A Celurit or Clurit is generally a

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, ei ...

(sometimes other variants include

billhook A billhook or bill hook, also called a pruning knife or spar hook, is a versatile cutting tool used widely in agriculture and forestry for cutting woody material such as shrubs, small trees and branches. It is distinct from the sickle. It was c ...

) with a pronounced

crescent A crescent shape (, ) is a symbol or emblem used to represent the lunar phase in the first quarter (the "sickle moon"), or by extension a symbol representing the Moon itself. In Hinduism, Lord Shiva is often shown wearing a crescent moon on his ...

-blade patterns which curves more than half a circle and a long handle, is widely used for agricultural purposes and also in Pencak Silat. When compared to the Arit, the Celurit is slightly larger.

Use

Although the Celurit (or also generally known as Sabit) is widely used throughout the

Indonesian archipelago The islands of Indonesia, also known as the Indonesian Archipelago ( id, Kepulauan Indonesia) or Nusantara, may refer either to the islands comprising the country of Indonesia or to the geographical groups which include its islands. History ...

for agricultural purposes, somehow it is strongly associated with the culture of the Madurese and is frequently used by them as well especially by the leaders who called themselves Sakera. It is possibly used as an agricultural tool in the Banjuwangi region on

East Java East Java ( id, Jawa Timur) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia located in the easternmost hemisphere of Java island. It has a land border only with the province of Central Java to the west; the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean bord ...

and then conveyed to

Madura Madura Island is an Indonesian island off the northeastern coast of Java. The island comprises an area of approximately (administratively 5,379.33 km2 including various smaller islands to the east, southeast and north that are administrati ...

. Besides Arit and Sabit, other variations of the Celurit includes the Arek, Caluk, Calok, Bendo Arit (

), Bhiris and so on depending on the geographical area and curvature of the crescent blade.

Culture

Celurit is also a traditional weapon of the Madurese commonly used in ''Carok'' (meaning

duel A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...

Madurese language Madurese (; Pegon: ) is a language of the Madurese people, native to the Madura Island and Eastern Java, Indonesia; it is also spoken by migrants to other parts of Indonesia, namely the eastern salient of Java (comprising Pasuruan, Surabaya, M ...

, 'fight in the name of honor'), a style of dueling unlike of those dueling style practiced in their neighbouring island in

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...

. This weapon is also considered as a legendary weapon often associated with the heroic (pre-independence) freedom fighter, Sakera. The Madurese community are known to attach ''khodam'', a type of mythical creature to abide in the Celurit by a way of prayer before engaging in a ''carok''. The most famous incident in recent years, a mass ''carok'' occurred on 13 July 2006 in Bujur Tengah village,

Pamekasan Regency Pamekasan Regency is a regency ''(kabupaten)'' of the province of East Java, Indonesia. It is located on Madura Island approximately east of Surabaya, the provincial capital. The regency covers an area of , and at the 2010 census it had a popula ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, resulting stabbing and killing of seven men and seriously injuring nine people.

References

Blade weapons Weapons of Indonesia id:Arit {{Edged-weapon-stub

Use

Culture

See also

References