Naginata-naoshi

[Lilleskit]

How does one tell if a naginata-naoshi (naginata remounted or reshaped into a tanto or wakizashi) is a true naginata-naoshi or just a wakizashi or tanto forged in the shape of a cut down naginata? 

[Jacques]

On a true naginata naoshi, boshi must be yakitsume 

[Gakusee]

25 minutes ago, Jacques said:

On a true naginata naoshi, boshi must be yakitsume 

Almost always true (as the mune was usually shaved to reduce overall sori and fit the shortened blade within the standard katana architecture for Edo-period usage) but not in all cases. 

There are some rarities which have retained their kaeri with komaru or whatever non-yakitsume boshi. A couple of examples attached below. 
 

Normally, later (post Nanbokucho) blades, which emulated earlier naoshi, could be kantei-ed to be that, later blades. So you would know that a later blade is a not a true naoshi since those were mainly early blades (late Kamakura - Nabokucho) shortened for Muromachi or Edo usage. So if your workmanship shows a Muromachi / Shinto etc blade you know that most likely it was not what you are referring to as a “true” naoshi. 

[Lewis B]

And another. A Juyo naginata naoshi attributed to Kashu Sanekage from the Nanbokucho era. The kaeri is absent on the ura side.

 

[Mushin]

Here's a naioshi with a gakumei (framed signature) of Chikushu Yukiyoshi, the grandson of Sa Yukihiro

[Jacques]

Please don't confuse naginata naoshi with naginata naoshi zukuri...

[Lilleskit]

Great info all😎👍🏼

It's very appreciated 👏 

[Rayhan]

@Jacques is correct here, but since the Naginata Naoshi is a modified version of a previous Naginata there are exceptions. I am attaching a Juyo Bungo Tomoyuki and one side the boshi is yakitsume and on the other slightly turned back as per the setsumei and oshigata. 

 

 

[Franco]

1 hour ago, Rayhan said:

@Jacques is correct here, but since the Naginata Naoshi is a modified version of a previous Naginata there are exceptions.

 

 

Nope. Naginata can be modified at one end or both ends. Each piece must be evaluated independently. 

A yakitsume boshi can and will be evidence that the sword was modified at both ends.

There will be examples where the turn back is fully retained.

You can call it an exception if it makes you feel better.

[Mushin]

Here's a Juyo Token naginata naioshi with orikaeshi-mei of Osafune Masamitsu of the Kanemitsu school that has retained its kaeri on both sides. It has been shaped by shaving away metal along the mune from mid-blade upward.  Despite the alteration, you can see its original profile remains visible, particularly around the monouchi, where a slight flare shows its naginata origins. The bōshi is hakikake with a turn-back that flares out Sōshū style. The blade is also notably thick at the base but the nakago has been shortened greatly and the signature has been retained. 

[Rayhan]

1 hour ago, Franco said:

 

 

Nope. Naginata can be modified at one end or both ends. Each piece must be evaluated independently. 

A yakitsume boshi can and will be evidence that the sword was modified at both ends.

There will be examples where the turn back is fully retained.

You can call it an exception if it makes you feel better.

Yes, I think everyone is in agreement and put forth examples in a diplomatic way. But you are right, I want to call it an exception 😉 

[Jussi Ekholm]

There has been solid advice there above by every member.

 

My love in Japanese swords are ōdachi and big naginata. However even after all the years of focusing on them I still think it can often be very difficult to say how much a sword has been altered. Sometimes it is easy to say that a sword has been shortened or it has been shaved down from the top part. However there are times when I often am left scratching my head when trying to figure out the original shape of the item.

 

The tricky thing is that there are lots of variations in naginata. In order to fully understand the variations and their specific features you will need to devote quite a bit of time into researching naginata. However people in general do not appreciate them, and common reference books do not have info on them, as they are not thought highly of in Japanese sword appreciation circle. Some forms of naginata require quite extreme measures to be cut down to be used as sword (sometimes it might not even be feasible) while some forms require very little adjusting.

 

Here I present 2 items by Dewa Daijō Kunimichi (an excellent smith), both items are Tokubetsu Hozon. Left one has been judged as wakizashi by NBTHK, I think originally it was similar to the polearm on the right. The picture is in scale, I just photoshopped the items side by side for my own fun.

 

 

Of course I might be wrong in my assumption but I am fairly confident in my belief on this particular piece.

 

I think not many might have seen this type of naginata blade before, as this variation is bit different compared to more common surviving intact naginata.

[Rayhan]

@Jussi Ekholm nice blades! The right is a Nagamaki right?

[Jacques]

It's not me who says it...

 

https://note.com/katana_case_shi/n/ncbfeb610f9b2

[Franco]

One thing to keep in mind when entering into the Edo period, Shinto in particular, is that many of the pieces we see will be copies of shortened and modified blades from earlier time periods. The question then becomes "is it live or is it Memorex?" That's where kantei comes in. There will almost always be clues that give the sword away. But sometimes copies will be so good that they fool even the experienced. It's only after the answer is revealed and discussed where participants will be kicking themselves for having overlooked some detail. 

[Bugyotsuji]

Nothing to do with the subject matter but I was shown a naginata on Tuesday, the first time I have ever been tempted, a giant 'ryosaku' 両作, by Katsumitsu and Sadamitsu from Meio, around 1490, if my memory serves. In shirasaya, with no naga-e. Long nakago, with long special order Mei on one side and rows of Bonji on the other. The condition was ubu, and the blade was gorgeous, to my untrained eye.

