In my earlier post I wrote this:-
The definition that any of us could use, could vary from time to time, place to place and in accordance with the degree of formality that we wished to apply.
This "degree of formality" approach is probably critical to the entire question of "what is a keris".
Let's look at it this way:- we all move within a broad community. Taking myself as an example, the people I normally speak to and interact with will run through a range of different people, from the kid who comes to clean my gutters to a professor of anatomy---and above and below these stations.
Now both the kid who does the gutters, and the anatomist may have a similar level of understanding in respect of the keris, so if they saw , let us say , just for example, Semar's keris, and they asked me what it was, I would tell them it was a keris, and maybe give a short explanation of what a keris is. They do not need to know more than this, nor want to know more than this. If some people do not yet know their keris ABC, these two people do not yet even know where the kindergarten is. But is doesn't make them any less excellent in their chosen pursuits of anatomy or gutter cleaning, so we don't talk down to them, we don't use terms they obviously will not understand, we don't pretend that we are the fount of all wisdom. In short, we do not behave like intellectual snobs.
However, let us say I was in conversation with a friend in Solo who is a maker, and who has an extremely high level of keris knowledge, and we were considering this same keris of Semar's. I could not envisage that there would be any discussion of dhapur, or tangguh, or period, or origin, or anything else. I would think the discussion would be something like:- gee, that's weird, isn't it?I wonder what the maker was trying to do?
But, if by some error of judgement on my part I became involved in a discussion of this same keris with an ethusiastic collector--- or even worse, one of the intellectual snobs who seem to gravitate to some parts of the world of the Javanese Keris--- and who knew all the correct terminology, had a good smattering of the philosophy and who regarded the keris as a vehicle for his personal advancement as a man of respect and influence, then I would undoubtedly be forced to become very formal and call on this pakem and that pakem, and use all the correct vocabulary---simply to show that I had learnt it--- and take the position that Semar's keris was not really a keris because it failed to follow the parameters of form.
So, we can be either quite formal in the way we look at a keris, or we can be more or less relaxed. Relaxation does not suit rigid, academic nor prestige seeking discussion.
Intellectual snobbery does not suit friendly, relaxed conversation.
Perhaps our real difficulty comes in determining the nature of any particular exchange.
Now, if we look at Sjor's keris, and Rick's most recent posting, I think we can be a bit relaxed. Both are keris, but they're not good keris. Not being good keris, they would not be the subject of any serious academic discussion, nor of a discussion where the objective was to raise one's level of prestige.
On the subject of "Good Keris", I think volumes may have already been written.
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