Next keris from Polish Museum

wolviex · 22nd June 2005, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew

Keris threads, in particular, seem to be riddled with veiled insults, challenges and innuendo. Please don't participate in that fashion.

I think that’s another magical feature of the kerises – to set people in variance with each other

Marto and tuancd – I would like to thank you both for this discussion. Marto as usually expounded very logically what was his point in this discussion, and I appreciate it. It is very valuable, and I hope to hear/read more from you about kerises – especially if you will see that we are wandering in the subject. Do not apologize for your sometimes harsh posts – maybe we are in need of something like this. I really hope that tuancd didn’t mention to hurt you in any matter, and vice versa. We have got here a hot discussion anyway, so Gentlemen, please keep the high level!

Marto, I will play like an obnoxiously child, because I will once again put some arguments on Durga hilt. Well, to be honest, I’m not sure we can call it evidence, but I’m sure it is good to mention it just for the order. There was an article in German magazine “Zeitschrift fur Historische Waffen- und Kostumkunde” (1966, heft 1) by Eugen v. Philippovich titled „Indonesische Furstenwaffen“, where we can find similar handle (pictures below). He is also calling this handle as a depiction of Durga (Doerga), and he put only one, but simple explanation. Author has even pointed that she is easily recognizable, among the others, thanks to the abstract depiction of the head. It is abstract because she covered it with veil (didn’t we talk about it?). So my question is, is there any other goddess/deity covering herself? I’m not sure if I can ask Marto for another (repeated) crushingly

explanation against it, but I hope it was worth to mention.

Tim: as always you have interesting pictures. Can you explain what do our fingers mean, according to the pictures of hands you’ve posted? Even if it is no evidence in this discussion, it is good to know.

Regards!

tuancd · 23rd June 2005, 12:40 AM

Nyai Loro Kidul
or
Nyi roro kidul
she also is veiled because of a curse which made her ugly. Here is her story

Pajajaran kingdom was located in West Java from 1333 AD to 1630 AD and it was conquered by the Islamic kingdom of Mataram from Central Java. Pajajaran's greatest ruler was Prabu Siliwangi. He had a bride in one his harems and she bore him a very beautiful daughter. The girl was called Dewi Kadita. The beauty of Dewi Kadita and her mother made the other harems jealous, and they formed a conspiracy against them.

The harems used black magic to make the bodies of Dewi Kadita and her mother be filthy, ugly and disgusting. Prabu Siliwangi got angry at Dewi Kadita and her mother and forced them to get out of the palace, as they were thought to be bad luck for the kingdom. While they were wandering around the country, the mother died. Dewi Kadita was walking in deep sadness, until she reached the southern sea (the shore of Indian Ocean).

She sat above a stove-shaped rock and when she was sleeping, she had a vision that she should jump into the water to release herself from the curse. When she woke up, with no second thought, Dewi Kadita jumped into the sea. She once again became very beautiful, but then she realized that she was not a human anymore. She had turned into a supernatural form of life. She then ruled all creatures off the southern coast of Java Island, and was known as Nyi Roro Kidul (queen of the southern sea). As revenge on her father, she became the primary bride for Mataram kings (the rival of the Pajajaran kingdom).

The river of Bengawan Solo, which started from the mystical mountain of Merapi in Central Java and leads to the Indian Ocean, is said to be the tunnel used by Nyi Roro Kidul to access Java. In a green costume, she traps males who are walking on the shore. They are swallowed by the waves and are thought to be missing or dead but will actually become her guard or mate.

marto suwignyo · 23rd June 2005, 02:16 AM

TUAN CD

Thank you for your apology. It is unnecessary, as even though I did consider that I had been misquoted, I have at no time taken offence at anything you have written. I understand that you are working with a foriegn language, but that apart, there is really nothing in anything you have written that could cause offence to a reasonable person. I assure you, that were some of the meetings that I need to attend conducted with the same level of civility that you and other contributors to this Forum regularly display, the participants in those meetings would be laughed out of the room.

Yes, I am aware of what Martin has written in his Sudamala work.
Martin was the head of a Swiss government instrumentality responsible for calibration and audit of weights, measures and so forth. I forget the name of the instrumentality, but Martin`s professional background and training is in mathematics and statistics. His work on the origin of early keris utilised his professional skills, and the result is , in my opinion, a landmark work in the study of the keris. However, when Martin wrote in other fields, such as he did with the Sudamala work, he regretably did not provide references for the material presented in his text. Thus we are left with anthropological works written by a mathmatician . What Martin has presented may be factual, or it may not, but without the references it will never be accepted by academia as authoritative.
I am not degrading Martin`s work here:- it is good, popular reference material by an experienced collector, and I have said no more above than I have expressed to Martin himself. In fact, I have said much less than I have said to Martin.

