The Purpose of Keris Panjang

[David]

Originally Posted by kai

Another line of thought could be that the gentry wanted to display that they had blades resembling rapiers even if they were not meant to be used against Europeans, at least not in a duel-like situation. So they could be mainly status blades and still owing their development to early contacts with Europeans.

This would be more my line of thought. A keris panjang is not at all the same type of weapon as a rapier. This doesn't mean that handled by the right hand that it could not be an effective weapon. But it would seem to me that if a weapon were to be made in matial response to a European rapier that length would be just one of the considerations. As a status response however, just being longer might be enough.