Very old Visayan kris

[Edster]

Hello Kai,

Thanks for the gangay-blade explanation. "Tradition" does cover a lot of bases and is accepted by cultures as "Just the way it is" to be a proper kris". Also, I guess that the kris is more for Cultural Presentation than for mechanical strength for fighting.

Best regards,
Ed

[Ian]

Originally Posted by Edster

Hello Kai,

Thanks for the gangay-blade explanation. "Tradition" does cover a lot of bases and is accepted by cultures as "Just the way it is" to be a proper kris". Also, I guess that the kris is more for Cultural Presentation than for mechanical strength for fighting.

Best regards,
Ed

Hi Ed,

The Moro kris was very much a fighting weapon, although it was often imbued with mystical and other symbolic meaning (consistent mainly with pre-Islamic beliefs). In the second half of the 19th C, the kris was "upgraded" to have a heavier, wider, and perhaps slightly longer blade to better combat the Spanish blades being used at that time. Combat kris also became mostly straight-bladed swords in this period.

Regards, Ian

[kai]

Hello Ed,

Thanks for the gangay-blade explanation. "Tradition" does cover a lot of bases and is accepted by cultures as "Just the way it is" to be a proper kris"

There is lots of underlying meaning: However it apparently changed through time and, especially, between cultures. This would need a really long essay to do the topic justice...

Also, I guess that the kris is more for Cultural Presentation than for mechanical strength for fighting.

The Moro kris has been an all-out fighting blade into at least the 1990s; during the colonial period, US soldiers considered kris wounds more deadly than those inflicted by the formidable barung.

The Indo-Malay keris was readily utilized in (very) close quarter fighting, too. Obviously, it's a specialized dagger and not designed to excel at chopping/cutting/etc.

Regards,
Kai

[xasterix]

Originally Posted by kai

Hello Ed,


There is lots of underlying meaning: However it apparently changed through time and, especially, between cultures. This would need a really long essay to do the topic justice...



The Moro kris has been an all-out fighting blade into at least the 1990s; during the colonial period, US soldiers considered kris wounds more deadly than those inflicted by the formidable barung.

The Indo-Malay keris was readily utilized in (very) close quarter fighting, too. Obviously, it's a specialized dagger and not designed to excel at chopping/cutting/etc.

Regards,
Kai

Halloo Kai, I was going to write a long response to discuss the "all-out fighting blade" part, but I decided to just write an article about it (it'll take some time, but when I'm done I'll link it here).

Although in summary, not all Moro krises were meant to be fighting blades. While all Moro krises (except for the tourist ones) were functional and sharp and capable of killing, not all of them were built with battlefield purpose in mind.

[xasterix]

Regarding archaic kris, I understand that there may be different views on what would qualify as "archaic" with regard to timeline, blade build, etc; however I believe that a round tang would automatically qualify a Moro kris as archaic.

That being said- it's not a foolproof indicator, as I've seen krises which had their tang replaced at a later era.

[Gustav]

Just a couple of facts to regain some attachment to reality:

I have looked into Spanish museums for some time now. Until now I haven't found any Kris from Phillipines in their collections that would predate 1800.

There, as Alan has pointed out many times, is a Kris, which probably everybody nowadays would call an "archaic" Moro Kris in its pure form. It comes from Brunei and was made in 1842.

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We have two tendencies. The first one I would call academic, it works with available dates, and treats these dates as facts. Everything else ranges between hypothesis and speculation.

The second is amateurs approach and is based on speculations going beyond the available dates.

The possible truth often enough is situated somewhere between these viewpoints in my opinion.


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What I personally see in the Kris from this thread is an old blade with very possibly reworked fretwork (Greneng in Javanese Terminology), conservatively datable from first half of 19th cent., in a dress from the turn of 19th/20th centuries.

[xasterix]

Originally Posted by Gustav

Just a couple of facts to regain some attachment to reality:

I have looked into Spanish museums for some time now. Until now I haven't found any Kris from Phillipines in their collections that would predate 1800.

There, as Alan has pointed out many times, is a Kris, which probably everybody nowadays would call an "archaic" Moro Kris in its pure form. It comes from Brunei and was made in 1842.

-------------------

We have two tendencies. The first one I would call academic, it works with available dates, and treats these dates as facts. Everything else ranges between hypothesis and speculation.

The second is amateurs approach and is based on speculations going beyond the available dates.

The possible truth often enough is situated somewhere between these viewpoints in my opinion.


----------------------

What I personally see in the Kris from this thread is an old blade with very possibly reworked fretwork (Greneng in Javanese Terminology), conservatively datable from first half of 19th cent., in a dress from the turn of 19th/20th centuries.

I would beg to differ on the "amateurs approach." There are some of us who work within the academe, and who would only make statements grounded in fact or formal theory.

1. To note, there exists pre-1800 documentation of krises encountered in the PH in terms of local and foreign sources (Spanish friars, Dutch accounts, plus that captain who visited PH pre-1700s, I'll have to re-check my references).

2. There's also a book, with APA entry [SOLHEIM II, W. G. (1960). The Philippine Iron Age. The University of Arizona] which has a kris artifact found in Bohol area I think, dated 12th-15th century, I'm attaching the plate. Of course, we don't have any clue as to how it was dressed, if it was PH-origin; but the fact that it was found in PH soil points that kris was already being circulated in that time period.

3. Then there are also Moro elders' accounts, oral traditions, even myths and legends which trace krises back to pre-colonial times. These are valid sources under formal anthropological framework.

To summarize: there's no doubt that krises were already circulating in the Philippines pre-1800, pre-1700, even pre-colonial. In documentation it's clear that these were found in Southern (Moro) areas; in archaeological evidence at least, one is found in Visayas area (Bohol), which is not too far from Moro areas.

[Gustav]

Xasterix,

I didn't adress anything you wrote about in your previous post.

What I did address is the wildly speculative attempt to set back in timeline a 20 inches long blade for about two hundred years - and the sentence "The pre-1800 designation comes from Cato following his study of museum pieces (including Spanish examples), plus statements he obtained from Moro informants."

Oncemore - after looking into the subject for some time I am not aware of any Kris in Spanish museum collections with documented provenance that would pre-date 1800, and I very much doubt we can find kris with such provenance in PH.