Bugyotsuji

Can I step in and give a general answer before the details arrive. J Tanegashima locks fall into two types, an outer V spring type, and a hidden inner coil type. They are found in roughly equal numbers, in my experience. In both cases the spring is quite gentle, just enough to encourage the serpentine to fall gently onto the pan. (In contrast, the Japanese had to come up with a more vicious spring for the pellets and percussion caps which appeared at the end of the Edo period.) Not sure how to answer about the backsight. Wishful thinking? :lol: But they all have backsights, and some even have a third intermediate sight. Early gunnery school texts show sighting using both sights, and sharpshooters had a special folding ladder back sight for longer distance and greater accuracy.

Ron, I figured that you, piers or Ian would recognize what this was....in fact the only way I knew was from Piers picture, thats what I like about this forum...I just thought it was funny that I would see one right after reading Piers description. *****One word of warning. Originals of these are very few and far between. There are some modern repros going around the markets recently, in an attempt to catch the unwary and capitalize pricewise on the rarity factor.

As you can see, they are both horrible translations. Several members here could do a far better job, but unfortunately translation takes time and thought and cross-referencing, especially when special readings of names of people and places are involved. If you are in no rush, Ron, I am sure we can fill you in little by little, or even just go back and correct the worst parts of these machine translations.

Just this much is the essence: 日蓮宗の寺紋は「井桁に橘」として知られるが、宗祖の日蓮上人が井伊氏の支流という伝説から取り入れられたものという。そのもととなったのは、井伊家中興の祖で徳川家康の四天王の一人であった井伊直政が日蓮宗に帰依したことにある。日蓮上人が井伊氏から出たとするのは後世の付会であろう。

You can find an explanation of the link between the Ii and Nichiren here: http://www.harimaya.com/kamon/column/igeta.html if you can find some good translation software. The signature on the barrel would seem to read 'Mitsutoshi' 充according to my list here. The Kakihan looks like Shoho.　The last character -ho is the same as the last character in the signature in the stock, (On yomi vs Kun yomi) and this stock signature can also be read with the same sound Shoho. (Incidentally, the top name should read 'Kawase') This gun has a good feel, symmetry and balance to it. PS According to the gunsmiths of Kunitomo, who wanted to put down their rivals in Hino nearby, it was the Hino guns that were described as 'Udon-bari' (noodle-pastry-rolled) guns.

Thanks for the heads-up. Sorry to hear this. RIP.

Eric, the standard story is that the Japanese showed little interest in pole/hand gonnes until a Chinese/Portuguese ship arrived in Tanegashima in 1542/3 with two splendid examples of fully-working plug-and-play guns. The reasons for the lack of interest given vary, from the lack of an enthusiastic sponsor at the top of the pecking order, the lack of reliable sources & supplies of gunpowder, to the perceived superior efficiency of weapons that they already had. There are references in earlier texts to use of these earlier pole weapons, but they never really seem to have caught on. You can see examples in Miyazaki Hayao's animation Princess Mononoke-hime. Conversely, once the Lord Tanegashima Tokitaka saw their efficacy, and the Japanese learnt the techniques of manufacturing these new guns, especially the Bisen screw for the base of the barrel, their manufacture spread like wildfire throughout the country.

Chatting with a Kinko friend today and this subject came up. He dismissed my gold/silver theory because the umegane is in fact two surface leaves of gold/silver/copper etc., sandwiching a sticky filler. Not much intrinsic value per se. He reckons that it was an attempt to match your Tsuba to a particular Koshirae. It would have looked 'wrong' and unnaturally see-through if you have no Hitsu in the saya for a Kozuka or a Kogai. He also suggested that blocking off the unnecessary window would help hide the movement of your fingers, so that a potential adversary would find it harder to read your intentions. Did you just 'cut the Koikuchi' or not???

Agreed these are fantastic pics. Many thanks, John! (Let's not forget to try and keep this thread somehow tied to The Edo Period. )

Well, M, it's hard to answer your question because the law absolutely forbids anyone placing a ball down the barrel. To go on a shooting range in Japan and fire ball requires another stupid level of training and license. Very few people bother to go that far. In the UK I fired a percussion cap 4 bore elephant gun at Bisley last year and the kick into the shoulder was very solid indeed. There was a man in the line/queue who assured me that he enjoyed firing his (small-calibre/caliber Tanegashima but was surprised when I said we don't put bullets in. Most of the guns we fire here in Japan, from 2-3 Monme (8 gm black powder) way up to 50 Monme (50 grams) with wadding are quite docile. With the 100 Monme, our leader lashes his left hand to the stock, but in the beginning we had a few accidents as these bigger guns are incredibly heavy, (30kg +/-) and they can start to dance if you have cold or numb butterfingers. We are taught to twist right and bellow as we fire to absorb the recoil. Samurai would vie with each other to show how large and heavy a gun they could fire, standing or kneeling: some kind of pride/masochism? These guns could of course be fixed onto a small carriage, or rested on a straw bale. In times of siege I have heard the kick was so bad that they would sometimes place bedding or dig a muddy ditch behind the shooter and let the gun fly back.