In so far as proofs are concerned.
Let me try to explain my position on this by way of analogy.
If I and my wife produce a child, we have the right to give that child a name.
If I and my wife die immediately after the birth of the child and somebody else raises the child, that other person has the right to give the child a name.
If we die after the child has grown a little, and another person adopts the child, depending on circumstances, the adopter may or may not have naming rights to the child.
In any case, the family to which the child belongs will know the name of the child, and it would be quite incorrect for somebody from outside the family to address the child by another name.
However, let us say that a neighbour has a fondness for the child. That neighbour may well give the child his own pet name, recognised by the child, recognised by the neighbour, but not used by the child`s family.
The child`s official name remains the name given it by its parents.
Now, one day a stranger notices the child, and because of certain features that remind the stranger of some other child that he once knew, the stranger decides that the child`s name is different again from the official name.
But this stranger does not have the right to affix to the child the name upon which he has decided .
The child may forever have a particular name for that stranger, but it is not the child`s official name, nor is it the name by which the child is known to those close to him.

So it is with our wadon handle, or for that matter with any object from any culture or belief system of which we are not a part :-
we are strangers to the culture from which the handle bearing this figure comes, if we wish to know the name by which the figure is known within its own culture, we must have somebody from the culture, who posses this knowledge, pass the knowledge to us. If such a person does not exist, then to establish the true identity of the figure we must employ the tools of academic enquiry. To interpret this figure from our own cultural base, from our own understanding of things which are perhaps beyond our understanding, is not acceptable.

However, just as with the stranger who knew not the name of the child, there is nothing to stop us giving this handle, or any other object, our own name for it, provided that we do not delude ourselves into believing that the name we have given is the name by which this object was known in its culture of origin.

Tuan CD, I am not taking a stance against the wayang:- an understanding of the wayang is essential to an understanding of the keris, and to Javanese culture in general, however, it is vital that we recognise that wayang is popular entertainment, and it undergoes continual change, even today, it is still changing. If we wish to use something from the wayang to make a point, we must try to relate the same space in time occupied by the wayang to the point that we are trying to make. What I mean by this is, that the wayang as it is in 2005 cannot be used to substantiate something that applied in 1605, and of course, vice versa.

WOLVIEX

I thank you for drawing our attention to the Phillipovich use of the Durga attrubution in 1966.

I was not aware of this earler usage.

If you have access to this work, can you advise if Phillipovich`s usage of the term is referenced, and if not, is Phillipovich a trained professional in a relevant field and does she substantiate her usage?

The argument for a Durga attribution that you have precised seems to indicate that Phillipovich is using a similar style of logic to that which others have applied in naming this form "Durga". For instance, I have in front of me eight handles with a female form.Three are variations of the wadon form which we have been discussing, one is an abstract but unmistakeably female form,another is an even more abstract form, one is Rangda, one a more or less normal female, the last is a nightmare with female characteristics.Of all these figures, only Rangda is easily identifiable. The others could be anything, and an argument could be constructed to support almost any attribution. In fact, I could probably construct a more convincing argument that any one of these figures is in fact Little Red Riding Hood, than any argument I have yet heard to support the Durga attribution for our original handle form.

Wolviex, you ask:-

"So my question is, is there any other goddess/deity covering herself?"

I`m not at all certain that this is the right question, Wolviex.
Do we yet have a proof that the figure depicted is in fact covering herself? I think not.
Do we yet have a proof that the oft mentioned veil is in fact a veil? I think not.
Do we yet have a proof that the depictation is indeed a deity? I think not.
Do we yet have a proof that we are in fact looking at Durga? I think not.

As far as I can see, we are back at square one:- we have a female figure that somebody has chosen to call Durga, but we do not yet have any evidence available that this is the name that would have been applied to this figure in the culture from which it has come, and at the time when it was produced.
I`m sorry if my standards are too demanding to allow me to be in agreement with this Durga thing, but I have spent better than 50 years watching the fumbled misinterpretation of a cultural icon that many people within Javanese culture believe sits at the center of that culture. Very few people have taken a serious approach to the keris, and speaking for myself, I would very much like to see a stop put to the perpetuation of erroneous supposition.

Andrew · 23rd June 2005, 03:25 AM

Quote:

I assure you, that were some of the meetings that I need to attend conducted with the same level of civility that you and other contributors to this Forum regularly display, the participants in those meetings would be laughed out of the room.

