Who signed the Mei to the piece?

[Dan tsuba]

Hello all,

 

So, I have been reviewing threads here on the Nihonto side of the forum.   Oftentimes the mei of the piece is brought up.

 

In a previous thread on the Tosogu side of the forum I stated (on p 6 of the “Tsuba casting molds? thread)-.

 

“When the Tokugawa period began, few common people in Japan could read or write.”  

And more information was continued on that site, that I did not consider relevant to the issue. 

 

Also, I would like to refer you to this “hierarchal” scale on the “Edo” period (notice where “artisans” fall on the lower end of the scale). Which was found at this website- 

 

https://factsanddetails.com/Japan/cat16/sub107/item502.html 

 

 

So, my conclusion is that there are very few (or none at all) written records of early Edo period cast iron tsuba casters because those artisans did not know how to read or write (as verified by the above research). If anything, they would have communicated their methods by “oral tradition. That is why I stated “oral tradition” in my last post!”

 

 

So, (not wanting to create “controversy” – just trying to put 2 and 2 together to raise a possible question) who signed the mei to blades (and including tsuba) from the middle of the Edo period and earlier?

 

Could more people read and write in the early Edo period and before then is verified by research?  If so, then that is an explanation of how signing a mei can be explained.  But if only very few people in that period could read or write who signed the mei on the piece?

 

Let's think about that!  Does that mean that there was only one person in a family of sword makers that could write?  Did that person sign all the mei?  Or could there be a person that could write that was a kind of "traveling mei writer" that went from family to family of sword makers (also tsuba makers) that would sign the family's mei to the piece?

 

I believe the previous research I did on reading and writing in the Edo period is correct.  Most artisans in that period could not read or write (specifically the early Edo period and before).  A person that could read and write and travel from place to place to sign sword blades and tsuba sounds very plausible.  Just like there were specific craftsman that made the blade, another that wrapped the handle, another that made the tsuba, another that made the other sword "furnishings", another that made the wrapping material, and another to sharpen the blade.

 

Just a question I thought would be interesting for discussion.  Not that it will probably ever be verified for certain (one way or the other).  Maybe I am totally incorrect in what I see as a possibility of signing a mei, or maybe not.

 

With respect,

Dan

 

 

 

 

[Gimmick]

You bring up some very valid points. I would be very interested to know if there are any historic documents on the prevalence of smiths signing their "own" mei for each historic period. Was it a specialty done by a few persons as Dan suggests? Was this person part of the school or was he "independent"? Could it have been done by an apprentice? Or did it differ per family/school if mei signing was done internally or externally or by the smith (if he could read and write) or not?

 

Without solid answers backed by historic documents, I don't see how anyone could be confident in saying anything about any mei from times when illiteracy was still common. The recent discovery of the "barn find" sword that has an identical mei down to the date as another mei, with significantly different strokes, makes the questions in this thread even more important to answer. Until that time, having a ton of experience and examples might help to give a plausible authenticity for the meaning of/claim made by the mei in relation to the style of the blade or tsuba, but unless there are very hard facts about WHO did the signatures throughout the different time periods and geographical locations, it seems completely baseless to judge a mei by the "style" or "flow" (unless they are true hack jobs of course). Certainly statements as were made in the controversial thread I started like "It only takes one kanji to be really off for someone to state with reasonable confidence a sword is gimei. Smiths were consistent." should really be cause for concern if you are to take the study of nihonto seriously. I mean, have a close look at this and tell me how consistent it is:

 

On 2/24/2023 at 3:18 PM, Bruce Pennington said:

Also, not to detract from Noah's discussion (and Brian can move this to the Gassan thread, if appropriate) but I was comparing Noah's blade to another found by @Stephen for my kakihan files and the inscriptions on both sides are the same, even the date of February 11 1937, yet they are clearly different blades!  The other one is posted HERE and is fully polished, shiny habaki, posted back in 2016!

 

I seriously doubt Sadakatsu could make 2 blades on the same day (Ok, I know it took many days to make a blade).  Why would they both be named the same name for the same family with the same date?  Is it possible the family commissioning these blades wanted 2 (or more) for gifts?

 

Isn't that also what Mark S. was saying?

 

  

19 hours ago, Mark S. said:

For all the discussion of gimei based on a stroke here or there, two really great photos of both these mei side by side would be enlightening.  Both signed by the same hand on same day… identical?  Just for discussion sake…

 

The photos are already pretty clear. But again, how meaningful are the strokes unless we know the facts about who made the strokes in the first place. And any facts regarding this matter for let's say the period 1900-1950, might have absolutely no bearing at all on the periods 1600-1700 or 1800-1900 or however nihonto are classified.

 

"You're completely missing the point. Gimei isn't about comparing mei with the same smith's signatures alone. It's about knowing HOW they are carved, and knowing tiny little traits and stroke directions and seeing more than just a 2D image.
You need to ready the large chapter on gimei in the Nihonto Koza. But that's not gonna happen."

 

Perhaps someone who has read said chapter can comment on the WHO, because the WHO precedes and determines the HOW.

[John C]

4 hours ago, Dan tsuba said:

Could more people read and write in the early Edo period and before then is verified by research?

Dan:

I noticed the chart does not list priests. Where do they fall on that chart? In many cultures, priests could read and write when commoners could not. Weren't some swords made at shrines? Just spitballing at some possibilities.

John C.

[b.hennick]

It is possible for the few who could write put the signature in ink on the tsuba or tang and the smith used his chisel  to cut the mei. That would be faster for the person writing the signature. The smith could have a specific order and thickness for each stroke. Another possibility, could be that the learned person could write out the signature and the smith could copy it with his chisel.

I remember reading about a sword smith who was left handed who reversed parts of his signature.

[Gimmick]

4 hours ago, b.hennick said:

It is possible for the few who could write put the signature in ink on the tsuba or tang and the smith used his chisel  to cut the mei. That would be faster for the person writing the signature. The smith could have a specific order and thickness for each stroke. Another possibility, could be that the learned person could write out the signature and the smith could copy it with his chisel.

