Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - A different Pamor which is not folded but pasted

Gustav · 17th August 2024, 01:05 PM

Alan, thank you for giving me the honour of a detailed response, which I much appreciate.

I don't think the matter here is as simple as manipulated Wos Wutah.

In the picture with three blue arrows we see a feature, which is one of characteristic patterns for a twisted bar, under the left arrow; under this and both other arrows we see the white Pamor lines crossing the Odo-Odo to the other half of blade, an indication for a twisted bar.

Another such feature we see in the second picture with a single red arrow, which is marking it. At this place too the feature runs over Odo-Odo.

I have not worked with metal, but I have played a lot with two colored plasticine, and so I know as well as you, that besides other quite differently looking phases of a twisted bar (depending how much we take off of it), there is one phase, where a straight line runs through in the middle between the semicircles. In this phase it is possible to have a straight white line running on top of Odo-Odo.

The features we are used to see on blades with twisted bar Pamor will be very difficult to see on a Bali/Lombok blade with Odo-Odo; and it also seems to me, that the approach doing such pattern is different from, let's say, Java. Almost none effort is made to keep the pattern technically recognizeable. It somehow is enough, if "it's there". On the blade Hugh presented, which is an antique blade, the Pamor surely has been further disturbed through Sangling, traces of which we see in the horizontal picture by Hugh.

I happen to be a custodian of an antique Lombok blade with a twisted bar Pamor. The Pamor is a mess, it is clearly recogniseable at the base, in the middle it still displays some phases of a twisted bar appearance, and gets almost completely lost in a Wos Wutah like appearance above the middle (partly, because the bar surely wasn't twisted until the end, partly because of forging out the bar). Added three pictures of it around the middle and abowe it.

I did read Ida Bagus Dibia's book about ten years ago, and haven't had a wish to read it again since then.

17th August 2024, 01:05 PM	#7
Gustav Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 1,273	Alan, thank you for giving me the honour of a detailed response, which I much appreciate. I don't think the matter here is as simple as manipulated Wos Wutah. In the picture with three blue arrows we see a feature, which is one of characteristic patterns for a twisted bar, under the left arrow; under this and both other arrows we see the white Pamor lines crossing the Odo-Odo to the other half of blade, an indication for a twisted bar. Another such feature we see in the second picture with a single red arrow, which is marking it. At this place too the feature runs over Odo-Odo. I have not worked with metal, but I have played a lot with two colored plasticine, and so I know as well as you, that besides other quite differently looking phases of a twisted bar (depending how much we take off of it), there is one phase, where a straight line runs through in the middle between the semicircles. In this phase it is possible to have a straight white line running on top of Odo-Odo. The features we are used to see on blades with twisted bar Pamor will be very difficult to see on a Bali/Lombok blade with Odo-Odo; and it also seems to me, that the approach doing such pattern is different from, let's say, Java. Almost none effort is made to keep the pattern technically recognizeable. It somehow is enough, if "it's there". On the blade Hugh presented, which is an antique blade, the Pamor surely has been further disturbed through Sangling, traces of which we see in the horizontal picture by Hugh. I happen to be a custodian of an antique Lombok blade with a twisted bar Pamor. The Pamor is a mess, it is clearly recogniseable at the base, in the middle it still displays some phases of a twisted bar appearance, and gets almost completely lost in a Wos Wutah like appearance above the middle (partly, because the bar surely wasn't twisted until the end, partly because of forging out the bar). Added three pictures of it around the middle and abowe it. I did read Ida Bagus Dibia's book about ten years ago, and haven't had a wish to read it again since then. Attached Images