Rare Nambokucho Saya-koshirae

This is a very rare set of gilt yamagane saya (scabbard) mounts from a Nambokucho period Tachi, typical of the period. The tubular gilt yamagane fitting (in the place of itomaki) covering the top part of the saya and the three semegane (scabbard rings) are decorated in low relief with plum trees in blossom, over a gold nanako ground. The two ashi kanemono (the metal parts of the hangers) and the ishizuki (scabbard chape) have flowering chrysanthemums, also on a gold nanako ground. The work is very strong and lively. As is to be expected on mounts of this age, on the ura (inner side) of the fittings, the gilding on the side that rubs against the armour is more worn than the outer side.  There is a reserve in the decoration of the metal sleeve (see illustration below) which would have been filled with a saya-kanemono. The sleeve itself is rather after the style of a kazari tachi). One of the unusual features of this set of saya kanemon is that it has three semegane, rather than the usual one. I made the solid ‘saya’ from oak, simply to display the mounts to the best advantage on a stand. The black ground is sumi (Chinese ink), so can easily be smartened up, if scratched.

I regret to say that I have been unable to find an illustration of this type of koshirae. The only similar metal sleeves (in the place of the ito-maki of most tachi koshirae) are in Sword and Same, where they are simply noted simply as “saya mounts”. Mounts of this period are very rarely seen outside Japan – and, of this type, even in Japan.

Nambokucho saya fittings, gilt yamagane.

Sleeve, ura, close-up

Omote – outer side, as worn.

Semegane and Ishizuki (scabbard rings and end-chape), ura.

Omote (outer side)

Exploded view, omote

Exploded view, ura.

Close-up, ura

Close-up, omote.

Ashi-kanemono, omote

Ashi-kanemono, ura, the side worn against the body – note extra wear.

Ashi-kanemono on sleeve, omotoe.

Ashi-kanemono and sleeve, ura – note wear on gilding, from rubbing on armour.

View showing end of solid ‘saya’.

‘Saya’ is jointed with dowels, to allow the sleeve to slide over the curvature; the mounts would have originally included top and bottom fukurin (rims), thus making the saya deeper.

Close-up of entire ura of sleeve and ashi-kanemono.

Close-up, entire omote, with reserve for a saya-kanemono.

Ura of two sekemegane and the ishizuki.

Ura of two semegane and ishizuki.

One semegane and the ishizuki, 3/4 view.

Semegane, ura.

Semegane, ura, 3/4 view.

On Being a Gaijin

Of course, things have changed a lot in many ways since my early visits to Japan (I first visited in 1969). For one thing, foreigners (or gaijin, ‘southern barbarians’) are much more commonly seen in the streets – although still rarely in out-of-the-way places like Mimasaka Katsuyama, except at the biggest festivals). There were two occasions on our honeymoon when I was embarrassed to be foreign. The first was on a visit Hiroko and I made to Kyomizu-dera, the famous ‘temple on stilts’ in Kyoto. It must have been a national holiday, because there were crocodiles of school children in uniform, visiting the famous places. We were crossing a footbridge in the temple complex behind a group of schoolgirls, when one of them looked back over her shoulder, saw me – and screamed. I am, of course, a very strange sight to the Japanese, being six foot one and a half inches tall, with light brown hair, slightly inclined towards red, and with (in those days) long hair, a beard and moustache. Although Japanese people are getting taller with each generation, they are still, generally, comparatively small. They have black hair, although now they bleach and dye it all kinds of shades and colours, which they didn’t then; and men’s beards and moustaches tend to be wispy and sparse. They can’t be mistaken for me.

A day or two later, when we went to see the latest and most complex of the famous Japanese castles, at Himeji (begun as a fort in the 14^th century and gradually expanded, achieving its final form by 1609), we stopped to eat our packed lunch on a little thatched roofed platform in the grounds, with open sides. A little boy of about five or six was playing with his ball nearby when it rolled past us. He trotted after it, picked it up, turned, saw me… and screamed. It is a bit un-nerving, having people think you that different; I was a freak to these kids. An old friend, Mike Taylor, who used to be a curator in the English Medieval department at the British Museum (and for the past thirty years or so a crofter on the Isle of Skye), went to Japan in 1965. Children and adults used to come up to him in the street and pull his red beard – presumably because, never having seen such a thing before, they could not believe it was real.

Shunga Makemono

A group of old men, repulsed by old women, progress to young beauties who reject them even more vociferously. At the end of the scroll, the men are finally frightened off (a little late in the day) by the sight of one of the young women giving birth to a tengu – a beaked goblin (the second variety of tengu has a long nose).

