a dark red wood that is sufficiently hard to be used for keris handles.
• Bongor (Lagerstroemia speciosa), which is reddish-brown in colour.
• Ketengga (Memillia caloxylon), a yellowish-brown wood which, like bongor, is only used for making keris sheaths but never keris handles or furniture. Nor is it used in the construction of houses and other buildings.
In other parts of the Malay archipelago we come across other woods, such as the deep brownish tajuman (Cassia laevigata willa), the sawo (Achras zapota), the trembalo (Djsoxylum acutangulum) and the tomoho or pelet (Kleinhovia hospita). These woods are very popular in Java, Bali and Sumatra. Needless to say, like their counterparts in the Malay Peninsula, the woodcarvers of Indonesia have evolved their own complex (and at times confounding) belief systems surrounding these woods. The most important observation that needs to be made is that the woodcarvers of the Malay world share a common understanding and respect for the material they work with. For the wood-carvers of the archipelago, there are a number of cardinal rules and protocols to beobserved and one of these is the belief that the best wood should be reserved for the carving of sculptures. It goes without saying that the best sculpture in the Malay world is found in the carving of keris hilts (hulu keris).
While woodcarvers in Java or Bali seem to favour woods of contrasting colours and flamboyant grains, among them tomoho/pelet and trembalo, Malay woodcarvers of the peninsula arc more partial to woods such as kemuning and kenaung because of their subtler coloration and patterns.
All of these Malaysian woods are thought to possess semangat properties in various degrees. The magnificent kemuning, in particular, was thought to have strong semangat, and the adab of finding, cutting and working the kemuning wood formed a universe of its own.
In the past, the kemuning was regarded as the tree of the Dewi (Primordial Goddess), and it was reserved for the use of kings and nobles. It was so highly sought after that it was almost impossible to find the tree growing naturally near any human settlement, for its discovery meant that it was almost certain to be cut down. The tree was sometimes referred to as 'the tree with a hundred and one uses'. Woodcarvers would wax eloquent about its merits: its grain did not destroy the quality of their work and did not distract the eye of the admirer; the wood was hard enough to be used for the hilts of weapons, yet light to the touch and easy to work. Many varieties of kemuning were used, including the kemuning limau (lemon yellow kemuning), kemuning buah lada (peppercorn kemuning) and kemuning buah kekut (cherry fruit kemuning).
Sultan Muhammad V of Kelantan and his son outside the gates of the Balai Besar, Kota Bharu. The fine pemeleh pintu over the doorway is in the form of a gunungan, with foliate sulurbayu, and is protected from the worst of the elements by a shallow roof. The waistcloths of the Sultan and his son are looped over the hilts of their keris as protection against any ill-effects of the camera. The photograph was taken by Sir Frank Swettenham during his visit to the Kelantan capital in October 1902, when he tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Sultan to join the Federated Malay States. Photograph reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.
The best kemuning wood came from trees that had died naturally. Woodcarvers might spend weeks, or even months, in search of such treasure in the deep jungles of the peninsula. A find in the forest was the woodcarver's equivalent of discovering a gold mine, and the whereabouts of such a prized hoard would be a closely guarded secret. (This is hardly surprising when we consider that in the past samples of the best kemuning were thought to be more valuable than gold.)
After the discovery of a stand of kemuning, the leaders of the community (often the Raja himself and his ministers and religious functionaries) would engage in long periods of consultation. If they felt that the trees could not be protected from poachers or thieves, they would then decide to cut the trees down themselves. They would begin by identifying a suitable time for felling them. They would also take into consideration criteria such as the location of the trees before felling began. Woodcarvers preferred kemuning trees that were growing in hilly areas where there were plenty of rock formations, as it was believed that this would force the roots of the tree to bend and twist in a number of ways, thereby creating the grain that the woodcarvers so desired. Sometimes the trunks of the trees would be 'scarred' by hacking them with cleavers (parang) and then left to 'mature' for a few years before the trees were actually cut down. This process of scarring the tree trunk was deemed necessary not only to check on the quality of the wood but also to make the wood 'react' to the scarring process. It was thought that such deliberate scarring would cause the trunk to grow in a more erratic and confused manner, thereby adding to the flame-like grain of the wood itself.
Four pisau wall handles. Drawings by Norhaiza Noordin.
The pisau wall is the woodcarver's main carving tool in the Kelantan-Terengganu-Pattani region. Nowadays, such knives are often made using blades from cutthroat razors imported from Europe. The form is carved by a scraping action of the pisau wall after being roughly shaped by the chisel or adze. These knives were made and used by the late Nik Rashiddin Nik Hussein.
PISAU WALI (CARVING KNIFE) (FL062)
Kelantan, late 20th c., kemuning wood, 17 x 4 x 3 cm
Langkasukan motifs finish this knife handle. Small pieces of kemuning that are not suitable for the carving of keris hilts are often used to make handles of this type. Motifs are designed to camouflage cracks or blemishes.
PISAU WALI (FL061)
Kelantan, late 20th c., kenaung wood, ivory, 16 x 3 x 2.5 cm
This is the last pisau wall made by Nik Rashiddin. The handle is formed of kenaung wood and the stupa finial from ivory.
It can thus be seen that the relationship between the woodcarver and the tree was a long and complex one that began with the process of identifying the trees he required for his work. By the end of the process, the woodcarver would have probably spent anything between five to ten years (in some cases, even more) with each particular tree, cultivating it, preparing it before it was cut down, carefully dissecting it piece by piece to find the best parts, preserving it, and finally putting it to use.
From Tree to Wood: Traditional Wood Care and Storage
Wood that had been cut from the forest was usually treated with great care and respect. The Malay woodcarver realized that the wood that was now in his possession was no ordinary material. It had come from a tree, which was a living thing endowed with semangat and nyawa, vitality and life, and thus had an identity and character of its own. In some parts of the Malay archipelago, respect for the living tree was so great that woodcarvers would perform specific rituals prior to felling the tree in the hope that they would be pardoned for their audacity in turning it into lumber.6
Woodcarvers in the past would also store their most prized pieces of wood in the rumah padi (rice storehouse), along with their supply of padi. This was a special privilege bestowed on particularly fine, and small, pieces of wood that were singled out to be carved into keris handles. The reason for this choice of location was simple enough: the rumah padi was thought to be particularly suitable because it had the right temperature and humidity levels. The air was never too damp, the ventilation was good, and the building was also free from vermin and
