Kago Yari By Kunishige

[Bugyotsuji]

Recently a yari was thrust this way and I took the bait.

 

The pole is just under 12 feet long, so to confuse my wife's eyes I have placed it on top of the curtain rail upstairs where it has blended in with the furnishings, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

 

The tiny head is conversely 6.5 cm long, (7.0 cm including the Kerakubi), so no registration paperwork needed. Sadly part of the original Nakago has been lost.

 

Yesterday I showed it to a sword polisher who, unusually, particularly likes arrowheads and spear points. He went into ecstasy  about the Kerakubi collar, calling it "sekushii". The Nakago is four-sided, the blade is a perfect equilateral triangle, and the ruff/collar is eight-sided. "Look how each facet is differently cut, to make all eight line up with the three blade faces, forming a 'front' and a 'back'!" he enthused.

 

The Mei is 山代守国重　Yamashiro no Kami Kunishige. "This will be Osaka work; no country smiths would bother to do this."

 

"This is a Kago-yari", he said, "and should be on a short pole for self defense when inside a Norimono/Kago, where a sword could not be drawn."

 

When I asked  the price for polishing and shaping, I was forced to draw a sharp breath, even before considering the cost of having a shirasaya created for it.

 

(My ship should come home sometime in the near future, I hope. In the meantime, lottery tickets?)

[Brian]

Love yari,and this is a nice one! Well signed too.

Can we get a better pic of the kerakubi?

If your wife finds it...just tell her you are storing it for me. And then send it my way

 

Brian

[Bugyotsuji]

LOL @ Brian.  

 

I was hoping someone would not ask this question as it is the logical way forward, sure, but it means dismantling it again and taking some closer shots.

 

OK, yes, I enjoyed the process. Grrr...

 

Right. 

 

If these shots are in the right order, you should see in pic 1. that the eighth facet of the Kerakubi lies flat with the 'underneath' base of the triangle, (and aligns correctly with the Mekugi ana).

 

Pic 2. The fourth facet lies flat up against the apex of the triangle, (and aligns with the Mei on the Nakago).

 

The first, second & third, and the fifth, sixth & seventh, three each side, large and small, form bilateral symmetries. Pic 3. from right, pic 4. from left.

[Bugyotsuji]

Apologies, this was harder than I thought.

 

Ignore shots # three and four above. Here is a definitive shot of the three side facets! (Right side)

[IanB]

Piers,  The Royal Armouries Museum has a complete kago yari I bought for the collection. The shaft is less than a meter long and has the top part lacquered gold with the usual copper mounts. I doubt the head on that one is more than 4cm but is the same shape as yours with a narrow groove on each face. Most spectacularly it still has its saya which is done with bear bristles. When assembled it looks like a small sweeping brush. I am doing an introductory book that includes yari so when it come to images I will get it photographed.

Ian

[Bugyotsuji]

I shall look forward to that Ian, both the images, and the book. 

[Bugyotsuji]

The decoration? Thus.

 

The aogai abalone inlay is falling off like dandruff. The saya has a little ring for the yari jirushi.

[Fuuten]

Hey nice! Thanks for posting

[Brian]

Quality item.

I wonder if a spray fixant like artists use could assist with the flaking? Ian?...

 

Brian

[IanB]

Brian, Among the treasures in the RA collection are about 30 yari given as a part of a diplomatic gift to Queen Victoria. On receipt of the entire gift it the spears seems to have been divided up between the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tower of London and possibly Windsor Castle.  In total it was probably a set of 50 with 46 of them around 10 feet long and 4 about 8 feet. I assume the shorter ones were for the guys stationed at the corners of the daimyo's norimon. So far I have only seen two of the saya - great big sausages in textured gold lacquer. Somewhere there will be a massive pile of the remainder and possibly two saya from the pair of magnificent nagainata that came with them, These yari have their entire shafts done with abalone pieces in lacquer and like that owned by Piers they shed a glittering shower whenever you look at them. The situation is so bad that we store the bulk of them horizontally in lengths of plastic guttering to catch the precipitation. The few that were put on show were laboriously restored by having the fallen particles glued back into position. Something like a matt acrylic spray might help consolidate what is left, especially if several coats are applied to build up a sufficiently strong layer. That spray doesn't have any effect on urushi and should be removable with solvent at a later date if needed.

Ian B

[Bugyotsuji]

Very quick update on this yari. I took it round to the sword sensei for consultation over polishing and we were discussing the possible smith again, and the way the nakago has been cut off with a diagonal finish. 

 

Sometimes spears are rusted into poles in in such bad condition that a cut is made right across and through the shaft and the nakago, he said. In this case it would appear that the person who maybe did this made the assumption of Mizuta Kunishige, and thus ended off the remaining part of the nakago at an angle with that in mind.

 

The Mei, however, compared to Oshigata and Mei references, is more likely a mid-Edo Bushu/Musashi smith, he said, possibly connected with Yasukuni. 

[Bugyotsuji]

The angle on the Nakago-jiri

[Bugyotsuji]

Just to give an impression of length.

 

[Brian]

7 Years later?

[Bugyotsuji]

20 minutes ago, Brian said:

7 Years later?

Someone posted about Yamashiro no Kami Kunishige recently. I had sold all my yari except this one. I began to wonder how this was actually signed, so I took it down to check. Then I found this old thread and realized that I had not updated it since before the famous polish! 
 

[Fuuten]

Haha I'm the land of polisher waiting lists it might be a flick of the eye but wow. A lot happens in 7 years. 

 

[Ken-Hawaii]

Quite impressive, Piers!

[Bazza]

WOW!!  My middle name happens to be 'DICK'.  I loved the bits I 'loved' and only twigged further on that it was a 7-year old thread.  I don't remember ever seeing it before, but a fantastically good read and catchup Piers.  I do remember seeing a yari nakago jiri with an oblique cut - it was either this one or another one somewhere else.

 

BaZZa.

[Geraint]

C'mon Piers, stop teasing and show us the polished yari! 

 

All the best.

[Mark S.]

On 6/11/2022 at 1:39 AM, Bugyotsuji said:

I had not updated it since before the famous polish! 

 

I assume there is story behind this?  If there is an old thread on this one, please let us know... or has been requested, pics and a story PLEASE! 

[Bugyotsuji]

Not even sure any more why I called this a Kago yari! Perhaps it was, in a previous life, or perhaps not.

 

Some two or three years ago I had it polished, with mixed results as you can see, but I don’t recall ever taking shots of it. So here goes with a quick series.

 

Length of blade 2.9’ or 7.3 cm.

 

 

 

 

 

[Brian]

No mixed results for me, it's lovely.