Iaido dude

This is an intriguing tsuba because it has both Buddhist (kuruma) and explicit Christian (crucifix) motifs. The motif of the inner ring references both amida-yasuri and Jesuit/Catholic iconography. I haven’t seen a convincing crucifix motif before Edo, so less likely to be a Momoyama work. What school is this?

This is a kuruma with spokes in negative silhouette. This manjimon is the finest Owari I have ever seen and am hoping to purchase. It would be only the second Owari to add to my collection and likely the last.

This is another Christian corona from Jauce. https://www.jauce.com/auction/k1152128417 It’s a mid- to late-Owari. Kanayama were not made in mokko shape and there are no tekkotsu.

I think that the first one is also Christian iconography. The kuruma is pretty specific as a symbol of the spiritual path. The most common image has 8 spokes to denote the eight-fold path that traces back to the ancient origins of buddhism from the time of Gautama Siddhartha. Here are a kuruma (Ohno) and an image of Buddha with sun and stars (Kanayama).

You collect chawan, correct?

I like sun and moon personally, although I did see another tsuba with two circles interpreted as stars. I think it’s fair to say the motifs are abstract enough and mysterious enough to allow for some imagination in the absence of some long and detailed compendium of motifs from tsubako of that era. We are forever post-rationalizing, which may well be the eventual downfall of western civilization…

The Ohno kuruma tsuba thread was started by me in August 2024. I agree with quite a few observations by Jake and others about the appearance of buddhist and christian iconography on sword fittings during the Momoyama and Early Edo Periods of particular interest to me. Zen buddhist iconography in the explicit forms of the kuruma, manjimon, amida-yasuri, and others was fairly common. I think it’s important that the context of the tsuba for the buke be kept in mind. It had an essential functional role as a guard, but the motifs were also of spiritual value (I mean this as an overarching theme) for a warrior class engaged in battle to the death. The buddhist motifs would easily allow for the borrowing of Jesuit/Catholic iconography in place of, for example, the preexisting amida-yasuri motif for spiritual inspiration among the buke. The common reference to the “clock gear” tokei motif is plain wrong. As advanced in “Owari To Mikawa No Tanko,” it is actually a Jesuit/Catholic symbol introduced by the Portuguese as pointed out earlier on this thread. Why the heck would buke want a “clock gear” on their blood stained katana? Where is the spiritual meaning? Maybe merchant dandies would later commission tokei for their katana as status symbol bling, but not the buke during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Death was a serious business…

I especially like the first two. Do you recall the reasons you considered them to be Ohno?

What is thickness and weight of this tsuba?

Beautiful analysis, Jake and Tim.. By this same logic, Yagyu tsuba should be thin and relatively light to accommodate the rapid and fluid style of Yagyu Shinkage Ryu. From what I can gather from the gold book, the Yagyu tsuba are on average 5 mm, they are >6.5-7.5 mm diameter, so weight was likely not a factor. The designs are stylistic and meaningful, so perhaps that requirement was the impetus for Yagyu. If Ohno made pieces for the Yagyu. They would have had to rein in the familiar tendency to make thick tsuba in their own tradition.

Evan, I know this is a post from several years ago, but I want you to know that this brilliant tsuba with such quiet haki is now with me as of 4/24. I happen to have focused my collecting to tsuba with religious iconography. This was the first. Recently I start a post on a kuruma Ohno tsuba that only arrived a week or so ago. I chose to interpret the tsuba as “the buddha with stars, or moon and stars.” The Momoyama is a time of great adoption of foreign war-related arts and crafts, but bent to the powerful Wabi Tea-Ceremony aesthetic, including tsuba. Here we see ji-sukashi tsuba fashioned after European sword guards. I think it was especially important for these Momoyama and early Edo Kanayama and Ohno to incorporate zen buddhist iconography. Confucianism would allow unification at the expense of zen culture. Daimyo dropped their zen advisor and tracher of his household. I may be getting ahead of myself. This is a representation of Dharma Wheel, the Eightfold Path of Siddartha Gautama through which me may break through the endless cycles of suffering and rebirth. c1915.

Yes, this is a classic double tomorrow design. I got it by auction from Jayce specifically for my iaito, but did not consider that the tang would be substantial.

Thanks, Florian. I wasn't sure that the plants on either side were myoga, but that seems right. An elegant tsuba for an elegant sword.

We have on this post a number of solid candidates for a learning set. SteveH: Kuruma (1) SteveW: double tomoe previously sold on NMB (1) Andrew Quirt (nihonto.us): he has a triple aoi for sale on his site (1) Didier: Kuruma (2) Thomas: Yagyu deslgn, need to confirm dimensions (1) Curran: probably has at least (2-3) Sasano: although we cannot see in hand, he had an amazing eye. at least some of his tsuba can also be used as Ohno examples I've been thinking about using AI to learn in ways that we may not see patterns. For this, and even if for us to manually eye ball, we need robust data from a learning set that is both quantitative and qualitative and historical, which we need to decide. For example: Quantitative: W x H x thickness, weight, historical context (can we date reasonably well), geographical context (Owari Province). Qualitative: features of the patina such as tekkotsu, tuschimi, etc, are not as problematic as one might think. If we have enough of a learning set, we can chose our "experts" and have them score the tsuba set. If there is no statistical significance for any of the variables (doesn't correlate across all experts), then the variable is abandoned because it cannot be reliably scored.

Tim, so are you saying that Sasano’s theory regarding lighter (eg Kanayama) and heavier (Ohno) tsuba, would then explain why the thick Ohno tsuba were made not because it was a practical necessity of warfare? Rather, they were made to accommodate newer generations of sword making. Or do I have time periods for these styles of katana completely wrong?

