strange pamor

[Montino Bourbon]

What do you consider important in keris? I'm asking as a relative neophyte, because I'm interested.

I hope I'm not opening a can of worms!

[A. G. Maisey]

It is a can of worms Montino.

To begin with, for a very long time I have not really regarded the keris as something that I collect. With most collectibles the people who collect those things want to classify, codify and pigeonhole. This is what collectors do, not just keris, but any sort of collectible. I've been down this road, but as I say, for a long time this has been of very little interest to me.

My interest lays in trying to gain an understanding of what the keris was in pre-Islamic Jawa. This means that I do not have very much interest in those things that can be identified as a part of the keris once it came under the influence of Islam.

I do not ignore these Islamic things, it would be impossible to do so, but they just don't interest me very much.