Gustav, I've had the opportunity to have a look at my copy of David van Duuren's publication of Groneman's work.
Groneman uses the term "trap-trapan" to refer to the selut shape & method of production, his description in English does not make sense to me, possibly it is better in the original language.
However, his name for the motif as "untuq-untuq" would now be spelt as "unthuk-unthuk" which translates as "little mounds", Groneman tells us that the meaning is "foam", and yes, "unthuk"(singular) can be understood as "foam", but when we double a word it indicates plural, so "foams"? maybe. As far as I can determine, this is not the name of any Javanese art motif, but "little mounds" is a perfect description of the ornamentation shown on this selut style. Actually, this motif shown on these seluts has been given to me by my own informants as "m'rutu sewu", "sewu" means "a thousand", "m'rutu" means "a bug, or a gnat", however, both people who gave the name as m'rutu sewu, gave the translation into Bahasa Indonesia as "seribu bunga" = "a thousand flowers" , I guess "flowers" are much more charming than "bugs".
In general the names of motifs used in Javanese art work are pretty standardised and can normally be found in batik motif use.
Coming back to the word "trap-trapan", this refers to the way that something is arranged. I have not encountered this word used to refer to a selut shape. The other shape he mentions is "tatahan", which (as he writes) means chisel work, and this refers to ornamentation, not form.
Equally the names he gives for motifs are confused, and look more like descriptions.
For many years I was very eager to read Groneman's work, and I mentioned this to David van Duuren a few times long before his Groneman book was published. At that time he told me that there was really no new knowledge in Groneman's work & that I was not missing anything by not being able to read it.
However, I obtained a copy of David's publication as soon as it became available, and the first thing I did was to dive into the translated Groneman text. I found so many errors and misunderstandings and omissions that I came to the opinion that Groneman had not seen, had not understood much of what he undertook to describe.
Isaac Groneman appears to have spent more than 50 years on the Island of Jawa, I don't know how long he actually spent in Central Jawa, because he seems to have been in a number of places, but in light of that + 50 years I would expect him to have been competent in the use of the Javanese language, not merely Malay, so I strongly suspect that the informants he would have been using were either not particularly strong in knowledge of the keris, or were behaving in the usual manner that Javanese people during the colonial era behaved with Europeans, and to a degree, still do today.
I am of the opinion that Groneman's work is of value to us, and David's presentation of this translated work, along with all the other contents of this publication is a great gift to us, but I'm afraid that I cannot have much confidence in the accuracy of Isaac Groneman's writings. But this is probably through no real fault of his own. Things in Jawa were a bit different for Europeans a hundred & more years ago.
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