Customer Reviews

The Weapons and Fighting Arts of Indonesia

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4 star:		(1)
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This book was out of print for years and thankfully it has been reprinted. If you have any interest in SE Asian martial arts this book is essential reading. It is very wordy and does not, by its own admission, cover all of Indonesia, but it is very thorough and covers so much more than just the Tjimande and Harimau based styles that we see in the west. The chapters are by island and are broken up into sections on silat, kuntao and any other odds and ends. There are some wonderful black and white photos. The style is a little dated but there is no other book of its kind in existence.

this is the best book of it's type.this book is the most in-depth book on the Indonesian fighting arts I have seen.it's an excellent source for the armed/un-armed fighting arts of this region,as well as a resource for the history and culture/anthropology of Indonesia.some of the descriptions of the people in this book are rather outdated and ideo-syncratic. there are tons of photos and illustrations in this book.there are also great descriptions of how some of these things are made such as boobie traps,poisons,clubs with fish bone edges,etc. if you are an avid collector,beginning collector(especially),practicioner,or someone with an interest in the country and people of this region this is a must.

Absolutely Five Stars (don't know why it shows up as 4 out of 5). Donn Draeger's "Weapons and Fighting Arts of Indonesia" is the definitive Western work on Indonesian fighting arts, and is "must" reading for anyone interested in Indonesia's martial history and culture.

This book is excellent,you will find allot of information in it.I think it might need to be updated,it's missing a few weapons and many styles of pencak silat.Many styles are not even known about outside some families.You know,keep it in the family!Some styles are not that old in terms of how long silat has been in Indonesia.I also wish they had more about inner power.I have seen it with my own eyes.But their is nothing close to this book out there.I stayed in Bandung for about 3 years.

Draeger offers a relatively detailed overview of the martial arts of Indonesia. An invaluable starting point for anyone with an interest in Silat or Kuntao.

This was the groundbreaking work on silat and probably still unsurpassed today. For anyone involved in the martial arts, Draeger's name is well known in connection with various Japanese arts, but he was also interested in just about everything else. For example, besides this book on silat, Draeger also wrote a book on the little seen Shantung Black Tiger style of kung fu, featuring Tjoa Kek Kiong, which was my first introduction to that obscure art. For many years, Draeger pursued his Ph.D. in Hoplogy (weapons) at the Univ. of Hawaii.

Which brings us to the present work. Another example of Draeger's wide-ranging interests in both empty-hand and weapon-based arts was this wonderful book on silat. Covering all the main as well as many lesser known styles, this book introduced thousands of martial artists to what was then (and still is in many ways) the obscure but deadly arts of the Indonesian archipelago. No book can cover the hundreds of styles (it's sometimes said that there are 300 different styles of just Cimande, one of the main styles of Sumatra!) out there, but this one covers many of them and is still the best resource I know on the subject.

The book is organized by geographical area, such as Sumatra, Bali, Java, and so on. There are many illustrations of the various knives and short swords, as each tribe has its own style of bladed weapons. The book is just filled with tons of good info, including not just silat but details of the culture and history of Indonesia as well to round out the picture of the people and their martial arts.

I was still a young martial artist when this book came out with experience mainly in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese styles, and I can remember how fascinatingly different silat was compared to what I knew. Many years later, I had the opportunity to study a southern Philippine kali style that had considerable silat influence, in which I eventually became an instructor, but my first introduction was through this great book of Draeger's. Over the years, I have consulted it many times about various styles of silat. If there is one book on the martial arts that contributed more to my education on a rare subject it's this one.

Amazingly, there are now hundreds of silat videos available, which began 20 years ago with the groundbreaking de Thouars brothers great videos, who were followed by many others, many of which I have acquired over the years to further increase my knowledge of silat, but in many ways it all started with this pathbreaking book. I highly recommend it in every way.