Kepings or Barongs

[RobT]

Hi All,

I'd like to know whether the three swords shown are kepings or barongs. Actually, I'm pretty sure the bottom one is a barong but the blade is so slender for its length (20.375" [51.7525cm] long by 2.5" [6.35cm] wide that I decided to add it to the group. The spine is also respectably thick at the hilt (5/16" [7.9375mm]). I really think the top sword is a keping and am not too sure one way or the other about the second one.

Sincerely,
RobT

[xasterix]

Originally Posted by RobT

Hi All,

I'd like to know whether the three swords shown are kepings or barongs. Actually, I'm pretty sure the bottom one is a barong but the blade is so slender for its length (20.375" [51.7525cm] long by 2.5" [6.35cm] wide that I decided to add it to the group. The spine is also respectably thick at the hilt (5/16" [7.9375mm]). I really think the top sword is a keping and am not too sure one way or the other about the second one.

Sincerely,
RobT

Hi Rob, I believe they're all barungs.

[RobT]

xasterix,

Dang! I thought for sure the top one with that flattish part of the spine starting about half way toward the tip indicates that it is a keping. It looks as if telling a barong from a keping is rather tricky.

Sincerely,
RobT

[Ian]

Hi Rob, xasterix:

A few years ago I posted pictures of a "Mandaya keping" that I acquired in Manila about 20 years ago. It is here.

[xasterix]

Originally Posted by Ian

Hi Rob, xasterix:

A few years ago I posted pictures of a "Mandaya keping" that I acquired in Manila about 20 years ago. It is here.

Hi Ian,

That indeed is a keping!

The interesting this is its provenance. According to my museum curator friend, at one point in time, Tugaya-dressed blades were considered a status symbol among the Lumad. So the Lumad chiefs either bought full swords, or had their Lumad blades-only dressed up in Tugaya. I think your sample jives with that- it may have been owned by Mandaya, but according to the brass style and the reversed guard (for some reason a lot of Tugaya blades had incorrectly-oriented guards), it's a Tugaya product as well. Nothing wrong with that, because once upon a time it was considered high status for the Lumads. It's also possible that a Maguindanaon married into a Maranao (or at least Lanao-based) family, and they had their old keping repaired / re-dressed in Tugaya.

[xasterix]

Originally Posted by RobT

xasterix,

Dang! I thought for sure the top one with that flattish part of the spine starting about half way toward the tip indicates that it is a keping. It looks as if telling a barong from a keping is rather tricky.

Sincerely,
RobT

Yup it's tricky. One of the helpful things to tell them apart is the hilt. Barung hilts have a different flavor vs keping hilts (whether original or re-make).

[Ian]

A few more variants that might meet the definition of a Keping. These were posted previously in a thread "Modern Barung."


.

[xasterix]

Originally Posted by Ian

A few more variants that might meet the definition of a Keping. These were posted previously in a thread "Modern Barung."


.

Hi Ian, I agree that all of these can be considered as keping

[RobT]

Xasterix,

Since you said in Sajen's thread that, "these blades have often been dressed up and mistaken for barungs. In many cases the dressing up is deliberate, so that the tourists will buy kepings, thinking that they're barungs", I didn't mention that the ferrule on the first blade isn't original to the hilt because I didn't think, in the case of kepings, the hilt was a reliable identifier. My bad and I apologize. The wood part of the hilt came with the blade but the ferrule that came with it was a piece of aluminum tubing which looked as if it had been just kind of stuck on. It looked horrible so I made a barong style ferrule. I was basing my id of the blade as a possible keping by the rather flattish spine (especially the distal half). That is admittedly a rather subtle feature but, if it isn't sufficient to distinguish between keping and barong, I think that the only reliable way to tell the difference between the two is to have a radically non barong hilt and/or a radically non barong blade.

Sincerely,
RobT

[xasterix]

Originally Posted by RobT

Xasterix,

Since you said in Sajen's thread that, "these blades have often been dressed up and mistaken for barungs. In many cases the dressing up is deliberate, so that the tourists will buy kepings, thinking that they're barungs", I didn't mention that the ferrule on the first blade isn't original to the hilt because I didn't think, in the case of kepings, the hilt was a reliable identifier. My bad and I apologize. The wood part of the hilt came with the blade but the ferrule that came with it was a piece of aluminum tubing which looked as if it had been just kind of stuck on. It looked horrible so I made a barong style ferrule. I was basing my id of the blade as a possible keping by the rather flattish spine (especially the distal half). That is admittedly a rather subtle feature but, if it isn't sufficient to distinguish between keping and barong, I think that the only reliable way to tell the difference between the two is to have a radically non barong hilt and/or a radically non barong blade.

Sincerely,
RobT

Dear Rob: It's all good! Another identifier for me would be the spine...keping usually have thinner spines than barung. An assessment of the sword's different parts would be best to ascertain whether a leaf-blade is a keping or barung

[Ian]

Rob,

I think one of the key points that xasterix was making is that the Maranao call all leaf-shaped blades keping. Thus, a traditional barung from the Sulu Archipelago, when dressed in Maranao style, would qualify as a keping in the Maranao dialect.

So we have barung (Sulu), keping (Maranao), badung (Palawan) to describe similar leaf-shaped blades from different regions of the Moro peoples. These regions also have distinctive local styles for hilts and scabbards that help distinguish them (most of the time). I'm sure we will find exceptions to this general classification, but it seems useful for the present time to help distinguish between the three forms.

[RobT]

Ian,

Sorry for the tardy reply. I believe you are correct in your assessment. In a way it's like the Uzbek pichok vs the Tajik kord. For my part (unless I have pretty much ironclad Maranao provenance), I think the best way forward is to call anything with a barong style hilt and blade a barong unless the blade or hilt differs markedly from standard.

Sincerely,
RobT