This Week's Edo Period Corner

[Max C]

There was a riposte c.2004 by Antony Karasulas:

 

Titre du document / Document title

Zaimokuza reconsidered: the forensic evidence, and classical Japanese swordsmanship

Auteur(s) / Author(s)

KARASULAS Antony (1) ;

Affiliation(s) du ou des auteurs / Author(s) Affiliation(s)

(1) Unit 1, 63 Jessie Street, Armidale, NSW 2350, AUSTRALIE

 

I only skimmed through the text, it's good but there are flaws in his experimentation. I am not very well versed in anthropoarchaeology but I did received some formation in zooarchaeology and dead bones dry up very quickly and so become much more solid. So choosing cow bones (which bone? They are in general much thicker than human ones) for testing a human skull penetration is lacking scientific rigor. It would be like trying to cut thick dry bamboo to simulate a cut through slim green bamboo. The only options would have been to test it on a live subject (with all the obvious ethical problems ), through a comparable replacement (I personally know none) or asking for the advice of an expert.

[kusunokimasahige]

True, indeed thats a flaw in the investigations, furthermore a sword hit/cut and even a yari thrust would be clearly visible on the skeletal remains..

 

cf a Roman ballista bolt in a Brittannic tribesman's skull and a bolt wedged in his spine:

 

 

 

 

Of course with the Japanese sensitivity about human remains in an archaeological context we cannot be sure of any thesis unless properly investigated and described.

 

Would be interesting to see wether the Nose mound has anything to offer but probably it will never be excavated and its highly likely nothing remains of the Korean noses buried there during Hideyoshi's campaign..

 

KM

[Bugyotsuji]

Visited a couple of local archaeological display rooms today, one at Soja City, and the other belonging to Okayama Prefecture.

 

What astonished me most perhaps was that the swords they have found in tombs from the Kofun Period have certain very strong resemblances to what we think of as Nihonto today. Ok, they were nearly straight, and heavily rusted, but you could recognize the tsuba at once, and the kissaki, then the Habaki, and closer inspection revealed a mekugi (admittedly iron) pin. Not only that, but under the strategically-placed magnifying glass you could see little bits of curly silver inlay on the tsuba, in the design of Kara-kusa-moyo! Wow! This has to be from some time around 500 AD? Aoe and Bizen are near here. And come to think of it, the oldest Tatara iron foundries in Japan are found at the foot of Mt Ki-no-jo, so the iron must have been good quality way back then... good enough to pull waves of Korean artisans here...

 

Definitely moved my Japanese sword origins concepts back a few years from the Heian and Nara Tachi, Nagamaki and Naginata that I saw at the Oyamazumi Jinja on Omishima on Monday.

[kusunokimasahige]

Thats great to hear Piers!! hopefully you were allowed to make a few photos...

 

I have one sword book in my posession which is in Japanese with some really old blades in it...

 

it is the catalogue of the 1976 Special Exhibition of Japanese Arms and Armour from the Tokyo National Museum.

 

here are two pictures out of that book:

 

 

 

PS Piers, any re-enactment pics of last weekend?

 

I guess you are portraying an ashigaru Teppo unit?

 

KM

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

under the strategically-placed magnifying glass you could see little bits of inlay

 

Soooo Piers and KM, you like such antique inlay ?

 

 

 

 

 

[kusunokimasahige]

Ooh definetely Carlo!

 

especially the ancient Yamato/Uji artefacts ! I also like the examples i have in the book of the old helmet and armour pieces they found, which prove the Haniwa to be not at all far fetched!!

 

So special to see cheek-pieces also applied! i have studied the evolvement of Ancient Roman armour and equipment so its always interesting to see the Aziatic variants!!

 

KM

[Bugyotsuji]

Henk-Jan,

"PS Piers, any re-enactment pics of last weekend?

I guess you are portraying an ashigaru Teppo unit?

