Requesting Help!! Identifying the specifics of a Kris

[Mickey the Finn]

Over the years, I've become wary of giving out any of my email addresses for the privelege of access to this or that website. Last autumn I let my guard down for access to academia.org; in retrospect, I may have made a mistake.
I didn't even get a paid membership, but the amount of spam email I get regarding papers only marginally relevant to the topics I originally signed up to read about has got to be among the worst I've ever been plagued by. Every time I log into my email I have to delete dozens of their bothersome notifications. I'm considering blocking all emails from them, but the annoyance factor hasn't yet reached the tipping point for me.
As for keris books... I'm still less-than-actively searching for a Danish-English dictionary to help with Tammens. For books in Bahasa Indonesia, I make do with Tuttle's Concise Indonesian-English Dictionary. I've found it to be quite adequate to "get the gist" of Ensiklopedi Keris, for the most part. Some other keris books contain more words which I suspect are Javanese, or perhaps quite specialized, or of the nature of a "calque"-a "shoe word", or a term which would be understood by native speakers of B.I.
English language books about keris aren't too numerous.
My unlearned opinion is that it is of vital importance and of inestimable value to access online resources written in Bahasa Indonesia, even if such access is gotten through the medium of a translation program. One can learn very much keris lore if one is willing to put in the effort to do the "homework", as it were, and if one has the patience to sort through the "hoo-hah" and sometimes contradictory accounts. Does dhapur jarang goyang make you a chick magnet and/or as virile as a young stallion, or is there an altogether different kebatinan/filsafat? Along the way, you may learn different methods of measuring a keris to determine if you are compatible with it, about the mystical link between the Sultan of Jogjakarta and the Queen of the South, about why a Javanese groom often has a string of flowers draped over the warangka of his keris, about flying keris and disembodied flying heads, the identifying characteristics of certain kinds of "bad iron" used to forge keris. A keris forged of one memorable kind of iron will cause it's owner to become stupid, wasteful, and hated by his boss! You'll learn which pamor will enable you to always be able to find cheap food, which pamor will cause you to never own a home, the bad iron or pamor which will cause your wife to cuckold you, and the pamors which will cause your subordinates to obey you without question or enable you to become friends with almost anyone you meet! You may be able to piece together the reason why one author warns against kissing a keris or smelling it's fragrance [allegedly, doing so may cause your lips and/or nose to fester and rot away!] Much of this information I've only found in Indonesian language sources. English language sources do not discuss the esoteric aspects of keris in anything approaching the extent to which Indonesian sources do.

[A. G. Maisey]

I was going to comment on this post of yours Mickey, but I think I've already said what I wanted to say in my post to your "scribd.com" thread.

But I will say this:- just because something has been written in Bahasa Indonesia this does not give it any special value. Everything you read needs to be questioned and cross checked. But then my own objectives are perhaps a little different to those of most people who have a keris interest, so possibly such a stringent approach is not justified for many other people.

For somebody with a beginning keris interest there are a few books that are worth the time to read. I'm pretty sure that they have been mentioned here previously not once, but a number of times.

Once a basic understanding has been achieved it becomes easier to identify the precise areas of understanding, belief & knowledge that one would wish to devote time to.

[jagabuwana]

Originally Posted by Mickey the Finn

sometimes contradictory accounts. Does dhapur jarang goyang make you a chick magnet and/or as virile as a young stallion, or is there an altogether different kebatinan/filsafat?

I've not heard of this dhapur but if it does what it describes on the label, maybe it should be renamed to sering goyang.

[A. G. Maisey]

The post that previously occupied this space was poorly worded, it was inaccurately put together and misleading.

Speed kills.

I'm driving slower this time, hopefully I can produce something sensible.

Mickey wrote:-

Does dhapur jarang goyang make you a chick magnet and/or as virile as a young stallion, or is there an altogether different kebatinan/filsafat?

To which Jaga responded:-

--- maybe it should be renamed to sering goyang.


"Jarang goyang" if read as Indonesian means "seldom shake".
"jarang" = seldom, "goyang" - shake

However, if read as Javanese "jarang" means hot water, or more precisely boiling water, and it has a minor or regional meaning that is similar to the Indonesian "seldom".