What do you mean, please?

marto suwignyo · 23rd June 2005, 04:22 AM

Andrew
In response to your enquiry.
I regularly attend meetings involving both business matters and political matters.
The people who attend these meetings, are in the case of the business meetings, mature professionals in several business related fields, and in the case of the politically orientated meetings the committee memberships are comprised of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, including academic, military, political and business.
From time to time discussion at the meetings which I attend becomes quite spirited.On these occasions the language used and the comments made could easily cause offence to people who were unused to this type of environment. If a person attending these meetings attempted to put his point of view in the extremely civil and delicate manner which is usually observed by contributors to this forum, that person would be laughed out of the room by his fellows.
My comment was intended as praise, not in a derogatory fashion.
I regret that my intent was unclear to you.
Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain to me how my words could be interpreted in any other than a complimentary way. If there is a defect in my English expression I would be very glad to be made aware of it.

Andrew · 23rd June 2005, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marto suwignyo

Andrew
In response to your enquiry.
I regularly attend meetings involving both business matters and political matters.
The people who attend these meetings, are in the case of the business meetings, mature professionals in several business related fields, and in the case of the politically orientated meetings the committee memberships are comprised of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, including academic, military, political and business.
From time to time discussion at the meetings which I attend becomes quite spirited.On these occasions the language used and the comments made could easily cause offence to people who were unused to this type of environment. If a person attending these meetings attempted to put his point of view in the extremely civil and delicate manner which is usually observed by contributors to this forum, that person would be laughed out of the room by his fellows.
My comment was intended as praise, not in a derogatory fashion.
I regret that my intent was unclear to you.
Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain to me how my words could be interpreted in any other than a complimentary way. If there is a defect in my English expression I would be very glad to be made aware of it.

Marto,

Thank you, very much, for the explanation. The plain language of your post was clear. I'm just not yet familiar with your internet "personality".

Best regards,
Andrew

marto suwignyo · 23rd June 2005, 05:38 AM

Thank you for your clarification, Andrew.

wolviex · 25th June 2005, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marto suwignyo

If you have access to this work, can you advise if Phillipovich`s usage of the term is referenced, and if not, is Phillipovich a trained professional in a relevant field and does she substantiate her usage?

Unfortunately I don't know nothing about Phillipovich and other works of this author. Describing this Keris Phillipovich mentioned only two references:
B. Dudik, Kleinodien des Deutschen Ritterordens, S. 46, Nr. 211

W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, Beeldhouw-Kunst von Bali, Tf. 42. s’Gravenhage 1937,

and I don't know if there you can find any other Durga hints - I suppose no. So for now, I feel quite convinced that we shouldn't call this handle Durga. But this is causing other problems. Why the handles like this were called this way - was it just European idea, because this goddes was well known? Was there any tradition? And what is more important, somone who made handles like this, was probably making concrete goddess, not just a woman handle, am I right? Is this tradition lost for good? Or are there any chances to discover the meaning of this handles?

Quote:

Originally Posted by tuancd

This Mendak looks like half one from Solo. Time and wear may have done some damages to it, but it does not seem much space for an other half. It fits the handle properly and could be of the same age.

Thank you for this hint. It is true that medak fits handle very well. Because there are no other different opinions, I understand this is all true

Regards

marto suwignyo · 26th June 2005, 02:45 AM

Thank you for your response, Wolviex.

Regretably I do not understand the language in which the references are written. Perhaps somebody with knowledge of this language could track down the references and verify if use of the Durga attribution has any basis in fact.

I feel sure that at the time these handles were made and used, there was some symbolic intent:- Durga? or some other female figure? I don`t know, but what I do know is that some people associated with the world of the keris in Java at the present time refer to this handle as "wadon"---just "female".What it may have been known as originally I do not know, and without good, solid proofs I am not prepared to put forward an opinion.

The provision of evidence to allow this handle form to be named as a representation of any particular deity could well use a lifetime of research.

To call it "Durga" in the first place may well have been a bit of European invention. Look at the "keris Mojopahit". Javanese people never knew that the keris sajen was called a keris Mojopahit until a European told them. Who was right? The European, or the Javanese people?

I think that as far as this handle goes, for the time being we might have to acknowledge that we just do not know who, or what, it is supposed to represent.