KM"

 

Don't ask about the weekend. It rained heavily and to my dismay I discovered that unlike in Europe where everyone would shelter under the trees until the rain stopped, the whole procession acted as if it wasn't raining. The trees were 10 meters away. No-one could break ranks. All our antique finery and armour/armor and weapons were getting drenched, and we even had to do the live matchlock display in the rain with water dripping off our visors. How crazy is that? I felt sorry for myself, but even more sorry for the townspeople who all stood there sheltering under umbrellas, probably having been driven out of their houses to show support for us. Then when we had finished our display, having marched and having stood around in the rain for three hours with no shelter, the rain stopped, and the sun came out, and they cancelled the rest of the festivities anyway... :headbang:

 

Anyway I managed to sneak my camera out for one quick shot as we were crossing the bridge, but the camera was getting wet and someone with a megaphone was asking us to get into line as the official news organizations were running down the line crouching to get good shots... and here I was holding a digital camera in my hand!!! Will post it later.

 

Some places like Iwakuni do Ashigaru units but we are a bunch of 'Jibunzutsu' samurai, a different unit in the army more like heavy infantry, who had their own outfits and weapons.

[kusunokimasahige]

SAAAAAAAH the recognition!! we displayed with the Ermine Street Guard several times in the drenching rain and since Chris Haines (Centurio) and the Optiones shouted: "Romans dont mind a little rain now do they" we held our displays...... only inside the testudo, with the clattering para para of ame, were we a little more comfortable.... the downside being our Lorica Segmentatae and Hamatae getting wet.. plate armour and mail does rust since its made of the same material the Romans made it of.. so that meant in the end of the day we were polishing, polishing and polishing......

 

We do rust!! do I read correctly you use the antique stuff?? yaikes!! of course Japan probably has the same strict gun laws as we have here in the Netherlands... so Teppo replicas might be out of the question i dont know...

 

Poor lacing..... funny thing is our composite bows and ballistae/scorpiones do work even in the rain... but drying them is a ......

 

I like the anachronism of you with the digicam while the audience takes pictures hahaha..

 

We once had a phone go off during a display..... OOPS!!

 

Well heres some fun for anyone not understanding re-enactment...:

 

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=L4IS4OwOk ... re=related

 

PS Piers, you should get over here one day, or the UK so we can have a Pint !!

(if I ever make it to Japan ill be sure to pay your lot a visit!!)

[IanB]

All, I too have done the dressing up in the rain bit - at a yabusame display at the Tower of London. To say the heavens opened would be an understatement. Fortunately I was wearing kamishimo and when it finally stopped raining I dried out reasonably quickly. Surprisingly, the kamishomo, of starched hemp, with pasted seams, didn't seem effected although I did iron all the pleats and seams again soon after to make it look presentable again.

 

On the subject of rusting armour, the Europeans never really managed to solve that problem. A lot of ordinary armour was left black from the anvil, the fire scale having some resistance to rusting but not much. No doubt if the oxide layer was soaked with linseed oil or the like it would have helped. (On this point I have a Japanese armour that is finished with an all russet surface. When I acquired it the surface was dry and was beginning to show spots of surface rust. Working on the principle it was no different from a gun barrel, I rubbed on a solution of boiled linseed oil in white spirit, left it about an hour and then rubbed off the excess. After 40 odd years the finish is still beautiful and glows with a dull sheen when polished with a duster.) Some European armour was undoubtedly painted, but that was only after suitable paints had been devised. Polished armour just had to be repolished on a regular basis. It was very high maintenance. The 'interpreters' at the Royal Armouries, who put on displays for the public, found that horse sweat was terribly corrosive, the cuisses og their armours in particularly suffering. With mail, the solution to cleaning off rust was to wear it, the movement of link on link having a burnishing action. One little trick the mail makers adopted was to use brass links for the borders, particularly the lower edge. Rain trickles down from link to link and accumulates at the bottom edge. Making these rows of brass resists corrosion. Another trick was to dag the bottom edge into a series of points from which the rain could drip.

