mother language. The hilt Kai showed is the one i ment and is in my opnion more suitable for this keris.

Thank you for your insights gentlemen! All your comments are much appreciated.

Hello Henk,

in this thread: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ght=terengganu, first post, you can see a nearly identical hilt. It's so far I know a typical Terengganu hilt, so is nothing wrong with this combination IMVHO. When you will search long enough you will find more examples of this style.

F. de Luzon, welcome to the forum!

Regards,
Detlef

Well, i don't wish to belabor this point much more, but Jawa Demam hilts are also commonly found on Bugis blades from the Terengganu area. Here is one that is not mine, but i have seen the blade and it is clearly of Bugis design. I also have one in my own collection which has not been photographed yet that has almost the exact same dress (hilt, cup and sheath). And i have seen many more like it from this same region.

In my view, a good-quality Bugis-style blade, in relatively recent peninsular Malaysian dress in the style of the Terengganu region.

I agree that this isn't the finest rendition of the hilt form that I've seen. I've seen this particular style of hilt referred to by at least one Singaporean dealer as anak ayam teleng ("cuddling chick"), and appropriate for Terengganu dress. It's apparently the Terengganu form of the jawa demam hilt, at least according to this dealer. (Reviewing the thread, it occurs to me that I'm repeating things that kai has also said) I've seen other keris with this kind of hilt paired with the Bugis hilt cup; in my view, I think the entire ensemble is fine, and I personally wouldn't mess with it.

I wouldn't be sorry to have this blade, and dress, in my possession. Welcome to the forum, F. de Luzon.

Just to be clear Laowang, the hilt i posted just previous to your post is what i know to be called "anak ayam teleng". Can i assume you are talking about the hilt in my post? I don't believe the hilt that is currently on the keris in question is that type of Jawa Demam. We can't really see all angles of it, but i do not believe it has the appropriate back "fin".

Thank you for the warm welcome Detlef and Laowang! Thank you all for your insights. I am attaching a few more photos of the hilt for your reference. I hope you will find them useful.

A few more.

David, my understanding of the anak ayam teleng form below. Taken from the dealer's website.

Hello David,

You're showing the pekaka hilt which is a more northern Malay type, again a variant of the JD form.

The anak ayam teleng type is quite typical for Terengganu though.

Regards,
Kai

Of course! My bad! You are, of course, correct. Too many names in my head right now. ;)
However, that said, i have quite often seen the pekaka hilt on Terengganu keris as well, so i think either would work and the hilt which is the keris is currently dressed with works just fine as well even if it is not of the highest quality carving.
I suppose this part of the discussion and my reason for thinking about the pekaka hilts to begin with was Henk describing a good Bugis hilt as more a pistol grip. Bugis culture is spread all across the area and the appropriate hilt for any particular Bugis keris will depend upon the specific area where it originates. It will not always be only the pistol grip form i believe Henk is referring to.

David, I'm in complete agreement that a pekaka hilt would also have been appropriate for this keris; I have at least one Bugis-style keris in Terengganu dress with a pekaka hilt. Furthermore, I completely agree that a Bugis-style keris does not require a kerdas pistol-grip hilt; the hilt often varies depending on the location.

My thought with this particular keris is that someone did a reasonably decent job of dressing it in a manner appropriate to the blade, so why bother mixing & matching in an attempt to produce a more "correct" ensemble, given that the anak ayam teleng hilt is appropriate.

Yep, my feeling as well... :)

I usually do not engage in discussion of this type of keris, I won't go into the specific reasons for this, sufficient for me to say that these keris are not directly relevant my area of study.

However, before my focus became as narrow as it presently is, I read all the usual books, and truth be told, I still read material related to these keris, its just that it doesn't interest me much. But odd bits and pieces stick in my mind.

As I write, I'm looking at Kai's post # 20, where he names the hilt style in David's post
#14 as "pekaka".

Kai, may I most respectfully enquire as to your source for this naming?