‘Kaika Sanjurokkei’ – Thirty-six Views of the Opening of Culture, by Hiroshige III

A concertina album of woodblock colour prints, dated 1881, this presents a view of the time in Japan when Western industry and technology was quickly transforming the previously self-sufficient, agrarian economy into an ‘up-to-date’ nation. This is evidenced, not only by the subject matter covered in the woodblock prints, which include Western-style architecture, railways, single and double-decker horse-drawn buses, iron-clad steamships, bowler hats, Western-style dress, and jinrikisha (or ‘rickshaws’, which were probably invented by a foreigner, and were in common use in Tokyo by 1877), but by the garish aniline inks included in the palette of colours with which it is printed. Aniline, found in coal tar, was also used in the manufacture of plastics and explosives. In blue and red ink, its effect was more peaceful – but only just. At the time, it was shocking and modern. Nowadays it is generally considered ‘tasteless’ and repulsive. The artistic quality of these pictures is, in any case, not of the highest – the third generation Hiroshige was not a patch on the first and these are not examples of his best work – but they more than make up for that. As an historical document of the times, ten years after the Meiji Imperial Restoration, they can hardly be beaten.

The front cover of the album

Nihon-bashi, with festival procession

Parade ground, with Japanese troops in French-style uniforms

Mount Fuji, viewed above a bridge into Edo castle

Two mounted Japanese soldiers in French-style uniforms

The old lighthouse, Jotomiyodai, at Kudan-sakue in Edo (still extant), between the Budokan and Yasukuni shrine

A double-decker horse-drawn omnibus and jinrikisha

A European-style building

Nihon-bashi (Edo-bashi), the beginning of the Tokkaido, the major road between Edo and Kyoto, with warehouses and European-style buildings

Kabuki theatre

Boy’s festival scene.

Iris-viewing

Cherry blossom festival

Tokyo in the Rain

Western-style buildiing.

Cherry blossom viewing.

Traditional scene at cherry-viewing, with people in Japanese traditional dress, enjoying themselves with music (of a samisen), song and dance.

Colophon, with

Takusai line, bronze sculptors

The Takusais were a famous family of bronze workers. Takusai was their art name and Honma their family name. Experts in the technique of lost-wax casting, they were also extremely skilled in patination, and could make rich and colourful surfaces, from bronze colour to red, often with coloured patches of ‘skin’ raised from the body of an object, possibly by etching. Otohachi, Honma Takusai III  (1868-1946) was the son of Honma Gihei. He was born on Sado island, at Kanai, the family’s home-town (and the home of Japanese gold-mining) and was a pupil of Honma Takusai II, who also adopted him. I believe it was the first generation who invented the beautiful patinations associated with their work. The 6th generation of the family, Sasaki Shodo (1882-1961) worked in the modern style. Honma Takusan worked in the late 19th century. The earlier generations made fine scholars’ desktop objects, such as brush rests and paperweights of great sensitivity. As with many other families, the work of the earlier generations was the finest artistically.  Their work, the first generation in particular, also tended to be smaller – often almost miniature in detail. There were at least six generations of the family. I had a bunchin (paperweight) of a little boy drumming – again on a strand of land, signed Takumaru. I still have a larger bronze, an unsigned figure of Daruma, which I think may well be by the first generation, to judge by the style and patination.

A boy on an ox; he faces slightly backwards as the ox strides ponderously on. Height: 2.5 cm. Length: 12.2 cm. Width: 2.65 cm.

Seal: Takusai, first generation:

Imaicho

Imai-cho, Kashihara-city, Nara-ken

History: Imai-cho was a fortress town under the Jodo Shin sect of Buddhism, with a surrounding moat and buttress mound, centred around the ShÜnenji temple (a ‘jinai-cho’). Jinai-cho were autonomous in political and legal matters. Imai-cho was founded during the Sengoku-jidai (the ‘period of the country at war’), sometime between 1532 and 1555, when the feudal lords were vying for power in an un-unified Japan. In 1570, forces under the control of the Ishiyama Honganji temple in Osaka challenged those under Oda Nobunaga, the first of the three generals who finally brought about the unification of the country under a central government. The inhabitants of Imai under the leadership of Toyohisa Imaihyobukyo, a Buddhist priest, participated in the uprising but finally surrendered to the forces of Nobunaga in 1575. Having laid down arms, Imai concentrated on developing into a prosperous merchant town. Like the city of Sakai, Imai-cho was accorded the privilege of self-government.

