"Malaysian kris/keris"

[F. de Luzon]

Originally Posted by Ian

Alan and David:

Thank you for bringing your expertise and understanding of keris to the Ethnographic Forum. It is always good to refresh our understanding of the Moro kris and its origins. I think F. de Luzon is saying that he can find no clear evidence, to his satisfaction, that the Javanese keris begat the Moro kris. Like so much history of ethnographic weapons, this transition was not documented at the time and we are left to surmise the facts. Certainly, we can find older Moro kris that look more like Indonesian keris, and the keris clearly predated the kris, but that's about as far as the evidence takes us.

The back migration of the Moro kris to the "Malay sundang" is an interesting concept, and I'm struggling to think of another similar example in the area of edged weapons. The observation that Moro kris appear to have been imported into Malaysia for the manufacture of recent Malay sundang seems plausible, but I'm not sure to what purpose that would have occurred other than to market these for tourists and collectors.

Perhaps this topic has run its course for now.

Ian.

I agree. My apologies for "hijacking" your thread. My intention was to deepen the discussion. Thank you.