 

The scales and plates of a Japanese armour were by and large waterproof, provided the lacquer was sound. It was the lacing and fabrics which took a hammering. There is the oft (perhaps too oft) quoted passage by Sasakibara Kozan that the weight of a kebiki laced armour could almost double when wet (and become infected etc). During the Muromachi period they tried kawa tsutumi do, in which the entire do was covered with lacquered leather over almost all the lacing. It cannot have been a success since they were never common and soon abandoned. At the same period there were the kawa tsutsu maki no tachi (if that is the right term), presumably adopted for the same reason, to keep the rain off the scabbard and hilt.

 

Ian Bottomley

[Bugyotsuji]

Thanks Ian. You always astonish me by how much detail you have already experienced. Have you written this all down somewhere?

 

We are told to dry it all out in the sunshine, with the Kabuto upside down, (although I suspect well-ventilated shade would be better) but I bought a clever little ShockDoctor dryer that blows Ozone and warm air through flexible pipes throughout the armour (or my racing suit, helmet and gloves) and gradually kills off bacteria. Fabreeze sprayed gently into the helmet helps suppress sweaty smells too. I was advised to put olive oil on the links with a Q-tip but that takes hours. Good ideas above, though. Next time rain is forecast I will certainly take the other set of armour and try to keep it as much repro as possible.

 

Here is the one Sunday shot snuck on the trot... that white black and red nobori-bata on the left with their Mon says 'Amako'. (Just lightly spotting in this shot.)

 

Oh, and yes, all of our guns are geniune. We would not be allowed to make or own or fire working replicas.

[kusunokimasahige]

Great pic! though in this case it should have said: Ame Ko.....

 

Also a good idea to use that device to dry out your suit!!

 

Ian, great information!! We also use the wearing technique on our mail and sometimes we just put it in a bag with a thin layer of very fine grit sand and shake the entire hamata around, that also takes care of most of the rust... the segmentatae we just sand and oil, as well as our helmets, and often we polish them too, but not with very abbrasive stuff.. (the Brasso/Silvo Community LoL) then we oil it, often with WD-40 because we did try olive oil, but it tends to attract more dust and rust than it keeps away.. (hence the use of this type of oil in Roman bath houses) my own gusoku which I am still restorating is quite rusty in the lamellar deparment, probably an early 19th century one.. I gor it fairly cheap because of the bad state it was in..

 

The Do halves are not that bad, they seem to be lacquered with some kind of thick paste containing ground oyster shells and urushi, which was painted gold afterwards.. only problem there is that on the back two pieces broke off but i still have those and could re-attach them.

Also still working on a zunari kabuto withhout shikoro (probably 17th century), with contemporary repairs done to it, but that needs the total removal of the left over urushi and relaquering. it has been outside if i look at the inside of it closely, a puddle mark can clearly be seen.. need to redo the shikoro (ie make them from iron) and get some lacing for the entire suit... including the replica menpo..

 

Maedate i will make myself from various bits i collected over the years including real deer antler i got once... (a young deer's antler hahaha not the massive and very heavy ones)

 

I use two O-Yoroi type shoulder plates of which Anthony Briant and Stephen Turnbull told me they could well have been used mixed with the Do.. heres the deplorable state it was in last year.. the finished suit will definetely be posted if i succeed...

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/ ... GE_103.jpg

 

Only downside is i cannot seem to find proper and affordable sheets of e-Gawa and dont know suppliers apart from Toraba who does not often have this kind of stuff..

 

KM

 

PS Piers same here... We can fire a real gun (flintlock and also / matchlock) from the era

but we are not allowed to own replicas unless we have a full firearms permit.

[Bungo]

just bought this.........

 

competing bidders were " thrown off " by the scroll ends which are plastic ( they may have thought it's a print ).

Actually it's a full size painting from an old screen ( I have quite a large number of screen paintings )remounted in present days. The painting itself is early/early mid 1800's.

A good way to tell ( that's it's not a print ) is the claws which have " gofun " paint ( made from oyster shell ? ) to highlight the scales. And the genuine worm holes sealed the deal..........

