Samurai Tsutsu ( Personal Gun ) #1

[Tengu1957]

I am using the definition of O-zutsu as being in excess of 22 lbs and TsuTsu being between 16-22 lbs. The TsuTsu being the personal gun of the Samurai.

 

This gun is signed and is well made. It has a silver inlay of a Phoenix the length of the barrel.

 

Length - 109.2 cm

Bore - 1.9 cm

Weight - 8.7 Kilos

[Viper6924]

So many matchlock, so little time You have a very interesting collection.

To my knowledge, this is the first 10 Monme matchlock I’ve seen featuring a solid breech tobi no o. As this was a feature made to make large caliber matchlocks managing greater loads of black powder, I see no real use for it on a 10-Monme. But it’s def an interesting detail.

 

Jan

[Peter Bleed]

Gary,

Thank you for presenting  a really interesting series of images and information!

P

[Bugyotsuji]

Tsutsu 筒 Gary, simply means tube. It was a general word for gun. For example a 細筒Hoso + tsutsu (= Hosozutsu) = a slim or thin gun, ie a long gun of small bore/caliber.

中筒Chu + tsutsu (= Chuzutsu) is a medium sized gun up to 10 Monmé (a Samurai gun or 士筒 Shizutsu), and 大筒 O-zutsu is a large gun from 15 Monmé upwards, ie 20, 30, 50, etc.

[Tengu1957]

Hi Piers , please let me know what the proper way ( other than 10 monme gun would be ) to refer to these. I have a couple of publications that refer to these as TsuTsu or TuTu and call them the personal gun of the Samurai. They state that the medium to higher level Samurai would keep a larger caliber personal gun vs. the smaller "noodle" guns that ashigaru would use.

[Bugyotsuji]

Hi Gary,

First off, there are two ways of rendering Japanese into English, the first of which ('Hepburn') is easier for us in the West to read, and the second which is easier for the Japanese to read. The quick answer is, ignore Tutu (for 筒) and go with Tsutsu (for the same 筒) cannula, duct or tube, both Romanizations sounding the same to a Japanese person. Older Western texts often have the older Japanese Kunrei spelling, like 'tutu'. In second position in compound words the t softens to z, so 矢筒 Yazutsu would be a tube for arrows.

 

From Wiki: "Hepburn is based on English phonology and has competed with the alternative Nihon-shiki romanization, which was developed in Japan as a replacement of the Japanese script. In 1930 a Special Romanization Study Commission was appointed to compare the two. The Commission eventually decided in favor of a slightly-modified version of Nihon-shiki, which was proclaimed to be Japan's official romanization for all purposes by a September 21, 1937, cabinet ordinance; it is now known as the Kunrei-shiki romanization. The ordinance was temporarily overturned by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) during the Occupation of Japan, but it was reissued with slight revisions in 1954."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_romanization

[Bugyotsuji]

Second, there are competing definitions out there regarding the precise boundaries in the nomenclature. This is partly due to geographical and cultural separation, and partly depends on the Ryu, or school of gunnery.

 

As a quick rule of thumb, an Ashigaru foot-soldier would have carried a gun of around 4 to 6 Monme.

 

The Samurai (侍,士,仕 )would shoot a larger personal gun of 10 Monme, referred to as above as a 士筒　Shizutsu (or Samurai zutsu), and unless he was poor, he would have had some personal Ashigaru around to carry it for him.

 

All guns above these would have been O-zutsu (large guns) probably also fired by Bushi/Samurai, but belonging generally to a castle armoury inventory.

[Tengu1957]

Thank you for the clarification.

[Bugyotsuji]

Thirdly, the humorous term (noodle) comes from 'Udon' noodles (Udon-bari, i.e. rolled pastry). A snub, it is a discriminatory/pejorative usage to cast aspersions upon the quality of the gun carried by someone else (an inferior), or manufactured by a rival forge.

 

To avoid this stay with the appellations of 'army gun' 軍用筒 'Gunyozutsu' (pronounced Goon-yo), or the slimmer target and bird guns 細筒 'Hosozutsu'.

 

Although with your collection, Gary, you can rubbish everyone else's!!!     ..."All, all of them 'noodle' guns, yeah!" 

[Bugyotsuji]

PS Most of our understanding of Japanese guns comes from very few and poorly-researched Western materials written way back when, or information in the vernacular press. There is so much more to know; a few of us are in process of collating some better background information.

 

Since you have a Yonezawa gun there, may I ask if you have yet had the pleasure of reading Jan's book? ('Viper6924' above)

[Tengu1957]

Yes , I bought a copy as soon as it came out and have reread it at least 3 times. I bought copies for my friends who have interest in ML's. So little out there in English. I can't think of another Samurai weapon where there is such as lack of reference material for us in the west.