This Week's Edo Period Corner

[Bugyotsuji]

Many thanks for doing that. Food for further thought, always welcome! I was also thinking Christian for the Ojime/Rosary bead. (The large central canal tells me Ojime, though perhaps a Japanese Kakure object which could have two equally plausible functions in a tight corner.)

 

Please also send my thanks to your ethnographic dealer friend, Malcolm.

 

And Ron, I haven't rejected Tibetan. It's all in the pot!

[Bugyotsuji]

Apologies for the sparse nature of the Corner recently. My fault entirely. Luckily there are other interesting threads ongoing for the readers, so no time for boredom!

 

Several objects have indeed fluttered or cluttered their way into my grubby hands and/or camera memory card of late, so I promise to add fuel to the embers, very soon. Lost Netsuke, Ojime, Ukiyo-e, Ko-go-ire, compasses, lacquer boxes, what shall it be?

 

One update is that the Bizen/Satsuma pistol has had a replacement pin with silver head made for it. Should be collecting this evening. Unfortunately a good friend who is also an avid collector has his eye on it...

 

Also we are on for Maizuru this weekend where I should be meeting the ex-Prime Minister of Japan, Mr Hosokawa and his wife. Nowadays he throws pots in Nagoya, it is said. He would be the present Daimyo of Kumamoto. As you know his family were once based in Maizuru, Tanabe Castle, (Tokugawa Eastern army) I believe, where we are doing a full-armour/armor matchlock display. Last time we were there, five years ago, they asked me to step forward and fire the Rei-sha 礼射 opening ceremonial shot. (My long gun is an armory matchlock from Kumamoto Castle, dated, signed and variously marked, so they thought this would be fitting.)

 

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%94%B0% ... 6%E3%81%84

[estcrh]

Ian, one thing that comes up is the heaviness of older guns. I have handled a few from around Keicho and for some reason they are staggeringly heavy for the relative narrowness of the caliber/bore. 20 monme guns should be easy to carry, but those older ones would definitely need two people or a gun carriage of some sort. In a time of repeated war perhaps earlier ones were built to withstand constant use without blowing up. Later refinements may have made greater bore for less weight possible.

Found another image of a tanegashima on a carriage.

 

 

http://tinyurl.com/d5xcmt5

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Good find Eric. That has a good feel to it.

 

Got the pistol back this evening and he's done a wonderful job. Now it is becoming clear that the swordsmith is a different one with the same name, so I will be letting that float back onto the ocean. (There is however an example of a Hono-to sword made for a shrine in Yamaguchi which reportedly bears the same smith's name, so I may be taking a trip west to see it and compare Mei.)

 

Quick question. Recently I acquired a single frame of a triptych by Utagawa Sadahide. It shows what looks like two American women and some slaves (?) working round a butcher's table. Pre-Civil War? Plucking a duck before a dog in the foreground. Bloody and graphic. Does it ring any bells among the members here?

[watsonmil]

Dear Piers,

Sadahide (1807-73) was a prolific but minor printmaker, who had trained under Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1864). He produced theatrical prints, contemporary scenes, and pictures of foreigners, such as this one. He was one of eleven Japanese print artists who showed their works at the Paris Exposition of 1866, for which he received the Légion d'Honneur. Sadahide's works incorporated the Western technique of shading.

He worked primarily in the early 1860's and is well known for his depiction of foreigners. ( the above information courteousy of the British Museum web site )

... Ron Watson

[Bugyotsuji]

Many thanks Ron. I have been trawling the internet hoping to pick up this particular image but no luck yet. Found some other prints which look stylistically similar, particularly in the poses and dresses of the females.

[Bugyotsuji]

Completed the full armour matchlock display at Tanabe Castle in Maizuru yesterday.

 

Former First Lady Kayoko Hosokawa (wife of the would-be present Daimyo and ex-Prime Minister ) was there so we asked her to wave the Saihai and shout "HANATE...!" to set off the first "Issei" broadside. Our leader mentioned to her that one of the members has a Higo gun from Kumamoto Castle. She enjoyed the display and said "Yokatta" afterwards. As we filed out I noticed her inclining her head towards me so I bowed back in return. She probably bowed to everyone! :lol: I noticed later that she has her own blog (needs updating) http://blog.livedoor.jp/kayokohosokawa/

and seems to be quite an active lady in many fields.

