gackt_army | The samurai sword 3 (Reply)

This is the third of a short series on the samurai sword and things associated with it; I'm reminded to post it by Gackt's recent TV appearance in his nemuri-style yukata!

     This time I'm covering:
      - sword fittings (with some pictures)
      - the swordsmith parent
      - the written secret

    The image on the left is courtesy of
    Arena 37 magazine December 2009 edition

The samurai sword 3

In this piece, I’ve taken the opportunity to explain briefly three aspects of the samurai sword, one material aspect and two intangible ones:

- sword fittings

- the swordsmith parent

- the written secret

A) Fittings

When the sword leaves the polisher, it is nothing but the bare metal blade and hilt core.

Some blades were grooved, the groove affecting not only the balance and strength of the blade but also the noise that it made whistling through the air; a first-class swordsman was said to be able to adjust the angle of his strike by listening to the whistle.

At the opposite end to the point, the blade has a tang (a flattened and rough insert for the handle) with a hole drilled through for the peg (mekugi) which fixes the hilt in place.

The outer wrapping of the hilt is generally silk and shark/ray-skin to maintain grip in wet conditions (rain, blood, sweat). The blade is given a sloping collar (habaki) just below the hilt; this secures the sword in the scabbard while leaving the general fit of the sword loose so that it can be drawn at high speed.

The hilt (tsuka) was usually long enough to allow comfortable use with both hands and, as with most swords, the user was protected from sliced fingers when engaging another blade by a guard (a disc, in effect) at the join of the hilt and collar. This disc (tsuba) could be plain or might be highly decorated with a feudal or local symbol and might be part of a set of fittings which could be transferred between blades.

If you look at a collection of the hand-guards (tsuba), you’ll probably notice that some have a single and central arch-shaped hole (for the sword blade), while others may have a similar but smaller hole to the side, or two smaller holes one on each side. This is because a set of fittings could include one or more small blades – a dagger (kazuka) or a bodkin (kogai) - to fit into the scabbard (saya) along the sword itself. I’ve put a few pictures below showing some antique tsuba with one, two and three blade piercings, some plain and some ornate, to give you an idea of the variety.

The small blades were used more as tools than weapons although the kazuka could be used as a throwing knife; otherwise, the small blades were more likely to have a utility function for surgery, cooking, repairs, removing stones, piercing leather, pinning hair or cutting fabric or plants.

Tsuba were an art form in their own right and are often signed and occasionally decorated with gilt or enamel. As later samurai habitually wore two swords, tsuba were usually made in pairs.

In addition to its own decoration, the tsuba might be matched with ornaments on the sword hanger or scabbard or hilt. If a clan symbol of allegiance (mon) was not chosen, natural motifs (stylized birds, flowers, fish) were a common choice. By World War II, many – if not most – hand-guards were made as a round and stylized representation of the chrysanthemum, the symbol of the Japanese imperial army; as in the West, despite the predominence of the gun, swords were still worn (and occasionally used) by officers.

B) The swordsmith parent

As parents pass on some characteristics to their children, so the swordmaker was thought to give his blade a temperament closely connected with his own personality.

A zen story illustrates this well. The smith muramasa was known for his fighting flair and for his quarrelsome temper; his fellow smith masamune was spoken of as generous, fair-minded and noble. The story goes that a man stood a muramasa sword in a river in the autumn and watched as every floating leaf was flung against the blade and cut in two. When he stood the masamune sword in the river, however, the leaves diverted gently to the side and continued onward with the current, undamaged.

The swordmaker was an artist, of course, but also offered the customers who adopted his “children” his work as a focus for meditation and an object to act as a metaphor for their own life.

The samurai doctrine of sword use comprised – roughly – a trinity made of shinto-ism (the sword as servant of the one to whom loyalty was owed), zen buddhism (the sword as a spiritual instrument to lift its owner above the imperfections of the world) and confucianism (the sword as enacter of an ethical code). Perhaps these elements are present throughout traditional Japanese culture generally but the sword seems to give them their most elegant, essential and eloquent expression.

C) The written secret

Without doubt, swordmakers feel a spiritual link with the blades that they have made and, to the day-to-day eye invisible, they literally leave their mark for future owners to discover. Remove the retaining peg (mekugi) from a hilt and take off the sharkskin cover. What will you find on the filed metal tang? Expect engravings of the maker’s signature (mei) naturally, but also, very likely, a message, individual to that blade, the time and its maker’s aspirations. Examples are “discipline your mind with this sword”, “first day of singing” (finished when the nightingale was first heard that year) and “resourceful”. The sword is a work of art so do not be surprised if you find it offering you a poem!