Indonesian Steel

No silat class this week -- Guru Plinck is in Texas, teaching a seminar. Funny, when you think of pentjak silat, the idea of Texans doing it doesn't spring immediately to mind, even though I know there are practioners of the art down that way. Of course, not everybody who lives in Texas is a cowboy, that's one of those state myths like all Californians having a screw loose, or all Oregonians wearing Birkenstocks ...

(Growing up in Louisiana, I can tell you that the only difference between east Texas and west Louisiana is the Sabine River, and most of the folks down that way were just as likely to be farmers or a loggers or fishermen as cowpunchers ...)

Um. So I had to work out on my own, and me and the chalked tiga and the punching bag and the freeweights and dogs had ourselves a fine old time on the back patio, between bouts of drizzle.

Somebody asked me recently which was my favorite keris from my small collection, and I thought I'd put up a picture of it. The blade is Balinese, although the furniture -- handle and sheath -- is Javanese. The keris is probably about a hundred and fifty years old, and most likely, according to the seller, belonged to a Balinese mercenary working in Java. Typically, Balinese blades of that period are both heavier and longer than the Javanese blades. This one has five luq, or waves, and a double pamor -- buntel mayit, and wos wutah.

To translate all that for those who might not know but are interested:

The keris is an Indonesian dagger, more a symbolic talisman for the last hundred years than actually used in fighting, though, in a pinch, you can stick somebody with it. Typically, boys got these from their fathers or uncles at twelve or thirteen, part of their coming-of-age, but sometimes girls also got them, and there are female blades to be found.

The steel of the blade is a mix of things, including nickel, which gives it the distinctive pattern. This is brought out usually by applying a mix of arsenic and lemon or lime juice to the metal, which cures in the hot sun; as it does, it turns the iron black, but doesn't affect the nickel.

Not all such daggers have the waves; many are perfectly straight. One counts the waves starting at the underside of the blade closest to the handle, and there are always an odd-number of them, three, five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen -- I've seen one with as many as thirty-three waves.

There is a magical component to these daggers, and this is determined by many things, including the dapur -- shape, proportion, number of waves -- and the pamor, that is, the welded pattern. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of patterns, and whole books written on what they are and what they mean. Typically, they offer protection against fire, flood, sickness, enemies, but also can be designed to bring good fortune in business or love.

Buntel mayit is "the death shroud," is considered very powerful, and is often used for warriors' or executioners' blades. It looks like twisted parallel lines, and is on the third of the blade closest to the point.

The sheath is copper-clad wood, and the widest part of the sheath, that canoe-shaped piece, is of a wood that is apparently extinct in Java, where it was made. This particular sheath is midway between a plain wooden knockabout one and the more formal and intricately-carved prowed-boat version.

The handle is the seven-plane "fever man," a very stylized representation of a man bent over with ague; since Muslims are not supposed to depict people or animals in their art, and Java has been mostly of that faith for six hundred years, that's how this came about. On Bali, which is still predominantely Buddhist and Hindu, the handles often look like people or animals.

Redressing the blade with new handles and sheathes is considered proper care and feeding of a keris, so you often see steel from one country with furniture from another.

Wos wuta, which means "spilled rice grains" or "scattered rice," is supposed to be lucky, especially in material things, though not as much as udan mas, or "golden rain," which is for making money. Wos wuta or beras wuta are "discovered" patterns, that show up during the grinding, and often the maker doesn't know exactly what they will look like until he sees 'em.

So, there's your basic introduction to the keris.

Use it wisely ...