Help: 3 kamon to find !

[EricM]

Hi all,

 

I have 3 kamon that i would like to identify but i was not able to find them.

I searched in

-Mon (the Japanese Family Crest - WM Hawley & Kei Kaneda Chappelear)

-Japanisches Wappenbuch (nihon moncho - Hugo Gerard Strohl)

-a Japanese book (cannot translate the name but looks like that are 1500 kamon in it)

-http://www.samurai-archives.com/crest1.html

-http://www.otomiya.com/kamon/index.htm (which is by far the best website I ever found on kamon - too bad it is not in English)

 

-for the kamon on the left, I did not found any kamon with space between each leaf like that and with a circle around. The kamon I found with space between each leaf, have nothing inside the leaf.

The kamons that look like the more are the Shinagawa and Satake ones.

 

-for the kamon in the middle, the "seki" kamon looks a bit like it but I don't think it is the one

 

-for the kamon on the right, I found one kamon (on the last website) which looks to be the good one but I am not able to translate

 

Any help welcome to find these kamons !!

If you know some comprehensive books on the kamon subject, I would be really interested as well

thx in advance

eric

[Toryu2020]

Eric -

The first is Go-San Kirimon, a very common mon used early on by the Toyotomi and then adopted by many of the Matsudaira and Tokugawa families and their relatives, and their housemen. Post-1600 there was the Go-Shichi kirimon which featured a stalk of seven cebtral flowers and five on either side, yours is the earlier version with five (GO) and Three (SAN), possibly suggesting an earlier family. the space between the leaves may be a function of the material it is made from rather than a distinct version of this mon.

 

The second is Maru-ni-Tsuru and while there were historical mon featuring a crane in a circle I believe this example if more of a design motif as seen in tsuba and other places.

 

The third is a nice example and you are correct in thinking the version on the left matches your fuchi. It is read Go-Ka ni Katabami. Ka (瓜) or Uri is a melon leaf and 5 form the circle while the central flower is Katabami or wood sorrel.

 

Mon are a world unto themselves and the better dictionaries are huge, I use the references you mention plus two little Japanese books - not much available in English but as you point out lots of good info online...

-tom

[EricM]

Thank you Tom

Do you have any idea which family used the Go-Ka ni Katabami kamon ?

Eric

[Bugyotsuji]

The Katabami on the right of the right is "Ken Katabami", ie unlike yours it has sword blades between the petals.

 

When I get home I'll check my books for what families used yours, if someone has not already posted.

[Nobody]

...... The third is a nice example and you are correct in thinking the version on the left matches your fuchi. It is read Go-Ka ni Katabami. Ka (瓜) or Uri is a melon leaf and 5 form the circle while the central flower is Katabami or wood sorrel. ......

The Katabami on the right of the right is "Ken Katabami", ie unlike yours it has sword blades between the petals.

The center design of the Katabami mon is not a flower but leaves of wood sorrel.

[Bugyotsuji]

Nobody, you are really somebody! :lol:

 

Those leaves are quite similar to clover! Thanks for the correction. (We live and learn)

 

Have just read up on the history and meaning of Katabami, but how to reduce all that into one sentence?

If you read Japanese it's on pp 154, 155 of Bessatsu, Rekishi to Tabi, Dai 3 Go, Nihon no Kamon, originally published by Akita Shoten, Showa 53.

 

Essentially this three-hearts-leaved plant was loved by farming folk, but as it began to be used by Bushi it became popular to have the blades inserted. Ladies continued to prefer the non-bladed Mon version. It was used by powerful families who lost out to more powerful ones, so it had a sort of run of bad luck. Nagasogabe Shi (Chosogabe-shi?) of Tosa ruled the whole of Shikoku and used this Mon, but he was crushed and reduced back to Tosa by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Later Tokugawa hammered him as he was subservient to Hideyoshi. General Ukita Hideie of Okayama in the Western army used it at the battle of Sekigahara, but he was banished and died on the island of Hachijojima. According to the author it retained a grass-roots popularity and was eventually perhaps the third most used Mon country-wide.

[Toryu2020]

Eric -

I feel that trying to tie a single mon from a single item to a single family with no other evidence is a fruitless exercise unless the mon is really unique. So many families adopted the mon of their lord and then adapted it in later generations it is almost impossible to trace one of these badges to a particular group.

 

The Go-ka (or is it Isutsu-ka?) ni katabami is rather unique - no actual example in my little references - there may in fact be a shorter list of families who used this than most. Still proving which one could be tough.

 

Moriyama-san - thanks for the image very clear to me now.

 

FWIW the Ken-Katabami is also known as the "Ronins' Mon" so many persons adopted it, for example Hayashizaki Jinsuke Shigenobu, the founder of Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu, he was for a time a ronin on a quest for revenge so this is fitting. Keep in mind also after the Meiji Restoration anybody, anybody who wanted one could adopt a ka-mon short of the kiku anything was up for grabs...

 

-tom

[Guido]

I feel that trying to tie a single mon from a single item to a single family with no other evidence is a fruitless exercise unless the mon is really unique.

That neatly sums up what I wrote on this board some time ago.

[Bazza]

I feel that trying to tie a single mon from a single item to a single family with no other evidence is a fruitless exercise unless the mon is really unique.

I certainly agree with this statement. I notice that one of these mon (lhs) is on the kabutogane of a shingunto and feel obliged to pass on some information I was given many years ago - true or not, I don't know. I have a shingunto koshirae with a nidai Hizen Tadahiro katana in it and one of the menuki has a mon on it. I searched such resources as I had at the time and couldn't find it so sent an image to Albert Yamanaka in Japan. He couldn't find it either and commented "Many WW2 officers who weren't of samurai descent "made up" mon to give the impression that were from a samurai line". Comments???

 

Regards,

Barry Thomas.

[EricM]

Thx

I know it is quite impossible to associate one mon with one family but the idea is to identify a few families that used these kamon

[george trotter]

On the impossibility of linking a mon to a family name...I once had a little Japanese design book which was entirely of mon designs. It said that from 1909 (or 1911 or 1913...I forget), the use of kamon was "deregulated" and from that time on anyone could use any mon they liked. It also said that Japanese peasant class people had no surname, so when in relatively modern times they were given the option of choosing a surname they did so...often choosing the name of their district, local head family etc etc...i don't know exactly how accurate this information is, but I have always considered it fun to link a mon on a gunto to a family...but certainly never took it as being certain, given the the information above.

George.

[Toryu2020]

Eric -

Don't take offense, these questions come up every now and again and we have to put that message out there as a kind of public service. Since you've a clear eye on the situation, I can say you've got a better chance at finding a short list of names for the third mon than the others. The otonomiya site that you linked says that katabami mon and its variations was most popular in the Northern parts of Japan. I see that it was also popular in Okayama. If you do a search in Japanese for

 

五瓜に片喰

 

You'll find lots of little avenues to wander down, possibly with info on families that used it. For the first Mon the names you mention or perhaps any of the Matsudaira families are certainly worthy...

-tom

[edzo]

Thank you Tom

Do you have any idea which family used the Go-Ka ni Katabami kamon ?

Eric

I have seen a very similar mon worn on the robe of Oda Nobunaga in a kuniyoshi woodblock print I had.

 

Edzo

 

Edit: He was a powerful daimyo during the 16th century, you should be able to google him.

[Nobody]

Nobunaga’s mon is a little different from “Go-ka ni Tatabami”. There are a lot of similar mon with Uri motif.

Ref. http://www.otomiya.com/kamon/plant/uri.htm