23rd June 2005, 02:16 AM	#3
marto suwignyo Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 52	TUAN CD Thank you for your apology. It is unnecessary, as even though I did consider that I had been misquoted, I have at no time taken offence at anything you have written. I understand that you are working with a foriegn language, but that apart, there is really nothing in anything you have written that could cause offence to a reasonable person. I assure you, that were some of the meetings that I need to attend conducted with the same level of civility that you and other contributors to this Forum regularly display, the participants in those meetings would be laughed out of the room. Yes, I am aware of what Martin has written in his Sudamala work. Martin was the head of a Swiss government instrumentality responsible for calibration and audit of weights, measures and so forth. I forget the name of the instrumentality, but Martin`s professional background and training is in mathematics and statistics. His work on the origin of early keris utilised his professional skills, and the result is , in my opinion, a landmark work in the study of the keris. However, when Martin wrote in other fields, such as he did with the Sudamala work, he regretably did not provide references for the material presented in his text. Thus we are left with anthropological works written by a mathmatician . What Martin has presented may be factual, or it may not, but without the references it will never be accepted by academia as authoritative. I am not degrading Martin`s work here:- it is good, popular reference material by an experienced collector, and I have said no more above than I have expressed to Martin himself. In fact, I have said much less than I have said to Martin. In so far as proofs are concerned. Let me try to explain my position on this by way of analogy. If I and my wife produce a child, we have the right to give that child a name. If I and my wife die immediately after the birth of the child and somebody else raises the child, that other person has the right to give the child a name. If we die after the child has grown a little, and another person adopts the child, depending on circumstances, the adopter may or may not have naming rights to the child. In any case, the family to which the child belongs will know the name of the child, and it would be quite incorrect for somebody from outside the family to address the child by another name. However, let us say that a neighbour has a fondness for the child. That neighbour may well give the child his own pet name, recognised by the child, recognised by the neighbour, but not used by the child`s family. The child`s official name remains the name given it by its parents. Now, one day a stranger notices the child, and because of certain features that remind the stranger of some other child that he once knew, the stranger decides that the child`s name is different again from the official name. But this stranger does not have the right to affix to the child the name upon which he has decided . The child may forever have a particular name for that stranger, but it is not the child`s official name, nor is it the name by which the child is known to those close to him. So it is with our wadon handle, or for that matter with any object from any culture or belief system of which we are not a part :- we are strangers to the culture from which the handle bearing this figure comes, if we wish to know the name by which the figure is known within its own culture, we must have somebody from the culture, who posses this knowledge, pass the knowledge to us. If such a person does not exist, then to establish the true identity of the figure we must employ the tools of academic enquiry. To interpret this figure from our own cultural base, from our own understanding of things which are perhaps beyond our understanding, is not acceptable. However, just as with the stranger who knew not the name of the child, there is nothing to stop us giving this handle, or any other object, our own name for it, provided that we do not delude ourselves into believing that the name we have given is the name by which this object was known in its culture of origin. Tuan CD, I am not taking a stance against the wayang:- an understanding of the wayang is essential to an understanding of the keris, and to Javanese culture in general, however, it is vital that we recognise that wayang is popular entertainment, and it undergoes continual change, even today, it is still changing. If we wish to use something from the wayang to make a point, we must try to relate the same space in time occupied by the wayang to the point that we are trying to make. What I mean by this is, that the wayang as it is in 2005 cannot be used to substantiate something that applied in 1605, and of course, vice versa. WOLVIEX I thank you for drawing our attention to the Phillipovich use of the Durga attrubution in 1966. I was not aware of this earler usage. If you have access to this work, can you advise if Phillipovich`s usage of the term is referenced, and if not, is Phillipovich a trained professional in a relevant field and does she substantiate her usage? The argument for a Durga attribution that you have precised seems to indicate that Phillipovich is using a similar style of logic to that which others have applied in naming this form "Durga". For instance, I have in front of me eight handles with a female form.Three are variations of the wadon form which we have been discussing, one is an abstract but unmistakeably female form,another is an even more abstract form, one is Rangda, one a more or less normal female, the last is a nightmare with female characteristics.Of all these figures, only Rangda is easily identifiable. The others could be anything, and an argument could be constructed to support almost any attribution. In fact, I could probably construct a more convincing argument that any one of these figures is in fact Little Red Riding Hood, than any argument I have yet heard to support the Durga attribution for our original handle form. Wolviex, you ask:- "So my question is, is there any other goddess/deity covering herself?" I`m not at all certain that this is the right question, Wolviex. Do we yet have a proof that the figure depicted is in fact covering herself? I think not. Do we yet have a proof that the oft mentioned veil is in fact a veil? I think not. Do we yet have a proof that the depictation is indeed a deity? I think not. Do we yet have a proof that we are in fact looking at Durga? I think not. As far as I can see, we are back at square one:- we have a female figure that somebody has chosen to call Durga, but we do not yet have any evidence available that this is the name that would have been applied to this figure in the culture from which it has come, and at the time when it was produced. I`m sorry if my standards are too demanding to allow me to be in agreement with this Durga thing, but I have spent better than 50 years watching the fumbled misinterpretation of a cultural icon that many people within Javanese culture believe sits at the center of that culture. Very few people have taken a serious approach to the keris, and speaking for myself, I would very much like to see a stop put to the perpetuation of erroneous supposition. Last edited by marto suwignyo; 23rd June 2005 at 08:56 AM.