I remember reading about a sword smith who was left handed who reversed parts of his signature.

I was about to bring up these possibilities. Let's suppose a sword smith had incentive to do the chiseling himself, rather than a specialist, then indeed an illiterate sword smith, or even an illiterate chisel specialist, could do the mei based on an example inked on steel, an example made previously in steel, or an example inked on paper. At least the family/school/smith name, since that stays the same, either in short or long form.

 

The illiterate chiseler would have more problems with signing the date though, and he would need a literate person to make a custom example for him on paper (or on the object, but that seems impractical). And since he is unfamiliar with all these date kanji, the likelihood of inconsistencies in the strokes and "flow" is much greater. And the family mei and date mei might even be done on different occasions, depending on the availability of the literate person.

 

This might even explain why on the same nakago often the date mei has a very different style than the smith mei. They might have even been done by different people on different days, because why would a sword smith bother with doing a date mei or a dedication mei?

 

So even if we solve the illiteracy problem by giving smiths an example to copy, the question still remains "if there are any historic documents on the prevalence of smiths signing their "own" mei for each historic period", and then "own" mei should also be split in family/smith mei and date/dedication mei.

[Guest Simon R]

The assumption on this thread seems to be that literacy in Japan followed the same feudal pattern as that in Europe and that it was originally the sole domain of a 'social elite' comprising of the landed aristocracy and a wealthy, educated clergy.

However, because of Japan's Asian legacy of Confucianism and later Buddhism - combined with its unique social history - such simplistic compassions to contemporary European statistics are patently invalid.

 

Therefore, I have taken the liberty of copying and pasting - almost verbatim - a fascinating piece about this very topic written some 9 years ago on Reddit by an extremely erudite person going by the pen name "The Walrus5".

 

It is a colossal undertaking (and an equally colossal read) but it shines fascinating light on the subject.

Anyone wishing to read the original can find it at the following link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/27vf5f/literacy_rates_in_premodern_japan_why_was/#

 

Simon

 

 

 

 

Literacy rates are tough to judge. Historical Literacy rates are even harder to determine. Trying to figure out historical Japanese literacy rates borders on the impossible. The problem with finding a solid number for a literacy rate, is that literacy is very difficult to define. There are varying levels of literacy, some people can write and read but not very well, some people can read but not write, others can only manage their names, and without a strict definition of literacy it is impossible to have hard numbers on literacy rates. This is made even harder when dealing with historical literacy rates due to the lack of documentation. While there are some examples of people monitoring literacy rates, there aren’t many before the 19th century, and we’re usually relying on the person’s (often flawed) interpretation of literacy and (often limited) study population.

One handy tool when measuring literacy rates is looking for signatures on documents. Wedding Registers, Contracts, Censuses and other official papers are useful for this. But it’s unclear how good this is at actually measuring literacy rates as there are certainly people who know how to sign their names and nothing else (my emphasis) while other educated people simply don’t use their names when signing, instead preferring to stick with the x or some other mark (a good example of this is educated women being married to illiterate men and choosing not to sign their name on the wedding register so as not to embarrass the groom). There have been studies done that correlate the number of people able to sign their name with literacy, but the debate continues over using signatures to measure literacy.

All of the problems with measuring literacy are multiplied ten-fold when looking at Japan. First off, the ambiguities as to what qualifies as literate are far larger. The Japanese language has three writing systems, Hirgana, Katakana and Kanji. Two phonetic (Hiragana and Katakana) and one symbol based (Kanji). These writing systems have evolved massively throughout time and were historically also subject to regionalization, and simplification. When judging Japanese literacy then, one must take into account all three writing systems and decide whether being “literate” requires knowledge of all three, only two, or just one. To make things even harder, for much of Japan’s history you have a vernacular Japanese language, a Sino-Japanese hybrid for official documents, and straight Chinese among the upper classes and scholars existing together. Can someone be considered literate if they cannot read any of the books written at the time, as they only know how to read and write vernacular Japanese? The final problem with judging Japanese literacy is the almost complete lack of signatures (ciphers or monograms in Japanese) on official documents. Large scale censuses became common in the 1630s and generally had ciphers from the population on them, but after 1650 ciphers began to be replaced by personalized seals that we cannot use to measure literacy. For all these reasons, I’ll avoid using hard numbers on literacy in this answer and instead focus on general trends and on areas that imply literacy

Japan had unusually high literacy during the mid-late Edo Period compared to other countries. It also had an enormous number of schools in the late Edo Period, almost 15,000 were established, most of them private.

In the late 1500s, we can see the origins of popular Japanese literacy in Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s (who had united Japan, later to be replaced by Tokugawa after his death) decision to legally separate the warrior and peasant classes. Before this, Samurai had often lived as farmers and personally administrated villages. However, Toyotomi wanted to increase his control over the Samurai class and issued an edict ordering all Samurai to leave the villages and move to the Castle Towns of their Daimyos. Samurai who stayed in the villages would lose their status and become peasants. Without the Samurai around to directly control the villages, responsibility for administration of the villages shifted to the peasants themselves.

 

After the brief civil war brought on by Toyotomi’s death, the victor Tokugawa established what we know as the Tokugawa Shogunate and began the Edo Period. The Edo period is characterized by its expansive and controlling Bureaucracy known as the Bakufu. Under the new regime, Samurai, although still nominally warriors moved more and more into the role of government bureaucrats for the new Bakufu state and accordingly the Daimyos established new schools for the Samurai to teach them the new skills. Attendance was often compulsory. This marks the change in Samurais’ role from warriors sometimes farmers, to educated administrators who relied on a government stipend, an evolution that would continue for the rest of the Edo Period.

