Subject: panggau warrior
Culture: Sumatran Malay
Setting: Jambi, Palembang sultanates, eastern Sumatra/Lampong 19thc
Object: keris kris
Keris Bahari
* Frey 1988 p50-51
"In its earliest and purest form, as found in Lampong, South Sumatra, it [the Malayan kris hilt] is a seated figure with bulging eyes and bird beak, hands on knees and curly hair falling to its waist. Sometimes the figure shows a Naga, a serpent, hung about its neck, corroborating the legend that Garuda was enemy of the Nagas and, in a great battle, destroyed all but one which he displays as evidence of his powers."
* von Duuren 1998 p86-87
"The princes' krisses are veritable showpieces with elegant blades, gold-ornamented sheaths and sophisticated, carved hilts. The hilts stand out most of all; they have deeply bored out tiny carving with flourishes and festoons, and are shaped like some curious mixture of a human being and a bird. These birdmen have a rather long beak-shaped nose, a short keel-shaped back wing and a pair of human arms, tightly crossed over the chest. This creates the impression that the figure is feeling cold, all the more so when, as in some specimens, it sits on its own base, bending slightly forward. This hilt type is known as Jawa demam, 'feverish Javanese'. Why a 'sick man' should in Sumatra, be a Javanese, remains something of a mystery.
"Still, plenty of positively happy-looking kris figures were also made in Palembang: rogue-faced birdmen with big, tilted beaks, invariably producing a most human smile. This fondness for bird sculptures was shared by kris makers throughout the island, by the way. Nine Sumatran krisses out of ten have hilts shaped like birds or birdmen. These vary from the Buginese 'pistol butt' model with its forward curve, to the angular, practically cubist versions in which the body and the crossed arms have become abstract ornaments. Spectacular, big hilts were carved from plasterwhite seashells or old elephants' molars, whose multicoloured, veined structure recalls smoothly polished brown marble."
* Ghiringhelli 2011 p132
"This type of bird hilt, with its long beak, is sometimes thought to originate in Riao province and the islands of the same name lying off the eastern coast of Sumatra and south of Singapore."
Keris Panjang
* Stone 1934 p388 (quoting Winstead)
"The long straight 'execution' creese comes from Sumatra and is common in Negri Sembilan."
* von Duuren 1998 p87
"Both the northern region of the island and the Malaccan peninsula, had the slender and straight keris panjang, or 'long kris', which was also used for executions. One of those executions was described by a Dutch eyewitness. The prisoner crouched on the ground, his back to the executioner. Below his left shoulder was glued a thick wad of cotton fluff, the 'rose'. When the moment had come, the excutioner [SIC] attacked with a swift and perfect thrust, penetrating straight through the back and into the heart. Death was instantaneous; the cotton absorbed the small quantity of flowing blood."
* Fryer 1969 p85
"Executioner's Kris A Malay kris with unusually long straight blade and generally straight hilt with rounded pommel. Executions were effected by plunging the blade down through the shoulder into the heart."
* Royal Armouries Museum > Oriental Gallery
"[....] This type of kris was used for executions, the blade driven into the victim beside the collar bone, and into the heart."
