New Article About Christian Tsuba

[Ford Hallam]

Piers, your first point is fairly well established in any number of books dealing with Jesuit art, so called Namban art and it's influences.

 

I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean by your second point though. I mean, if a motif had to be THAT ambiguous or deniable back then such that we are unable to make a call either way then as far as I can reason we can't reasonably posit the existence of these post 1637 tsuba....can we?

[Baka Gaijin]

"But what do you say when someone asks you for proof of age? "

 

Piers, if you are having problems with people believing your age.....

 

Firmly fix with a basilisk gaze and repeat the mantra:

 

"I am of legal age to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages."

 

Works every time.

 

Pip Pip

[Bugyotsuji]

Malcolm ...

[Bugyotsuji]

Ford... No, but there must be candidates, and I'd like to see them, and hear the reasoning for each from the 'expert' mentioned above in the Asahi article.

[Ford Hallam]

Piers, why do you claim there MUST be candidates?

 

To  make that claim is to guess the validity of the evidence in advance....hardly an objective point of view with regard to what may come to light.

 

As for the 'experts' in the Asahi article, if they can provide credible and reasonable supporting evidence and coherent arguments I'm all ears. I'm not holding my breath though.

[Bugyotsuji]

Ford, the display in the article shows surely some of the candidates, if they are Tokugawa Period tsuba. Perhaps I should have said that there ARE candidates, and there must be others. Candidates for consideration, that is. I too am almost all ears.

[Ford Hallam]

Piers, so we're back where we started :-)  A bunch of tsuba that are claimed to have Christian symbolism but with no direct supporting evidence from other sources. So personally I remain unconvinced these are candidates.

 

As for the argument presented in favour of these 'candidates' I suggest a degree of confirmation bias is at work here.

 

This from the article:

 

“A characteristic of sword guards made after anti-Christian measures were taken is that Christians carefully hid crosses in their designs,” Nakanishi said.

“We concluded the designs show the faith of hidden Christians.”

---

Because sword guards were regarded by samurai as one of the most important ornaments for swords--their most significant weapon--it is believed that they concealed the proof of their faith in the guards.

 

It became popular in the Edo Period (1603-1867) for swordsmiths to engrave their names on guards. But the discovered sword guards do not bear the creators’ names, indicating that those who made them were also hidden Christians."

 

Meanwhile, Yukihiro Ohashi, a history professor at Waseda University who studies the history of Christianity in Japan, pointed out it is too early to conclude that all the sword guards were owned by hidden Christians.

“We can say the sword guard that has a statue of Jesus Christ inside it belonged to a hidden Christian, but others need to be carefully examined before confirming that they belonged to Christians,” he said.

 

 

I wouldn't be all that quick to agree with this either. Ignoring the crucifix inside for a moment if a tsuba like the front of this example was presented here it would be dismissed a later fake simply on the basis the appliqué designs impinge on the seppa-dai areas rendering it unmountable. That and the design placement is not at all convincingly Edo period nor is the workmanship, they look like simple applied plaques, not inlay.

 

 

The sword guards are part of the collection of Miki Sawada (1901-1980). Sawada established the Elizabeth Saunders Home, an orphanage for children born to U.S. soldiers and Japanese women after the end of World War II.

Sawada was a granddaughter of Yataro Iwasaki (1834-1885), the founder of the Mitsubishi conglomerate. Sawada was also known as a devout Christian.

 

 

 

[Ford Hallam]

I should add that while I have a problem accepting random tsuba with crosses on as self evident examples of secret Christian Samurai I do think the pre Edo, so called, clock gear tsuba are supposed to be seen as the Jesuit emblem of Christ's flaming heart. The attraction of the Jesuit teachings and its acceptance among a number of Daimyo is well documented so these do appear to be supported by the historical context that produced them.

 

For anyone wanting to get into some real research into the Christian tradition in Japan and from that to explore the possible ways it may have been expressed by secret Christians the following book might provide a solid start.

