Metuk (Iras) as an indicator of quality

[Kulino]

Nice to read the elaborations. I would like to post some of the tumbak again and continue the discussion. As far as I can see, metuk iras could be connected to age and quality.
Looking at the two tumbaks posted, the one with metuk iras appears to be of finer quality then the one with separate metuk.
Is this a correct assumption?
And then there is the tumbak without metuk. Missing of intended to go without? What could be said of the quality/age?

[kai]

Hello Kulino,

Looking at the two tumbaks posted, the one with metuk iras appears to be of finer quality then the one with separate metuk.

I'd love to hear Alan's take on your examples! I still suck at "reading" tombak blades and often enough have problems to establish from which island/culture they originate from...

Thus, do take my comments with a lump of salt:
All 4 seem to be nice examples with above average quality; I believe that the one without metuk once had one (no clear indications from the pesi though).

Based on the metuk of the 2 above, I'd agree that the iras example is of higher quality. I'm less sure about the blade/pamor quality though.

Regards,
Kai

[Kulino]

Hello Kai,
I checked the correspondence I had some thirty year ago with Peter van Hien the grandson of the writer of De Javaansche Geestenwereld. ( The Javanese world of spirits- 1896), https://archive.org/details/dejavaanschegee01hiengoog ) considered him an ahli keris. His grandfather had trained him in the kejawen way. At that time he was, as an abdi dalem, in close contact with Yogja kraton perawat keris. When I asked him about the kinatah keris he replied among others with a quote of the Babad Tanah Jawi (I tried to re trace the quote but couldn’t find it in my translated copy…. https://serbasejarah.files.wordpress...anah-djawi.pdf):
‘During Mataram time golden ricikan were applied on the ganja indicating status, for panewu mantri lions and elephants, for princes and patih dalam there were orchids.’
He mentions more like ricikan: for wedana kaliwon, lunglungan and ron-ron-an… but it is sometimes hard to decipher his handwriting. (Mind you, this was before the computer age )
Looking at this quote, the orchids on both tumbak should point at a decent quality.

I’m not sure the tumbak without metuk once had one. Looking at the spine of the blade, the diameter simply doesn’t allow for anything circular to be placed at the pesi without sticking out dramatically. But a tombak without anything like a metuk?

Best,
Kulino

[Ian]

For some reason we ended up with two threads on this topic. The two have now been merged into this one. Apologies to the contributors to this discussion for any confusion.

Ian

[David]

Thanks Ian!

[Kulino]

Indeed,
Thanks and for next, Happy New Year!

Kulino

[A. G. Maisey]

A few answers:-

1) the tombak without a metuk was originally fitted with one, there is not the slightest doubt about this. It is a Javanese tombak, and a tombak of this form and quality would most definitely have been fitted with a metuk. The metuk is necessary because the tombak is a thrusting weapon, and without the metuk to anchor the blade against the shaft there is insufficient resistance against a powerful thrust into the objective, be that human or animal. Without a metuk, either integral with the blade or mechanically fixed, a tombak lacks the necessary strength for use.

The crop I have posted below shows a shoulder that has been cut into the base of the blade, this shoulder may have originally been the anchor point for a metuk, but I am inclined to think that the metuk was lost, and then the tombak was used with just a steel washer as the anchor point for the blade, these shoulders permitting a firm anchor.

But whatever the story behind it is, this tombak would most definitely have had a metuk originally. No doubt at all in my mind about that.

2) I was given this story originally by a brother of Sinuhun (PBXII), but I have also read it somewhere, maybe Babad Tanah Jawi, but maybe Centini, in any case, it is more than 30 years since I read it and I've forgotten the details, this here below is from my notebook, as given by Sinuhun's brother.

"About kinatah given by Sultan Agung. The background was that the district ruler of Pati, which was a part of the Mataram Empire, refused to send taxes to the court of Mataram, a punitive force was raised and the erring Bupati (?) was punished. When the force returned to Mataram Sultan Agung gave the following gifts, which were in the form of kinatah that could be worn on a keris:-
A) to a mantri:- keris gonjo kinatah
B) to a penewu (leader of 1000 men), kinatah gonjo gajah-singo (elephant-lion)
C) to a bupati kliwon, kinatah kamarogan
D) to a pangeran and a bupati dalem kinatah anggrek, kinatah singo barong, and kinatah naga"

In this instance it can be understood that the keris was representative of its bearer, thus the battle honours were given to the keris as a representative of the bearer.

3) Kinatah anggrek is kinatah that uses a stylised representation of an orchid, to interpret the kinatah work shown on these tombak as "kinatah anggrek" I would need to look at several pattern books, all I can currently see are some rather poor quality generic kinatah ornamentations.
We cannot tie these tombak and their kinatah work to battle honours given by Sultan Agung to his officers, the Sultan Agung case was quite specific and had absolutely nothing at all to do with kinatah work on tombak or anything else, only on specific keris carried by specific men.

To determine the tangguh of a tombak is even more difficult than it is to to determine the tangguh of a keris. The general approach is that we try to envisage the tombak as if it were a keris, and attempt to identify similar indicators.The single major indicator is the shape of the metuk, but the variation in shape can often be so slight that it becomes almost impossible to use this from a photo.

In the case of the tombak without a metuk , it is possible that we are looking at a Senopaten classification.

The plain iron tombak with metuk iras is probably Bali.

The straight tombak might be Surakarta, or Surakarta influenced, I would need to handle it to form a firm opinion.

The tombak with two kembang kacang is peculiar, I am not at all certain that this metuk belongs with this tombak, and I think the tombak itself is relatively recent, perhaps after 1875.

From the tombak shown, only the one lacking a metuk might perhaps be a Mataram tombak that pre-dates Sultan Agung.

4) I think I said somewhere in this thread that the presence of a mechanically fixed metuk was one requisite feature for a tombak to be regarded as "high quality" according to Javanese standards.

I emphasise:- "Javanese standards", and the presence of this mechanically fixed metuk could well be based upon a cultural requirement, rather than anything to do with the actual objective appraisal of the functional or artistic qualities of the tombak:-
it is a "Javanese standard" --- with all that this implies.

Additionally, it is only one indicator amongst many. Just having a mechanically fixed metuk does not necessarily mean we are looking at a quality item, it only means that we might be looking at a quality item, and if the tombak is a really old one, or from some place other than Jawa, the metuk does not count at all as an indicator of quality.