23rd June 2005, 12:40 AM	#2
tuancd Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Paris - Bruxelles Posts: 32	Nyai Loro Kidul or Nyi roro kidul she also is veiled because of a curse which made her ugly. Here is her story Pajajaran kingdom was located in West Java from 1333 AD to 1630 AD and it was conquered by the Islamic kingdom of Mataram from Central Java. Pajajaran's greatest ruler was Prabu Siliwangi. He had a bride in one his harems and she bore him a very beautiful daughter. The girl was called Dewi Kadita. The beauty of Dewi Kadita and her mother made the other harems jealous, and they formed a conspiracy against them. The harems used black magic to make the bodies of Dewi Kadita and her mother be filthy, ugly and disgusting. Prabu Siliwangi got angry at Dewi Kadita and her mother and forced them to get out of the palace, as they were thought to be bad luck for the kingdom. While they were wandering around the country, the mother died. Dewi Kadita was walking in deep sadness, until she reached the southern sea (the shore of Indian Ocean). She sat above a stove-shaped rock and when she was sleeping, she had a vision that she should jump into the water to release herself from the curse. When she woke up, with no second thought, Dewi Kadita jumped into the sea. She once again became very beautiful, but then she realized that she was not a human anymore. She had turned into a supernatural form of life. She then ruled all creatures off the southern coast of Java Island, and was known as Nyi Roro Kidul (queen of the southern sea). As revenge on her father, she became the primary bride for Mataram kings (the rival of the Pajajaran kingdom). The river of Bengawan Solo, which started from the mystical mountain of Merapi in Central Java and leads to the Indian Ocean, is said to be the tunnel used by Nyi Roro Kidul to access Java. In a green costume, she traps males who are walking on the shore. They are swallowed by the waves and are thought to be missing or dead but will actually become her guard or mate.

23rd June 2005, 04:22 AM	#5
marto suwignyo Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 52	Andrew In response to your enquiry. I regularly attend meetings involving both business matters and political matters. The people who attend these meetings, are in the case of the business meetings, mature professionals in several business related fields, and in the case of the politically orientated meetings the committee memberships are comprised of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, including academic, military, political and business. From time to time discussion at the meetings which I attend becomes quite spirited.On these occasions the language used and the comments made could easily cause offence to people who were unused to this type of environment. If a person attending these meetings attempted to put his point of view in the extremely civil and delicate manner which is usually observed by contributors to this forum, that person would be laughed out of the room by his fellows. My comment was intended as praise, not in a derogatory fashion. I regret that my intent was unclear to you. Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain to me how my words could be interpreted in any other than a complimentary way. If there is a defect in my English expression I would be very glad to be made aware of it.

23rd June 2005, 05:38 AM	#7
marto suwignyo Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 52	Thank you for your clarification, Andrew.

26th June 2005, 02:45 AM	#9
marto suwignyo Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 52	Thank you for your response, Wolviex. Regretably I do not understand the language in which the references are written. Perhaps somebody with knowledge of this language could track down the references and verify if use of the Durga attribution has any basis in fact. I feel sure that at the time these handles were made and used, there was some symbolic intent:- Durga? or some other female figure? I don`t know, but what I do know is that some people associated with the world of the keris in Java at the present time refer to this handle as "wadon"---just "female".What it may have been known as originally I do not know, and without good, solid proofs I am not prepared to put forward an opinion. The provision of evidence to allow this handle form to be named as a representation of any particular deity could well use a lifetime of research. To call it "Durga" in the first place may well have been a bit of European invention. Look at the "keris Mojopahit". Javanese people never knew that the keris sajen was called a keris Mojopahit until a European told them. Who was right? The European, or the Javanese people? I think that as far as this handle goes, for the time being we might have to acknowledge that we just do not know who, or what, it is supposed to represent.