HISTORICAL ARTWORK OF SAMURAI BANNERS

[John A Stuart]

Hi All, I have put some interesting artwork done by an artist from British Columbia, Canada dealing with banners of samurai leaders and groups. He is rather talented. This page is still under construction but functional. John

 

http://www.johnstuart.biz/

 

Click on: HISTORICAL ARTWORK OF SAMURAI BANNERS

[IanB]

John,

Very, very nice work. Information like this is a gold mine. Perhaps you can help me with a question that has been puzzling me for a year or two. On the famous Nagashino screen (I have only had my hands on the Osaka Castle one) there are scenes of the major players arriving on the battlefield with their attendants. In each case one such attendant has a long narrow sashimono fitted diagonally on the back and sticking up over the left shoulder.

 

I have seen two armours with pairs of eyelets in the backplate, one at the centre of the waist and the other over the left shoulder blade that might have been for such a sashimono. Any ideas of what function these guys had?

 

Ian

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Hi John. Is he Emmanuel ? If yes, really talented. He worked for museums

too.

 

Great idea to put them all together. Keep it updated.

[John A Stuart]

Yes Carlo, I had contacted him for permission to put his work where, hopefully, it can be seen en masse. I as well want to preserve his work and will update as new ones arrive. A talent. John

[John A Stuart]

Hi Ian, While a leftward drape of the sashimono may be an artists way of showing speed of movement sashimono were centered unless multiple types. The lifeguards and messenger corps attended the commanders as well some personal attendants, young samurai- pages. Here are some quotes from Turnbull.

 

The elite tsukai-ban (messenger corps), who acted as aides de camp on a battlefield, were drawn from the same elite stock as the scouts, but had the more restricted task of communicating between friendly troops rather than intelligence gathering. They had to be very easily recognisable in the heat of battle, so were usually distinguished by a spectacular heraldic display. This often took the form of an extra-large sashimono (back flag). For example, Takeda Shingen's messengers wore a sashimono bearing the appropriate device of a busy centipede. Tokugawa Ieyasu's tsukai wore a sashimono with the character go (the figure 5) on it, but the reasons for this choice of symbol are not known.

 

An alternative cognisance for messengers was the horo, a curious form of cloak stretched over a basketwork frame. The horo would often bear the daimyô's mon (badge) on a brightly coloured background, or would be strikingly particoloured. The horo filled up with air when the horseman rode so his master's colours were recognisable from a considerable distance. There is a reference in the Hosokawa Yusai Oboegaki (The Diary of Hosokawa Yusai) to the elite status of a horo wearer in its recommendation, 'When taking the head of a horo warrior wrap it in the silk of the horo. In the case of an ordinary warrior, wrap it in the silk of the sashimono.' This passage confirms the impression that a man who wore a horo was something special.

 

The association of the horo with elite status also made it a popular choice for identifying a daimyô’s personal mounted samurai bodyguard. Oda Nobunaga had two horo units, the red horo squad and the black horo squad, while Toyotomi Hideyoshi's bodyguard wore gold horo.

 

This was the sashimono, the most important heraldic innovation introduced during the Sengoku Jidai. Most sashimono consisted of a small flag similar to a nobori which was made rigid with two poles threaded through the cloth. The flag was flown from a lacquered wooden shaft securely fastened to the back of the armour, and held in place by a cord that passed under the armpits and was tied onto metal rings on the samurai's breastplate. Sashimono could be a hindrance during close combat fighting, and the painted screen of the Summer Campaign of Osaka in Hikone castle shows a samurai's attendant holding his master's sashimono while he engages in personal combat.

 

The sashimono would often bear the daimyô's mon, giving uniformity to the whole army with different units distinguished by the background colour or field of the flag. The five 'lucky colours' of red, blue, yellow, black and white were the usual choices, and the dragon-scale mon appeared thus on the sashimono of the 'five colour regiments' of the Hojo. In the case of the Ii family of Hikone, however, the red field was a more important distinguishing feature than the Ii mon, so certain Ii samurai were allowed to display their own mon or to have their names written in long flowing golden characters on the red field. The Hojo used the characters of the Japanese alphabet to distinguish sections of their army.

 

On some occasions sashimono were three-dimensional objects rather than flags. Plumes of feathers and golden fans are depicted on painted screens. Other families used golden discs or gohei (the Shinto prayer wand) suspended from the same poles as used for sashimono flags.

