Recent additions

Just won a little e-nep looking thing. It's not too large but the price was right. I wonder what the hilt is made of? It looks like bone at first glance but it appears to have some sort of darker material inside. Hard to tell from the blurry photos.
 
i like that knife. hard to tell what is in the core. bone would have a marrow centre that would be rmoved, and replaced with something, resin, cutlers cement, etc. could be ivory, polished antler, etc.

scabbard looks burmese, knife looks like hmong.
 
It was hard to decipher the seller's description but I think the whole thing is only 12.5 inches with an 8 inch blade. At that size it could just be a tourist concoction .

The seller thought it was Turkish. His description of the size was "12 1/2. with the case 8. blade long /1 1/5. large". No idea how to parse that or what units he's talking about.

I wonder if it's walrus tusk. I turned up the brightness and contrast on the auction picture and it does look a bit similar to walrus...
 
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I guess a walrus wouldn't have any business being in South East Asia anyways. Unless it was taking a vacation...
 
you never know, when i was an asst. engr. officer on the USCGC Burton island (WAGB 283) we had just left pearl harbour heading north when we came across an ex-walrus heading south (taking it's vacation?).

the then captain stopped the ship, sent a ship's boat & crew to retrieve the tusks, which he had them mount on a plaque for presentation to the gov. of alaska (for brownie points). he was bucking for admiral. thankfully never made it.

the boat crew did not appreciate having to work on a decomposing couple of tons of walrus that had been nibbled on by sharks. i could smell it a hundred yards away & gagged. felt sorry for those closer.

i don't think the captain ever thanked them for their 'unofficial' task, or the carpenter who made the plaque.

WAGB283.jpg

(p.s. - those are not the hawaiian islands.)
 
Ugh, I feel a little queasy just imagining the smell...

I bought a Moro Kris! I always wanted one of these. It's beat up and a little small but it looks like it used to be pretty nice. The fittings are supposedly silver.
 
cool small kris , just the thing for your datu's young son. lack of a seperate ganja point to it being post ww2.
 
small can be beautiful, i just acquired this small zulu status/dancing axe, wending it's way north from kwa-zulu, natal, so. africa.
Zulu, Angoni, Tsonga tribe

12.5 in., 5 in. head.

zulu axe01.jpg
 
Wow! I love the patina on that wood.

I read that very, very old Kris's were made small like mine. And that the Ganja was so tightly fitted to the blade that the line couldn't be seen without magnification. So I'm hoping it's a super old Kris rather than a child's, but that's just wishful thinking on my part. You're probably right. I'll post pictures on "the other place" and see what the consensus is.

Consensus seems to be that its late 19th early 20th century, a bit on the small size but not unusually so for Kris' of that era. Might be for kid or woman but probably for a man.
 
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checked the 'other place',can see a ganja line too. i concurr now with the other place's comments. good find. it looks bigger on the other place ;) hope it cleans up well.

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measured mine for comparison., both grips are wound with heavy twine/thread with areas of raised braiding on top in bands.

modern ie. last year mfg. TFW kris no. 5: 24 in blade, 29.5 LOA, 796 grams. traditonal design with seperate ganja.
TFW Swords HDR.jpg


mid 20c one, 19 in. blade, 24'' LOA, 495 grams, no seperate ganja. roughly size of yours, handles better than the longer tfw one, which is tip heavier...scabbard missing a chunk on one side like yours too.

MoroKris003_DCE.jpg
 
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kronckew said:
y(p.s. - those are not the hawaiian islands.)[/SIZE]
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Doesn't look much like Government Island either :D guessing this in during one of the Operation Deep Freezes where WAGB 283 was so prevalent during the 70's?

Some more great looking additions guys. Love the small keris, glad to hear the consensus appears to be positive on it. Looks like a sweet lil blade though it doesn't appear to show a recognizable pamor.
 
when i was on the BI it was in 71/72 just after a 'deep freeze'. we went to the aleutians & the arctic during the year i was on her. i do not recall the enclosed captian's gig. they started painting the breakers red in the mid 70's after i left, when they returned to doing deep freezes. we got an 'arctic service' ribbon for stuff we did up there. the photo looks like it was on one of the earlier deep freezes after it was transferred to the CG from the navy in '66. they removed the 5 in. 38 turret, the anti-sub hedge hogs, and the bofors AA mounts for deep freeze.
 
