Seeking advice on Balinese keris hulu

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Gustav, you may well be correct in that brass and silver grantim did exist in Lombok, but did not exist in Bali. Djelengga was of course referring to the long past, as he notes that at the time he was writing the craftsmen who could make the woven grantim hilts were already "punah", that is gone, wiped out, destroyed utterly. In other words at the time Lalu Djelengga wrote his text there was no production of these hilts. His work was published in 2000, I think, but I'm not exactly sure when it was written, maybe 1980's or early 1990's?

In any case, he was writing about the long past.

Here is a pic of a brass grantim that I have had for about 60 years, it belongs to a keris that I am not prepared to put on exhibition in an online forum, however, this keris is undeniably Balinese, and in my estimation dates from at least the 19th century. It has an ivory gambar, and the appearance of that ivory would suggest a much earlier date than even the 1800's. I bought this keris from a Dutchman who fled to Australia prior to the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies during WWII.

However, having said that, it is absolutely impossible for me to claim that I am certain that its geographic point of origin was Bali rather than Lombok. Bali had a long history of colonisation of Lombok, during this period --- which ended comparatively recently, 1890's --- there was constant movement back and forth between Bali and Lombok, and a craftsman working in Bali one month could be working in Lombok the next. It is impossible to know with any degree of certainty where cultural items of Balinese style were actually made --- unless one was there watching the manufacture. To all intents and purposes there can be no distinction between Balinese in Bali and Balinese in colonised Lombok. In fact, the language used in West Lombok today is mostly Balinese.

But there is one undeniable fact:- not all the people who were permitted to wear a grantim hilt were mega rich : not all could afford gold. The social situation in Bali is this:- a man who performs common labour could be classifiable as a noble, and in some situations could be ranked at a very high status. The Balinese hierarchical systems are so complex that not many Balinese people understand the relationships correctly. I certainly do not, all I can do is observe the results.

As an aside, one of my regular drivers in Ubud is in fact a prince, he lives a pretty ordinary existence, except when he needs to appear at some formal event, when he looks every inch a prince, and acts like one. It has always been thus.

There is no doubt at all in my mind that lower value materials were used in the production of grantim hilts by Balinese people in the distant past. But I cannot prove this, it is simply a logical belief.