At the beginning of the Edo period, the town measured 600 metres from east to west and 310 from north to south. It had a population of about 4,100 and contained some 1,200 domestic dwellings. The town was divided into six areas, North, South, East, West, Shin and Ima and was approached by means of bridges and gates at nine locations. The narrow roads in Imai were laid out in such a way as to deny intruders a clear sight and shot. Throughout the Edo period the town provided its wealthy merchant inhabitants with a secure environment in which to pursue their trades. One of the merchant houses (the Yamao house, ‘Shindoya’?) had a bamboo tube in the floor of the business area, so that the takings could be dropped down it into the safety of a stone chamber below. Never having been subjected to fire or natural disaster, about eighty percent of the remaining six hundred buildings in Imai-cho are survivals of the Edo period, dating from 1650 onwards. This date was found in an inscription on one of the roof-timbers of the Imanishi house, which is situated beside the moat, on the western side of Imai-cho. Designated an Important Cultural Property, this is the most important and impressive of the town’s houses. The head of the Imanishi household, with the assistance of officials from the Ozaki and Ueda families, was entrusted with the administration of the town. The Takaichi -gun Historical Museum, a fine and extraordinary example of late Meiji period Yamato-style architecture, is sited just outside the town moat. Consisting of a two-storied central building, flanked on each side by a single storey wing, it was built as a historical museum in 1903 but was used as the administrative office of Imai-cho for thirty years. Like eight of the dwellings in the town, including the Imanishi house, it has been designated an Important Cultural Property. Although strictly restricted in building design, the townspeople were able to exercise their aesthetic sensibilities by elaborating details such as ridge-end tiles and smoke exhausts (kemuri-dashi) on roofs, lattice and mushiko windows, and plasterwork mon motifs on the exterior of walls. In 1993, after years of deliberation about the preservation and restoration of the town, Imai-cho was declared a Preservation Area for Groups of Historical Buildings.

Money-changing – The metal currency in the Kanto (eastern) area of Japan was gold and in the Kansai (western) silver. This situation gave rise to the business of money-changing, and being a rich merchant town, Imai-cho had several houses engaged in the business. It was largely by means of this money-changing that the famous Mitsui merchant family made its fortune.

Preservation – The preservation of Imai-cho is being sponsored by the national and prefectural governments and by the city of Kashihara, of which Imai-cho is now a part. Grants of up to 10,000,000 yen are provided to enable an owner to restore a building, or to build on an empty site, in keeping with the architectural character of the old town. 70 or 80% of the buildings in Imai-cho were built the Edo period and although one or two in unsuitable modern styles had already been erected, controls have since been imposed, to prohibit further inappropriate development of this kind. Overhead electricity wires and their poles are gradually being eliminated and the supply routed underneath the roadways. Restoration of the town is already far advanced and number of the most important houses are open to the public.

Sake-makers – In the Genroku period there were nine sake makers in Imai-cho who made, between them, 482 koku of sake a year. During periods of rice shortage, caused by crop failure, the bakufu government sealed some of the barrels to reduce production, whereas in times of plenty they encouraged it. By the Tenpo period (1830-1844) only five sake -makers remained in the town, the weaker having been forced out of business, unable to weather these fluctuations in production. The survivors, however, had an annual production of 1,240 koku.

Morimura house, Yagi, Kashihara, Nara prefecture (also see file of documents, pamphlet with plan, etc.) This is the largest remaining house in the Nara basin built in the ancient yamatomune style. Sakae Morimune, the present owner, is descended from a line of headmen of the village, who were gÜzoku (samurai appointed as custodians of the locality by the bakufu government) until the Momoyama period (1573-1615). An early generation of the family married the daughter of an emperor, who brought a shoinzukuri building with her as part of her dowry. This was added to the house at the opposite end to the doma, in order to adapt the dwelling to her social status. In addition to the doma (the earth-floored kitchen and work area), the original house has nine rooms built in three rows, each of three rooms. The roof is in the takahei-zukuri style (usually – and wrongly – called ‘Yamato hon-mune-zukuri’). At present undergoing complete restoration (October, 1999), both the house and its garden are designated Important Cultural Properties. The work is scheduled to take five years and is budgeted at five hundred million yen.

At the battle of Sekigahara, the Morimune family fought on the losing side against Tokugawa Ieyasu. Although retaining their land holdings, they lost their samurai status and became farmers and sÜshoya (overall headmen of the village). Much of the family’s land was taken by the Meiji government in the second half of the nineteenth century and the rest by the Americans under General McArthur, following the Second World War. In the heyday of the Morimura family their holdings were so extensive that they could travel between their house and the Todaiji temple in Nara without leaving their own land.