Jejeran Pulungan

[rasjid]

As Alan, mentioned: naming game, we do not know where originally certain names pops up. It could also from within the area we found the items ( in this case hilts).

Just to add a few, we could also get names from local people for example :cirebon then the elders told them this is what they called or could be some marketing guys thinking of selling his item and call something fancy to sell things. We do not know, for me: i just accepted the information and with times and other information we could come into a conclusion of our own.

My samples here: its just a variation from the carver?
1. One crown over the head
2. With snake over the shoulder
3. Something in front the chest, or pendant?
4. Round head?

We really do not know for sure, but what we can be sure is:
1. Material used
2. Carving quality
3. Old or newly made or processed
4. If any fixing being done


Regards
Rasjid

[Jean]

Very interesting questions Rasjid, I have the same with no definite answers
However it seems to me that these are just variations of the Cirebon "buta bajang/ Bima" style whatever you call it. In his book "Gods, Demons, and Ancestors" Marco Noris calls the hilts with a bird shaped nose/ beak as "pulungan".
Regards

[rasjid]

Yes Jean, agreed. They all similar but from local discussion they talks some differences if they have crown and no crown? Means younger age or older?
When we discuss like more specific detailed about hilt, its become more complicated as who is the real trend setter to make statement?
For Keris, we can from keraton Solo for example about Solo keris.
Alan mentioned many times, keris knowledge change following which group you are belong too... its the nature but if we are discussing a high level keris, even from photo given at certain degree we can come into a conclusion or general agreement.

[Jean]

Originally Posted by rasjid

Yes Jean, agreed. They all similar but from local discussion they talks some differences if they have crown and no crown? Means younger age or older?

Yes Rasjid, the specimens with a crown look a bit different and generally older, may be from a specific area or period? However they probably date from later than the 17th century as no such specimen seems to have been brought to Europe at that time? (but I may be wrong).
Regards

[David]

I've been leaning towards calling these hilts Buta Bajang, but then, what's in a name.
This name game thing can be very annoying at times, but then we must consider that if it ever is possible to find the original name for something that name could, i suppose, lead to some deeper understanding of the thing itself...or not.
Even if we can determine if "pulungan" was ever a possible original term for such hilts, was it a general term or a more localized speciality term? And would such a naming lead us to any greater understanding of the hilt itself and it's place within Javanese/Cirebon keris culture? Strangely enough i do not yet have a good Javanese/English dictionary (yes, i know ). Google translator is horrible, but it does translate "pulungan" as "meeting". This is probably incorrect and maybe Alan has a more accurate translation as this one does not seem to add any particular incite into the nature of these hilts.
Ultimately though it seems that we are past the point where we can ever be sure of the origin of these names or what may or may not be more correct. I find that in many circles "knowledge" of the most amount of specialized keris terminology is part of the i-know-more-than-you-do game of one-upmanship. Unfortunately this game seems to often be inserted into discussions as a substitute for any substantial understanding about the nature of keris.
Here are a couple of my Buta Bajang hilts. One is very old and the other is a nice contemporary hilt that i believe holds to traditional design. I don't know if either of these has characteristics that would lead a more knowledgeable collector to label it "pulungan". It does seem that the body position in these two hilts are somewhat different, with the contemporary one in a deeper squatting position and the old one seems more seated atop something. That in itself might designate these hilts by completely different specific names.

[A. G. Maisey]

"Pulungan" is a very interesting word.

It exists in Old Javanese where it is given a single meaning :- " a particular type of official". So before +/- 1600 the word "pulung" referred to an official of a particular type.

However, in Kawi, which was one of the inputs to Old Javanese, "pulung" is given four meanings:- "a roll", "rolled", "to gather", as well the Javanese meaning given in the next paragraph. But Kawi is a Javanese adaption of Sanscrit, and the word "pulung" does not seem to exist in Sanscrit, so "pulung", as it is understood in Jawa and other parts of Indonesia, appears to have originated in Kawi.

Modern Javanese (New Javanese) began to develop with the rise of the Second Kingdom of Mataram. (Zoetmulder seems to consider Kawi, Old Javanese and Middle Javanese together as "Old Javanese').

