Traditions, Schools, Groups, ???

[Jwrussell]

Hello everyone! I'm looking for some direction. Still very much in the early learning stages of Nihonto and I'm finding myself completely lost in the morass of traditions, schools (schools within schools?) and Groups. I have some basic understanding, so let me lay out some information and invite correction/clarification/etc. I've read Darcy's excellent article on "Nihonto Classifiation: Swords and Smiths," which lays out a good start to the topic, but of course when I put this into practice it gets messy.

 

Perhaps the issue is that I'm expecting this to be too linear? For instance, I was expecting to be able to draw a line diagram starting with the Tradition, down through the School and then to the lineage. This is turning out to be difficult for some of the smiths I've tried it with.

 

One I've had some success on for example:

Yamato (Tradition )-> Hosho (School) -> Sendai Kunikane School (secondary school under Hosho, or is this technically a lineage) -> I(y)esada (Smith)

 

So even with the above, where I have been able to (I think) laid out a good linear "map" from the major Tradition down through to the Smith, I still have some confusion. Is Sendai Kunikane a Lineage or Group or School? It's referenced as a school on Sho-Sin.com.

 

As another example where I've had less success:

(POSSIBLY) Yamato Tradition *very unsure here* -> Hokurikudo (School? really confused here) -> Echizen Kanazu(or Kanatsu) Group (Group???)-> Mitsuyuki (smith)

 

So the above sends me in so many directions I really can't figure where I'm supposed to go from one level to the next with a lot of confidence. For instance, I've found references to the "Ura Smiths" which encompasses both the Hokurikudo and the Sanindo smiths. Is this considered a School or Level, or...?

 

Again, any help is appreciated, including articles/books (sections) to read. Thanks in advance.

 

[Jussi Ekholm]

In your second example you have some terms that are bit overlapping. Hokurikudō is one of historical trade routes of old Japan and it passes through several provinces. So instead of being a school it is a regional classification. Similarily I believe Ura is a regional classification that is used on Northern provinces along the sea of Japan. Mitsuyuki is very rare smith from Echizen province, who supposedly studied under Kuniyuki. Often they are referred as Esshū Kuniyuki, Esshū Mitsuyuki due to their connection to the province. I do believe I have never seen an item attributed to Kanatsu Kuninaga, and so far I only have tracked down 3 signed pieces by Kuniyuki and 1 by Mitsuyuki so signed work by them is extremely rare. I think Hokkoku-mono term is often used for swords of Hokuriku area, as they often have their own style. So you could have something like - Hokurikudō -> Esshū/Echizen -> Mitsuyuki (Region - Province - Smith)

 

I focus on Kotō period stuff so I might be bit off on later stuff. I believe Sendai Kunikane is both smith lineage and school. In general I don't think they are usually classified under Hoshō as that Yamato school generally existed from late Kamakura into middlish/latish Muromachi. I think you are correct that there is a smith Iesada (家定) that studied under Sendai Kunikane. Often in general classification the 5 traditions is a Kotō thing (pre-Edo) then Shintō swords are considered as their own tradition.  And in Shintō tradition Sendai Kunikane lineage is usually listed under Ōshū due to their geographical location. So I think easier format might be - Shintō -> Ōshū -> Sendai Kunikane School -> Iesada

 

[Peter Bleed]

Dear Jason,

You are being laudably responsible in becoming a Japanese sword collector. Good on you!. Please let me try to help you by asking you to think about plywood, - that is 1) a material made of a bunch of thin layers of wood. It can vary 2) based on the kinds of wood that were used, and 3) the ways they were attached. And 4) you have to remember that plywood always has two sides – the stripes and the flat. ( it is tempting to call those masame and itame, but it is a bit different) Beyond all that, you also have to realize that 5) plywood has been used in lots of different ways, by craftsman 6) in many different areas and styles.

            So what do you do when you find a great Eames chair that a used furniture dealer is selling as a “Plywood Seat”? Do you argue with her? Do you question your understandings and tastes? Or do you say, “I like it, but can you do any better?”

The gokaden was a way of classifiying Japanese  sword making procedures before 1250 or so. To begin with those procedures were routine and supported by rather narrow tool kits and local resources. Basically, they were like slightly different ways of making plywood. Then, by about 1400 or so, mixing and reorganization and increased demand had begun. And so, smiths in different AREAS developed differences. They used established techniques, but developed distinctive ways of making effective weapons – call them regional styles. Soldiers in those regions got used to those weapons, And so you get things like “Hokuriku style” That usage is like talking about a “Kentucky Rifle.”

