Keris bargain

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Old blade, West Jawa/North Coast.

Dress is as Kai has stated.

This style did start as a dancer's dress. I have seen a couple that came into Australia before WWII, but the dress style began to proliferate with the tourism boom that began in 1970's.

Two or three reasons for this.

Bali keris have never been as prolific as Javanese keris, less people in Bali and the Balinese people themselves lost faith in the power of their ancestors to protect them after the puputans. There is a story in the keris trade in Jawa that Japanese took thousands of keris out of Bali during WWII and later.

However, there is a continuing need for dress keris and performers' keris in Bali, and that need has often been filled by Javanese keris that are still in Javanese dress. Still, today, you can see the Balinese cultural police who enforce the rules during Hari Nyepi and other important occasions wearing Javanese keris, not Balinese keris.

So this rather exuberant dress style we see here was developed strictly for performers. But the tourists liked it so much that after a kecak dance or whatever they wanted to buy the performers' keris. So this keris style then morphed into a Balinese souvenir.

But it did not start that way.

Personally, I would not change anything on this keris. It is an excellent example of its type. Blade is nothing special, just a blade to hold the dress together.

Apart from which, how do we get a nicely made, nicely fitted wrongko for this blade unless we send it or take it to Jawa? In the Time of Covid? I should be in Jawa right now, but with the situation there I don't reckon I'll be back for another two or three years, minimum.

Of its type, a nice keris.

Hi Alan. I completely agree with you that this re-dressing this keris doesn't make too much sense, especially if the sheaths made specifically to accommodate this blade or re-fitted well to accept it.
I do not doubt you story of the history of this dress and this is similar to what i have already heard. However, i still cannot recap ever seeing photographs of performers with this keris dress in hand (or sash). Do you have any photographs that establish this history? It seems more than likely that performers would be photographed, even as far back as early 19th century. So i would think there should be some photographic evidence to support this history.

[A. G. Maisey]

No David, in fact I cannot recall seeing dancers in Bali wearing keris with any style of dress.

I guess there are probably a lot of photos of dancers with a keris in hand, such as with your example, but what usually happens with the scabbard is that once the keris is drawn the scabbard gets dropped.

Unlike Jawa where there is plenty of opportunity to see people in traditional dress, and wearing keris, in Bali since the 1960's, there is virtually no public display of keris, and about the only times I've seen keris worn in Bali is at weddings, and by the cultural police during enforcement of rules & order at Hari Nyepi.

The Barong Dance is the one that people mostly associate with the keris, I've seen a few performances of this dance and usually the keris that are used by the dancers are handed out by a priest.

There is something else to remember too, and that is that although you might see a dancer wearing a keris before a performance, unless there is the need for a keris in the actual performance, and this is rare, he will not wear the keris while performing.

In the days of film ordinary people counted the photos they took, because each shot cost real money. Now, in the age of the digicam the tourists flock into Bali --- or they did, pre-Covid --- and many of these tourists go on a clickfest from the moment the plane starts its descent into Ngurah Rai airport.

They don't stop until they get back on the plane to go home. They literally see Bali through the viewfinder and go home with 20,000 images. A lot of these images get processed & put up on the internet.

How many pictures can you find on the net that show dancers in Bali wearing keris?

[Gavin Nugent]

Not from the net but from my film role, from the Barong dance.

Apart from Weddings noted, I've images of keris worn in funeral processions too.

Gavin

[David]

Nice photo Gavin. Most of the the photos i can find on the web of dancers with keris do not show the sarung. But from the hilts it is clear to see that they don't use the same figurative hilt that is most often paired with these "dancer" sheaths. They are usually bondalan type hilts. I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean that the sheaths used weren't these "dancer sheaths", but it certainly seems less likely.
Most often the examples i can find are from the Barong Dance, with keris out and pinned towards their wielders, but i have also found some others performances as well.

[Anthony G.]

these photo does send shiver down my spine. It looks painful.

[A. G. Maisey]

Gavin & David, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe these beautiful photos were all taken during the last 20 years or so? Like, yesterday.

In order to verify that what I have said in previous posts, not only in this thread, but I have posted similar comments previously, we would really need photos from the days of film, probably from pre-1980, as my memory is that before 1990 this highly decorative type of dress was not being made, and most of the more recent examples didn't even use keris blades, they used flat iron, or even thinner material, that was cut into the shape of a keris and the "pamor" pattern was batiked onto the blade.

There is another thing that is worth mentioning too. The dances that are staged in the tourist centres, like Ubud, Kuta, and all around South Bali, are 90% or better for the tourists. To witness the genuine performances you need to get away from the tourist areas. People do not realise just how much the tourist presence has changed Bali. Even the New Year's Eve Ogoh-Ogoh parades have been developed as a tourist attraction. The dance performances that are staged in villages and population centres that are not a part of the "Tourist World" are closer to reality. In these more "grass roots" performances even the keris dancers in the Barong dance use real keris, not ones with blades that have been annealed, and the Legong dancers and Sanghyang Dedari dancers are genuine.

But if you really want to see a real, gut twisting performance you need to go up to Ponorogo in Jawa and see the Reog.

[Anthony G.]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Gavin & Anthony, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe these beautiful photos were all taken during the last 20 years or so? Like, yesterday.

In order to verify that what I have said in previous posts, not only in this thread, but I have posted similar comments previously, we would really need photos from the days of film, probably from pre-1980, as my memory is that before 1990 this highly decorative type of dress was not being made, and most of the more recent examples didn't even use keris blades, they used flat iron, or even thinner material, that was cut into the shape of a keris and the "pamor" pattern was batiked onto the blade.

There is another thing that is worth mentioning too. The dances that are staged in the tourist centres, like Ubud, Kuta, and all around South Bali, are 90% or better for the tourists. To witness the genuine performances you need to get away from the tourist areas. People do not realise just how much the tourist presence has changed Bali. Even the New Year's Eve Ogoh-Ogoh parades have been developed as a tourist attraction. The dance performances that are staged in villages and population centres that are not a part of the "Tourist World" are closer to reality. In these more "grass roots" performances even the keris dancers in the Barong dance use real keris, not ones with blades that have been annealed, and the Legong dancers and Sanghyang Dedari dancers are genuine.

But if you really want to see a real, gut twisting performance you need to go up to Ponorogo in Jawa and see the Reog.

[QUOTE=A. G. Maisey]Gavin & Anthony, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe these beautiful photos were all taken during the last 20 years or so? Like, yesterday.


Hi Alan, good day.

No idea about the photo as it was not posted by me. And thanks for the info about the performance in Bali and Jawa, really useful for me esp. i will visit these places in future.

Hopefully the virus outbreak can be contain soon so that I can visit Indonesia.