Pakem and Keris

[A. G. Maisey]

Depends what we want to think of as "Old Jawa", Rick.

The pakems of which I know are all pretty recent productions, by which I mean all produced within the last couple of hundred years at the extreme outside.

I believe that in the Old Jawa of , say, prior to the Java War, the names and attributes of the various dhapurs would have been part of the special knowledge of highly placed empus.

Perhaps the bureaucracy of the kratons only became involved after the keris became elevated to court art, and many of its traditions had already been forgotten.

There is a degree of variation between the pakems of which I know, and this is only to be expected, bearing in mind the environment that has produced these pakems.

For many of the older dhapur, we can find reference to the empu who made that dhapur, and under which ruler he worked.

For more recent dhapur, this information is lacking.

However, when we think of "information" we must consider the concept of information in a Javanese way, and what this means is that the information presented as fact, is actually a concensus of opinion that has morphed into myth ---or maybe the other way round.In any case, it is Javanese fact, not necessarily fact as some of us may consider fact to be.

However, having said that, yes, if we make a particular dhapur, then we must make it exactly according to the required ricikan for that dhapur, and we need to follow an identified pakem in determination of the required ricikan.