Hilt Mendahk

HughChen · 18th June 2025, 01:56 AM

Thank you Alan and Sajen.
Very thorough elaboration. I sometimes see many different pamor elaboration and those introduction says different pamor has different magic function. But it seems that most pamor is just wos wutah.

A. G. Maisey · 18th June 2025, 04:03 AM

True Hugh.

and wos wutah also has a talismanic value, which is that the custodian of the wos wutah keris will always have sufficient to eat & not know hunger.

wos wutah is known as "mlumah" = "laying down" (with the face up) type pamor & is not difficult to make.

once we get into the other type of pamor, "miring" we enter very difficult territory, no pamor miring is easy or low cost to make.

HughChen · 18th June 2025, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

True Hugh.

and wos wutah also has a talismanic value, which is that the custodian of the wos wutah keris will always have sufficient to eat & not know hunger.

wos wutah is known as "mlumah" = "laying down" (with the face up) type pamor & is not difficult to make.

once we get into the other type of pamor, "miring" we enter very difficult territory, no pamor miring is easy or low cost to make.

Arethere only two kinds of Pamor? If not, how many in total?

A. G. Maisey · 18th June 2025, 08:18 AM

There are two, let us say, "divisions"of pamor. Mlumah is made by forge welding & folding a piece of contrasting material between pieces of ferric material, in olden times that ferric material was iron, and very often the contrasting material was a different type of iron, usually "white" iron. This provided the contrast & was cheaper than using nickelous material & more readily available. Since the old-time Indies have opened up to western world trade, the contrasting material has usually been factory produced nickel.In modern times, mild steel is more often used than iron, simply because mild steel is cheap & easy to get & to work.

The premium contrasting material is now, & very possibly was in the past, meteoritic material. We have a record of this being used in Surakarta from about 1820, this meteoritic material came from a meteor fall near Prambanan that had occurred in the 18th century. It is entirely possible that meteoritic material was also used occasionally in olden times, predating the use of Prambanan material. Modern meteoritic material comes from many places. I have made meteoritic pamor for use by a Javanese pande keris, & I have made a number of mechanical damascus knife blades, all the meteoritic material that I used came from the Arkansas fall.

The other "division" of pamor is called "pamor miring". This starts as pamor mlumah, but after we get around 128 nominal layers of contrasting material into the billet, we forge the orientation of those layers from being in a horizontal plane to being in a vertical plane. Once the layers are in a vertical plane we can manipulate the billet of pamor in various ways to create various motifs.

All pamor miring motifs call for much more labour, & much more fuel & much more material to make. They also call for a very high degree of skill on the part of the smith. Consequently a blade bearing pamor miring is much more expensive to make & to buy than a blade that has only pamor mlumah.

18th June 2025, 01:56 AM	#1
HughChen Member Join Date: Aug 2024 Location: China Posts: 175	Thank you Alan and Sajen. Very thorough elaboration. I sometimes see many different pamor elaboration and those introduction says different pamor has different magic function. But it seems that most pamor is just wos wutah.

18th June 2025, 04:03 AM	#2
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,048	True Hugh. and wos wutah also has a talismanic value, which is that the custodian of the wos wutah keris will always have sufficient to eat & not know hunger. wos wutah is known as "mlumah" = "laying down" (with the face up) type pamor & is not difficult to make. once we get into the other type of pamor, "miring" we enter very difficult territory, no pamor miring is easy or low cost to make.

18th June 2025, 08:18 AM	#4
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,048	There are two, let us say, "divisions"of pamor. Mlumah is made by forge welding & folding a piece of contrasting material between pieces of ferric material, in olden times that ferric material was iron, and very often the contrasting material was a different type of iron, usually "white" iron. This provided the contrast & was cheaper than using nickelous material & more readily available. Since the old-time Indies have opened up to western world trade, the contrasting material has usually been factory produced nickel.In modern times, mild steel is more often used than iron, simply because mild steel is cheap & easy to get & to work. The premium contrasting material is now, & very possibly was in the past, meteoritic material. We have a record of this being used in Surakarta from about 1820, this meteoritic material came from a meteor fall near Prambanan that had occurred in the 18th century. It is entirely possible that meteoritic material was also used occasionally in olden times, predating the use of Prambanan material. Modern meteoritic material comes from many places. I have made meteoritic pamor for use by a Javanese pande keris, & I have made a number of mechanical damascus knife blades, all the meteoritic material that I used came from the Arkansas fall. The other "division" of pamor is called "pamor miring". This starts as pamor mlumah, but after we get around 128 nominal layers of contrasting material into the billet, we forge the orientation of those layers from being in a horizontal plane to being in a vertical plane. Once the layers are in a vertical plane we can manipulate the billet of pamor in various ways to create various motifs. All pamor miring motifs call for much more labour, & much more fuel & much more material to make. They also call for a very high degree of skill on the part of the smith. Consequently a blade bearing pamor miring is much more expensive to make & to buy than a blade that has only pamor mlumah.