New keris

[Mick]

I am happy to see Boedhi Adhitya and Marto Suwignyo bringing more precise information to the Forum in regard to the meaning of the word Pusaka in the Malay world (I use this term to include more of the people in the entire area rather than just the people of Java who were the people from whom I learned what little I know of this topic.)

This topic has been addressed before in the past by both Dave Henkel and I who are both really outside of the culture although Dave now and I at one time had some close contact with it. Dave, in addition, brought up the fact that this term is spread over more objects than only the keris which sometimes gets lost in discussions concerned with that specific object and that, besides the Kraton quality material and that of the other members of the court, the term permutes throughout all members of the culture down to the village level. This is as it should be as the Kraton has traditionally set the standards for the rest of the population.

I think that with more information available, members will begin to get a better sense of the real meaning of the term and thus use it more discriminately in the future.