Then you have to understand that in Japan, you learn a skill by entering into a close relationship with a social superior. These situations can be called SCHOOLS because the boss teaches you how to operate and he exposes you to a narrow and specific set of 1) skills and 2) tools. This means what you learn is narrow and specific. It  is about how to behave NOT how to innovate. After the late 1500s there was great persistence in several of these schools. They were all making plywood, but by that time the medium and the techniques had changed a great deal…

Let me also speak to Kunikane. He claimed to be a descendent of Yamato smiths, but I can’t understand how that could have been. And furthermore I do NOT think there is a gene for blacksmithing. I think he was a GOOD smith who figured out how to do masame. He also seems to have been a good local citizen. He earned the support of rich guys in his hometown. And he started an enduring “school” that lasted like 14 generations in Sendai. The second Iyesada was a student of Kunikane, but the swords he made, and those by his son and grandson don’t look TO ME like the swords that Kunikane produced.

Peter

 

[Jwrussell]

Thank you so much for the reply, Jussi!

 

Regarding Iesada and more broadly the Sendai Kunikane school/lineage, I refer to this very interesting blog post by Darcy which quotes "an article written by Han Bing Siong on the Yamato Hosho tradition." Consider swords #6 and #8. Note that he classifies #6  as "Shinto Yamato Hosho" and #8 as "Shinshinto Yamato Hosho".

 

https://yuhindo.com/ko-hosho/

 

So returns some of my confusion. Do the Gokuden transcend sword eras, or are we really just talking influence once we pass out of Koto? And at what point does a Gokuden influence cease to place that smith's work within a Gokuden school?

 

As it relates to Mitsuyuki, we are talking about a Koto smith, so in this case are we talking about a school/group that is outside of the Gokuden?

[Jwrussell]

Wow, Peter. I would bow if we were in person. I will have to take some time to really think about your post, but I believe I begin to understand what you are saying. I believe I have been thinking of schools in too literal and linear of a sense when it comes to schools. 

[Rivkin]

Its a bit complicated question.

Which I think only true bigot can try to answer.

Classifications of historical weapons are somehow extremely sensitive to how society interprets the relationship between an artist and a community.

For example, Russian books usually correlate any observable developments to Imperial edicts. Whether its bayonets, machine guns or kards, they will be described as "the pattern following the edict 471". Even if the object was arguably made in some secluded cave in India.

 

In case of Japan one has to keep in mind that in Confucian spirit the laws had a tendency to remain active "on paper" pretty much from their enactment till Meiji revolution.

The earliest legal codes defined a relationship between a person and the state as being intermediated by clan's head. Each person is registered with a specific clan name, and its your clan head who pays your taxes to the central government and arranges for legal permits. In East Asia pretty much everything requires a legal permit. 

Scroll forward to Edo period, to practice any craft you needed a permit, which was obtainable more or less exclusively by inheriting it from your father, all the way back to someone who received from any top government official, either Imperial or Shogunate. So every Japanese genealogy of every craftsman goes back all the way Kamakura period or earlier. If your ancestor was given a license to smith by none other than prince Shotoku, nobody could question your legal qualifications. If it was some northern Fujiwara administrator - the legitimacy would be insignificant by comparison.

 

Also, with heavy emphasis on reincarnation it is actually suggested at times that these later craftsmen are direct reincarnations of the earlier generations. But with a Confucian sensitivity that the earlier generations were obviously less corrupted and thus in general superior.

Good thing about such classification is that obviously most craftsmen learned their skill from their "parents", often adaptive ones. Also such extended family members do tend to have common traits.

Bad thing is that everytime there is a fashion change and everybody in Japan starts to make more or less the same thing, you can't explain it unless you have a father figure who plainly fathered them all. Or you don't even try to explain it and are satisfied with attributions that jump between schools that are supposedly completely unrelated. The classification is more vertical then horizontal.

For example, there is almost nothing in common between Nambokucho and Momoyama Bungo - except the names.

 

 

[Jacques D.]

It is useful to know that when we talk about gokaden, only the first generations are concerned, the following ones being subject to various influences.