 

milt

[kusunokimasahige]

Darn you did it again Milt! what a fantastic painting!!!

 

KM

[Bugyotsuji]

Agreed. What a find, Milt! Splendid painting. Clever.

 

I have a Shozuri set of the Chushingura by Utagawa Kunisada, but not complete, and the condition was p1ss poor so I took the liberty and had good fun fixing them up a bit! I got coloured washi paper to back the worm holes and fool the eye and that was enough for the good ones. The glue was a kind of PrittStick that advertises itself as 'removable'. Many had a corner of the paper and scene missing so I had to sacrifice the really tatty parts and patterns of the very worst print in order to make new corners for the better ones... they actually look really good when I make colour/color photocopies from them!!! :lol:

[Bungo]

" Many had a corner of the paper and scene missing so I had to sacrifice the really tatty parts and patterns of the very worst print in order to make new corners for the better ones... they actually look really good when I make colour/color photocopies from them!!! "

.............................

 

that's how some of the galleries " fixed " them too !!

 

milt

[kusunokimasahige]

Actually... to test whether its real paint you can also put water on the print and start smearing the pic with your fingers...

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

KM

 

BTW for the price of a Kunitoshi you could also get one of these!!

 

http://www.cascade-crest.com/teahouse.html

[kusunokimasahige]

Well guys...

 

I did not keep it dry...

 

and i must say, anyone who does keep it dry with this GEM ! is a cold heartless b*trd..

 

It is simply one of the most BEAUTIFUL features i have ever seen and i will cherish it for years to come.

 

I advise everyone on the board to watch it if you have the chance and have not seen it yet....

 

MIBU GISHI DEN

 

 

KM

[Brian]

Few dvd related posts removed, let's please keep this one Edo related and start a new Samurai movie thread if necessary.

 

Thanks,

Brian

[kusunokimasahige]

Reading about the Shinsengumi i read about a French detachement which fought alongside the Tokugawa troops at the battle of Hakodate, one or maybe a few of them even wearing full samurai attire.

 

Does anybody on the board have information on where to find the book written by Eugene Collache : "An Adventure in Japan 1868 - 1869" ("Une aventure au Japon 1868-1869"), which was published in 1874. ?

 

here are two images:

 

 

French and Japanese soldiers of the Ezo Republic in 1869.

Back row: Cazeneuve, Marlin, Fukushima Tokinosuke, Fortant.

Front row: Hosoya Yasutaro, Jules Brunet, Matsudaira Taro (vice-president of the Ezo Republic), Tajima Kintaro

 

and an engraving of Eugene Collache himself..

 

A very interesting story indeed !

 

KM

[Bugyotsuji]

Makes one think. Jean Collache even looks Japanese there. They were living the remnants of what was still potentially an extension of the Edo Period... when everything - the manners and customs and forms- was still real and alive in the minds of everyone in the general populace.

 

PS For my next contribution here there will be a photo or two of ukiyo-e. (Does anyone have any prints or paintings showing guns, by the way? I have a tryptich from around 1845 by Yoshitora showing the siege of an unknown moated castle, with guns blazing on both sides. No-one can tell me where the castle might be.)

[Baka Gaijin]

Hi Piers,

 

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's series Kinsei Kyogi Den (1865) depicts the suicide of Seiriki Tamigoro using a Matchlock.

 

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

 

 

Yoshitoshi's mentor Utagawa Kuniyoshi also showed various matchlocks including hand cannon.

 

Cheers

 

Malcolm

[Bugyotsuji]

Cheers for that link.

 

The copyright seems to be finished, so I have printed it out, but it's a pretty gruesome print, isn't it! His sword is snapped in two, and he is using his toe to fire the gun, just as people do today. Thanks Malcolm.

[kusunokimasahige]

Great pictures!! there are a lot of guns in scrolls, i have a few images of samurai using handcannon etc on my wall (replicas though)

 

( Sasai Kyuzo Masayasu (Sakai Kyuzo) being fired upon by Teppo)

 

(Horibei holding a big gun)

 

the only real print i have is one of Minamoto no Yoritomo fighting some gen-in made by Kokunimasa.

