THE JAVANESE KRIS - kitlv

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32 the javanese kris decline in the forging of krisses throughout the entire Dutch East Indian archipelago, in particular in the Javanese Vorstenlanden (Royal territories), but he closed his eyes to the real cause. He placed Central Java under a glass bell as a timeless cultural reservation and failed to observe the growing number of cracks in the glass. The new spirit of the times and the modernizing processes that characterized the Dutch colonial twentieth century made a silent end to time-honoured local art and handicraft traditions. The existence of the kris was slowly but surely being erased as a general Indonesian cultural artifact, but Groneman completely refused to admit this. 26 His tragedy was that by importing small sheets of European nickel he thought that he could stop a number of irreversible cultural changes, that he refused to recognize as such. He did not realize that he was blowing against the wind. Despite Groneman’s vain attempts to bring time to a standstill by preventing the extinction of the Javanese kris, his Der Kris der Javaner is a monumental contribution to knowledge, all the more so if we place it beside the writings of his predecessors, including the illustrious G.P. Rouffaer who, shortly before Groneman’s publication, pointed out that knowledge of the technique of forging a kris was lacking and needed to be examined. 27 Der Kris der Javaner provided the foundation for further inquiry. However, the real scientific synthesis did not come until 1938 and 1940 when the Leiden museum anthropologist, W.H. Rassers, published three articles. He discontinued the standard enumerations of shapes of blades, pamor patterns and the variations of handles and sheaths, and brought the kris into an organic connection with the wayang, the Javanese shadow theatre, and other elements of Javanese culture in order to understand the underlying, scarcely visible basic structure of Javanese society. 28 It was a completely new approach. However, Rassers could not have carried out his scientific work without Isaäc Groneman and the other Dutch authors on the kris who owed tribute to Der Kris der Javaner. David van Duuren Notes 1 Important surveys include J.A. Loebèr jr., Geïllustreerde beschrijvingen van Indische kunstnijverheid, 7 vols., Haarlem and Amsterdam, 1903-1916, also known under the collective title Techniek en Sierkunst in Nederlandsch-Indië; J.E. Jasper & M. Pirngadie, De inlandsche kunstnijverheid in Nederlandsch Indië, 5 vols., ’s-Gravenhage, 1912-1930; Catalogus van ’s Rijks Ethnographisch Museum, 23 vols., Leiden, 1909-1932, of which 16 volumes were written by H.H. Juynboll, and G.P. Rouffaer, De voornaamste industrieën der inlandsche bevolking van Java en Madoera, ’s Gravenhage, 1904.
introduction 33 2 For example, the term art appears for the first time in the exhibition catalogue Indonesian Art: A Loan Exhibition from the Royal Indies Institute, New York, 1948 and again in F.A. Wagner, Indonesia: The Art of an Island Group, London, 1959. The Dutch version (1949) of the latter book by the same author was entitled Sierkunst in Indonesië. 3 ‘Oost-Indische wapens, triomf van den boeddhistischen-civaïstischen godsdienst’, in: Woord en Beeld 5, 1900, p. 455. 4 See for batik, S. Legêne & B. Waaldijk, ‘Reverse Images – Patterns of Absence: Batik and the Representation of Colonialism in the Netherlands’, in: I.C. van Hout ed., Drawn in Wax. 200 Years of Batik Art from Indonesia in the Tropenmuseum Collection, Amsterdam 2001, pp. 34-65; and for silver, W.H. Kal, Yogya Silver: Renewal of a Javanese Handicraft, Amsterdam, 2005. 5 A. Hendriks, ‘Iets over de wapenfabricatie op Borneo’, in: Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen 18, 1842, pp. 1-30; F.L. Winter, Serat bab pratelanipoen dapoer doewoeng mawi kawoedjoedan gambar 51 idji, Soerakarta, 1871; F. Grabowsky, ‘Negara, ein Industrie-Centrum in Südost-Borneo’, in: Globus 55, 1889, pp. 90-92; J.D.E. Schmeltz, ‘Indonesische Prunkwaffen: ein Beitrag zur Kunde des Kunstgewerbes in Indonesien und der ethnologischen Bedeutung der Kris’, in: Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie 3, 1890, pp. 85-118; J. Knebel, ‘A propos d’armes et d’autres objets désignés par le Javanais sous les noms de Kjai, Njai, Poen et Si, Kaämpoehan et Kasiat. Croyances populaires et traditions’, in: Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 40, 1898, pp. 239-286; J. Knebel, ‘Sur la mensuration des armes chez les Javanais’, in: Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 40, 1898, pp. 317-324; J. Rosenhain, ‘Notes on Malay Metal-Work’, in: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 31, 1901, pp. 160-166. 6 In: Nederlandsch-Indië Oud en Nieuw 1, 1916-1917, pp. 235-236; 546-561; 2, 1917-1918, pp. 26-37; 102-114; 326-336; 357-366; 411-417; 439-447. 7 Only the earliest contributions are mentioned here. The important fifth volume of Jasper & Pirngadie, De bewerking van niet-edele metalen (koperbewerking en pamorsmeedkunst) – see note 1 – which deals extensively with krisses, was not published until 1930. For a more complete survey of the smaller or later publications on krisses, see: D. van Duuren, Krisses: A critical Bibliography, Wijk en Aalburg, 2002. 8 R. Nieuwenhuys, Oost-Indische Spiegel. Amsterdam, 1978, p. 203. 9 For the titles see D. van Duuren, Krisses, a critical Bibliography, pp. 50-55. 10 It seems to have been already announced in the Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië of 1867 that the Prambanan meteorite contained nickel. If Groneman had been familiar with this article it is unlikely that he would have had a fragment of the meteoric iron tested in the laboratory of the botanical gardens. 11 De vorderingen der pamor-smeedkunst (meteoor- en nikkel-pamor), Soerabaja, 1906.
Page 1 and 2: THE JAVANESE KRIS
Page 3 and 4: ISAÄC GRONEMAN THE JAVANESE KRIS P
Page 5 and 6: contents preface 7 introduction 13
Page 7 and 8: p r e f a c e The Javanese Kris is
Page 9 and 10: preface 9 of thousands of krisses i
Page 11 and 12: preface 11 solace from the fact tha
Page 13 and 14: i n t r o d u c t i o n Nobody who
Page 15 and 16: introduction 15 places it all in a
Page 17 and 18: introduction 17 Inv. Nr. 2160 - 409
Page 19 and 20: introduction 19 Central Javanese re
Page 21 and 22: introduction 21 old and well-known
Page 23 and 24: introduction 23 Inv. Nr. 13005 (WM)
Page 27 and 28: introduction 27 As noted, no one pa
Page 29 and 30: introduction 29 places by importing
Page 31: introduction 31 plain kĕris sheath
Page 35 and 36: introduction 35 photographs of the
Page 39 and 40: the javanese kĕris Dr. I. Groneman
Page 41 and 42: foreword 41 Inv. Nr. 360 - 8082 (RM

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