 

Handbook of Christianity in Japan

Edited by Mark R. Mullins

http://www.brill.com/handbook-christianity-Japan

[Stephen]

[manfrommagnum]

She explained that to draw a cross with a brush, you start with God the Father and draw down to the human self. You then go sideways to symbolize the equality of human brother- or sisterhood.

Not sure what that means since the sign of the cross has nothing to do with humans. Iy is only the sign of the trinity and crucifixion. Did she explain more on that?

[Bugyotsuji]

Hi Michael. It's a lesson in brush stroke order for young Japanese Christians, to go deliberately against the grammatical order which everyone is taught in schools.

 

The numbers 一 one,　二 two and 三　three are written starting with a horizontal stroke. In the same way 十 (ten) is correctly written starting with the same horizontal stroke 一, followed by the vertical stroke from the top, crossing and completing.

 

What was interesting was this lady's explanation that in her family they were taught that you should start everything with God the Father, thus when brush writing the design of a cross anywhere, to distinguish it clearly from the number 10.

 

As you move a brush in calligraphy, and no I am no expert, you leave a splodge where you start, and a little tail indicating the direction of where you are going to make another stroke. In the number ten, you should finish the whole character with the bottom of the downstroke. With a cross however, as I explained above, having drawn the vertical down from God, you then flick up left in preparation for painting the horizontal line.

 

But as Ford indicated with his illustration above, once the authorities got wind of this and the accusations started to fly, people naturally added little brush flicks here and there, to confuse the situation and add deniability.

[Henry Wilson]

Don't forget Nobuie. I believe these tsuba are well documented examples of supposed Christian motifs. All pictures from 'Nakamura Kakudayu Nobuie Tanshu' and corresponding translation.

 

 

[zanilu]

The last one looks like hammer and sickle to me!

 

Does this hints about hidden communists among the samurai ruling class?     

 

Cheers

Luca

[Ford Hallam]

Hi Michael. It's a lesson in brush stroke order for young Japanese Christians, to go deliberately against the grammatical order which everyone is taught in schools.

 

The numbers 一 one,　二 two and 三　three are written starting with a horizontal stroke. In the same way 十 (ten) is correctly written starting with the same horizontal stroke 一, followed by the vertical stroke from the top, crossing and completing.

 

What was interesting was this lady's explanation that in her family they were taught that you should start everything with God the Father, thus when brush writing the design of a cross anywhere, to distinguish it clearly from the number 10.

 

As you move a brush in calligraphy, and no I am no expert, you leave a splodge where you start, and a little tail indicating the direction of where you are going to make another stroke. In the number ten, you should finish the whole character with the bottom of the downstroke. With a cross however, as I explained above, having drawn the vertical down from God, you then flick up left in preparation for painting the horizontal line.

 

But as Ford indicated with his illustration above, once the authorities got wind of this and the accusations started to fly, people naturally added little brush flicks here and there, to confuse the situation and add deniability.

 

Piers,

 

so is there any period evidence of this sort of thing actually having happened? This adding of brush flicks here and there to confuse and add deniability? You made two specific claims there, that the authorities got wind of this supposed hidden sign of the cross and then that, naturally,  people responded by adding flicks etc.  to avoid being crucified or burnt alive. Seems to me that if there was such a huge risk it would make more sense simply not to write the cross at all, why gamble with the lives of your whole family in such a simplistic way?

 

I have to confess it all sounds highly improbable and a bit post hoc in terms of reasoning. And even if there is now a 'tradition', as you describe, of brushing a cross/number 10 in a specific way can it be shown to date back to the Edo period or is this perhaps merely a couple of generations old?

[dominnimod]

Dumping more pics to this thread,

Once saw this one in auction and it looks quite christan,

however it could simply be a shimazu mon,

[manfrommagnum]

Well, one thing can be said is that this is an interesting topic. Probably the longest post I hav3 seen to date on this board.