Types of Wakizaki

[RocklockI]

Here is a question. I would like to know the reasons/time frames for the two different types of wakizakis stlye blades ? My Kanbun Era sword has a Katana type blade .

 

Alot of wakizakis have a swooping type tip with no yokte (breadknife style)

 

Was this differance because of laws regulatings the carrying of swords?

Gary

[Stephen]

Good question, interested to hear the history on this.

[Dave R]

You can also add Hira Zukuri, without yokote or shinogi. To the best of my knowledge the Law was more about length of blade, rather than style.

A merchants Wakizashi has a flat/square ended saya and I have two of those, one standard Shinogi Zukuri and the other Hira Zukuri. I also have a Samurai Wakizashi, rounded end to the Saya and longer, with a Shinogi Zukuri blade. I would guess date of manufacture and the taste of the buyer or the sword school he followed probably had more to do with it.

Dave

[Stephen]

The wak on my daisho is shorter and beefier than the wak I have for sale, brings me to wonder if it ever was carried as a second sword.

[Alex A]

Hi Gary, Hira-zukuri first appeared on early tachi. After the Heian period (after 806), Tanto and Ko-wakizashi carried on in that style. (From Connoisseurs). Later Hira-zukuri wakizashi are simply throwback to the past.

[Dave R]

Stephen, the style of saya is a good clue flat end Merchants Wakizashi, rounded end Samurai Wakizashi.

[Stephen]

well that makes me wonder, a merchant wanting to carry longest sword and still meet rules he the would carry 57cm wak.

When I had a saya made for tsuguhiro I should have asked for rounded?

[Dave R]

This is a quote from an excellent article by C.U. Guido Schiller and S. Alexander Takeuchi, Ph.D.

University of North Alabama. http://www.arscives.com/historysteel/ja ... rticle.htm

 

"The executive order issued on July 18, Shôhô 正保 2 (1645 AD) only prohibited the commoners wearing swords over 1.8 Shaku 尺 (54.54 cm). This enabled non-Samurai travelers on the Tôkaidô 東海道 road to arm themselves with a short sword against robbers that were encountered quite frequently in unpopulated areas, and also enabled the chief of police to arm the Komono 小者, non-Samurai 侍 police assistants in some extreme events"

So according to this anything over 54.54 will most likely be a Samurai's second sword and so should really have a rounded end to the saya. Having said that I have no doubt there are exceptions, and these will hopefully be posted on this thread.

[Brian]

Dave,

Where does this round end/flat end theory come from? Not something I have seen discussed before. Interesting....

 

Brian

[Stephen]

Hopefully, time for less back biting and more learning post. If you have Sword and the Same' page 136 has a list of sword prohibitions.

[estcrh]

Dave,

Where does this round end/flat end theory come from? Not something I have seen discussed before. Interesting....

 

Brian

I would also like to know the source of this information.

[Gabriel L]

I think the round/flat distinction is being interpreted far too strictly. Edo court daisho koshirae were originally defined as having certain characteristics—black horn kashira, shakudo fittings, ro-iro saya, etc. In that context, the wakizashi saya did have a round end to contrast with the flat end of the katana saya, a trend which certainly became fashionable in general.

 

However, I have never heard or seen any evidence that this was a "rule" that held for the country at large and distinguished samurai wakizashi from merchant wakizashi. Indeed, even those court fashions loosened slightly over time. Looking at daisho koshirae in general I have seen plenty with flat-ended wakizashi saya, and since the daisho was by definition restricted to the samurai, this should suffice to show that round/flat was in no way a samurai/merchant differentiator.

 

EDIT: a few seconds' googling turned up these examples:

 

http://www.aoijapan.com/aoi-mon-daisho- ... toso-paper

http://www.tetsugendo.com/swords/MC-1_Daisho.html

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... irae_2.jpg

http://www.sho-shin.com/judai1.html

http://www.samuraisword.com.au/html/yos ... aisho.html

[Dave R]

It is more of a personal observation than anything else, but to date all the shorter Wakizashi Saya I have seen have had flat ends, and the longer ones rounded ends. I would not call it a "rule" just an observation. Just as most Uchigatana type Katana have flat ends, the obvious exceptions being Handachi and Toppai mounted pieces. Also most (to date all) Tanto Saya I have seen have rounded ends, possibly indicating status as a secondary weapon to the Katana.

