I think I have a handle on what you are getting at now Alan.
As you know I am a keen collector of Japanese art and I have explored my emotional links to this but until you asked the question I had not really thought about my emotional links to the keris.
They seem to stem from my family which is not because of Javanese connections, I am fifth generation australian, with Irish and English on both sides. My family does not follow a pattern of occupations, we have tradesmen, professionals, farmers, public servants, priests, artists and a few eccentrics including my grandfather's brother and his son. Both sadly deceased, both fascinating gents.
Stan my great uncle owned a private museum at Kurnell south of Sydney. Kurnell is famous in Australia as the place where Captain Cook first set foot on mainland Australia. It was full of exotic things, jaws of great white sharks, old divers suits, steam cars, convict chains, settlers gear and also some old weaponary. And now that I think back I'm sure that was the first place I ever saw a keris. Stan told me some of his collection came from the East Indies, which was as exotic a place as a kid could think of in Australia in the early 1960's.
His son Roy was a dealer in second hand stuff, not antiques just second hand anything. His shop was in Sutherland which I know was not far from where you grew up. He accumulated personal collections of all sorts of things, I remember his shaving mug collection particularly. Roy gave me my first edged weapon, an old Martini Henry bayonet, and whenever something else turned up he would let me know. I collected knives and swords and bayonets for quite a long time but eventually they all got put away and forgotton about.........Until somewhere 40 years or more down the track keris turned up in my life again and it immediately became necessary to collect them. Those 2 relatives have a lot to answer for. I remember them fondly