Meanwhile, literacy among peasants began to climb as well now that they were self-administrating. The Tokugawa Shogunate was heavily dependent on legal process for control. In many ways, the bureaucracy was stifling. The Bakufu constantly issued reminders about proper morals, emphasizing frugality (which allowed the Bakufu to tax more), and Confucian values such as loyalty to family, and the government. In order to collect taxes, and ensure that these orders were spread among the village population, the Bakufu relied on the village leaders, mostly the “headman”.

The village headman was picked in a variety of different ways depending on the village, ranging from complete democracy to a hereditary position. The headman was in charge of distributing the tax burden of the village among the land-owners (who made up between 50% and 70% of the population) and representing the interests of the villagers when talking to the Bakufu. In order to collect these taxes, the government sent Samurai District Magistrates who were in charge of 50-60 villages to collect the taxes from the headman.

The job of being village headman required an advanced degree of literacy and numeracy. Village headmen handled all written communication with the Bakufu, both receiving Bakufu commands and recommendations and writing petitions, making requests of the local Daimyo. In addition, the headman had to handle the complex math involved in determining tax burden. Local Daimyos tended to tax 40-50% of a villages production and it was the job of the headman to determine who should pay what based on whatever the local regulations were. This could be a complicated task as Japanese villages in the early Edo Period were divided into hundreds of small plots that were owned by different villagers, rarely were these fields connected to each other and they were often worked communally. This is just a fraction of a headman’s administrative work, but to discuss it further would move away from education and into styles of government and social structure so I’ll leave it for now. In return for this work, the Bakufu provided the headman with .5% of the village’s taxes or tax free fields depending on the specific place and time.

These literacy skills were picked up from Buddhist Temples and Priests which were common in rural areas. Various sources from the time imply that schooling sending the children of the village elite to study in Buddhist temples was, if not common, at the least not unusual. Indeed, it seems that in the early Edo Period Buddhist Temples were the central gathering points of towns, where villagers went to socialize and children sometimes attended writing classes. However, while Buddhist Temples certainly aided in education, the primary education place was within the Family itself. This led to a general division among the peasants between standard peasants and the Village Elite, who were often descended from Samurai who had lost their status by refusing to leave the countryside or old families in the village which were very wealthy.

The Bakufu was quite happy with the increases in education in Japanese villages. Now that the Samurai no longer lived in the villages, the ruling class had no way to collect taxes without the aid of a Village Headmen and skills in literacy and numeracy were needed for a headman to work effectively. However, in the early Edo Period, the government made little effort to directly promote schooling, whether because it did not occur to them or because they actively worried about a schooled lower class (as they would later) is not clear.

There is ample evidence to suggest that literacy skills spread to the entire village elite in the early Tokugawa Period. Headmen and their advisors were selected from among the village elite so obviously members of that elite would have needed at least basic literacy skills to be considered for these positions. However, more telling of the general expansion of basic literacy in the village elite are the numerous incidents of villagers calling out the headman on fraud, or going over his head to complain to the local government. Apparently, things got so bad that the Bakufu issues a proclamation demanding that the Headman make all documents public so that fellow villagers could examine them. In response to proclamation in 1659, villagers of “Motai” wrote this to the Bakufu:

“We have borrowed village account registers from the headman and are investigating them for evidence of malfeasance.”

From this account and others like it, it seems clear that literacy was widespread among the village elite even in the early Tokugawa years. After all it hardly makes sense to open tax records for public examination if no one is capable of reading them.

So far we’ve seen the seeds of the literacy explosion in Japan planted. Obligations placed on both the Samurai and the Village Elite by the new Bakufu state forced both groups to become more literate. As the Bakufu exercised its control of villagers largely through written documents, and peasants could only express their own position to the Bakufu state by reading and writing, literacy expanded among the village elite. Meanwhile, literacy expanded among the Samurai as their role shifted from Warrior enforcer to Bureaucratic agent. Next Post will be along shortly and I’ll discuss the brief period in Japanese history when we can gather (somewhat) hard data on Japanese literacy, literacy among urban dwellers and then the cultural explosion in Japan in the late 1600s early 1700s.

 

I'd like to briefly touch upon some data about ciphers(signatures) from 1630-1650 when seals began to replace ciphers. This is actually what R Rubinger focuses on in his book Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan of which a large part is devoted to bringing to light data collected on cipher use during the Edo period. It offers some fascinating information on social divides in Japan in regards to literacy and serves as a good backdrop for looking at literacy among Urban Dwellers in Edo Japan. 

 

In Edo Japan, there were four general ways to “sign” your name to a document. A Cipher, which Rubinger takes to imply a high level of literacy due to the complex brush strokes involve, an abbreviated cipher, which Rubinger takes to imply some level of literacy, miscellaneous, which were marks ranging from bloody handprints to circles, but we’ll group them together as Rubinger connects their use to illiteracy, and personalized seals, which really could mean anything as they were used for convenience or because they were fashionable, so there use doesn’t imply illiteracy, but it certainly doesn’t imply any level of literacy.

In 1630, it became mandatory in Japan for all citizens to register themselves with a Buddhist temple. This was to help stamp out Christianity in Japan, and in addition to the registry, the Bakufu and Daimyos often passed out Apostasy statements (Note: Both of these are excellent examples of the Bakufu maintaining its power through the legal process, every person everywhere in all of Japan was registered. It’s also a good example of the need for high literacy skills in village headmen; they were required to keep track of everyone in the village for the reports). Both the registry and apostasy statements required people to self-identify themselves with one of the four methods listed above and it’s from these we can take some rough measurements of literacy in Japan in the early Edo Period.

The population of Japan’s cities mostly consisted of Samurai, Artisans, Merchants and servants for these groups. We’ll be looking at Merchants and their servants and renters (The Bakufu tended to list renters and servants as part of the same household as their landlord). Merchants had an obvious need to be literate in order to run their businesses effectively, and in the economic prosperity that appeared after the end of the Sengoku Jidai and the unification of Japan their number and wealth grew. This meant a sizeable literate, business class began to develop in the cities of Japan. Like the peasants, Merchants learned reading and writing through Buddhist Temples and in the Family.