Frankly, I do not know a name for this style that I can claim to be accurate, what I do know is this:-

1) Gardner, published in 1936 called this style "Jawa Demam, Northern type".

The style that we now know as "Tajong" he named as "Pekakak".
He explains that because of the resemblance of this Pekakak hilt form to a kingfisher, people called it a Kingfisher hilt:- "pekakak" means "kingfisher".

Bear in mind, Gardner was a Britain working in Old Malaya he was reporting what the people he had contact with called things, not what western world collectors called things, so it is reasonable to assume that in pre-WWII Malaya, Malay people called the Tajong hilt a Pekakak hilt. He mentions that this Pekakak form is a Pattani style of hilt.

I rather feel that if we investigate further, we will find that the name of the keris style is Tajong, the name of the hilt is Pekaka, or Pekakak. In Malay language "Pekaka" has the same meaning as "Pekakak", spoken they both sound almost the same, especially to a non-native speaker, as the final "k" in "Pekakak" is a glottal stop.

I don't think Gardner mentions the Coteng hilt, but in my experience collectors of the unenlightened past also called this a Pekakak hilt, or kingfisher hilt, only acknowledging that it was different style of the same form.

2) Stone, published 1934 calls keris fitted with both Coteng hilts and Tajong hilts, "Kingfisher Keris", he theorises that this hilt is a representation of Garuda.

3) Mr. Jensen in his "Krisdisc" (2007) names the hilt form shown by David in post # 14 as "Northern type of Jawa Demam, called perkaka Pattani". The word "perkaka" does not exist in Malay, so I think we can safely assume that Mr. Jensen means "pekaka", ie "---pekaka Pattani---".

It should be noted that although Mr. Jensen names the pistol grip form of Bugis hilt as the "panghulu type", "panghulu", or "pangulu" actually means "hilt", "panghulu" is not the name of a form or type or style.

The name of this pistol grip form of Bugis hilt is "Rekko". (Ahmad Ubbe, 2011)

4) Ahmad Ubbe (Senjata Pusaka Bugis, 2011) names the hilt form shown by David in post #14 as "Sikori", and the pistol grip Bugis form as "Rekko".

Things really do start to get complicated when we try to use names in difficult foreign languages.

So, Kai, may respectfully request your source for the name you have used:- " pekaka" ?

I ask this because you appear to have access to a source that I do not know.

Hello Alan,

Thanks for bringing this up!

I've based my usage on northern Malay keris enthusiasts (as has Jensen, so his treatise is well worth noting since there are hardly any recent publications on keris Melayu). The most authoritative source that springs to mind would be "Spirit of Wood" (Noor & Khoo, 2003): "Since the 1930s, the tajong has often been confused with the perkaka. This error can be traced back to G. B. Gardner, who referred to a tajong as a pekakak in his book. The true perkaka evolved from the jawa demam, with a larger and straighter beak as illustrated on page 133, ..." [p. 121; based on the research of Nik Rashiddin Nik Hussein and Norhaiza Noordin].

It is quite easy to see that the tajong hilt is not based on a mere bird but rather relates to demonic figural hilts of pre-Islamic origin (arms & feet, mouth with teeth and fangs, full attire including a stylized garuda mungkur on the back of the head, etc.); the same might be argued for the ancestral JD hilt though...

This early error regarding kingfisher hilts is understandable since the tajong hilt does resemble SEA kingfisher birds with broad beak quite a bit whereas the pe(r)kaka is more stylized. BTW, I assume perkaka to be a northern Malay spelling variant of pekaka - can anybody here confirm whether this is based on local pronunciation?

Regards,
Kai

We have had a discussion about these names before in this thread for some more reference.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=tajong

Hello Alan,

Rekko [Bugi] = kerdas [Malay]
Sikori [Bugi] = jawa demam (standard version) [Malay]

AFAIK, there is no Bugi name for the N Malay pe(r)kaka variant of the JD hilt since this hilt type seems not to be utilized in Sulawesi.

Regards,
Kai

Thanks for that clarification Kai, and thanks for the link to the old thread David.

