keris for charing

[A. G. Maisey]

The usual, simple keris blade construction is with core of steel and an overlay of pamor material on each side of the core, this gives a cutting edge and a point of steel, protected by outside layers of pamor material. In a good blade the core will be centered at the gandhik and continue centered down the length of the blade. I can see a lot of black in this blade, so it very probably does have a core, but that core does not appear to be very well centered.

As to the name of the pamor.

It is a mlumah or "laying down" pamor. It is a random pattern. As such it is legitimate to call it wos wutah. But it is a very coarse pattern, and a coarse wos wutah is usually called kulit semangko. There are many sub-divisions in wos wutah---sub-divisions that seem to grow continually with the imagination of dealers, so what this pamor is called is really a matter of no consequence:- it is a very badly managed mlumah pamor. Wos wutah is good enough, but some people would call it kulit semangko.