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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2008 22:18:29 GMT
I cam across article about Keris in Malay and Southern Thailand and part of article mentioned about ancient cleaning procedures in which the blade was clean with lime juice and rub with rat poison to shine the steel, brought up and highlighten the damascus and engraving .Also the article add that the rat poison also made the keris deadly because when the opponent got cut he also get infect with poison . Then the blade would be wash by coconut juice and "smoke " by mixed incent to preserve the blade and purify the blade in the same time (the incent wad off evil spirit and purify the blade ) . Good question is can this technique be use on other sword (I might skip the rat poisin part ) . Can the smoke from incent preserved the blade (beside making it smell really good ) ?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2008 22:44:09 GMT
I must admit, I've never heard anything like that before. I know there is some lore and legend and a good amount of superstition with regards to ritual cleaning of different cultures' war blades, but rat poison? Maybe since some rat poison is lye-based, it could clean, but strong enough to kill someone? I dunno. Definitely interesting though. I'm also skeptical about incense smoke working as a preservative. Some cultures (native American comes immediately to mind) use smoke to "cleanse" things or areas from what I can only regard as "evil spirits" - maybe that's what they mean? The preceding does not intend to offend anyone, or anyone's ancestry. It's just largely uninformed conjecture. Take it with a grain of salt.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2008 18:25:19 GMT
Jay
The procedured that I read did not mentioned any type of oil to prevent rust from the blade and I know S.E. Asia is very humid and hot ,any naked steel will rusted quickly without any coat of oil to protect it but this people only use rat poison and incent to preserved the blade and thier keris look as new as when it was made 300 years ago so there must be some secret hidden some where.
I am going to stick with Hanwie oil and wax for now until more people add to the post.
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Post by Tom K. (ianflaer) on Jul 27, 2008 19:17:21 GMT
I have heard several accounts of these blades being deadly poisonous to the point that any scratch can kill but the stories I've always heard claimed the poison was forged into the blade in some secret manner. I don't know anything about rubbing them with poison but it would make a lot more sense
I couldn't say if the poison would preserve your blade but I can certainly reccomend you NOT to use it. I mean we've ha enough serious accidents around here lately with non-toxic blades. these things we love are dangerous enough without adding poison to the mix.
I do NOT want to have a talk with DJMahoney about putting "don't Poison your blade" in the "Sword Safety 101" thread
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2008 5:39:03 GMT
ianflaer Hanwie oil , WD40 and wax are good enough for me , I don't plan to put rat poison on the blade 'cause sword is dangerous enough as it is . I tried to get more info about rat poison and keris from my Philipinos coworkers but they are all Catholic and they couldn't tell keris from butcher knife . One malay co worker only know that keris means knife .So much for the ancient procedures , I will have to do more research to get into bottom of this .
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2008 8:23:35 GMT
Coconut milk and incense ? Hmmm.... Well, the coconut is a nut, and may contain some kind of natural oil. Perhaps the incense smoke clung to the oils from the coconut, and preserved the oils from breaking down. It might actually work, depending on what is being burned as an incense. If the smoke was from a gum incense or a resin like dragon's blood or amber, then the smoke would cause a gummy kind of build up to form over the steel. So long as the steel was clean before the incense was used, it is plausible that the build up might actually protect the steel like Renaissance wax does. Who knows ? I'll stick to my proven oils for now. But using incense as a cleansing agent against negative spirits and energies is a practice you'll find in almost all old religions and faith systems. Probably the most notable are the shamans of North America. They traditionaly use white sage to cleanse everything, including themselves, their homes, and their personal belongings. This is still being done today, and is being picked up by other folk of other cultures as well. As for the poison aspect of it, do you know exactly what type of poison was used ? Rats can be poisoned with all kinds of stuff, from exotic to common chemicals. Ricin would be this potent, that's for certain. But, ricin is a very obscure poison from what I understand. Modern rat poison is made of strychnine, isn't it ? That wouldn't be fatal to a human in such small amounts. A lye based poison wouldn't be fatal in this manner, either. Now, if you stuck someone deep with a blade like this, then the chances of the poison finishing them off becomes more likely. Still, the idea of a poisoned blade is certainly cool and it can be done with the right substances. Dart frog mucus comes to mind. Venoms from members of the viper family would work as well. Although, in realistic terms I wouldn't recomend trying it for obvious reasons. Cool topic and a lot of fun, though. Have a karma.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2008 7:04:20 GMT
Coconut milk and incense ? Hmmm.... Well, the coconut is a nut, and may contain some kind of natural oil. Perhaps the incense smoke clung to the oils from the coconut, and preserved the oils from breaking down. It might actually work, depending on what is being burned as an incense. If the smoke was from a gum incense or a resin like dragon's blood or amber, then the smoke would cause a gummy kind of build up to form over the steel. So long as the steel was clean before the incense was used, it is plausible that the build up might actually protect the steel like Renaissance wax does. Who knows ? I'll stick to my proven oils for now. But using incense as a cleansing agent against negative spirits and energies is a practice you'll find in almost all old religions and faith systems. Probably the most notable are the shamans of North America. They traditionaly use white sage to cleanse everything, including themselves, their homes, and their personal belongings. This is still being done today, and is being picked up by other folk of other cultures as well. As for the poison aspect of it, do you know exactly what type of poison was used ? Rats can be poisoned with all kinds of stuff, from exotic to common chemicals. Ricin would be this potent, that's for certain. But, ricin is a very obscure poison from what I understand. Modern rat poison is made of strychnine, isn't it ? That wouldn't be fatal to a human in such small amounts. A lye based poison wouldn't be fatal in this manner, either. Now, if you stuck someone deep with a blade like this, then the chances of the poison finishing them off becomes more likely. Still, the idea of a poisoned blade is certainly cool and it can be done with the right substances. Dart frog mucus comes to mind. Venoms from members of the viper family would work as well. Although, in realistic terms I wouldn't recomend trying it for obvious reasons. Cool topic and a lot of fun, though. Have a karma. The rat poison in the article was ancient remedy that I assumed one can buy from rural store in Malaysia , Indonesia , the Philipine and Thailand . The mixed incent has specific name (Gam Yan) and I believe Indian store or temple worship supplying store would carry them. We are suppose to use coconut juice not coconut milke (the juice is the clear liquid that come out when you crack the coconut open, the coconut milk came from the squeezing the coconut skin in to white milky liquid ) The more I read this article (a few times already) the more I feel that this article was about loving care of the keris owner not about hatred and ill intention (like making the keris super deadly with rat poison etc. ) . This myth , folklore and ancient secret are what make sword and knife very interesting .
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2008 21:28:37 GMT
I would rather have a blade preserved with coconut ANYTHING than rat poison. That way I could use it to stir my pina colada. Useless trivia: Strychnine is one poison used to kill rats - it doesn't have to be that strong because rats lack the ability to vomit. They can die from relatively weak poison.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2008 23:22:14 GMT
I work in the field of toxicology, and I can confirm that a number of chemicals can be used to poison rats, so unless we get more details, this is obscure in the extreme.
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