Suggested origin of the Malay keris and of the superstitions attaching to it
G.C.G. Williams, writing in 1937, proposed that the Malay keris evolved directly from an archaic spearhead and that its elaborate magical reputation was a cultural residue of the Hindu-Moslem religious wars in 15th-century Java. The article, published in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, draws on the works of Raffles, Crawfurd, Newbold, Skeat, and Winstedt to construct a two-part argument linking the weapon’s physical form to its spiritual significance.
Summary
Williams first establishes a typological baseline for the keris, arguing that the “normal” blade—straight or with nine or fewer waves, 14 to 17 inches long, with a detachable handle fitted over a projecting paksi—most closely approximates the earliest form. He supports this by noting that Ashmolean Museum specimens dating to approximately 1600 show no appreciable change in blade form, and that representations on later Hindu temples in Java confirm the weapon’s long stability of design. Having defined the normal type, he then argues that the keris is not an independently invented dagger but a direct descendant of the spear. The structural evidence is compelling: the keris is a stabbing instrument with a detachable handle, its blade is too thick and blunt for cutting, and its overall appearance is one of incongruity, as though parts were hastily adapted from an existing weapon. Williams posits that in a region where iron was scarce and valuable, a warrior fleeing battle would discard the wooden shaft but retain the metal head, fitting it with a short handle for concealed carry. The asymmetrical ganja (the lopsided widening near the handle) is explained as a deformity created when the wearer hammered down the end that would otherwise scratch his skin inside the sarong.
The second part of the article addresses the keris’s supernatural reputation. Williams situates the weapon’s emergence as a distinct object in the 14th and early 15th centuries, coinciding with the rise of Majapahit and the subsequent Islamic conquest of Java. He argues that the Pandi (iron-workers and weapon-forgers), expelled from Java after the fall of Majapahit in 1475, were zealous adherents of the Hindu faith who used the keris as an instrument of religious vengeance against Muslim converts. The magical properties attributed to the keris—invulnerability, protection against stealthy attack, luck in commerce and travel—were, in Williams’s view, a transmutation of the powers once ascribed to Hindu deities, particularly Siva. The most honourable keris type, the Pasopati, bears an archaic name for Siva himself, lending direct support to this hypothesis. Williams further argues that the conventional forms of keris hilts—particularly the hulu burong (bird’s head) and hulu java demum (fever-stricken Javanese)—are stylised, deliberately defaced representations of Hindu divinities that survived the Islamic conversion in a compromised form: unrecognisable to the orthodox eye yet retaining enough outline to preserve their perceived magical efficacy.
Key Findings
- The normal keris blade measures 14–17 inches from ganja to point, with a width at the ganja of 2½ to 3½ inches, and is straight or has nine or fewer waves (p. 129).
- Ashmolean Museum kerises with a known history dating to approximately 1600 show no appreciable change in blade form compared to modern examples, supporting the assumption of long-term morphological stability (p. 128).
- Majapahit fell to Islamic forces in 1475 A.D., after which the Pandi (iron-workers) were expelled from Java and dispersed to Madura and Bali (pp. 136–137).
- The keris is first reliably attested in the archaeological record on temples of the 15th century in Java; its absence from older temples where swords are represented is taken as negative evidence of its later origin (p. 131).
- The paksi (the projecting iron piece at the butt of the blade onto which the handle fits) is notably slimmer on the keris than on the modern Malay spear, which Williams suggests may explain why the keris blade was unsuitable as a spearhead and thus became a separate weapon (p. 135).
- The legend of the todak (swordfish) in the Sejarah Melayu is interpreted as a reference to an enemy armed with spears whose paksi was too slender to support a wide, pointed ganja, a defect that may have prompted a change in spear type (p. 135).
Conclusion
Williams’s definitive historical takeaway is that the keris is neither an ancient weapon nor an independent invention but a relatively recent adaptation of the spear, and that its extraordinary sanctity in Malay culture is a direct legacy of the Hindu-Moslem religious wars. The weapon became a fetish—a “last connecting link with the subverted cult”—carrying forward the delegated powers of Hindu deities in a form that could survive the imposition of Islam without open violation of its prohibitions against idolatry.
Context
- The article draws primarily on the published works of Raffles, Crawfurd, Newbold, Skeat, Winstedt, and Evans, supplemented by reference to the Ashmolean Museum collection at Oxford; no original archival research is reported.
- Williams was a British colonial administrator in the Straits Settlements, and the article reflects the mid-20th-century colonial scholarly tradition of explaining indigenous cultural phenomena through rationalist and evolutionary frameworks.