Looking at the heads of households in Merchant wards in Kyoto, we can see that cipher use was consistently above 60%. In one case, in Shimohonnojimae-cho in 1620, 95% of household heads used a cipher which implies a high level of literacy. The number drops off as time goes on and seal use increases, until post-1650 it clocks in at fewer than 10%, but it clearly indicates that at least the household heads were incredibly literate during the early Edo Period. If we look at another document from the 1640s with ciphers from all members of the household we see that women overwhelmingly used seals to sign their name (90%) which leaves the literacy of women during the period somewhat in question. However, those that didn’t use seals used ciphers implying a high level of literacy and tended to be the mother in families. 43% of sons used ciphers, however many of them could have been very young and incapable writing a cipher while the older sons (young men) would have begun shifting to seals which were more popular at this point. Even if neither of these are the case. 43% having a high level of literacy is impressive.

Interestingly, even among male renters and servants literacy was widespread. Among male renters and servants, 43% used ciphers implying a high level of literacy, probably because their job involved administrating part of the merchant business. But woman were far less educated with 63% using a mark implying they were illiterate.

We see similar numbers for household heads among Merchant families in smaller cities and towns. However, interestingly the implied literacy rate is much lower in smaller towns among other members of the household, especially women who seem to have been effectively illiterate.

From these numbers we can see the level of literacy in the early Edo Period among the Merchant households that made up much of the urban population at this point. It seems that in larger cities like Kyoto, literacy had not only taken hold among the merchants themselves but spread to their families and employees which would make these cities ideal birthplaces for the Japanese cultural explosion. In smaller towns and cities, literacy remained high for heads of households, but had failed to spread outwards from them.

 

At this point, while in some ways literacy unusually common for the period, it was extremely limited in scope. The Village Elite and the Samurai had become increasingly literate due to the peculiarities of the Bakufu state and in large cities merchant households became more literate due to the increasing economic prosperity after Japan’s unification forcing them to more carefully administer their businesses. In smaller cities, literacy was still common among Merchants although only for the head of the household. However, this literacy was very utilitarian and administrative in nature. While prominent Daimyo, Samurai and Court Officials often became scholars in the early Edo Period, the less utilitarian parts of literacy failed to penetrate the wider population until the beginning of the Genroku Era (1688-1704) (Confusing thing note: The Genroku era is still part of the Edo period. The Edo Period refers to the time when Japan was ruled by the Tokugawa Shogun while Genroku refers to the time when Japan’s emperor was Emperor Genroku). During the Genroku period, the “quality” of literacy would expand greatly as Villager, Merchants and Samurai began reading books for entertainment and study, but the “quantity” of literacy would remain mostly the same as it did not expand to the lower classes in the villages.

What started this increase in “qualitative” literacy was the rise of the Japanese publishing industry combined with the greatly increased economic integration of Japan by the middle of the Edo Period. The culture of scholarly and entertaining literacy first spread among Urban City dwellers and then out into the countryside. Along with this came a much closer integration of urban and rural cultures which had previously been almost completely separate.

By 1700, Japan was one of the most urbanized civilizations on earth with 7% of its populations living in large cities compared to 2% in Europe. These larger cities could support large publishing industries and also private academies for schooling which begin appearing in the Genroku Era. Naturally, economic forces shifted more and more into cities, and made inter-city trade and exchange more important. This in turn, increased the wealth and power of the merchant class and the cultural explosion begins with them.

Rich merchants with free time sought out scholarly and entertaining literature which had long been reserved for high ranking Samurai, Daimyos and Court Officials. The merchants’ new interest in books in turn fed an explosion in the publishing industry which rapidly expanded in all cities in Japan. In the 17th century, Osaka had 184 publishing houses, but by the 18th century at the height of the Genroku Era, Osaka had 584 publishers, their number nearly tripling in 100 years. Despite the explosion of the publishing industry, books still remained too expensive for the ordinary citizen, so instead books were made available for renting/borrowing. According to Rubinger, some evidence suggests that by the 18th century commercial book lenders were operating extensively which made reading material available to even the poor working class.

As books saturated society, private academies began to pop up in cities. These academies served as locations for formal study of scholarly literature and generally taught Confucian studies to a mixed student body of villagers, merchants and samurai. Rangaka, or Dutch Studies, also became surprisingly popular in cities and Rangaka academies popped up all over Western Japan.

The explosion of books and knowledge reached the countryside as well. Early in the Genroku period, most books that went to villagers consisted of practical advice on farming. They were written in very simple phonetic script and lovingly illustrated, suggesting that literacy had begun to spread at least slightly beyond the village elite who wouldn’t have needed the simplified script. Soon after, novels and Confucian and Buddhist works made their way into the villages. Confucian works were hugely influential throughout Japan during this period of social, cultural and economic upheaval. With Japan changing so much, many people looked to Confucian philosophy to provide direction. Especially peasants, who were moving away from sustenance farming to cash crops for the first time as the amount of arable land increased. Now that peasants were taking on a commercial role, they struggled to come up with a set of ethics on which to base business practices and Confucian works provided that. The Bakufu was only too happy to encourage Confucian scholarship which emphasized loyalty to the state and tradition.

However, the cultural exchange occurred in both directions and as literacy and scholarship expanded in villagers, they began producing their own scholars, authors and philosophers. Poetry even became immensely popular among the lowest class of peasants who came to enjoy Haikai poetry to the point where they gambled on it. In 1797, the gambling got so bad the Bakufu had to ban gambling on Haikai poetry competitions.

In 1720, The Shogunate began taking a formal interest in peasant schooling for the first time when Shogun Yoshimune demanded that all writing schools and academies use only state approved material (usually public announcements demanding loyalty to the state or promoting morals) for writing practice

By the mid-18th century, People in Japan were either illiterate (most lower class peasants), comfortable with reading and writing in vernacular Japanese (many members of the Village Elite and the urban working class) and reading agricultural manuals, simple Confucian texts and novels, or capable of reading in writing in both Chinese and Japanese (the Merchant Class, upper class Samurai and Daimyos).