Thanks Eric. There is really so little information as Ian says, but we still have this thirst for knowledge, this drive to connect up the dotted lines. Thanks to Ian for the heads-up on Needham's Science & Civilization in China, Vol V, parts 6 & 7 . I very much hope to see this book one day. Hope you can 'see' a little better what looks genuine and what looks fake now. Since genuine ones are almost impossible to export, there will be a lucrative market for imitations and these will not be illegal. Caveat Emptor.

Daimyou is hard to understand, he obviously know the difference between an old item and a replica but he just wont come right out and say it, its like a game, real antiques mixed in with modern replicas and you have to guess. Agreed. I have actually been in his warehouse. Last year I saw one of these yari in shira-saya and at first it looked good. On closer inspection it did not have the quality of a genuine Edo or earlier Yari. I heard then that they are made in a large neighboring country across the water.

Thanks for that. There may be some overlap here, from another time and space: http://militaria.co.za/nihontomessagebo ... ari+uchine

Then some pics of mine, which is smaller than I had remembered. Maybe Ian is correct and it is Korean!!! :lol:

The warning letter I had from a famous scholar illustrating a fake. I have taken photos from his photos.

Took some pics just now from various sources, but mostly from Sawada Taira Sensei's materials. He says they are illustrated in a Chinese Ms of 1597, but not in an Ms of 1587. He concludes they were manufactured around 1592.

There is a picture in a Chinese source manuscript 神器譜　showing a horse-rider about to fire one of these three-barrelled pole-arm jobbies which is held under his right arm. The gun itself is resting on his left hand, above the horse's head. He is holding some kind of small block/handle (?) in his right hand with a wire/string protruding from it, leaning slightly forward as if to insert this into a touch-hole. I will post the pic if it helps. I used to wonder if he had a burning match, or if a wire, some kind of brazier hanging from the horse's flank (not visible in the drawing). The horse is galloping along, the reins draped over the saddle. The Mongols were able to do anything on a horse, including having sex and giving birth.

Interesting question. It reminds me of how Bushi carried little blob coins of Mame-kin/gin hidden somewhere in the Koshirae. Using a Tsuba, you could block up the unused hitsu ana if you had a Kozuka, but no Kogai for example, and if in gold or silver this would then be an easy source of ready cash. How simple it would be to push out the filling when in need, without destroying the Tsuba's value or shape in any way.

Eric, I think you have found one of the ones I was describing earlier with the long nipples, the one I was warned about by a top gun expert in Japan as having been made in China recently. I do not really want to take this as far as you want to go as there are people out there who may not be pleased with what is being said. It was made with extra strengthening, against claims for damages in case anyone might be tempted to try and fire it, I was advised. PS Look at the Korean 'pepperbox/pepperpot' type gun at the bottom of that page you have just posted for comparison with the earlier gun you posted.

Oops, there you go! See above again!

As long as the touch-hole was on top. The depression would then act as a guide for the wire to slide easily into the hole in the heat of battle. The holes above look too fine and too abrupt. I have one of these guns myself which you can see below. It's so badly rusted that I think it has little value. One of the touchholes has rusted away and grown enormously. One of the chambers was blocked with something extremely hard, but by dint of scraping with an awl I managed to get it all out. It fizzles when lit, so I am assuming an early type of gunpowder. I still keep this in a film case, and once even took it to a university for analysis, but unable to find the right person to do this, I gave up. A project for a rainy day perhaps. Ian thinks it might be Korean, but I think my example is larger than the Korean ones he described. He might be right, but there are two or three reasons why I still lean towards a Chinese source for this one. Two thirds of the way down this page, Eric you'll see a photo of a 'genuine' one that I took in the viewing closet at Yasukuni Jinja some years ago. This has been there for well over 100 years, I believe. Below that photo you can see mine, but it looks smaller than it is in that photo. I'll take some closer ones if you like. viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2414&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=three+barrelled+Chinese+gun&start=15

Very good input from Ian there. Powder would not sit in the touch-holes, so you would need a series of fuses. You could probably shoot small fireworks from it. I wonder if something like this could have been made (even experimentally) at the time of the Boxer Rebellion?

Hi Eric. An early pepperbox/pepperpot? Out of my field... That that one looks good to me, but I am usually prepared to be wrong! Can anyone else comment?

Got a photo of this?

You are absolutely right. Most of our members wear for displays either proper waraji or something that looks like waraji at first glance. In the old days, people's feet were used to the rough straw rubbing the skin, and their exposed toes hanging over the front lip, but nowadays no-one shows much enthusiasm for such in real life. I have a pair of proper straw waraji which, thanks to you, I have just spent this afternoon adapting for a quick slip-on over my Jika-tabi, and strengthening for longer wear. As you know, Waraji started to fall to pieces after a while, so people would carry a spare pair over their shoulder. Seems quite impractical. I wonder if they were designed like the coastal ships: made to fall to pieces if you wandered too far.