Katana signed: Bushu Edo Ju Nagakuni saku kore with a cutting test by Yamano Kanjuro Hisahide (Kao)

[Keichodo]

Katana signed: Bushu Edo Ju Nagakuni saku kore with a cutting test (setsudan mei) Kanbun 6 nen 3 gatsu roku nichi Yamano Kanjuro Hisahide (Kao) Futatsu dou kiriotoshi. Translated as on March 6th in the sixth year of Kanbun (1666), Yamano Kanjuro Hisahide cut through two bodies.

Period : Early Edo~Mid. Edo
Country : Musashi
Length: 63.3 cm.
Paper : NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Token Paper
Fittings : Blade in shirasaya accompanied with period koshirae

Price: yen 2,800,000

Correspond at: keichodo@yahoo.com

時代 : 江戸初期～中期
国 : 武蔵国
証書 : 財団法人日本美術刀剣保存協会
特別保存刀剣 鑑定書
外装 : 拵付白鞘入

刃長 : 2尺 9 分 63.3 cm

目釘穴 : 1個

NAGAKUNI (永国), 1st gen., Kanbun (寛文, 1661-1673), Musashi/Higo

Signature Variations

-Heianjō-jū Nagakuni” (平安城住永国),

-Kawachi no Kami Gensei Nagakuni sanjūroku-sai saku” (河内守源姓永国三十六歳作, (made by Kawachi no Kami Nagakuni from the Minamoto clan at the age of 36”),

-Kawachi no Kami Minamoto Nagakuni” (河内守源永国),

Edo- Hōjōji school, probably a student of Yoshitsugu (吉次) or of Kunimasa (国正), the mentioned age of 36 is found on a blade dated Kanbun eight (1668), that means his year of birth calculates as Kan ́ei ten (寛永, 1633). It is said that he moved later to Kumamoto (熊本藩) but he also worked in Echizen province.  

NAGAKUNI (永国), 2nd gen., Genroku (元禄, 1688-1704), Musashi/Dewa

-Hōjōji Tachibana Nagakuni” (法城寺橘永国)

-Bushū Edo-jū Nagakuni saku” (武州江戸住永国作),

-real name Umeyama Kanbei (梅山勘兵衛), he is also listed with the first name Kan ́emon (勘右衛門), student of the 1st generation Hōjōji Kunimasa (国正), he moved later to Akita (秋田).

There has been some confusion regarding theses signatures. Until fairly recently, it was believed that the signatures Kawachi Kami Minamoto Nagakuni and Bushu Edo Ju Nagakuni referenced separate individuals (father/son) but a sword has surfaced that combines elements of these two signatures 「河内守源永国武州於江戸作之」Kawachi Kami Minamoto Nagakuni Bushu shu Edo saku kore, indicating that some signature variations believed to have been for the second generation were, in fact, referencing the first generation. There are also some stories connecting Miyamoto Musashi to Nagakuni when he spent time in Kumamoto.
 

Source of direct quotation explanation below related to: Yamano Kanjuro Hisahide

 

Sesko, Markus (2014) Tameshigiri: The History And Development of Japanese Sword Testing, Markus Sesko Print and Publishing: Lulu Enterprises, Inc. ISBN 978-1-312-32703-0

Please purchase a copy of Mr. Sesko’s book as it is an amazing source of detail pertaining to the topic of sword testing.

 

2.3.3 The Nakagawa Saheita link

 

“A very important figure in the transmission of the early systematic tameshigiri to the later bakufu-employed sword testers was Nakagawa Saheita Shigeyoshi (中川左平太 重良, ?-1653). He was a direct student of Tani Moritomo who passed on the techniques learnt from him to Yamano Ka ́emon Nagahisa (山野加右衛門永久) and his son Kanjūrō Hisahide (勘十郎久英), who are described in detail later. Nagahisa ́s son was namely one of the first persons to be employed by the bakufu as a specialized sword tester.

 

As already mentioned, Nagahisa’s successor and 2nd generation of the Yamano line of sword testers was his son Kanjūrō Hisahide (勘十郎久英). There is also the theory that Hisahide was the older brother of Nagahisa, but from the age difference of almost 40 years, this approach can rather be ruled out, although it allows the speculation that Hisahide was Nagahisa ́s adoptive son. Anyway, we don ́t know for sure when Hisahide was born and when he died. There is a blade extant (see picture 13) which states in the tameshi-mei carried out in Kanbun three (1663) that he was 29 years old at that time, which calculates his year of birth as Kan ́ei twelve (1635). But there exists also a tameshi-mei (see picture 12) which is dated Kanbun five (1665) and states that he was 35 years old at that time which calculates Kan ́ei eight (1631) as Hisahide ́s year of birth.

