keris palembang

[kai]

Hello Alan,

If it were mine I would not change a thing on it, everything hangs together nicely exactly as it is.

There are solid cultural reasons, apart from personal preferences, why men choose to wear humble clothing and non-ostentatious accoutrements, and when such a nice example as this comes our way it is perhaps a little arrogant of somebody who is not a part of the originating culture to take it upon himself to override the taste of the previous owner.

This thread might be of interest:-
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=GINJEI

If there was any evidence suggesting that this keris is an ensemble that was traditionally worn by a former owner as-is (or even a decent likelihood only), I’d fully agree not to change anything. However, very few keris have enough provenance to suggest them likely being genuine ensembles.

Usually we have to go by indicators when trying to estimate whether any given keris may survive as an original ensemble.

For keris Palembang, we have a pretty good number of extant examples to reconstruct how original status ensembles looked like; this one doesn’t feel right to me at all…

As already mentioned (post #12), it is wise to keep any replaced parts. And to pass them on to any future owners so that any changes are fully reversible.

I believe the majority of keris in collections worldwide got sold/traded (usually via several middlemen) and many ensembles got altered during this process. While there are certainly genuine examples with fittings that are of thoroughly mixed origins and also reflect the genuine choice of the last traditional owner within his(/her) cultural environment, this seems to be a bit farfetched as a default assumption for most extant ensembles with strong discrepancies in style and/or quality, I believe.

(I'm not sure what you refer to regarding to Si Ginjei or Palembang vs Jambi - feel free to expand, please!)

Regards,
Kai