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my latest acquisition: 440c, black micarta grip.
leaf sword.jpg
O / A Length = 22.40 Inches,
Handle Length = 06.20 Inches
Blade Length = 16.60 inches
 
I like it! Some sort of Celtic blade?

Shavru,

Moro Kris's generally speaking don't have pamor. Nicer ones will have a twist core, the center of the blade is made from multiple iron rods that have been banged and twisted together, and the actual cutting edges are hardened steel. Not sure yet if mine was built like that, but I'll etch it when it arrives and we'll see.

These things are proper war swords. I get the impression Indonesian kerises are mostly for show and ceremony, but Moro ones were made to fight. Here's an online copy of Swish of the Kris, a history of the Moros and their conflicts

http://web.archive.org/web/20041221...ef.nl/~tonvr/keris/keris2/swish/contents.html

I don't think it's very historically accurate but its a fun read.

Just got another Bou Saadi knife today from Algeria. One of the first ethnographic knives I bought was a Bou Saadi but I always wanted a slightly more "authentic" one. This one was clearly made from an old file, you can still see some of the scales on the blade and bolster. I understand the blade maker would intentionally leave a little scale so the buyer would know it was made from good steel.

This guy's pretty long, from the tip of the blade to the butt of the hilt is the length of my forearm. The blade wobbles because it's only held in by the wire wrappings which have come loose. They just cut a slot in the hilt, slip the tang in, and then wrap with wire. No adhesives or pins anything else were used. I might drop a dab of glue in there.
 
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Hehe probably one of your least historically correct blades Kron, but a nice modern interpretation. Looks like it has a interesting bevel, does it slice as well as it looks like it should?

Blue, thanks that makes a lot of sense. I remember reading about the Moro kris a long time ago but had completely forgotten the difference between the two when I started doing so much research into the kris of the Indonesians. It seems to be fairly realistic in the areas I have knowledge of. Not any out and out lies, though it does take some liberties with identifying theories as facts and interpretations of some things that I have not heard interpreted that way. So I guess the stuff I don't know about is probably similar mix of theories and myths presented as fact? Still an enjoyable read. Thanks!
 
It was written by an American right before we handed the island over to local governance, so the just of it is "The Moros are a proud warrior people who fought against the Spanish because the Spaniards were arrogant religious zealots. They couldn't defeat the Moro because their leadership was incompetent . We (the US) kicked the Spanish out and defeated the Moro and won their respect because we don't interfere with their customs and our military is so awesome. Now we're handing over control to the Christian Philippinos and they're going to screw everything up because they're like the Spanish"

But like I said its a really fun read. It tells of a Lt. Furlong who sounds like a tremendous badass if you'll pardon my French. He apparently went to the Philippines with a death wish and fought with such reckless abandon that he won the admiration of the Moro. Hr spent 7 years in the field without furlough. Eventually the military forced him to take a vacation and he killed himself.

I've been doing research on the guy but there isn't too much out there. One good story is that upon raiding Moro forts, he'd walk up to the wall and toss his hat over to the Moro side. He and his men would have a competition to see who could retrieve I first. Lt Furlong always won and he never lost one hat. The Moro came to believe his hat was magic, and that seeing it meant you were going to die.
 
Shavru said:
Hehe probably one of your least historically correct blades Kron, but a nice modern interpretation. Looks like it has a interesting bevel, does it slice as well as it looks like it should?
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it hasn't arrived yet. i liked the look when i stumbled across it on etsy. a modern take on the old bronze age leaf swords. hopefully i will be a good cutter and stabber.it'll join my modern kopis in the armoury.

kopis.jpg
 
Just picked up a Peurise shield from Aceh. It isn't that old, definitely 20th century. Older brass shields would be undecorated or made from rattan with brass bosses. This is a new one made as a decoration probably. But I only paid 50 bucks for it and at that price I think it'll look good on the wall. It's very tiny at about 11 inches across, but that's not much smaller than a real battle ready one. They're more of a buckler than a shield.

Unfortunately it looks like somebody cleaned all the patina off the front. I think the white gunk around the decorations is residue from whatever they used. I assume the front used to have the same nice patina as the back. I might force a patina back onto it.
 
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