The Japanese cultural revolution in Genroku Era occurred due to increased economic prosperity building and the existing literary qualifications of the Japanese population. Economic prosperity led to a richer merchant class which created a thriving publishing industry. The new trade in Japan allowed the texts to spread out to the Japanese population who were basically literate and able to take advantage of the explosion in books. The general increase in literacy and interest in books led to the creation of private academies which further increased literacy.

 

Japan's final leap forward in literacy in the Edo Period came in the mid 19th century, only shortly before the end of Tokugawa Shogunate and the beginning of the Meiji restoration. Starting in about 1830, schools multiplied across the entire countryside, in cities and in rural areas, and attendance, while still skewed towards the upper classes, included some lower class peasants.

It is heavily debated how important these schools were and how important they were to the development of literacy in Japan. It's a further subject of debate what drove the emergence of these schools all across the countryside. Some scholars think the schools were a natural outgrowth of the increased literacy of the era, as peasants who had wanted to become literate but were unable too were now able to find teachers. Other believe the schools flourished more due to the support of the Bakufu state which became heavily involved in formal schooling at this point. I personally agree with Rubinger that the schools were grew from the “bottom up” as peasants took advantage of the increased literacy of the population to become literate themseleves based on the sheer number of schools that opened up in villages at the request of village heaadmen, but its far from a decided question.

The second matter of debate is how important these schools were to the development of literacy. They clearly had SOMETHING to do with increasing literacy, but Japanese scholars have long attributed the increase in literacy to school attendance in the late Tokugawa Period and recently it has become clear that school attendance is not necessarily indicative of literacy rates. This concept of school attendance bringing up literacy has colored research on the subject somewhat. In Toyama, whereas previous estimates had shown 17 schools in the province during the late Edo period, during the 1980s 350 new schools were “discovered”. The problem with the schools was that they were often sort lived and its unclear how effective they were. Some schools lasted years, others opened and closed in a few weeks. This makes accurately reporting the number of schools very difficult, and as literacy is associated with school rates historians have an incentive to include all of these types of schools in their estimates in order to explain the high literacy rates.

 

In general, literacy rates rose across the board in Late Edo Japan and schools undoubtedly had something to do with it. Also important was the formal support of schools by the Shogunate. As literacy became more and more common, the Bakufu realized the value of having lettered peasants, but they didn't want to deal with the dissent greater education often creates, so they took a more active role in education to ensure schools taught students “morals” as well as practical skills. While Shogunate support had started as early as 1720 under the reign of Yoshimune, it was mostly confined to the Edo area until the 1830s when the Bakufu began producing official books to be used in schools, heavily regulating teaching material and promoting basic literacy in public pronouncements. Some combination of the school explosion, shogunate support and further diffusion of the literacy generated in the Genroku era led to the high literacy rate at the end of the Edo Period.

I'll briefly touch on the Meiji period at the end of this post. I know a great deal of less about education in the Meiji period, but I feel its important enough to at least touch on. In the 1870s, after the Satsuma rebellions and as Japan's westernization sped up, the government created a centralized education policies and built schools all over the country that taught loyalty to the government as well as the basic skills the Meiji government felt were necessary in a westernized society.

The schools were very effective in urban areas, but had limited success in rural areas. Literacy didn't become universal in the rural population until the 1930s or 1920s.

To recap: The high literacy rates in Japan were a result of a fortuitous combination of events. The peculiarities of the Bakufu system led to basic literacy among Samurai and the Village Elite. Economic prosperity increased literacy among the merchant households. Eventually, prosperity reached a sufficiently high point to fund a boom in the publishing industry. Books became common, and through book lending services were distributed to the population at large. At first, only practical books reached the villages, but soon novels, and scholarly works followed. The villagers began creating their own literature. However, even during the Genroku period, literacy was not widespread in rural areas outside the village elite and the final expansion of literacy would occur in the late Edo Period. For difficult to determine reasons, schools sprung up around the countryside and the Shogunate began to support literacy formally. This expanded literacy although literacy was not to become universal until the 1920s and 1930s when the centralized Meiji school system established in the 1870s payed off.

[Gimmick]

My takeaway from this long story is the following:

 

1) You indeed cannot discuss "smiths chiseling mei" without specifying the period, because of developments in literacy throughout the centuries.

2) There were likely plenty of people around even in earlier times to provide a smith or chisel expert with an example (on paper) for them to copy.

 

Unfortunately this story does not answer questions like:

 

1) Did it make sense for (early) smiths to chisel mei, or was it a specialty like wrapping the handle, sharpening the blade, etc.

2) Were the smith mei and date mei typically done at the same time and/or by the same person?

[PNSSHOGUN]

Dan, very interesting theory. Do you have more sources to support these conclusions? There are some pretty big leaps of faith to reach them. It is all well good for us collectors to pontificate on the minutia of swords, Tsuba, and Mei.....but to stand up and say the vast majority of artisans in the Edo were completely illiterate is perhaps crossing the boundaries of sanity. Realistically, who can authoritatively state this as factual reality?

 

Not to say we should be all providing exhaustive references for our theories, the forum would be over in a matter of days if that were implemented, rather it would be interesting to read the source materials you based this on.  

[EdWolf]

I think there is a simple explanation. Even today there are a lot of people who could not read or write but many if not all can write there own name.

[Brian]

Bizarre conclusions is all I can say. Saying the majority of people were illiterate then suddenly becomes swordsmiths were illiterate, and then suddenly we have proven that they couldn't sign their name?
How about we go back a step, and consider the fact that the 8 or so years of training to be a swordsmith included literacy and/or signing your name?
This idea that everything we have learned in 1000 years is false because modern theories are suddenly true is a weird one.
Mei were part of the process of signing swords. Don't really care who thinks that variances in handwriting mean mei are suddenly being misjudged. That is for the novice to go and learn more, not for the rest of us to unlearn what we know.
Give it up boys. There are hundreds of years of study into this subject, mostly in Japanese. Pretty sure the shinsa panels know what they are doing. You aren't going to prove anything wrong.