 

The amount of loading and unloading of baggage defies imagination. 1. Load the car with one heavy gun box, and gun case, one armour holdall, one helmet bag, one sword bag and one change of clothing bag and drive to Meeting Point A at 6:00 am. 2. Load eight people's baggage and guns and all other stuff into the big van. 3. Unload everything again at meeting point B and wait for the big bus with the mountain members to arrive at 7:00 am. 4. Load up the big bus. Now 34 of us. 5. At Maizuru unload the bus and haul everything up to the 3rd Floor. The elevator is tiny so most of us use the stairs. Eat, get changed into Katchu and and do the display. Then reverse process. 6. Load the bus, and 7. unload at the other end. 8. Load the van and 9. unload again back at Meeting Point A. Now 9 pm. 10. Unload the van, and 11. load up my car. 12. Arrive home and unload. Spread out the sweaty armour in the hall and spray with Fabreeze. Too tired to clean the guns...

 

My body aches in every joint today.

[kusunokimasahige]

Some nice Items I bought at the Japan Market here in Leiden yesterday :

 

Not Edo Period but nice nonetheless, especially the Hokusai reprints (1960's) for a tenner each

 

 

The colours in real life of this one are much more vivid than the photo shows....

 

 

 

 

KM

[Bugyotsuji]

Dear Henk-Jan, well done with your purchases. Those lovely prints you can display easily in your house, without worrying too much about color/colour fade. (Keep the 'real' antique ones in a folder?) The second composition is one of my favorite Hokusai, depicting something strong but invisible.

 

Are you planning to make Nabe perhaps with those 'very useful bowls'?

[kusunokimasahige]

Hey Piers,

 

Thank you for your lovely comments.

 

The 1960's reprints of the Hokusai Fuji series are done on a slightly thicker paper than period washi.

(They are multicolor block prints however, not fascimile copies, there is a distinct feel on them, so

I am not sure about the ink color not fading when exposed to sunlight.

 

The one in which the traveler loses the papers is one of my favorites too, especially the faint attempt of

one of the other people to catch the papers in flight I like very much !!

 

An interesting article I found online about the intricacies of Japanese print-art :

http://www.artelino.com/articles/japane ... ssions.asp

 

Making Nabemono... who knows The 鉄鍋 is not only handy indoors, but in a re-enactment setting it might even be used to cook outdoors, depending on whether this type could/would have been used around the Sengoku-Jidai...

It is ideal to hang from a tripod.

 

And with other people around, 鍋を囲む will most definetely be tanoshii.

 

The bowls are indeed 'very useful' and not to forget, quite well made...

[one has to put at least something on the lid doesnt one ]

 

I also like even more coarse ware like Raku, am not that fond of elaborate bling ware like Satsuma...

 

What I dislike however is everything supermodern... When I see someone traditionally dressed I always think, wow !

 

But when I see cosplay.......................

 

However, even that seems to be an integral part of Japanese culture these days...

 

KM

[Baka Gaijin]

Morning Piers,

 

Re your Sadahide print, the rectangular seal lower left looks like a varient of the Izumi-ya Ichibei publishing house, they are recorded through six, possibly seven generations between 1686 and 1886.

 

A lot of the big names worked for them.

 

Here's a useful link to some biographical details:

 

http://www.myjapanesehanga.com/home/art ... -1807-1873

 

Cheers

[Bugyotsuji]

Well, that was a good read Malcolm. Many thanks. It's funny how these things find me and never vice versa. Eclectic. I had never even heard of Sadahide until this forlorn picture appeared in a stall at an antiques fair and begged to be given a home. Again it has been a voyage of discovery, Ron, Henk-Jan and you giving me links to interesting background information. Sadahide has now gone onto my respect list (rated in his time anyway) and sits proudly among the other odd Toyokuni/Utagawa prints in my scrapbook!