[Grey Doffin]

The concept of the Gokaden was, if I'm not mistaken, developed in the 19th century as a way to classify Koto sword smithing.  A smith working during Koto times didn't know he was part of 1 of 5 different traditions.

And then when Tokugawa Iyeyasu came to power and unified Japan under one government late in the 16th century, he shuffled the country.  He realized that if he left Japan as it was, feudal Daimyo who hadn't been as supportive as he would have liked would retain their positions of power with armies, alliances, suppliers, and more, and could be troublesome.  So he moved them around, forcing Daimyo who had existed for centuries in one spot to relocate to another.  When the Daimyo, who were important customers for swordsmiths moved, many smiths moved as well.  This disrupted traditions and forged new alliances in smithing: lots changed.

Also, with the unified country and a near total cessation of warfare, swords took on a different significance.  They had always been weapons and the best of them were objects of status but, in Shinto, status became more important; swords were made as much to be items that would impress the owners' associates as to be impressive weapons.  New styles and techniques developed; there was a significant shift away from tradition.

All of which is to explain why you can't easily draw lines from Koto into Shinto.

And let me add, This is my understanding but I'm not a historian.  I may have this wrong and if I do I hope I will be corrected.

Grey

[Jussi Ekholm]

Han Bing Siong was an amazing scholar, I would have liked very much to meet him. His article might be the first time I ever see mentions of Shintō and Shinshintō Hoshō. I tend to think Kunikane and Norikatsu individual smiths rather than part of the Hoshō lineage. Of course workmanship for both shares characteristics commonly associated with Hoshō school work.

 

There are different ways to "group" up smiths and schools under larger categories. Gokaden is one of them. I will add a quote about gokaden from Nihon Kotō-shi by Honma Junji

 

Quote

A term of gokaden became to be used since the Edo Period. It means of the five basic forging methods or workmanships of Yamashiro, Yamato, Sagami, Mino and Bizen smiths. In studying the Japanese sword, it is very useful to understand gokaden since there are so many swords made according to these basic workmanships. However, there are also many smiths who demonstrate an individual workmanship and so it is not an appropriate way of thinking that all smiths follow gokaden in their sword forging. There is a term of ‘sue-mono’ (末物) for swords made after the middle of the Muromachi Period. Generally speaking, sue-mono does not show conspicuous characteristics or their localities. Few Yamashiro smiths of this period demonstrate Yamashiro-den and some Osafune smiths employ the forging methods of other traditions. Also Yamato and Sōshū smiths often temper their hamon in nioi-deki.

 

Personally I like to go with regional groupings. To me it just seems most logical approach going by geography, although when for example smith changes residence it can make things difficult. For Kotō swords there is kinda logical approach in going through the provinces in a certain way, you can see this for example in NBTHK Jūyō results (similar approach applies to later items as well).

 

Now if you take Yamato from Gokaden as an example. Generally there are the five main lines of Yamato that worked within the province, Senju'in, Taima, Tegai, Shikkake and Hoshō. However there are many schools that are heavily influenced by this tradition. For example in his Gokaden no Tabi Yamato book Tanobe-sensei includes Uda (宇多) [Etchū province], Naminohira (波平) [Satsuma province], Fujishima (藤島) & Asago-Taima (浅古当麻) [Echizen and Kaga provinces], Mihara (三原) [Bingo province] and Niō (二王) [Suō province]. Now for example as I go with regions I would approach these by the province and would group them by those but someone going with traditions/work style might group them together like this. I just listed the provinces in [] brackets as these schools worked in various parts of Japan.

 

I think it is quite interesting subject as people will have different types of approach into things. So it is fun to see various views on things.

[Jacques D.]

Worth reading (Nagayama's book) : 

 

 

[Jacques D.]

Grey, 

 

Daimyos where rather employers than customers

[Rivkin]

I would say gokaden is nearly as helpful as it is confusing.

First and foremost, roughly half of the blades currently on the market are shinto. Which is, except for Ishido Bizen and a few other subschools, is a tradition of its own. The sixth tradition. So you have a classification which is from the get go fails with half the blades.

But it does not get any easier as you go into details of what should be describable by gokaden.