 

Hisahide took over the former first name Kanjūrō of his father, and used first the name Yasuhisa (休久), followed by Narihisa (成久), before eventually arriving using the name Hisahide. When we also include the third Yamano-generation Hisatoyo (久豊), we learn that it was the character “Hisa” (久) which was handed down within the family. However, there is a single tameshi-mei by Hisahide extant where he used the character of “Naga” (永) from his father to create the name “Naganari” (永成). That means he used altogether four different names. What we don ́t know exactly is from when to when he used all these names. The today commonly accepted theory on that matter goes back to Dr. Satō Kanzan (佐藤寒山) and is as follows: “The oldest extant setsudan-mei is from the second year of Meireki (1656) and mentions the name Yasuhisa. Then follows a short period of time, somewhere around the early Manji era (1658~1659), when he used the name Naganari. And from the third year of Manji (1660) to the first year of Kanbun (1661) he used the name Narihisa. ... And the final name change to Hisahide took place between the eighth and twelfth month of Kanbun one (1661).” The earliest extant tameshi-mei with the name Hisahide, by the way, is dated the eleventh month of Kanbun one. On the other hand, Ogasawara Nobuo (小笠原信夫) states in his Nihontō no rekishi to kanshō (日本刀の歴史と鑑賞) that the chronological order of name changes was Yasuhisa, Naganari, Narihisa, and Hisahide, i.e. he places the name Naganari between Yasuhisa and Narihisa. The following page shows a tameshi-mei with the two early names Yasuhisa and Narihisa, and the next page one with the early name Naganari.

 

The aforementioned explicit employment of Hisahide ́s by the bakufu as sword tester can be dated to the second year of Jōkyō (貞享, 1685). In the Kaden-shiryō (家伝史料), a successively updated collection of biographies starting with the Edo period, we find for Jōkyō two the information that Yamano Kanjūrō and Yamano Kichizaemon (山野吉左衛門), the third Yamano-generation Hisatoyo, became from then on o-tameshi goyō with a stipend for the support of ten persons. Hisahide was already 51 years old at that time, accepting Kan ́ei twelve (1635) as his year of birth and following the then Japanese way of counting the age of a person. Jōkyō two can be confirmed by the chronicle Tokugawa-jikki (徳川実記), which also lists Yamano Kanjūrō for that year, to be precise for the third month of that year, and says further that he was carrying out his duties at the Asakusa (浅草) execution place. We read further that, only one month later, the bakufu provided him with a property in Edo ́s Aoyama district (青山), present-day Minato Ward, measuring 2,500 tsubo (~ 8,200 m2). Well, at the time of Nagahisa, the Yamano family had lived in the vicinity of the mentioned Eikyū-ji and thus in the close vicinity of both the Asakusa and Kozukahara execution grounds. And Hisahide moved once more, namely from Aoyama to the Ichigaya district (市ケ谷) which was on the other side of Edo Castle and was thus somewhat separated from all these execution grounds. There was even the rumour that Hisahide had bodies of executed felons delivered to this new house for him and his students to practice there, and that they were “stored“ under the veranda when it was raining but this seems too far-fetched and sounds more like an Edo-period urban legend. On the other hand, tameshigiri on corpses on one ́s own property was only prohibited later. But there exists more such episodes related to Hisahide. One says that sometimes he made a hinin lay under a corpse. He then completely split in two the body but did not even scratch the poor assistant. Another one says that one day he was walking behind a man carrying a water melon on his shoulders up a hill. This was so “inviting” for him that he caught up, drew his sword, and when the two cleanly split halves of the melon fell on the ground, he said: “Here goes the head!”

The man was, according to this legend, so perplexed that he ran after the two melon halves bouncing down the hill because he really thought it was his own head.

 

But back to our topic. We don ́t know for sure when Hisahide died, as there are neither records nor a gravestone extant which could provide this information. The Ochibo-shū (落穂集) says he died during the Jōkyō era (貞享, 1684-1688),*23 but there is also the theory that he died in Genroku seven (元禄, 1694) as the Eikyū-ji ́s register of death lists for the tenth day of the seventh month of that year a person with the name Yamano Kanjūrō Yorikura (山野勘十郎頼蔵). But several things speak against the conclusion that this entry refers to Hisahide. One is that there are no known tameshi-mei by him from the Genroku era. They become lesser in number already from the Enpō era (延宝, 1673-1681) onwards and the latest is from Jōkyō four (1687). Well, this does not necessarily mean that he died shortly later. It is also possible that he had to retire around Jōkyō four or five for health reasons or that the new bakufu employment involved other, more administrative tasks. Another thing that speaks against Yorikura (this first name also reads as Raizō) referring to Hisahide is that even the tameshi-mei from Jōkyō four is signed with the name Hisahide and that it was as mentioned the character for “Hisa” that was inherited within the Yamano succession. In other words, it is rather unlikely that Hisahide had changed his name towards the end of his life to Yorikura. On the other hand, such registers of death usually don ́t record any formal first name (nanori, 名乗 or jitsumei, 実名) but state only the family name (myōji, 苗字) and common first name (zokumyō, 俗名). Also, the two characters “Yorikura” are separated a little from the name “Yamano Kanjūrō,” and so there is also the theory that Yorikura does not refer to the name of the person who died that day but to the person who was organizing the funeral service and taking care of the grave.”