I have no investment of status or money in this observation/theory so no have problems with different opinions on the subject.....

Discuss!

Just had a peruse of the examples above, and yes lots of Diasho with flat ended saya to the Wakizashi.... so next question, why so many rounded ends, and are there any Chonin Wakizashi out there with rounded Saya?

[Geraint]

Hi Dave.

 

One swallow does not a summer make but just for interest here are some short wakizashi, two hira zukuri and one shinogi zukuri, all have rounded ends to the saya.

 

All the best.

[Dave R]

Interesting. Some nice piccies coming on here, and I am learning a lot more about koshirae :D . So does anyone know if there are any rules about Saya mounts, rank and/or sword length, other than those quoted below!

Gabriel writes that "Edo court daisho koshirae were originally defined as having certain characteristics—black horn kashira, shakudo fittings, ro-iro saya, etc. In that context, the wakizashi saya did have a round end to contrast with the flat end of the katana saya, a trend which certainly became fashionable in general." Which gives us one reason for the difference, and hints that the exceptions are for stuff not worn at court.

[Jean]

One swallow does not a summer

funny Geraint we have the same saying in French but for the season. We say Spring instead of Summer.

[Geraint]

Obviously they take a little longer to arrive in these northern climes Jean!

[sanjuro]

Sparrows and swallows and other birdlife aside. Something that perhaps needs to be put in context here is the term 'Worn at court'.

Very few samurai actually attended court over the eons. Those brought into close proximity to the emperor's court were apart from the samurai serving the court as guards, daimyo themselves and only a limited number of the higher ranks of samurai, hatamoto and the like. Any fashion therefore that effected weaponry worn at court (wakizashi), and which was defined by decree of acceptable practice, applied only to a limited number of higher echelon individuals.

 

What was common practice among the hundreds of thousands that did not attend formal court therefore, may have been totally at odds with such practices even among the samurai, even without taking into account that most wakizashi we have extant today were in fact owned by merchants. This would apply to saya rounded or not and the other factors and aspects of sword mounting up to and even including the early Edo period.

 

My point here is lets not get distracted by what the few who attended court were obliged to do as opposed to what the majority away from court might have done, concerning the rounding or otherwise of the wakizashi saya.

 

Having said that, a daisho pair when worn were supposed to have a squared saya jiri to the daito and a rounded saya jiri to the wakizashi. Given that most at court would not have been allowed to wear a katana in proximity to the seat of supposed divine power, wakizashi would have abounded with rounded sayajiri, at least in courts of the Edo period.

[Dave R]

I think the court reference was more to do with the Shoguns court in Edo rather than the Imperial court in Kyoto.

[sanjuro]

Whatever........ What I said still applies. The Tokugawa Shogunal court was obsessed with security and keeping the Daimyo and their entourages on the road to and from Edo for a large part of the year, and their families virtual prisoners in Edo. Not many samurai actually entered the inner sanctum of that court either, and very few among them armed with a long sword. The Shogunal court was an even more nervous place than the Imperial court. The etiquette however was very similar, and the acceptable fashions as far as swords and sword wearing were virtually identical.

[RocklockI]

It seems to me that my Wakizaki is just shy of 60.6cm . It seems a little like taking off the bayo lug off an AR15 as to be able to sell it and still be abiding the law.

 

Would the second sword ever be within a cm or two of being a Katana ?

 

It would seem to me that these were "Merchant" swords or Farmer swords pushing the leagal limit of the law?

 

Gary

[Dave R]

"The executive order issued on July 18, Shôhô 正保 2 (1645 AD) only prohibited the commoners wearing swords over 1.8 Shaku 尺 (54.54 cm)."

I am told (someone will correct me I am sure) that the law applied to swords worn, what you kept in the house was your business.... Discuss!

[Geraint]

Hi Gary.

 

Picture of your sword would help us a bit. If it is 60.6cms then most people would describe it as a wakizashi as it is just shy of the two shaku convention. However it is not uncommon to find daisho where the long sword is just short of the limit, practical considerations relating to use take precedence over notional limits here. You might chose to call your sword an o wakizashi, some people would go for chisa katana but that will ignite hot debate amongst some.

