GOBANG BANDUNG ? :
The quite unknown name that had been given to these types of Preanger swords is “Gobang Bandung”. This name had been found in a description which belonged to a donation to a museum.
But is this the right name for this particular sword type, or was the name gobang just a generalname, such as “golok”, “klewang” or “parang”?
In the collection of the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam we find a very nice one which had been tagged as a “Sundanese klewang”.
In the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam we find several Preanger swords of this type. Some are tagged as goloks, and others are tagged as gobang bandung (but probably this name had been added more recently to the labels, according to the description of the museum donation described earlier in this chapter).
In the collection of the Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde Leiden, we can find two of these particular Preanger swords, labeled as golok.
A very strange side issue is that both the Tropenmuseum and the Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde Leiden labelled a completely different type of Preanger sword as gobang. They are smaller and all with curved blades (Chapter "Gobang in Dutch Museums, photo 20-21-22-23-32).
When looking in the literature, we find the name “gobang” in an old article of Dr. Jul. Jacobs, Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie, IV, 1891: De Badoej’s, on page 162 of this article.
QUOTE: “The men carry, hooked to their waist belts, a sort of machete (gobang), (Chapter "Gobang Bandung?" , Illustration 12), which they use for daily activities. You never will meet a Badoej without his gobang.
QUOTE FOOTNOTE: “Gobang, a roughly made machete, with straight broad back, widest at the obliquely cut tip. Pistolbutt shaped hilt of wood, “pérdah”, made of the burl wood of the “hambiroeng” (Veronica Javanica), with iron stem.
A roughly made scabbard made of “awi-apoes” (Bambusa apus). Sectionally oblong square, with a cavity over the entire length at the narrow side to fit in the blade: an “ast” knot served as belthook.
Whole length 39, blade length 28.5, width idem 2.5, scabbard length 34, scabbard width 2.6 cm.
The handle was sometimes also made of “ki leungsir” wood (Nephelium albissimum).
Illustration 12
We can see that the sword called a “gobang” in Dr. Jul. Jacobs, is very different in shape andexecution, and is also smaller than the average gobang bandung known in the Dutch museum collections. Could this mean that the sword “gobang” was a more general name of a machete in the certain Preanger area, just like we call some swords “goloks”, “klewangs”, “parangs” etc.? Or was the name gobang bandung the specific name of the Preanger sword we are researching here? These observations in combination with the different types of swords labeled as “gobangs” in two different museum collections (Chapter "Gobang in Dutch Museums", photo 20-21-22-23-32), made me presume the name gobang was most likely used as a general name for swords worn in the Preanger area.
Note: The Badoejs lived in the almost impenetrableforests of the Kĕndĕng Mountains inBantam (about 50 kms West of Bogor).
There is also an interesting catalogue where we find the name gobang.
Namely: Katalogus der tentoonstelling van grondstoffen en nijverheids-voortbrengselen uit den
Indischen archipel en van uitheemsche voorwerpen tot bevordering van landbouw en nijverheid in indië dienstig, gehouden te Batavia in de maanden October, November en December 1865 (Lange & Co., Batavia, 1865).
Below the quotations with the name gobang:
- Page 89 item 66: “Preanger Regentschappen, an indigenous sabre (gobang), price f12.- ,
Inz. “Raden Wangsa Redja”. “Koppo” district, Afd. Bandong”.
- Page 89 item 67: “Preanger Regentschappen, an indigenous sabre (gobang), price f15.- , Inz. “Raden Joeda Negara”. “Tjipedjeh” district, Afd. Bandong”.
- Page 90 item 81: “Preanger Regentschappen, blade of an indigenous sabre (gobang), price f5.- , Inz. “Raksag Goena”, Bandong”.
- Page 90 item 82: “Preanger Regentschappen, Idem as above, price f5.- , Inz. “Idjon”, as above”.
- Page 90 item 83: “Preanger Regentschappen, Idem as above, price f3.- , Inz. “Raksa Joeda”, as above”.
- Page 102 item 406: “Preanger Regentschappen, model of a machete (gobang)”.
- Page 171 item 178: “Kediri area, wooden models of sabres and knives, e. Gobang, f. Gobang
soedoek, g. gobang Loewoek.
From the catalogue of the Batavia exhibition we can also assume that the name gobang was used for
certain sabres in the Preanger area. Unfortunately we do not have any images or drawings which refer to the quotations. Besides gobang we also find other names for Preanger sabres in this catalogue, such as “Bedog”, “gollok loeboek”, “klewang” and “badee”.
A strange side issue here is that the name gobang also was used for sabres in the Kediri area, more east of Java.
This can indicate that the name gobang had been used also outside the Preanger area for a certain
type of Javanese swords.