So your "pekaka" in Post #20 was just a typo, Kai? It was that typo that roused my curiosity.

I've just had a look at "Spirit of Wood" --- great book. It seems that the authors consistently refer to the entire keris as "Keris Tajong", P120:-

"The most important keris form to originate in the Kelantan-Terengganu-Pattani region is the tajong."

This confirms what I suspected, and I thank you Kai for reminding me of SofW.

The word "tajong" is actually the name of a kind of fishing boat, and the form of a keris tajong scabbard is very similar to this boat, so I think we will find that the keris gains its name from the scabbard:- it is a tajong scabbard, and a tajong keris --- just like Jawa terminology:- a ladrangan wrongko, thus a ladrangan keris.

But what sort of hilt is it?

Regrettably the authors of this wonderful book do not give the hilt a name, they refer to it as "hilt, keris tajong" or "hulu keris tajong", in other words the hilt of a keris tajong, so the name tajong hilt is actually a descriptor rather than a name.

Prior to 1936 Gardner wrote this about the hilt now known as the hilt for a keris tajong:-

"The hilt developed a big head with such a long nose that it has been mistaken for a kingfisher; but it is really intended to be human, and there will often be found tiny arms clasped around the body"

It is clear that Gardner knew exactly what he was writing about, and that people in Malaya prior to 1936 did refer to this hilt as a pekakak. It is equally clear that he was familiar with the hilt now known as a perkaka but he had no name for this, he just referred to it as the Northern Type Jawa Demam.

Very clear indeed that Gardner wrote exactly what he intended to write and simply reported what he heard from people living in Malaya at that time. The Two Niks seem to think he was confused, I'm sorry , but I see no confusion.

Gardner did not suggest that the pekakak hilt form was based upon a bird, he was well aware that it was a representation in the wayang art form of a human, what he said was that it was mistaken for a kingfisher, not that it was one.

I do accept this:- at the present time the hilt previously known as the pekakak (pekaka) form is known as the hilt for a keris tajong.
In light of what I read in both SofW and Gardner as well as several Indonesian publications, I cannot justify holding an opinion that this hilt form was never known as a pekakak form in Malaya.

Similarly, I have not previously seen nor heard this Northern Jawa Demam form referred to as anything other than Jawa Demam, however, if at the present time it is believed that the correct name is "perkaka" , I do accept this as correct current terminology. However, looking at this Jawa Demam form and trying to see any resemblance to a kingfisher is totally beyond my powers of imagination.