In Modern Javanese "pulung" acquired a number of applications, but the most generally used application seems to be the one associated with "wahyu" = " a sign from heaven in the form of a falling star indicating that the one on whom it falls is destined for high office", so here we have the continuation from Old Javanese into Modern Javanese of "pulung" being associated with officialdom. But in Modern Javanese there is also a whole swathe of other applications for the word "pulung", and its derivatives .

In Javanese the word "pulungan" seems not to get any sort of formal recognition, it may be informally used, but it appears not to be a word that can be used in formal Javanese speech. I am not proficient in Javanese, it is simply too difficult for me to learn, in fact, too difficult for most Javanese people to learn also. I know of a middle-class Javanese woman who married into an aristocratic family, and before her wedding she had to take lessons in Krama and Madya so that she was able to converse politely with all members of her new husband's family, before this she had only been able to speak Ngoko and Bahasa Indonesia. In any case, my opinion that "pulungan" does not exist in correct Javanese is based on personal information from a competent native speaker of Javanese and from several dictionaries.

"Pulungan" is not a Javanese word.
But it is an Indonesian word.

In Bahasa Indonesia (B.I.) the word "pulung" has a similar meaning to the Modern Javanese meaning linked to officialdom, except the B.I. understanding is that it is a flash of light that legitimises a ruler, before I consulted a dictionary, this was the only meaning I knew, however Echols & Shadilly give us other meanings as well:-
1)to have power bestowed by the flash of light,
2) to have the bad luck to be given an unwanted task (obviously a colloquial and cynical meaning).
In colloquial usage (Ngoko) the word "pulung" can also mean "good fortune", just as cynically or sarcastically it can also mean "bad luck".

But in B.I. "pulung" also means "pellet", and in B.I. the word "pulungan" does exist, it means something that has been rolled into pellets. The "an" is a B.I. suffix that creates a noun, for example:- "makan" = eat, "makanan" = "food".

Thus, it seems obvious to me that this "pulungan" word that has been stuck on these figural hilts is the product not of a speaker of Javanese, at least not speaker of Javanese who is above the level of Ngoko, but rather of a speaker of Bahasa Indonesia. Probably somebody from Jakarta.

Here is a hypothetical:- we need a word to put onto a keris hilt that identifies that keris hilt as a style used by people of rank, we know that "pulung" is a flash of light that legitimises a ruler, so we add "an" to the end of it to turn "pulung" into a noun:- "pulungan", a hilt for a ruler or at least somebody of rank.

The problem is though, that we are not really all that well educated, and we probably don't even have a dictionary in the house, let alone think of consulting a dictionary before inventing a new word that is really not all that fitting for the object we created it to describe (the pulungan hilt), so we do not know that the word "pulungan" already exists in B.I. and that it means something that has been rolled into pellets.

Words and the way they are used can tell us more than a little about the person using them.

[rasjid]

Originally Posted by Jean

Yes Rasjid, the specimens with a crown look a bit different and generally older, may be from a specific area or period? However they probably date from later than the 17th century as no such specimen seems to have been brought to Europe at that time? (but I may be wrong).
Regards

Yes Jean, some discussion also mentioned its older ( means by age) not in period making. To me, its just the carver's design and imagination.

Rembrant 1632 already have keris or some sort of dagger in the painting. So i never go to the detailed yet

[rasjid]

Thank you Alan, detailed information there.

Just a little from me, Pulung- an, maybe its just a name to generalized things. Like "sejenis pulung-pulung an" or " some sort of pulung".
Same like the hilt with long nose, in sumatra or cirebon some called: "bebek-bebek" an. (Actual meaning: duck? Or duckling?) not sure myself.

[rasjid]

David,
I have one also...
bold, wood n fossilized, heavy in weigh.

called buta bajang? I'm no expert and not involved in the naming game. Its old and made from wood material.

Rasjid

[Jean]

Originally Posted by rasjid

Same like the hilt with long nose, in sumatra or cirebon some called: "bebek-bebek" an. (Actual meaning: duck? Or duckling?) not sure myself.

According to the book "Keris dan senjata pusaka bahari" (one of the rare books dealing with krisses from Cirebon), the name garan bebekan (duck hilt) refers to the Jawa demam style hilts from Cirebon (see attached specimen).
Regards