For comment

[A. G. Maisey]

Things are pretty slow in the warung at the moment --- maybe the coffee is a trifle too bitter lately --- anyway, to break the boredom I've dredged up some old pictures from my files.

I rarely publish anything from my own collection, unless I wish to sell it, but I've had a think about this, and the way I see things, it is OK to publish, provided I do not publish the blade, which is the keris, the dress is only like clothing.

This keris --- and maybe a few more --- are from my collection, but they are not for sale, and I have no plans to sell them, so the blades will not be shown.

Any comments are welcome, that's the reason I've put up the pic.

[ariel]

Alan,
This is like showing a Miss Universe contestant wearing niqab and abaya.

[A. G. Maisey]

Perhaps, and possibly for a similar reason.

[mariusgmioc]

Hello Alan,

Where is the dress from? Madura?

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Marius, acquired in 1980's from a resident of a village near Sumenep.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

I rarely publish anything from my own collection, unless I wish to sell it, but I've had a think about this, and the way I see things, it is OK to publish, provided I do not publish the blade, which is the keris, the dress is only like clothing.

I fully understand this philosophy and have, for the most part, followed a similar path over the years, but lately i have found i have been breaking this "rule" a bit more than usual (and honestly i feel a twinge of guilt whenever i do). I believe that as i get older my desire to understand more about each of my keris becomes more an imperative. Unfortunately, due to my geographic location, i don't have the advantage of gathering with groups of knowledgable people or even, for that matter, with even a single person who i can show and discuss my collection with and receive and useful feedback. So that leaves only these public internet venues where i can gather the knowledge of other about the these artifacts that i hold so dear. That said, there are still a good number of keris in my collection that i will probably never show in these public forums.
Still, understanding that this is just a fashion show, it might be helpful if we could see some details of the fashions a bit better for the sake of the discussion. Could you show us some close-ups?
Would it be fair to say that this type of wrongko would fall under the category of "Folk Art" dress in the same way as the Gabilan form?

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by David

Would it be fair to say that this type of wrongko would fall under the category of "Folk Art" dress in the same way as the Gabilan form?

When I am not wrong it's a capil wrongko. Very nice!

[A. G. Maisey]

David, I would like to give you some close ups, but the way these images came into being --- "these images":- I have five, which I will put up one at a time --- was to provide an illustration of something for a friend, I did them on the trot, P&S camera, Canon S95. To give you acceptable close ups would take time that at the moment I do not have. Why not crop out what you want to see and run it through Photoshop?

The reason I put this first one into the Forum was just to see if people would talk to one another again, or if everybody had died while I was not looking.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Why not crop out what you want to see and run it through Photoshop?

While i understand about how they came about i am afraid the PS, as magical a tool as it is, will not allow these to be enlarged without a certain amount of pixelation. It is easy enough these days to simply enlarge an image right on the screen so i can see what a PS enlargement would look like in an instant.
No worries, i just thought it would be nice to see close-ups if you had them.

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

The reason I put this first one into the Forum was just to see if people would talk to one another again, or if everybody had died while I was not looking.

LOL! I think it's just a little slow for the moment. I have also noted, being a Facebook user/abuser, that there are at least 2 very active FB keris pages operating at the moment and i believe some people may have gravitated over that way.

Also, to remind you of my unanswered question...
Would it be fair to say that this type of wrongko would fall under the category of "Folk Art" dress in the same way as the Gabilan form?

[A. G. Maisey]

Detlef, I do not know the correct name for this wrongko. I did ask the previous owner if it had a special name, but he was very much a village man he did not speak nor understand Indonesian very well, and I could not speak his dialect. According to him it had been carved by his grandfather, but this could have been any "grandfather" back for a few generations.

As to the word "capil". This is a variation of "caping". Caping appears in Old Javanese, in Modern Javanese and either "caping" or "capil" -- I forget which -- appears in Balinese and also Indonesian. A "capil" is a hat, specifically a wide hat made out of palm leaves, the sort of triangular shaped one that farmers and becak drivers wear.

I have never heard this word used for a type of wrongko, but if we consider the leaf motif on this one, I can see why somebody might have decided that "capil" was a good name for it. Maybe they just forgot to mention this to the people who wear them --- or maybe my informant was not all that interested in keris terminology.

Yes, I think it must qualify as folk art.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yeah David, true.

OK, I'll crop from the originals, I can find time to do that, I just don't have the time to do another photo shoot.

Tell me what you would like to see more clearly.

Yes, for me, folk art.

Yes, there are a couple of pretty active FB groups. I did try one for a while, not active, but passive. I found the format extremely frustrating and the nature of the replies -- admittedly, forced onto the contributors because of the format of FB --- extremely unsatisfying. Not quite my cup of tea.

[A. G. Maisey]

David, this was cropped from the Forum, not from the original, not from the re-sized image in my files.

Is it OK, or do you want something better?

