4. The Malangkeris

I was born on Java during the World War I. My parents were Dutch and my father worked with the Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij and after some years we moved to the Netherlands, but I always kept longing feelings toward my birth land. In the winter of 1939 -1940, I had just graduated and I was given the opportunity to go to Indonesia again. Because of the start of World War II this didn't happen.

But the longing stayed and by 1973 it became reality. All of my memories about Indonesia had caused me to collect Indonesian artifacts, on which I was very attached. Of course I also owned some keris, who I admired very much, but about which I had little knowledge. Back then I started to try to find out more about the phenomena "Keris", but that wasn't very easy. Luckily I got the opportunity to fill my knowledge years later. After 1974, I traveled a lot and in Switzerland I met a nice girlfriend, born in Surabaya, called Carla. On her invitation I traveled to Java and stayed as a guest in her house. In that period I had the chance to make my collection "substantially" bigger. On a given day I visited Malang, a beautiful mountain city in East Java. There I saw a kind of barn, filled with Indonesian stuff that was for sale. Suddenly I had a very strange experience. I was drawn inside as by a magnet and once inside the same magnet got me to walk straight to a pile of rubbish and started me searching. To my delight five keris came out, which I studied in another part of the barn. They where all in a very bad shape, dusty, dirty and rusty.

One keris had my special attention and it was as if I heard a tiny voice in my head, telling me to buy this keris no matter what. I asked information about this keris which was how is it possible in the most badly shape of them all. The wood was all but rotten, full of holes, the blade was rusty and there were no mendak or pendok. Nevertheless something had me in its powers and the feeling to posses the keris became more urgent. The seller asked a very high price, but I got it down a lot, and not long after I was the owner. Home in Surabaya I cleaned the keris the best I could, but it still looked as if no one had taken care for it in years.

The keris was mine now and I was happy with it. In spite of everything it was the way it was supposed to be, I always thought and often I wondered whether it was nothing but coincidence.

Some days later Carla had some friend over and I made their acquaintance. We were sitting on the porch in the tropical night air. On a given moment we talked about my new keris and the company grew curious. I took the keris from my bedroom and put it on the table. Two from the friends wanted nothing to do with it, but one friend showed a real interest, and we found out he knew something about the subject. After he had taken a good look and had closed the keris, as one calls it, he wanted to give it back to me. To his big surprise he couldn't let go of it. His hand kept shut and the keris shook and swayed from right to left. With a lot of trouble I managed to "break" his hand open. We all looked at this strange thing that happened and somehow I found it very interesting, although with mixed feelings.

I immediately thought that I would hear more of this. And yes, Carla started to say she was worried a few days later. She proposed to let an expert have a look at the keris. This I promised her and I also said I would have the keris destroyed if something was "the matter" with it. I went with Carla's driver to the mentioned keris expert, the driver would be my translator. The expert was an old man, who studied the keris closely, took every part apart and examined everything. He put some white powder on the thing and went into trance. In the mean time a lot of men came sitting with us and everything was followed closely. By me to, even though I was rather skeptic. After a quarter of an hour he was still in trance and my curiosity grew by the minute. When he came out of the trance he started talking in Javanese, which the driver, from Arabic origin, translated in a mixture of bad Dutch-English. And so I heard the story that it was a good keris, badly taken care for, but no keris 'darak' (blood keris), which meant there was no murder committed with it. The keris favored me, would do me no harm and I could posses it without worries. I listened to this al with a lot of skepticism, thinking the man was only telling me what I wanted to hear. I wasn't convinced by his story but this changed quickly as he went on. He told me that I had more keris in my home in Holland and that I could own these to without problems and that those would accept this keris also. That he "saw" keris at my home surprised me, but I was really astonished when he told me the right number. Stupefied I listened to him telling me how the keris hung at the wall in my house and that I shouldn't do that with this keris. Nobody knew these personnel things, so there could be no case of foreknowledge by someone else. The keris expert gave me the urgent advice to take the other keris from the wall also. After that he put some oil on the blade, put the hilt back on with a filling of horsehair, and took another good look at it. Then he waved the keris through the air and gave it back to me. I was really stupefied. The time I stayed in Surabaya the keris lay on a table in my bedroom. New manifestations stayed away; I think the keris was happy with his new owner.

It was time to go back to the Netherlands. While I was packing my suitcase and put the keris in a piece of cotton, I had one big worry: "how could I get the keris trough costums". Keris weren't allowed to be brought out of the country. I only hoped I wouldn't get any trouble. Once at the airport in Jakarta, I had just like all the other passengers my luggage x-rayed. Tensed I waited and prayed a silent prayer. And what happened; when my suitcase was checked on the x-ray screen there was nothing to be seen from the keris! Just some shadows from the insides, like shoes, clothing, some Balinese woodcarvings and some other souvenirs. So I got safely aboard the DC10 with my luggage, and landed hours later at Shiphol. When I was home I cleaned the keris some more and put it on a table. I was very glad with it and thought it was a fine new thing for my collection. Some years ago I came in touch with the writer of the books The Keris 1, 2 and 3, who offered to restore the keris. After he was finished with it I was astonished by the result. The keris was beautiful indeed. It turned out it was a very special keris, really a top keris from high "birth", with an exceptional pamor on the blade, which wasn't to be seen before the restoration.

I see this keris as my protector and developed the habit to take this keris with me in a briefcase when I have to leave home for a couple of days. I even gave the keris a name - 'Malangkeris'.

Summer 1995 'KRISMAN'
(Of course not my real name)