The maker of the kris is a person of importance among the Malays, and ofttimes he is made by his grateful Rajah a Dato, or Lord, for his skill. Like the blades of the sturdy armorers of the Crusades, his blades are considered, as he fashions them from well-hammered and well-tempered Celebes iron, works of art and models for futurity. He is exceedingly punctilious in regard to their shape, size, and general formation, and the process of giving them their beautiful water lines is quite a ceremony. First the razor-like edges are covered with a thin coating of wax to protect them from the action of the acids; then a mixture of boiled rice, sulphur, and salt is put on the blade and left for seven days until a film of rust rises to the surface. The blade is then immersed in the water of a young cocoanut or the juice of a pineapple and left seven days longer. It is next brushed with the juice of a lemon until all the rust is cleared away, and then rubbed with arsenic dissolved in lime-juice and washed with cold spring water. Finally it is anointed with cocoanut oil, and as a concluding test of its fineness and temper, it is said that in the old days its owner would rush out into the kampong, or village, and stab the first person he met.
The sheath of the kris is generally made of kamooning wood, but often of ivory, gold, or silver. The handle, while more frequently of wood or buffalo horn, is sometimes of gold studded with precious stones and worth more than all the other possessions of its owner put together.
The kris, too, has its etiquette. It is always worn on the left side stuck into the folds of the sarong, or skirt, the national dress of the Malay. During an interview it is considered respectful to conceal it; and its handle is turned with its point close to the body of the wearer, if the wearer be friendly. If, however, there is ill blood existing, and the wearer is angry, the kris is exposed, and the point of the handle turned the reverse way.
The kris as a weapon of offence and defence is now almost a thing of the past. It is rapidly going the way of the tomahawk and the boomerang—into the collector’s cabinet. There is a law in Singapore that forbids its being worn, and outside of Johore and the native states it is seldom seen. It is still used as an executioner’s knife by the protected Sultan of Selangor, its keen point being driven into the heart of the victim; but in a few years that practice, too, will be abolished by the humane intervention of the English government.
It is to be hoped that the record of the kris is not as bad as it has been painted by some, and that at times in its bloody career it has been on the side of justice and right. The part it took in the piracy that once made the East Indian seas so famous was not always done for the sake of gain, but often for revenge and for independence.
The White Rajah of Borneo
The Founding of Sarawak
In the East Indian seas, by Europeans and natives alike, two names are revered with a singleness and devotion that place them side by side with the national heroes of all countries.
The men that bear the names are Englishmen, yet the countless islands of the vast Malayan archipelago are populated by a hundred European, African, and Asiatic races.