Balinese Keris

A. G. Maisey · 24th November 2023, 10:51 PM

I believe I would accept this keris as being of Balinese origin.

In Bali the most commonly used word for a keris scabbard is "sarung", but the Javanese term wrongko/wrangka/warangka also exists and in Bali it becomes "urangka". In Bali the top cross part of the scabbard is called "sampiran" & the long lower part that covers the blade is called "penyejer" or "penabeng"

The name for the Bali everyday scabbard is Bebatun Pohan, customarily abbreviated to Batun Poh.

The usual spelling of "warong" is "warung", in Javanese speech & spelling the individual letters in a word, both vowels & consonants, often get interchanged, linguists regard Javanese as a non-standard language. So "warung" & "warong" are actually the same word, and both pronunciations would be understood in either Javanese or BI.

I do not know of the word "warong" or "warung" as having a meaning of "tavern". The English language idea of "tavern" would need to use "warung" or "toko" or "kedai" together with "minuman" (drink) to express the English language idea of a tavern. The way native English speakers understand the idea of "tavern" is probably not able to be given in either Javanese or BI with a single word.

As David has commented, the greneng is not really what we might think of as typical for a Bali keris. I'm wondering if this particular keris might be a bit older than it appears to be, or another possible reason for this greneng variation could be that it has been made somewhere out of the mainstream.

Still, all that perhaps irrelevant detail that I've written can be put to one side, this is a pretty nice keris, and well worth bringing back to life.

24th November 2023, 10:51 PM	#7
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,867	I believe I would accept this keris as being of Balinese origin. In Bali the most commonly used word for a keris scabbard is "sarung", but the Javanese term wrongko/wrangka/warangka also exists and in Bali it becomes "urangka". In Bali the top cross part of the scabbard is called "sampiran" & the long lower part that covers the blade is called "penyejer" or "penabeng" The name for the Bali everyday scabbard is Bebatun Pohan, customarily abbreviated to Batun Poh. The usual spelling of "warong" is "warung", in Javanese speech & spelling the individual letters in a word, both vowels & consonants, often get interchanged, linguists regard Javanese as a non-standard language. So "warung" & "warong" are actually the same word, and both pronunciations would be understood in either Javanese or BI. I do not know of the word "warong" or "warung" as having a meaning of "tavern". The English language idea of "tavern" would need to use "warung" or "toko" or "kedai" together with "minuman" (drink) to express the English language idea of a tavern. The way native English speakers understand the idea of "tavern" is probably not able to be given in either Javanese or BI with a single word. As David has commented, the greneng is not really what we might think of as typical for a Bali keris. I'm wondering if this particular keris might be a bit older than it appears to be, or another possible reason for this greneng variation could be that it has been made somewhere out of the mainstream. Still, all that perhaps irrelevant detail that I've written can be put to one side, this is a pretty nice keris, and well worth bringing back to life.