Pre-mid-Kamakura blades, no matter which school they are, ko Bizen, Yamashiro or Yamato can look quite similar. Many will belong to subschools which are not clearly gokaden - like Aoe and ko Hoki. Even though ko Hoki often looks more like "mainstream" Yamato compared to, say Hosho. And Hosho school never had mainstream-like Yamato signatures, its not clear if it was in Yamato region, it has a well defined style of its own - but its in the old tables as part of five mainstream Yamato schools, so it is there.

Rai Kuniyuki forged most of his blades in wide, nie filled hamon, which can be mistaken for Bizen Tomonari , but is completely incomparable to almost anything ever done in later Rai and Awataguchi, i.e. the works which sort of define Yamashiro style as it is.

Soshu tends to include Awataguchi smith Shintogo Kunimitsu, whose works were never mistaken for any single blade produced by anyone else within Soshu school, but can exclude Shizu Kaneuji, on account of him going Mino. Hasebe, who is very central to Soshu, is often instead delegated to Yamashiro, on account of him having Yamashiro-lineage name.

 

Gokaden is blood/province oriented classification. It fails utterly in shinto, when style dominated over blood. It fails with ancient swords, which were all forged in rather utilitarian style, which has rough itame-nagare hada and rough nioi with elements of nie hamon. It mostly fails at the time when everybody was trying to be Soshu. It constantly includes things that are not really that similar - Yoshii, Unju and Osafune under the umbrella of one "Bizen school", while sending works of exceptionally similar smiths to different schools because their blood is unrelated.

 

In reality if you want to understand Koto you need to get accustomed that there were about 25 more or less prominent schools/lineages, each of which cannot be completely defined by gokaden. Even if it resided in Bizen or Yamashiro. Ayanokoji usually does not look like Rai Kunitoshi. If you want simplification, there were only 4 styles which were constantly imitated throughout Japanese history. Ichimonji, Soshu, Rai Kunitoshi/Awataguchi and Yamato Tegai Kanenaga. If you understand 4-10 masterpieces from these traditions, you can understand 50% of nihonto aesthetic.

[Jwrussell]

Loving the discussion, thank you to everyone for your thoughts. I'm continuing to research this on my own and am quickly finding out this is a very deep pool I have dived into.

 

A couple of things to add as I look into this deeper. As Kirill mentions, I was leaving out the "Shinto Tokuden." And of course then we have some who classify upwards of 20 Shinto/Shinshinto schools from Hizen to Mutsu (working across the country).

 

Also, within the Gokuden time period, we have both Majiwari-mono and Wakimono to describe "schools" that show multiple Gokuden traditions within one "school" and those schools who developed as offshoots or developed separately from the Gokuden (paraphrased from M. Sessko). A perfect example is on Darcy's site: https://yuhindo.com/reisen-sadamori/

 

And even within his description he quotes Ted Tenold stating "The masame in the ha of Kongobyoe works lends to their general classification of Yamato-den style."

 

So, while I believe I still have a lot to learn and comprehend when it comes to this topic, I'm comfortable in saying I've cleared up that this is not nearly as linear a classification system as I was thinking it was.

[Toryu2020]

Jason -

The Gokaden are "Traditions", really methods of construction and how a blade presents itself. They developed in specific places so share the place-names from whence they came. However as has been stated a smith can learn a smithing style and then go practice in a completely different part of the country. In most cases the "DNA" of the original style is still there even when the smith tries something new. Like the way an artist mixes his paints, he does it the way he was taught probably without much thought but the discerning eye can see the "DNA".

 

In Kantei we assign quality first, then age, then tradition. If you can do this you are a long way to identifying a sword-maker based solely on the workmanship. In Koto "Bizen-den" often but not always means you are looking for someone making swords in the Bizen tradition who resides in Bizen. This is where it is helpful to know the many "Schools" within Bizen - the schools developed over time so if you have correctly identified the age of the piece you have pared your many choices down to just the few schools working in that tradition in that place. This works for all traditions. The closer you are to the original place the stronger the influence of the tradition. (This is why it is good to know the Kuni/Kaido)

 

In Shinto times there developed the Shinto Tokuden and several regional styles but most smiths were inspired by works of the past. If you can identify which tradition the smith was aiming for, say Yamato, you can then eliminate all the other smiths working at the time who did NOT do Yamato inspired work. Kunikane was not in the lineage of Hosho but was inspired by their work. Knowing which styles inspired individual Shinto smiths helps you to get to the correct answer...