I think it’s just that the results of shinsa are not always right. They have a tough job trying to fit all tsuba into “schools,” which is not suited for some tsuba with features of multiple categories. And then they can just be plain wrong.

Oooh! I want that one!!!! It’s also a kanayama design. Sasano gold plate 74. Thickness might distinguish these.

When I was studying the genetics of a mysterious kidney disease (IgA nephropathy) in Singapore and then back in Boston, I was a member of a so-called Consensus Working Group. Such a group of "experts" would come together in a collaborative effort to share such expertise towards a specific scientific goal. In our case, the question was if we could come up with a staging system that could "classify" this disease by renal pathology based only on features that could be assessed by light microscopic imaging of a kidney biopsy sample. IgAN was a tissue diagnosis because there was no diagnostic blood test; to this day we don't have a definitive serum or genetic test. We looked at 20 different kinds of structural changes that have been associated with other kidney diseases. In the end, we found that only 4 pathologic lesions could predict the clinical course of this disease. The "Oxford Classification of Nephropathy" continues to be the basis for the clinicopathologic classification of this disease. This classification system is similar to the staging of solid tumors. This is a medical research analogy to what we do when we classify tsuba into distinct "schools." Ohno is a great example of such a categorical label. What I propose is that those who have contributed significantly to this forum and other experts come together to form a Ohno Consensus Working Group. We need examples, preferably owned by members of the working group, of Ohno category tsuba and other closely related categories (e.g. Kanayama, Yagyu) to study in order to establish those core identifiable traits (e.g thickness, weight, type of mimi, quality and texture of iron, motifs/composition, sociopolitical and geographic history). The end goal is a scholarly publication. Any thoughts?

Steve and I have been looking at this big "Kanayama," but is more likely Ohno. I think it has a strong design, but the condition is a bit questionable. Apparently, this seller is not reliable. What a shame, as this may be something that Curran has been waiting for... https://www.jauce.com/auction/c1148388246

David, it was just a comment in Owari To Mikawa that since Renya ordered swords from the Edo swordsmith Mitsusune, "it is by no means out of the question that the ground plates were made by this craftsman who also resided in Edo...when looking at the works themselves, it seems that not all the ground plates were made by the same craftsmen." And this is when he notes that other tsuba craftsmen working in the Owari fief at that time may also have produced the Yagyu tsuba. I think that the latter is most likely given that the Shinkage-ryo was based in Owari Province. Curran, thanks for clarifying the sanmei process. Didier, you are a man after my own heart. It has been noted more than once and in different sources and by different NMB members that at the time of Owari Province tsuba production during the period of interest in these discussions, tsuba "schools" did not exist. By inductive reasoning, starting from observations about the features of a small number of examples make in a short period of time, we begin to come to some sense of rough "categories" of tsuba production that we call Owari, Kanayama, and Ohno. These beautiful tsuba don't care what we call them. The danger, it seems to me, is that in more recent history, tsuba scholars have come to some conclusions that have then become adopted as dogma, sensei-ism, and iemoto-ism. To my mind, what Curran has done us all a favor in doing, is to use inductive reasoning to challenge NBTHK attribution to the Ohno category of a tsuba that has the hallmarks of the first 4 generations of Akasaka. As a clinician-scientist, my job is to advance medical knowledge and understanding in light of new data and methodologies. Theories and speculations are meant to be supported or debunked--at least I would hope so.

Thanks, David. I was reading earlier today the passage in Owari To Mikawa No Tanko about the 36 core designs. Tsuba based on these seem to have been the product of a collaboration between Renya as designer and possibly numerous tsuba craftsman working in both Edo and Owari including "Yamakichibei, Toda, Fukui, Tokai, or Ono Fukushige." In Owari To Mikawa, the Yagyu oniguruma design is slightly different than my Ohno tsuba in that the spoke and wave motifs appear to cohabitat in the ji-sukashi design (wave as an option only??) and there are distinct kogai and kozuka hitsu-ana. Overall, though, the similarity is clear.

Thanks for your guidance on this Ohno. The one that you pointed out to me from Eckhart's book is actually larger and thicker, although misattributed to Hoan. It also has a rounded rim, which may have pointed Echkart to Hoan. If he is correct that it was possibly a Yagyu motif produced in the Genroku Period, then it is more recent that my Ohno kuruma. I've been confused about the possible transition from what I believe to be a buddhist symbol of the path to enlightenment to an oniguruma (devil's wheel) unless it is has been co-opted to represent a Yagyu sword school technique. That makes some sense. From my limited experience from published sources, there is little if any hint of religious iconography in the Yagyu tsuba tradition.

The smaller kogai hitsu-ana would be foreign to Ohno, but in keeping with Akasaka. Did the 4th generation use sanmai construction? I was under the impression that the 4th generation master managed to take this tradition to another level and that sanmai contruction was a technique used on inferior and "production line" tsuba.

I recently purchased a tsuba intending for it to be fitted on my iaito, but the nakago ana is too short (22 mm). What is puzzling is that the diameter of the tsuba is 75 mm, which seems to be intended for a katana. Were there some narrower tang forged for katana of the mid- to late Edo? It looks to be Shoami. Nice strong design of double tomoe and plants with rectangles for the hitsu-ana (not familiar with this design).

I’ve also seen kuruma as the name of a sword movement in Yagyu Ryo iaido, which is fascinating. Steve, thanks for the clarification.