Bangkung and kris

[kai]

Hello Gustav,

I am not an expert, but your kris looks a lot like a sundang version of Keris Malela from northern Malay peninsula, also the hilt has a Malay touch on it. The attached example has a Luk less, another, perhaps better example for comparison of overall shape could be the one from "Spirit of wood" (don't have the book with me).

Yet of course it doesn't mean, yours would come from Malay peninsula.

The hilt is an old type that can be found on either Moro or Malay examples of keris sundang.

Comparing the kruwingan and sorsoran (and associated features at the base of the blade) with the Malay malela is a valid point. However, examining the ricikan details shows that we're looking at different esthetics here and a direct Terrengganu influence/origin seems unlikely for Carlos' piece IMVHO.

A weird feature that I don't remember having seen before is the kruwingan ending asymmetrically towards the tip. Is the configuration also seen on the other side, Carlos?

I ask myself, if the more Keris-like looking krisses, lacking "arrow" feature at the Sogokan grooves <snip> are not more likely coming from North Borneo and/or Brunei.

I'm afraid, I haven't been able to detect a clear pattern for this feature yet. I believe both of your examples to be Sulu kalis as well though.

In most Moro kris these fullers, if present at all, are short - basically a tikel alis and a sraweyan ending just in front of the sogokan; however, instead of just fading out as with most Indonesian keris, they are deeply carved and almost touching each other near the midline resulting in an arrow-like appearance. It seems that there was a tendency to keep this prominent feature even if fullers continue down the blade while a few other examples don't show this arrow. Let's face it: even in Indonesian keris, prominent kruwingan running towards the tip of the blade are rare.

There certainly is a dearth of provenanced examples of kris/keris from northern Borneo including Brunei in musea as well as other collections (Alan, do you hear me? ). Those few examples I've seen had features consistent with a generic Sulu origin. The sultanates of Brunei and Sulu had a lot of ties and while their spheres of influence shifted during history, I doubt that Moro settlements along the coast of Borneo were noticeably affected by changing affiliations. Of course, the Sulu archipelago is culturally diverse to begin with and I believe it would help our understanding a lot if we were to be able to sort out the ethnic origins/distributions of the apparent kalis styles that we commonly lump as Sulu...

Regards,
Kai