[Gimmick]

33 minutes ago, PNSSHOGUN said:

Dan, very interesting theory. Do you have more sources to support these conclusions? There are some pretty big leaps of faith to reach them. It is all well good for us collectors to pontificate on the minutia of swords, Tsuba, and Mei.....but to stand up and say the vast majority of artisans in the Edo were completely illiterate is perhaps crossing the boundaries of sanity. Realistically, who can authoritatively state this as factual reality?

 

Not to say we should be all providing exhaustive references for our theories, the forum would be over in a matter of days if that were implemented, rather it would be interesting to read the source materials you based this on.  

I think Dan is both proposing a theory, and asking for sources to support the theory that all (early) smiths did sign their own mei, whether because they were literate enough to do so or because they were using examples.

 

Why is the base assumption that (early) sword smiths also do mei chiseling? Or if it is not an assumption but fact, what are the sources for this?

 

And again, if smiths in the 1930s did sign their own mei, that has no bearing on the times before that. Many men these days wash their own clothes, most didn't in the 1930s. Many women have full-time office jobs these days, most didn't in the 1930s.

 

It seems, Brian, you are very attached to the 1000 year fallacy.

 

"I don't care whether it's gimei or not. Doesn't matter....on project swords signed by average smiths, it matters little. You aren't questioning this sword anyways. You are challenging the entire 1000 year old tradition. You have insulted the NBTHK, and decided for yourself that the entire shinsa process is a joke."

 

"This idea that everything we have learned in 1000 years is false because modern theories are suddenly true is a weird one.
Mei were part of the process of signing swords. Don't really care who thinks that variances in handwriting mean mei are suddenly being misjudged. That is for the novice to go and learn more, not for the rest of us to unlearn what we know.
Give it up boys. There are hundreds of years of study into this subject, mostly in Japanese. Pretty sure the shinsa panels know what they are doing. You aren't going to prove anything wrong."

 

There is a 2000 year old institution with millions of followers and countless experts who own and have written way more books than the nihonto crowd. They base their tradition on false assumptions like "the earth was created in 6 days" and "Mary gave birth to Jesus as a virgin". You can build 10,000 years of tradition on false assumptions, but it won't ever make them the truth.

 

You also seem to think our goal is to proof things wrong. You are displaying typical status quo behavior in my humble opinion, when all we are doing is offering new perspectives.

 

You can have your virgin birth mei though, we don't care either, Brian. If you want to claim you are a nihonto scientist when you are acting like a nihonto priest, that is fine too.

 

[Gakusee]

Being literate is very different from knowing how to chisel two kanji of a signature. Being able to chisel 2-3 kanji, or recognise them, does not make one literate. 
If you notice, very few of the early swords had nagamei, ie long signatures. That is probably because the smiths indeed were mostly illiterate and only memorised or copied very simple nijimei or sanmei signatures. 
Such rudimentary understanding and knowledge of the smiths in earlier periods, ie limited to writing/chiselling their own name perhaps, explains various idiosyncrasies such as certain smiths chiselling certain kanji or parts thereof in a reverse manner to the usual / standard. 

[Gimmick]

I see the downvote crowd still believes this forum to be a popularity contest.

 

Brian, you are intelligent enough to be able to distinguish between fact and doctrine and between sources and hearsay. Yet whenever a “contrarian” appears, you seem to denounce them as heretics and act like the inquisitor, trying to silence the debate with fallacies and unverifiable “truths”. Have you read these hundreds of years of Japanese texts yourself? You can put your faith in anyone you like, but if you have no actual facts or sources to offer, why do you engage so negatively in this discussion?

[Brian]

MAN...Guido! We need you!
Ferry, you are really sounding silly. You take a tradition already well studied, documented, researched and published thousands of times, come up with a vague theory, and then start deciding you have to be right?
The contrarian in you needs to take a rest. These smiths have been studied over hundreds of years. There are books about them. Books about the schools. Their signatures have been studied by professors and scholars in detail. The minutest details in their mei are documented in hundreds of books..mostly in Japanese. The few that used students to sign? They are KNOWN. They are published. People are able to date the swords according to the smallest changes. These were not illiterate blacksmiths eking out a living. They were highly regarded masters of their crafts. Documented and published.
They were capable of taking weeks to make a sword, down to the finest detail. They regarded their works as the culmination of a life's work. And you think they just handed them over to someone to scrawl a signature? These things represented THEM. They sometimes didn't even sign because their work was enough to identify them. The few that didn't sign, had special family or deshi that did it, and this was known about.
You want to tell me that because you heard many couldn't read or write, that it must be logical that they didn't sign?
Your efforts to discredit the mei on swords and the whole gimei concept are just foolish. Go live in Japan for 40 years and study swords. Then come back and throw out random silly theories.
In fact, even better....go study mei on tsuba and then have a go at challenging @Ford Hallam
He's able to give a good retort. Even on those, student signatures are known about and documented, and certainly identifiable.
Please...just stop.

[Gimmick]

Why didn’t you write all that in the first place? That’s much more constructive then telling people they are novices that should catch up on 1000 years of whatever. It’s still very light on sources, but at least it sounds more convincing to newbies, and it might encourage them to research more. Your usual attitude of disdain is not encouraging anyone on the other hand.

[Jacques D.]

Ask yourself who had the right to bear a family name and you will have part of the answer

[Bugyotsuji]

Today a young man from the NBTHK Honbu in Tokyo brought along a bag of swords for us to try and guess.

 

There was a 'genuine' 村正 Muramasa long blade, (with a fantastic hamon that was half suguha and then suddenly the other half was flowery hako-gata choji), bearing a Mei (to my eyes) just like the one I was burned with a couple of years back.  The forgers have studied the intricacies of his Mei well, but the scholars at NBTHK seem to be one step ahead. 