I note that The Two Niks have used "perkaka". Although Indonesian is a form of Malay, and the two languages are mutually intelligible, I do not speak or write formal Malay, so I needed to go to several Malay dictionaries to check "perkaka". I could not find the word, so either we are looking at a printing error, or an error in the original text, or local dialect, or perhaps a newly invented word constructed to apply to this Jawa Demam hilt form.

~~~~~~~~~~~

About Bugis and Malay hilt form terms.

Again my thanks Kai, Bugis term : Malay term, yes, or course, I did not even consider this, I was thinking in strictly Bugis terms, for, as we are aware, when we speak of the Bugis people we speak of a culture , rather than a geographical location.

What you say about the "perkaka" form being absent from Bugis usage, might well be true, even though it would seem that Bugis keris do exist that use this form of hilt. I was coming to the same opinion as yourself, but there are a couple of pics of hilts in the Bugis book that look like pekaka type to me, but I'm probably wrong, because the camera angle doesn't show enough of the hilt for certainty.

Well, the Google translator (perhaps not the best source) translates "perkaka" as "the appliance" and translates "pekaka" as "kingfishers".
Well i do find all this name game stuff interesting and while i am certainly not trying to squash that conversation i will just bring it back one more time to the actual reason we began discussing these terms in the first place. That is that the hilt which is currently on this keris, which seems a form of anak ayam teleng, is in fact perfectly correct for this ensemble and that a "Northern type of Jawa Demam", which apparently may be referred to as "pekaka" today, but which it seems may once have been the more accepted name of the hilt which seems to be erroneously called a "kingfisher" hilt (though was in most probability never intended to represent a kingfisher at all), would also be considered perfectly acceptable for a Bugis keris from the Terengganu area as well. There, that wasn't confusing in the least bit... ;) :) :shrug: :rolleyes:

Thank you all for your insights!

F. de Luzon

Google David?

Well, google seems to be a law unto itself, so who am I to argue?

What Dr. Google has done is to omit the final letter, "s", in the word "perkakas", one of the translations of which could arguably be "appliance", but that's stretching the meaning of "appliance" a bit, the idea is that perkakas is "something to do a job with", it can also translate as "square" --- or so I've been told.

However, I think it is very colloquial usage, because "perkaka" does not appear in the hardcopy dictionaries I went to first, nor the online dictionaries I went to after that.

After a discussion with a native speaker of Malay, I am slowly coming to the opinion that the word "perkakas" is a word that has, so to speak, been pulled out of the air in order to permit a regularisation of names.

And let's be fair:- by any measure the hilt is in fact an appliance:- it permits the keris to be used. Maybe The Two Niks, or somebody else, just removed the "s" to make the word more suitable for a keris --- too many "sssss" are uncomfortable on the ear, and "keris" already has one "s".

However, be that as it may, its only in line with what happens with keris terminology all the time. I'll never forget when Empu Pauzan Pusposukadgo finished reading the second edition of Ensiklopedi --- "Where did he get all these names and words from? I've never heard of them! There is a big question here!" (Ensiklopedi was first published as "Ensiklopedi Budaya Nasional" in 1988, our "Ensiklopedi is the enlarged, expanded, questionable edition of the 1988 edition)

In respect of the "kingfisher" hilt, it actually was called a "pekakak" hilt according to Gardner, he reported what people around him in Malaya called it, because to those people it looked like a pekakak, however, when this difficult foreign word moved to Britain, the British did what they did best at that time, and they made it their own by translating it to a word they could remember:- kingfisher.

I have no argument at all as to what hilt should or should not go onto this keris. I don't know what is correct, and judging by the hilts I have seen fitted to this type of keris, its my guess that in the past, before collectors told them what was and what was not correct, most people who carried this type of keris didn't really know what was correct either, especially if they lived away from a major settlement.

The reason I posted something in the first place was because of Kai's use of the word "pekaka", which he has clarified by reference to his source where the word is "perkaka", so what piqued my interest was simply an old fashioned typo.

Well Alan, i did suggest that Google Translator could be dubious at best... ;)

Yep, it sure is. I've seen it do some pretty funny things. I think its probably pretty OK to give a general sense of what a passage of text might be about, provided the text is written in a standard form. I used it for something recently, I forget what, I think it was German > English, and what it gave me made sense.

Well, I would just like to say that the hilts shown in posts #17 & 18 look recent and poorly made specimens IMO. :)
Regards

I agree, Jean. (The copious use of lacquer doesn't help either.)

I guess you wanted to include the hilt from post #19, too...

Regards,
Kai

Hello Alan,

Not exactly a typo - Adni is still using pekaka which seems to be the accepted Malay spelling. I have not tried to research whether perkaka is a northern Malay spelling/pronunciation variant.


It is my understanding that the tajong hilt and name-giving tajong scabbard have to go with each other - neither the hilt nor the scabbard is complete/correct without the other.