 

I'll post a pic of the back of the do for those unfamiliar with this device. John

[IanB]

John,

 

I know about Stephen's writings. We go back a very long way togethr and he lives only a few miles away. I include a couple of pictures from the Nagashino screen to show what I mean. These are from two copies in Nagoya, Tokugawa Art Museum. You will see that this is Tokugawa Ieyasu arriving and there are two guys with the diagonal sashimono - one striped and one yellow in each case (although the stripes are different colours). Note how the pole starts just behind the right hip and how the tsukai ban's sashimono is clearly vertical. It looks to me as if the guy with the more square flag with the gold sun might also be on the slant.

 

Ian

[John A Stuart]

Hi Ian, I can imagine the conversation. I still believe this is a stylisation. When focused on the armour and accoutrement are crudely rendered and the sashimono portrayed this way to disencumber the drawing of the samurai. John

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

An alternative cognisance for messengers was the horo, a curious form of cloak stretched over a basketwork frame. The horo would often bear the daimyô's mon (badge) on a brightly coloured background, or would be strikingly particoloured. The horo filled up with air when the horseman rode so his master's colours were recognisable from a considerable distance. There is a reference in the Hosokawa Yusai Oboegaki (The Diary of Hosokawa Yusai) to the elite status of a horo wearer in its recommendation, 'When taking the head of a horo warrior wrap it in the silk of the horo. In the case of an ordinary warrior, wrap it in the silk of the sashimono.' This passage confirms the impression that a man who wore a horo was something special.

 

The association of the horo with elite status also made it a popular choice for identifying a daimyô’s personal mounted samurai bodyguard. Oda Nobunaga had two horo units, the red horo squad and the black horo squad, while Toyotomi Hideyoshi's bodyguard wore gold horo.

 

Hi John.

 

If Ian is the Ian Bottomley I think, in "Arms and Armors of the Samurai"

he gives some very interesting information about what Horo originally

was and how much it was popular amongst Samurai, not being the

"signal item" it was later "revived", even if its original purpose is still quiet

obscure.

Possibly in its early Kamakura form without internal basketwork frame,

an arrows-deflecting device when the mounted samurai was running away

from enemies after having shooted his arrow.

 

Nothing sure anyway. The authors left me astonished with this

picture from Gunyoki :

 

 

Ian, if you're the Ian Bottomley I think and if the picture shouldn't be

here, plese forgive me and drop me a pm for its removal.

[IanB]

Carlo,

Yes guilty. I am undone! Horo were originally an arrow defence and only later were used as an alternative to sashimono. Gunyoki shows how it was originally just a rectangle of cloth tied to the watagami of the armour and to the waist. As you rode it filled with air and balloned out. It was only later that a wicker or baleen structure was put inside to fill it out when you were stood. I have an image of a scroll of Tokugawa insignia that shows 12 in different colours and designs for different officers. Other armies had similar. There is a good depiction of a black one amongst the Takeda forces on the Nagashino screen.

 

Ian

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Likely it proved to be not really effective or didn't fit new tactics and

shifted from its former status of defence to the one of signal, still

maintaining an "Aura" of importance.

Much more reliable in signaling the position of an important piece

in the big game, when heraldry begun fully developed in Japan.

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Hi Ian, I can imagine the conversation. I still believe this is a stylisation. When focused on the armour and accoutrement are crudely rendered and the sashimono portrayed this way to disencumber the drawing of the samurai. John

 

John, I think this question could be interesting for Emmanuel.

Would you like to post it in the sticky about Samurai Heraldry

on Samurai Archives ? Maybe you'll get some other pictures to

add to your new and awesome webpage.

[John A Stuart]

Good idea Carlo. I will. John

[John A Stuart]

Hi Ian, In furtherance to the question abount diagonally mounted sashimono, there was a concurrence that they were not mounted in this fashion. Between the three of us though, there were three reasons why they were portrayed this way, but all revolving around the artists portrayal. John

[John A Stuart]

Some new banners added. The Hojo contingent. Something for the Japanese proficient. Apparently these characters in the right order will form a poem. Any ideas? John

[Nobody]

Some new banners added. The Hojo contingent. Something for the Japanese proficient. Apparently these characters in the right order will form a poem. Any ideas? John

Here you are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroha

[John A Stuart]

Thankyou, That is something I did not know anything about. John

[kusunokimasahige]

A lot of new T-shirt ideas!!!!!!

 

domo arigato gozarimasu!!!!

 

KM

[Bugyotsuji]

Stunning pictures, fascinating thread.

 

I have an iai-to with the iroha characters carved all the way down the blade.