SECOND IMAGE

cropped from original

EDIT

Yeah, OK, you want something better.
The next ones I put up I'll give CU's for.

[Jean]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Detlef, I do not know the correct name for this wrongko. I did ask the previous owner if it had a special name, but he was very much a village man he did not speak nor understand Indonesian very well, and I could not speak his dialect. According to him it had been carved by his grandfather, but this could have been any "grandfather" back for a few generations.

As to the word "capil". This is a variation of "caping". Caping appears in Old Javanese, in Modern Javanese and either "caping" or "capil" -- I forget which -- appears in Balinese and also Indonesian. A "capil" is a hat, specifically a wide hat made out of palm leaves, the sort of triangular shaped one that farmers and becak drivers wear.

I have never heard this word used for a type of wrongko, but if we consider the leaf motif on this one, I can see why somebody might have decided that "capil" was a good name for it. Maybe they just forgot to mention this to the people who wear them --- or maybe my informant was not all that interested in keris terminology.

Yes, I think it must qualify as folk art.

Like Detlef, I also know the name capil for this type of warangka, I learned it from a well-known kris collector & seller from Surabaya. However this specimen is peculiar because of the carved gambar. Given the history of the kris, I wonder if the blade deserves to be kept confidential, I respect Alan' decision but this is not my philosophy as you know unless in very special cases.
I am often stumbling across kris auctions where the blade is not shown and this irritates me very much, but it is due to the ignorance of the auctioneers who believe that the value of a kris mainly lies in its clothes...
Regards

[A. G. Maisey]

Jean, I do not doubt for one moment that the name "capil" is used by some people to refer to this type of wrongko, however, I know for a fact that the man I bought it from, who was an ordinary village person in Madura did not know of any special name for this type of wrongko.

The plain simple fact of names attached to not only keris, but other things too, in Jawa, is that somebody can use a name that others like,for something and then other people will use it, and it eventually becomes the common name.

Back in the late 1980's I was in one of my supplier's warungs in Pasar Triwindu, I'd bought some items, including a few keris. The pamor on one of the keris was very nicely done, but it was a bit of a puzzle, I did not know the name, my langganan did not know the name, nobody around had a name for it. So somebody suggested that I should give it a name. I gave that pamor the name "Tirto Tejo" = "Sparkling Water". Ok, end of part one.

A couple of years later I encountered the same pamor again this time with a different seller, somebody I did not know well. I asked him what the name of the pamor was. He told me it was called "Tirto Tejo" and that it was a very rare and very valuable royal pamor --- all of which was pure bumbu, because it was new pamor out of Aeng Tong-Tong, that I had seen for the first time a couple of years previous, and that I had named.

The fact of the matter is that dealers invent a lot of the treasured names that people love to write in their collection notes. Very, very often the people who wear keris don't even know the genuine traditional names for pamors, dhapurs, or dress parts.If somebody wants a name for something, they will give it a name. If somebody wants to know something, they will give the answer that they believe the questioner wants to hear. This is Jawa we're talking about Jean, not London,Paris, or New York City.

Jean, any keris that a person regards as his keris should only be shown to another person subject to certain restrictions. These restrictions very definitely apply to me, but to you and other collectors who are outside the culture of the keris the restrictions do not apply. When I was accepted for training by Empu Suparman I lost a lot of the freedoms that I might otherwise have had. I have certain committments to fulfil, certain obligations and a very strict code of ethics. These things do not apply to you.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Jean, any keris that a person regards as his keris should only be shown to another person subject to certain restrictions. These restrictions very definitely apply to me, but to you and other collectors who are outside the culture of the keris the restrictions do not apply. When I was accepted for training by Empu Suparman I lost a lot of the freedoms that I might otherwise have had. I have certain committments to fulfil, certain obligations and a very strict code of ethics. These things do not apply to you.

This is undoubtedly true Alan, but still for many years i followed this particular code as well because it made sense to me. What i see on a lot of online keris forums are not people seeking particular knowledge as much as showing off their blades to the general public much in the same way that a wealth man might show off a trophy wife. So i can understand why that is distasteful and i have always strived not to be seen that way. However, as stated before, i find that sometimes, in order to hopefully learn a little bit more about what it is that i have accepted custodianship of, i feel the need to share images of the wilah in public so that more knowledgable folks than i might share what they see and know about it. Again, i really have no knowledgable people (or for that matter, even interested people) who live anywhere near me, so private or semi-private discussions in person are not really an option for gathering such information. So yes, i suppose i should feel lucky that i am not laboured by the same obligations as you. That said, however, i think most of us collectors living outside your inner circles would gladly give up such freedoms for the knowledge gained through your training and associations. If i knew half the things you know as well as you know them i probably would not feel so inclined to have to ask others what it is that i have when a puzzling keris comes into my collection.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes David, I understand all of that, and I do not see you, or other collectors, in a similar position to my own. You are free to act in whichever way is comfortable for you, but I am not.