In Javanese "goyang" has the same meaning as in Indonesian.

I think that most Javanese reading "jarang goyang" would probably read it as "boiling water shake". I just ran this past a couple of Javanese native speakers and asked them to understand it as Javanese and I was told that it doesn't really make sense.

Jaga read "jarang goyang" as Bahasa Indonesia and understood it as "seldom shake" (or similar) and replied in Bahasa Indonesia with "sering goyang", "sering" means often/frequently.

OK, all well and good, but there is no keris dhapur named "jarang goyang".

The correct name is "jaran guyang".

This is Javanese, "jaran" is ngoko for "horse" ( it has secondary meanings, but in this keris context it is "horse".

The word "guyang" occurs in both ngoko & krama and it means bathing livestock (ngguyang = to bathe livestock)

However, in Javanese krama (high level) the word for horse is "kapal".

Some people call this dhapur "kapal guyang", but in ngoko and in Indonesian the word "kapal" means ship, and the word "guyang" can only be used in connection with livestock. So understood as ngoko it is senseless.

The Surakarta Pakem gives the name as "jaran guyang", and this pakem was issued under the aegis of the Karaton Surakarta, so I don't believe it is necessary to use the krama form of this keris name.

[Jean]

As a collector I am mainly interested to know that this dapur has 7 waves and is basically the only one without kembang kacang (see pic), and that it is suitable for seducers like myself...
Regards

[David]

Originally Posted by Mickey the Finn

As for keris books... I'm still less-than-actively searching for a Danish-English dictionary to help with Tammens.

Mickey, since Tammens was Dutch you may want to be looking for a Dutch-English dictionary, though since the majority of the Dutch in the 3 volumes of De Kris is also translated into English that probably isn't really necessary for understanding what is written.

[A. G. Maisey]

Jean, I cannot see clearly from the photo, but does your keris have a blumbangan that stops at a ridge, and perhaps a tikel alis, or does it merge into the body of the blade? Does it have the remnant of a greneng?


Compare with the example given in the SKA pakem.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Jean, I cannot see clearly from the photo, but does your keris have a blumbangan that stops at a ridge, and perhaps a tikel alis, or does it merge into the body of the blade? Does it have the remnant of a greneng?


Compare with the example given in the SKA pakem.

I'm sure Jean can tell you better with the keris in hand, but when i enlarge the image i think i can clearly see defined tikel alis and certainly remnants of greneng.

[Jean]

Yes gents, this is dapur jaran guyan "with minor exceptions", the tikel alis is vaguely carved, and the greneng is present but worn
Regards

[A. G. Maisey]

Jean, I'd say that if we were to use the SKA pakem as the benchmark, there are more than a few exceptions, but then again, this is really only Surakarta, maybe in Surabaya things are different, and I can find more than a few named dhapurs in that SKA pakem, that more than a few SKA keris people will disagree with.

But all the same, its nice to be able to say something and not generate too much disagreement. If I wanted to stick a name on this keris --- and believe me, I do not --- I'd be looking for a different dhapur but with either more or less luk, for example something that is normally a 9 luk, but I might have a keris exactly the same only it has 5 luk, so I would then name my keris with the same name a the 9 luk, but add "--- luk lima".

Nobody would argue with that.

Well, at least I don't think they would.

But we're talking keris here, anything can happen.

[Mickey the Finn]

I wasn't sure about the correct spelling of the name of the dhapur, so I Googled a couple of variants and went with the one which brought up the greater volume of results.
This perhaps very concisely "proves your point" [in a manner of speaking] in the scribd.com post.
Just because most results are spelled in a particular way, it doesn't mean that that is the correct way. Just because many people believe something, that doesn't mean it's true/correct/valid.
In my previous post in the present thread, I was about to touch on the volume and the quality of content of hard-copy keris books available in Bahasa Indonesia. Your scribd.com post explained it more clearly than I could have/ attempted to do.
It's 06:38 and I haven't slept in over 48 hours, so I'll close now, before I lose any more focus.
Mickey

Postscript: Alan, about your post in the present thread at 10:41 AM: I myself could argue with you [or at least express my disagreement], and I perhaps will, but in the future. Or I may ask for clarification, which may make argument or contention needless.