I agree we need to dig into this a bit more, especially since Stone also seems to go in the same direction even before Gardner - so the name seems to have been around in colonial circles.

Gardner was based in Johore which is pretty much the opposite end of Malaya as far as things Pattani/Kelantan are concerned. There might be a slim chance that his sources where local Malay who possibly mixed things up...

There is also the chance that the whole kingfisher thing is a late development/invention to cover-up the pre-Islamic origin of either hilt type.

Let's see if we can get some more input from within the culture (and also possibly more period sources).


None of the hilts in this book is of the northern Malay type (with its characteristic shark fin but also characteristic proportions/details).

While this JD variant is most commonly seen with northern Malay blades (especially but not limited to pandai saras blades) and the taller northern Malay scabbard variant, it also does show up with more typical keris Bugis-Melayu. I can't remember seeing it combined with fittings that seem to suggest a Bone/Gowa origin though - if you can come up with pics, this would be certainly interesting.

Regards,
Kai

Kai, the only thing that aroused my interest in this thread was your use of the word "pekaka".

You then gave as your source "Spirit of Wood".

I checked this and found that the authors do not use "pekaka", but rather a word that is unknown in formal Malay:- "perkaka"

Here we have two completely different spellings:- two completely different words

Possibly Adni does use "pekaka" , but if so, then goodness me --- Adni is at variance with the recognised authorities:- The Two Niks.

And you yourself are quite happy to use "pekaka" because Adni uses "pekaka" ?

So, Adni is now the recognised authority?

Any way I look at this question it seems that it is full of uncertainty:- nobody seems to know just exactly what is correct --- least of all me.

There is absolutely no similarity in the pronunciation of these two different words. It might appear that they are similar to a non-native speaker of Malay, but in Malay the "r" is rolled, which makes the sound of these two words completely different when spoken.

In respect of the tajong hilt and scabbard belonging together, I have never disputed that, this is something I haven't even mentioned, what I said was that the name "tajong" comes from a type of fishing boat and the form of the scabbard resembles that boat, thus the scabbard gives its name to the complete keris, I then drew attention to the indisputable fact that The Two Niks do not give a name to the hilt of the keris tajong, they merely describe it as the hilt of the keris tajong:- there is a difference between naming something and describing something.

I've gone on record more times than once in stating my position when it comes to playing the name game, a game that has always been very popular with collectors.

If we need an example of just how puerile this game can be, I think we have just provided one.

I am new to Kerisology and my info may be disputed. But as a malay myself and come from Kelantan Malaysia (which is basically culturally and linguistically the same as the people from Patani/southern Thailand, the word 'pekaka' (correct spelling is pekaka and NOT pekakak) refers locally to the bird which in standard malayis called 'raja udang' and in english the king fisher.

In Kelantan/Patani the hilt of keris tajong is usually referred to as 'hulu tajong' these days, but previously as far as I know are refered interchangeably as pekaka also.

It is only lately as far as I know even the keris 'experts' in Kelantan think that hulu pekaka is a wrong term for the typical hilt of keris tajung which is now universally called hulu tajong.

Currently hulu pekaka is referred to the type as shown below.

I believe that the low quality of this particular hilt has already been remarked upon Jean. The question which raise this whole conversation however was not about the quality of the hilt, but rather whether it was a proper form for a Bugis keris of Terengganu origin. I believe we may have established that indeed it is. ;)

Thank you very much for that clarification Green, you have confirmed one of my suspicions.

In respect of the correct spelling of the Malay word for the bird known as a "kingfisher" in English.

Wilkinson's dictionary of 1901 is the dictionary that is apparently regarded by linguists as the most authoritative dictionary of Classical Malay, it appears to have a similar status in respect of the Malay Language as does the Oxford Dictionary for English.

This dictionary lists both "pekaka" and "pekakak".

A number of hard-copy dictionaries also list both words, as do a number of online dictionaries.

All language changes in use and in spelling, this is particularly the case in English but it also applies in other languages.

I accept that at the present time, in the area of Malaysia where you live, the currently popular spelling for the word under discussion is "pekaka", which of course means that the pronunciation also differs from "pekakak", but this difference would be almost imperceptible.

However, at the time that Gardner was writing there can be no question that "pekakak" was a legitimate spelling, as also was "pekaka".

Bahasa Indonesia is founded upon Malay as it is spoken in a part of Sumatra. The reason that this particular form of Malay was chosen as the foundation stone for the national language is that this form of Malay was the form that was most generally in use as the lingua franca of trade in Maritime South East Asia. In this form of the Malay Language the word "pekaka" is unknown, the spelling "pekakak" is the spelling used.