[Bugyotsuji]

Our matchlock company leader has been ill, so on Sunday at Maizuru his 100 Monme was fired instead by Mr Y, Director of the Sword Museum. http://youtu.be/4QIKrwdkms4

(Notice his left hand is bound to the stock.)

[Lindus]

Dread to think what UK health and safety would say about that . Splendid stuff though, would love to goto one of these exhibitions.

Roy

[watsonmil]

Dear Piers,

Now that's what's called a " hangfire ". There's got to be at least a full second between the ignition of the priming powder and the detonation of the main charge. A good deal of what appears to be severe recoil is the shooter's muscles relaxing just a split second before detonation . Just as well he had the gun tied to his left hand !

... Ron Watson

[Bugyotsuji]

Apparently with 100 Monme ball the recoil is equivalent to two tons. In battle the gun was allowed to fly backwards onto a prepared landing area. We use 100 grams of blackpowder to blow the wad out of there. Notice his left foot, dancing to maintain his balance. I have seen our troop leader injure his hand, get knocked over backwards etc, but he always manages to catch the baby and hug it without damaging it.

 

Less impressive, but here's me firing the black lacquer 20 Monme there on Sunday. Frame taken from an m-peg.

[watsonmil]

Dear Piers,

Impressive, ... you realize that a round ball of 20 monme = 1157 grains ( grains is the normal method of weighing projectiles of musket / rifle caliber ). That is equivalent to 2.4 ounces of projectile. A projectile of 100 monme weighs in at 375 grams = 13.23 ounces .. ( a small cannon ).

Given these weights of ball and calculating out the ft/lb recoil, ... either of these two guns the 20 monme or especially the 100 monme gun will be completely impossible to hang onto if loaded with anything other than a blank ( powder and wad only ). The Samurai out of necessity would have had to have something for the gun to land in once it left the shooters hands upon firing ( for the 20 monme gun ) and some type of seperate mounting ( carriage ) other than hand held for the 100 monme gun.

... Ron Watson

[estcrh]

The Samurai out of necessity would have had to have something for the gun to land in once it left the shooters hands upon firing ( for the 20 monme gun ) and some type of seperate mounting ( carriage ) other than hand held for the 100 monme gun.

... Ron Watson

So Ron, you mean this print was a slight exaggeration?

 

 

[Bugyotsuji]

From what I have been told, and from the way we are taught to absorb recoil with a spin of the body, up to 30 Monme were hand-held and fired in the field even standing up.

 

The very weight of these things is astonishing, as you know Ron, so they must have had massive arm muscles. Naturally the butt is not placed against the shoulder, but the right hand grips the wasp-waisted tapered place behind the trigger and both arms absorb the recoil. In the event that proved impossible, they probably made sure no-one was standing right behind a Shashu.

 

100 Monme were laid upon a rice bale, for example, and behind the 射手 Shashu shooter a muddy bog ditch or a pile of futon was prepared for the gun's landing.

 

Even though they are equivalent to cannons, they were dubbed 'hand cannons' by Westerners who observed them.

 

PS As with many Ukiyo-e, Eric's print is rather inaccurate. That gun would rip out the man's armpit!

[Baka Gaijin]

Morning all

 

The print above is by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, from the series Taiheiki eiyû den, 太平記英勇傳.

 

It depicts Inoue Daikurô Nagayoshi who Kuniyoshi had to rename Ina-ue Daikurô Masatada.

 

It was originally published by Yamamoto-ya Heikichi between 1848/9.

 

What is particularly interesting are the hints of impermanence shown by the skull hata, falling leaves and blossom, what would be called "Vanitas" in Western Art.

 

Kuniyoshi certainly had sight of a copy of a western manual of Art aesthetics and is known to have painted and drawn in the western idiom.

 

 

 

Cheers

[Bugyotsuji]

Malcolm, again thanks for the background. The name seems to be a mixture of two famous founders of gunnery schools, Inatomi ("Inadome") Ichimusai, and Inoue Daikuro Nagayoshi. The gun's butt shape is closer to the Inoue School of gunnery though. A lovely composition.

