Executioner's Keris For Comment

[Lew]

Kai

I have info from a very good source that the hilt and fittings are original to the keris. Please see statement below.

Ukiran and mendak are original and belong to an execution keris. The mendak fits well to the ukiran. The simple fittings where made on purpose. Although an excecution was done almost bloodless these simple fittings where easily to clean from accidently spilt blood after an execution. You can imagine that cleaning fancy fittings with holes and protrucions is more difficult.
The hole in your ukiran is made with purpose to store a dot of cotton. After the execution the dot cotton was used to wipe down the blade till the wound where the keris stuck in. Holding the cotton on the small wound the keris was exctracted from the wound through the cotton, cleaning the blade. When te keris was out of the body of the victim, the dot cotton was pushed into the wound, like a cork on a bottle of wine. In this way the execution was done bloodless.

Lew