 

The signature on the 冬広 Fuyuhiro though was something to be seen. Never seen such an ugly Mei.  The tiny 作 was even more squished and at an angle. Boy, some of these smiths must have had an inferiority complex! "Dang, there's the monthly wagon! Where's my wife? OK, I'll sign if there's no-one else around to do it for me, grrrr.... ." I am sure that just as some folks today avoid writing if at all possible, there were those who could do a good job with a cold chisel, taking pride in it, ... and those who couldn't.

[Guest Simon R]

Goodbye.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

[zanilu]

My impression is that we are putting too much stock in the information we get from the web. We see a page based on sources from other pages etc... and we build new theories out of the blue.

 

Where are the sources from scientific literature? There is any evidence

 

Even the account cited from reddit by Simon, even though it sounds most reasonable and well researched is not coming from a scientific publication.

 

We ahve to be very careful...

 

Luaca

[Okan]

@Brian Please add a feature to ignore or hide topics..Or maybe "Also hide the topics created by people the you've ignored" option. 

[Guest Simon R]

34 minutes ago, zanilu said:

My impression is that we are putting too much stock in the information we get from the web. We see a page based on sources from other pages etc... and we build new theories out of the blue.

 

Where are the sources from scientific literature? There is any evidence

 

Even the account cited from reddit by Simon, even though it sounds most reasonable and well researched is not coming from a scientific publication.

 

We ahve to be very careful...

 

Luaca

Dear Luca,

 

I entirely agree with you - the Reddit article was the most comprehensive comment I could find on the subject but is most definitely not 'iron-clad'.

In their original postings, the anonymous author mentions they had written a book on the same topic; it would certainly be fascinating to find out their real name and read the complete work along with its sources.

 

Simon

 

[zanilu]

That was exactly my point Simon. 

 

The unknown author you cited seem versed in the subject but without a solid bibliography to support it you can not rely on it.

 

Regards

Luca

[cju777]

The Making of Modern Japan (a massive tome) by Marius Jansen has a couple sections on literacy which tracks with the Reddit post (in fact when I quickly skimmed I thought you had quoted part of the book). I’d need to search through to find the pages. It’s not a pulp history but considered a thorough treatment in the community. Don’t let the word modern through you off. It starts off just before the Edo period.  

[Stephen]

Never ceases to amaze newbies come in and think they're so intelligent they're going to change the way of thinking of over a thousand years.

Problem is they're thinking with the Western brain.

No 5,000 paragraphs here I get lost after two.

[Dan tsuba]

Hello all!

 

Wow! Some great posts and valuable information.  Thanks!

 

However, I would like to address some posts individually.

 

---John C.- stated “I noticed the chart does not list priests. Where do they fall on that chart? In many cultures, priests could read and write when commoners could not. Weren't some swords made at shrines? Just spitballing at some possibilities.”

 

Great question!  I would think that the priests would fall under the “warrior class” side of the pyramid.  Since there were some priests in Japan that were also warriors.  That would mean that they were literate and could read and write.

 

---PNSSHOGUN- You stated, “but to stand up and say the vast majority of artisans in the Edo were completely illiterate is perhaps crossing the boundaries of sanity.”

 

If you read my initial post on this thread you will notice that I never stated what you infer.  I also stated the thread and page number of my initial research.  You could always look that up.

I also didn’t appreciate your attempt to “belittle” me.  A childish thing to do (my opinion).

 

---zanilu- you stated “My impression is that we are putting too much stock in the information we get from the web. We see a page based on sources from other pages etc... and we build new theories out of the blue.

Where are the sources from scientific literature? There is any evidence”

 

First any scientific or scholarly information that I have researched for some of my threads (which includes researching published papers) comes from the internet.

 

Now, all the scientific and scholarly literature may not change a person’s opinion.  I remember on another thread where I mentioned Dr. Lissenden’s thesis.  “The Namban Group of Japanese Sword Guards:  a Reappraisal”.  His thesis has a very long bibliography (12 pages) of his stated research.

 

Yet, there were those that had “issues” with it.

 

Also, another thread where I mentioned a scientific paper from Japan about an ancient sword.  Again, people had issues with it!

 

The issues they had with both papers were based on their opinions, not their research.  The only way to counter the information presented in a scientific or scholarly work is to produce your own research of a paper that contradicts the previously stated research.  Opinions just don’t do in this type of situation!

 

Anyway, thanks all for your continued input, much to learn!

 

With respect,

Dan

[Brian]

Still not sure what point you are trying to make?
Just because some people were illiterate, and maybe even a handful or sword makers....you want us to admit that many swords were signed by someone else?
You give it away completely when you say that there were (a few) warrior monks, and therefor the monks were generally literate and could write? Yes...we can assume a small percentage were literate. It says nothing about Monks in general.
What exactly are you trying to prove? That among a general group of people, there are exceptions? That's pretty obvious. What's the goal here? To find info that the Japanese scholars have missed in hundreds of years of study because there are some texts pointing out the exceptions?

[vajo]

 

Every Samurai could be Ronin. Many Nobles work as Artisan. Many Warriors fight as paid Soldiers. 

A Merchant if he didn't sell fruits as a poor human must could read.

Where are the medics in that table?

Where are the monks and priests in that table?

 

Btw: those class table is a religious, mental classification of moral. And has nothing to do with the real life in old Japan.

Money and rice ruled the daily life. And the samurai as we think never exists.