 

BTW a funny anecdote about Eugene Collache he wrote down himself:

 

"It was the first time a European thus crossed Japan, and everybody wanted to see him; but my hairless face, my suntanned skin, and my Japanese clothes misled the curious, who then thought that the European man was a certain Japanese officer who wore a moustache and had the uniform of an American Navy officer." Eugène Collache, "Une aventure au Japon", in "Le Tour du Monde", p59

 

KM

 

BTW to my knowledge there is no Copyright on very old Japanese prints anymore...

[Bugyotsuji]

Great pictures!! there are a lot of guns in scrolls, i have a few images of samurai using handcannon etc on my wall (replicas though)

 

the only real print i have is one of Monamoto no Yoritomo fighting some gen-in made by Kokunimasa.

 

BTW a funny anecdote about Eugene Collache he wrote down himself:

 

"It was the first time a European thus crossed Japan, and everybody wanted to see him; but my hairless face, my suntanned skin, and my Japanese clothes misled the curious, who then thought that the European man was a certain Japanese officer who wore a moustache and had the uniform of an American Navy officer." Eugène Collache, "Une aventure au Japon", in "Le Tour du Monde", p59

 

KM

 

BTW to my knowledge there is no Copyright on very old Japanese prints anymore...

 

LOL! They thought he was Hamada 'Joseph' Heco, I bet. (Or possibly Nakahama 'John' Manjiro.) Very nice pics, by the way.

[Bungo]

did you " lift that pic " off me ? ( 4th from top )

http://www.esnips.com/web/ukiyo-e?docsPage=6#files

 

more teppo pic............ ( third from top )

 

http://www.esnips.com/web/ukiyo-e?docsPage=7#files

 

milt

[kusunokimasahige]

Haha NOPE!

 

check the link

 

KM

[Bugyotsuji]

So who actually owns what, and do they come up for sale occasionally, and if so, how are they priced? :|

[Baka Gaijin]

Hi Piers,

 

"So who owns what?"

 

That's a thorny question indeed.

 

Let's take for example Yoshitoshi's series Kinsei Kyogi den of 1865.

 

The origination of the image was Yoshitoshi's. The cutting of the blocks and the subsequent printing was down to the publisher, therefore the copyright of each image as a partial multiple would be the publisher at the time.

 

 

Yoshitoshi died early and his son went on to become a woodblock artist in his own right using the Noh theatre as his subject matter.

 

So as an example of Artists Resale Royalty, he could have had moral rights to the reproduction of the image as is the case in France for 75 years after the death of the artist. Meijii Copyright Law is particularly vague it has to be said, so I doubt it.

 

In the 20th Century Kinsei Kyogi Den was down scaled and recut minus the background narrative in 1918 or thereabouts and published as a small booklet (Which I have a copy) In fact the image of the chap clearing his nasal passages on Wikipedia is minus the text and thus from the booklet, not from the 1865 blocks.

 

The copyright of an image on the internet and the lifting and printing thereof is subject to a can of worms situation dependant upon which country you are in, where the image was lifted from and what you intend to do with it.

 

Example: Jack Vettriano maintains, as far as I am aware, the Copyright of any Painting sold to a private individual or public body.

 

Clear it up any?????? :?

 

Cheers

 

Malcolm

 

P.S.

The chanbara figure of Zatoichi comes from one the real life characters depicted in Kinsei Kyogi Den...............

[Bugyotsuji]

Thanks for the links, Milt. Those were good.

 

Thanks for the detailed and informative explanation, Malcolm. (Clear as mud! :lol: )

 

To print them out and put them on my wall for decoration would be one route. Another would be to track down a genuine print from the time, (and not one run off later illegally from some museum somewhere) buy it as a birthday present to my sad and sorry self and frame it suitably!

[kusunokimasahige]

Personally, apart from the wall one, i love the T-shirt variety...

 

also, having it embroidered into a patch i like a lot.......

 

KM