Maetate

[Ken-Hawaii]

Roger that! I'd love to have that one, too.

[Bugyotsuji]

Ah, so you are a Hideyoshi man, Mark. 

[Chishiki]

Ah, so you are a Hideyoshi man, Mark.

I dance better after a few drinks.

[Chishiki]

Hi. Another favourite. Not sure what this would say about the wearer. Click on the image. Mark

[uwe]

He was obviously an ugly comedian....

[Guest]

Wasn’t the Hyotan one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s emblems?

 

D’ang, you beat me to it Piers..............????

[Chishiki]

Ah, so you are a Hideyoshi man, Mark. 

I didn’t know the Hyotan was connected to Hideyoshi. I wonder why......

[IanB]

Hideyoshi had an uma jirushi of a mass of golden gourds on wires, whilst Ieyasu had his giant golden fan. I had the privilege of handling the latter when we borrowed it for the Shogun exhibition in Leeds, and contrary to almost all the depictions of it, it doesn't have a red sun on and never had.  What amused me was that there were profuse apologies that the bamboo pole it was carried on was now lost.

Ian B

[Ken-Hawaii]

This discussion is really interesting, but has anyone created a book, manual, treatise, or anything else that explains maetate to us novices?

[Bugyotsuji]

Can't think of a specific book offhand, Ken.

 

In many cases the choice of Maedate was a personal one, rather than a symbol of rank. I suppose we could also say that high rank conferred the ability to choose one's own maedate, freedom from having to demonstrate allegiance to a superior. 

 

We could start a list here, with Naoe Kanetsugu famously using the character for 愛 ai as a Maedate.

 

With what kind of maedate do we associate the following?

Kusunoki Masashige.....

Date Masamune..........

Sanada Yukimura........

Uesugi Kenshin...........

Kuroda Kanbei...............

Yamanaka Shikanosuke...

Ii Naomasa.....

[Guest]

Central Ken with kuwagata

Crescent moon - wide sliced

Six coins

None - Yamabushi Priest’s white headscarf

None - Chawan kabuto

Crescent moon or sun in eclipse forming a perfect circle

None - huge gold wakidate

[Bugyotsuji]

This photo illustrates some Maédaté.

[Guest]

Nice pic, the dodgy cove with the Haraegushi maedate and the red bag looks up to no good...............????

[Bugyotsuji]

The red bag, I would have you know, contains one mighty weapon, a Welsh leek, negi or Tokyo/naganegi for dinner.

 

As to the splendid    head ornament, I was assured these are called 'Gohei', but a quick check with my flexible wiki friend shows me there are several words of this ilk, including Onbe, heisoku, gohei and haraegushi, etc. Perhaps it depends on the shrine affiliation?

[Bugyotsuji]

Mr N, our troop leader, wearing a Kabuto instead of his more usual Naga-Eboshi. Occasionally we can see something from his collection like this. The guy will be 81 in January.

 

Note matching Fukigaeshi and Maédaté.

[Ken-Hawaii]

I'm not as old, & my kabuto is much less grand, but I still like it:

 

[uwe]

Sorry for the delay!

I had a short discussion with Markus, to revive my memory. This book simply lacks the desired info. About 85% is about the meaning and the origin of the used symbols. Only a few references regarding clans/ families and their preferences.....

[Ken-Hawaii]

Thanks for remembering to check, Uwe. Sounds like something that NMB should collect, collate, & print.

[IanB]

Ken, It would be  good idea apart from the fact that so many helmets have had maedate added that had no association with each other. The answer may lie in in the battle screens that gave us answers as to what kamon many famous warriors used in the Sengoku Jidai. Thanks to the habit of applying labels identifying people appearing on these screens and noting what kamon the were using on their flags and other equipment we now know what heraldry some at least of these people used. I have a book on Seki ga hara which lists who was present and how many men they brought to the battle and it is surprising that we don't know what kamon some of the major players used.

Ian Bottomley

[Ken-Hawaii]

It seems a shame that we still can't produce a document that shows at least a snapshot of maedate at some point, with full identification.