[Matsunoki]

I’m waiting for some glue to set so I’ll chip in.

literacy has nothing to do with being able to sign your name. You can learn how to do that together with carving  provinces, dates etc without being able to read anything. If you can forge a sword you can carve a few kanji. The more you do it the more proficient you become. Maybe as you age it changes a bit. If you use a new chisel it changes a bit. If you decide to call yourself something else or are granted a title it changes again. But once re-learned you can do it….still without being able to read a thing.
We have always accepted that swords are signed by the smith at the time of making, or by his master, or by a pupil and possibly by a specialist Mei carver. Swords are also signed by fakers at the time of making or by fakers at any time after making. 
Whether or not the Mei is “genuine” is a matter of opinion but requires extensive knowledge and reference material in order to formulate an opinion worth having. “Papers” give us the highest possible expert opinion available…..but it’s still an opinion…and sometimes even these highest level opinions differ.

As collectors and enthusiasts we (well, many of us) have learned to live comfortably with this situation because unless you stand next to the smith when he signs it we don’t have a choice.

Literacy is irrelevant.

imo

[John C]

I agree with some of you who have made a distinction between literacy and signing a mei. Just from personal experience, I have know MANY documented and undocumented aliens who could not read or write their own language but who had some of the most beautiful and elaborate signatures.

John C. 

[Gakusee]

Some interesting quotes from literature, which shed some light on mei. 

 

• Nihonto Koza (Afu translation) Koto part I p4, Honma Junji:

In reference to old mei (Heian and Early Kamakura swords), he writes: 'One point which must especially be written about is the mei style. The reason that it is large is because it was made to resemble the writing style of Wei, Shin, and the Six Dynasties of China, and these are extremely interesting when viewed as knowledge for the judging of calligraphy. Come to think of it, this mei style is not something that is seen only in KYOMONO, the mei style that is seen in KO-BIZEN and other works of this same period is about the same. All of them, while appearing old and unskilled, have a certain character and an appearance of antiquity.'
Not only did they know what they signed, they emulated Sino- calligraphy and culture.

 

• Nihon Koto Shi (M Sesko translation), p 22 (e-version):

Honma Junji writes: 'Entering the Japanese Sword Age, it became a custom that swordsmiths signed their smith names on the nakago, but there is no extant work of the Shōsō´in Depository that has a smith’s name inscribed on the nakago. There are two swords that have characters on the blade amongst 100 tachi of the depository. These characters are inscriptions that praise the swords, but are not swordsmith’s names. Two treasure swords with kinzōgan are registered in ‘Shutsuzō-chō’ (出倉帳, a list of swords coming both in and out of the collection). There are notes about the two swords on the list, “Jiden” (次田) and “Daishō Saku” (大小作) (there is a record on the list that the swords were taken out of the depository on the 26th day of the twelfth month of Tenpyō-Hōji drei [天平宝字, 759]). Though I have not been able to confirm that they are smith’s names or their titles, it is uncertain whether these inscriptions chiselled on the blade or nakago.
According to a clause included in ‘Taihō-ritsuryō’ (大宝律令, legal codes) that was issued in 701 [AD], swordsmiths were ordered to sign their names on the nakago of their works, therefore, there should have been swords with smith’s names on their nakago in that period. How should we understand the actual fact that there is no extant work with a smith’s name in the sword collection of the Shōsō´in Depository? Possibly tachi categorised as kingin-densō-tachi that were worn by emperors and court nobles, might not be recognised as weapon, therefore, they were not to be subjected to the code. However, musō-tō in ō-dabira style should have smith’s names on the nakago since they are to have been used as weapon. I wonder if the clause of the Taihō-ritsuryō was not practised by swordsmiths and resulted in a mere scrap of paper? Incidentally, the ‘Engi-shiki’ (延喜式) codes issued later orders to officials in charge of swords supplied to the government, to sign their names on the swords, but this did not apply to smith’s names. Meanwhile, swords for sale in the market were still subjected to the clause of the Taihō-ritsuryō codes.'

 

The Shosoin swords being mostly from Nara and earliest Heian period, precede the traditional Japanese swords, yet had inscriptions!

Furthermore, the formal edict meant that smiths had to learn how to sign their tangs as that was a legal requirement. 

 

The earliest sword school being Yamato, originated in / around monasteries (which were seats of education and knowledge). Same text as above:

'My theory, that the origin of Yamato swords comes from the swords of the Shōsō´in Depository, is as mentioned above and justified from the view point of workmanship and geography. There is no doubt that Yamato smiths had had intimate relationship with temples since the medieval period and supplied the temples, which had many armed monks, with swords. Especially, I am sure that swordsmiths who belonged to big temples such as the Tōdaiji (東大寺) and the Kōfuku-ji (興福寺) enjoyed their special patronage. Referring to the case of Tegai Kanenaga (手掻包永), his school name ‘Tegai’ coincides with the name of a gate of the Tōdaiji and it means smiths of the Tegai school lived near the Tegai Gate (手掻門) of the temple. Incidentally, there is an address called ‘Tegai-chō’ (手掻町) which still exists in the temple town today. Kanenaga is the founder of the Tegai school and was active in the middle of the Kamakura Period. The facts mentioned above prove that the Tegai school had a special relation with the Todaiji.'

 

While speculative, it is likely if the smiths coexisted and co-worked with the erudite priests would have assimilated at least some literacy. 
 

As mentioned in other posts (Reddit referenced article?), the Japanese society was erudite and probably more so that Western societies. Reference from the 3-volume “A History of Japan” by G Sansom, 1st volume in the enclosed photo.  Who in the 9th century elsewhere compiled a list of books available in the country? I need to check some of the great M Eastern and Indian and Chinese civilisations but my conjecture is it will be only very few nations. 
 

And one could go on and on, putting together sufficient evidence that there was ample erudition in their society, the smiths existed/worked mostly in centres of erudition and knowledge (as that was where the clientele was), that their mei are so well studied that experts notice how tiny atari or chisel strokes are made and superimpose on that analysis of patina and ageing et cetera et cetera. It simply requires patience and desire to read books and study….Unfortunately, the world of Nihonto is not one where 5-10 Google searches or 10 clicks of the mouse will produce ready answers or where ChatGPT makes any sense.  One needs to persevere and respectfully and patiently study.