 

In your original post you mention a swooping tip; not too sure what that means but are we talking shobu zukuri or naginata naoshi?

 

I don't think we are going to get to a point where we can say who owned the sword based on length or the shape of the saya, the market dictates that anything under two shaku, or more usually 24 inches is a wakizashi and adjusts accordingly. As an example I have a wakizashi which is very long and very beefy, the saya has a rounded end and it is from around 1624. Can't say who owned it but it will always be a wakizashi.

 

All the best.

[obiwanknabbe]

Hi everyone,

 

Thought I would wade into the conversation here with a neat Wakizashi. It was forged by Fujiwara Sukechika of Nambantetsu. The blade was ever so slightly longer than standard wakizashi length (it was not my sword so i don't remember exactly how long), but the saya is more the reason I am mentioning it. Outwardly, it was of Katana length. Initially, I thought that perhaps it was a mismatched pair, but seeing that the saya needed to be restored (it was in bad shape), it needed to be taken apart and cleaned. It turned out that while long on the outside, it was carved to match the length of the blade on the inside.

 

This led me to make one of two conclusions. One, that It was a Merchant's sword, OR, and far cooler, that It may have belonged to a Ninja. Having studied Genbukan Ninjutsu with Tanemura Sensei in Japan, I learned that it was common place for the Ninja to carry a sword that was shorter than it looked, giving them a half second drop on an opponent.

 

Just food for thought.

 

Thanks again for the wealth of information. Because of you, I find myself answering questions to some of the newbies I meet. Knowledge is contagious and I spread it with pride.

 

Kurt K

 

 

Edit: Forgot to mention, but you can see, the tsuka is a bit longer than usual as well.

[Moley]

Hi Dave.

 

One swallow does not a summer make but just for interest here are some short wakizashi, two hira zukuri and one shinogi zukuri, all have rounded ends to the saya.

 

All the best.

#

 

 

I beg to differ Sir,

 

"Un wennol ni wna Wanwyn" !!!

 

And has been since cynghannedd was invented.

 

Sorry.

[Geraint]

Ah Gwyn.

 

I'm afraid the Celtic connection does not stretch far enough for me to grasp your post. Do we need to move this to the translation section?

[John A Stuart]

Un wennol ni wna Wanwyn, means, One swallow does not make spring. Cynghannedd is 'music'. John

[Stephen]

very confusing this gets, lets keep quotes to sidebar?? and stay on the OT???

[Geraint]

Do we have a smilie for, "Knuckles rapped"?

 

Thank you for mediating the cultural differences on this little island John.

 

So back to wakizashi. Kurt you may of course assume that the sword belonged to whoever you like but there are one or two things to consider. You mention that it was just a little longer than normal wakizashi length. What had you considered normal? I ask because I seem to have them in all sorts of lengths. As we have already established that some daisho occur with the dai below what we would call katana length it appears that the standard lengths we work with were at best disregarded by a lot of people.

 

It is not too uncommon to find a sword mounted in a saya that is much longer than the blade length would dictate though I have usually seen this in wakizashi which have had a tanto blade mounted. I saw one of those recently and if I can find the link I will post it. I think that we are chasing moonbeams if we try to assign swords to a certain class of owner based on any of this. We know that daisho were the badge of office of the samurai, for at least most of the Edo period. We can guess that certain other koshirae were worn by samuari because of their good taste but as most of us really struggle to identify what good taste is now, never mind for a Japanese at any period of history, we are probably in the realms of fantasy. If you don't have it the catalogue of swords in the Tokugawa collection is interesting here, all sorts of mountings.

 

If we say that significant numbers of high quality wakizashi were produced in a period of Japanese history because of the growing wealth of the merchant class then we are talking about the blades, and by the way commending them for their high quality.

 

Really can't comment about ninja swords as I thought they were all black with dirty great big square tsuba to act as ladders and nearly straight.

 

Hope you approve Stephen, now I'm diving for a nice comfortable hole in the ground.

 

All the best.

[Stephen]

LOL its all good, most of the time i click on last post to catch up, birds , gaelic, what were we talking about???? sorry me old mind wanders or is it wonders.