[Baka Gaijin]

Morning Piers,

 

The name seems to be a mixture of two famous founders of gunnery schools, Inatomi ("Inadome") Ichimusai, and Inoue Daikuro Nagayoshi.

 

That's fascinating, now here's a question.

 

Does the image depict our character preparing to fire, or having fired the gun?

 

I'll nail my colours by saying I think he's fired and he's exhibiting the follow through of concentration (Zanshin).

 

(Hence the wispy smoke dispersing across the hata and the red post, the hair flying, the blossoms falling...)

 

You may shoot me down in flames

 

 

Pip Pip

[Bugyotsuji]

Malcolm, I think you are right on the button, as usual! :D

 

This gun has no lock to it, but often in Ukiyo-e they have the wrong lock anyway!

[Baka Gaijin]

Good afternoon Piers,

 

With regard to the mechanism of Teppo.

 

I wonder if the depiction of precise details were considered too dangerous to show to the emerging merchant classes and thus a matter for censorship?

 

Cheers

[Bugyotsuji]

Malcolm, I like that idea. There was always (as in Kabuki) an attempt to portray a different time other than the one people were actually in, to avoid offending anyone, especially the authorities. Many of the locks seem to be later percussion caps, even when portraying a much earlier historical incident.

 

Certainly before Japan was urged to rearm against the barbarians in the late 1830s (?) I think that most Ukiyo-e Shi had never seen a real teppo, or the ones they saw on stage when portraying actors were clumsy wooden replicas.

 

Renditions of guns in Ukiyo-e Hanga are in fact quite rare. I have a few original prints and, like the one above, a few downloaded off the internet.

[Bugyotsuji]

After all the excitement about finding a gun and a sword by the same smith Sukenobu, it embarrasses me to announce that as of today I have now sold this sword. The Mei showed they were different people, there being several Sukenobu in mid to late Edo, and it turns out that even the Meikan was wrong on this.

 

Took a bit of a hit on it, but that cannot be helped.

 

I have found leads to two further swords reputedly by this smith, however, which I intend to track down in the coming weeks. One is a Wakizashi and the other is a Hono-to 奉納刀 at a Jinja in SW Japan.

[Bugyotsuji]

Jumping a bit here, but I went round the house looking for compasses. Found these. The Kanji directions and the 12 zodiac points somehow attract me.

 

The round wooden one is the oldest and the Kanji points simplest. They come up in antique markets quite often but it is hard to find one that does not have something wrong with it.

 

The ship's compass with handle is broken and probably beyond fixing. A pity.

 

The other brass ones do what it says on the box. One small and very portable, the other large and heavy, in custom box.

[estcrh]

Piers, I have a compass that is a lot like one of yours, it is enclosed in a wooden case, supposedly Edo period but I have never seen the use of compasses in Japan mentioned in any history books, any idea of how far back compasses were used? I have seen them being called "rashinban" occasionally when being sold, is this name correct?

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Eric, Rashinban is correct, although my dictionary also mentions a word Rashingi. Sadly I know little about their history except that some late Edo Period castaways were astonished when rescued to see the quality and detail on Western sailing-ship compass dials. (eg Nakahama Manjiro and Hamada Hikozo, = Joseph Heco.)

 

Somewhere, perhaps in this thread, I recall passing on a snippet of folklore I heard here that the primary function of an oriental compass was to tell accurately which way was unlucky and which way to go in order to avoid that direction, yet still end up in the same place, by a slightly more circuitous route. Fusui (Ch. Feng Shui) first, then practicalities!

 

It seems that 子 Ne = Nezumi (mouse) was for North, and 午 Uma (go) meant South, and the line between them pointed to the North Star, Polaris, the Pole Star.

 

A good friend lives in a place called 辰巳 Tatsumi (literally "Dragonsnake", or "Southeast"). This name is actually a compass direction measured from a famous tomb on the top of a prominent and meaningful mountain not too far away.

[Baka Gaijin]

Good afternoon Piers

 

This may be of interest

 

http://www2.gol.com/users/stever/kyoto.htm

 

Cheers