 

-tch

 

 

[Rivkin]

Very personal opinion:

Wakimono are often quoted as being a problem for gokaden, but I don't feel that way. Many if not most of these schools were founded as provincial, Yamato-based shops, around 1300 or so. Attributions to these schools tend to be "soft" and are often attributed differently by different shinsa, but they are more or less all within the same class - 1300 to 1400, provincial work. Provincial school make a comeback around 1510, and with basically similar issues.

 

The bigger problem is that Bizen, for example, being the largest workshop of the land, from time to time forged in every possible type of hada and almost every hamon known in Japan.

There are ko-itame, itame with nagare, mokume, masame and even matsukawa-flavored examples.

There are suguha in nioi, ko choji, choji in nioi, choji in nie, midare or gunome in either nie or nioi. There are blades that look like Rai Kunitoshi, Yamato Taima and whatever else. Kantei-ing these 1100-1300 blades can be a nightmare, especially as we outside of Japan are relatively seldom exposed to those.

You can substitute such details with something along the lines "Bizen is choji in nioi with itame hada" and that's going to match roughly 30% of Kamakura examples and probably as high as 70% of Muromachi. 

And then you put Tomonari, Ayanokoji, ko Aoe, Rai Kuniyuki next to each other and it sort of dawns on me (don't know about others) - these people must have known each other's work more than just a bit. Some of it does converge towards the same kind of aesthetic, which is period rather than region based.

Same way you have later Nambokucho blade, and you can have heavily Bizen leaning Sa or strongly Soshu leaning Chogi or even some Kozori signed piece - and you clearly see they were influenced by the same, period-based, Soshu-Bizen aesthetic.

 

[Vermithrax16]

I don't think of the Gokaden outside of the koto era. One of the examples from OP, Kunikane, often signed Yamashiro on his mei, it was regional at that point.

 

Jason, if masame is exciting to you, you have excellent taste (I am biased). Please check out Darcy's site for Hosho works from Koto era. In the Han write up you mentioned, the kantei to Norikatsu, once you see his later works, will make sense when looking at a true Hosho. But there is no relation. Norikatsu worked with and studied with many of the top makers of the shinshinto era, but refined his work to classic levels IMO.

 

 

[Ken-Hawaii]

Jason, you've gotten some excellent advice here, but it is still a very-complex subject.

 

Our illustrious member, Markus Sesko, has done a great job of walking members through a university-level course on Nihonto https://markussesko.com/kantei/ & I think reading through that, to understand the basics, will help you more than initially trying to understand the often-inconsistent Gokaden concept. Welcome aboard, & I hope you enjoy studying.

[Hoshi]

Gokaden is a simplifying idea, and with any simplifications, nuance and exceptions are pruned away. In statistics this is called "clustering" by maximising similarity within categories and dissimilarity between categories. You choose then the number of clusters that give you the best explanatory power vs complexity as the tradeoff. 

 

Once you get a grasp of Gokaden, quickly move towards a more granular view as, quite honestly, it isn't a great rule of thumb but it does get the job done at making you learn further as you'll find yourself scratching your head and comparing books. 

 

Great points have been in this thread. of note:

 

- Koto and Shinto are qualitatively different things. Don't apply Koto rule of thumbs to it, it's really it's own thing, and while it has spawned from mino, it turned into a beast of its own... 

- The two most useful levels of classifications to understand Nihonto are: province-level + period-level. e.g. "swords of Bizen province in the early kamakura period" and you go from there. 

- "Provincial" vs "famous sword production sword center" is one of the most powerful heuristics. Provincial swords are often more similar to each other than they are close to those from the key schools in the top production centers. A useful way to think of it is as a default. You'll find similarity in Pre-Sa Chikuzen work, Ko-Uda, Bungo, Ko-Mihara, etc. Typically this is manifested in the methods of hada constructions, provincial swords tend to have a rougher hada and tend towards a more more dim, less active hamon. 

 

To these I will add: 

 

Try the Great Smith View of Nihonto: There are approx. 10 master-innovators that have defined the craft by being the source (or close to the source) of significant innovations and/or founding extremely influential schools. This is the canon and where everything else after tries to get back to. Once you get it, the rest will click much faster. It's similar to master paintings in this sense and probably many other fields. 

 

At the end, I think a lot more could be achieved if we had better mediums of learning. A lot of knowledge is needlessly hidden behind paywalls (physical books) or culture-walls.