 

The owner said, "This is a Ken Bunkazai. Why don't you buy it?" I was a little astonished, as I was not there to buy anything and I only had four thousand yen in my wallet ($30), but it certainly was an attractive blade, and when I say tempted, I have never particularly wanted to own a naginata. 

"Just out of interest, how much are you wanting for it?" I asked politely.

"Ten million JPY", he replied.

 

Funnily enough, after that initial eye-watering, this dream blade haunts my memory.

[Gakusee]

14 hours ago, Jacques said:

It's not me who says it...

 

https://note.com/katana_case_shi/n/ncbfeb610f9b2

 

Nakamura san is still a young collector who is still learning. He has seen a lot of blades and owns a few great pieces but he has not seen everything or knows everything. 

The numerous appended examples by several of us above show suriage naginata naoshi which have retained their kaeri….

 

In general,  it is dangerous to make statements including “always”, “invariably”, “definitely” or “definitively” when it comes to Nihonto. That much I have learnt in my modest time spent with the hobby. 

[Bugyotsuji]

“It’s the exception that proves the rule.”

 

Perhaps that means the ‘rule of thumb’ rule.

[Jacques]

2 hours ago, Gakusee said:

 

Nakamura san is still a young collector who is still learning. He has seen a lot of blades and owns a few great pieces but he has not seen everything or knows everything. 

The numerous appended examples by several of us above show suriage naginata naoshi which have retained their kaeri….

 

In general,  it is dangerous to make statements including “always”, “invariably”, “definitely” or “definitively” when it comes to Nihonto. That much I have learnt in my modest time spent with the hobby. 

I don't care, you'll just have to show me how you can keep a kaeri while practicing a naoshi. When a student asked me how CO2 works as a greenhouse gaz i gave him a detailed explanation

[CSM101]

Dear Jacques,

 

You can only think of a big cut. But when it is a short one?

[Franco]

1 hour ago, Jacques said:

I don't care, you'll just have to show me how you can keep a kaeri while practicing a naoshi.

 

Jacques, I'll repeat. A naginata-naoshi can be modified at one end or both ends. Obviously, it is necessary to study both ends to see and figure out what has been done as time travel has yet to be invented to go back and see exactly how or why. Below is an image of a Kamakura period sword that was presented at one of our study group meetings. It was designated by the NBTHK as being a katana / naginata naoshi. While it may not be entirely clear in the image, this sword retained it's entire boshi including kaeri (tempering along the mune). It didn't take a big leap to figure out that this piece was modified at one end and perhaps not at the other, at least not much. The fact that it is tempered along the top of the mune gives some indication that whoever modified this piece tried to retain as much of the original sword as possible. 

Clearly that is not the case with many of these naginata-naoshi.

 

Edited Thursday at 03:33 PM by Franco

[Mushin]

I am confused now. Are there not several examples illustrated above that show you, Jacques, quite clearly altered naginata that retained their kaeri; that have a clear turn back? It's likely not as grand as it might have once been, but it's there. How they did that seems to have varied from blade to blade, depending on the sugata of the original piece. The evidence is in plain site. You can argue, which seems to be your want, about their techniques or which end they started at, or the original shape of the kissaki, but that they did it and left us examples is not even in question. 

[Jussi Ekholm]

@Bugyotsuji Was it perhaps this big naginata by Jirōzaemon Katsumitsu & Yosōzaemon Sukesada made in 1522 that you saw. For this I could understand the asking price, it has Date family provenance. I believe this one is privately owned around Okayama area. If it wasn't this one then there is another great item that is still hiding away from my data collection.

 

[Tsuku]

Here is another example, this time a Saburo Kunimune. This very clearly shows the preserved kaeri and the NBTHK describes the boshi as simply "midare-komi with ko-maru-kaeri." There is no yokote and this is unquestionably a naginata-naoshi.

[Jussi Ekholm]

@Rayhan I know I used to be very fixated on terminology but as years have passed, I have become extremely relaxed on terminology. The polearm by Kunimichi has actually incredibly rare term (長刀) nagatō on the NBTHK paper. I think I cannot remember another one having that particular term on NBTHK paper. However from my research on surviving examples, I believe this type of polearm was popular during Muromachi spanning into early Edo period. They range from absolutely massive into smaller lengths of c. 60 cm like the Kunimichi example. I think the terms can be somewhat switched based on feeling (I have never seen any clear definitions anywhere), as there are for example some quite similar polearm koshirae at Jūyō some are classified as nagamaki koshirae some as nagatō koshirae.

 

As far as naginata and their shape in general go there is a lot of variation, so I would avoid making any definitive conclusions as Michael suggested above. So far I have data of 124 surviving pre-Mid Muromachi naginata, and 552 naoshi blades presumably all from same period range. In comparison I have data on 154 naginata from Mid Muromachi to early Edo. In order to try to understand the variations in naoshi blades I think it is very important to research the intact original historical naginata examples, and as they are incredibly rare in general that makes it difficult.

[Jacques]

5 hours ago, Mushin said:

I am confused now. Are there not several examples illustrated above that show you, Jacques, quite clearly altered naginata that retained their kaeri; that have a clear turn back? It's likely not as grand as it might have once been, but it's there. How they did that seems to have varied from blade to blade, depending on the sugata of the original piece. The evidence is in plain site. You can argue, which seems to be your want, about their techniques or which end they started at, or the original shape of the kissaki, but that they did it and left us examples is not even in question. 

Once again, there are real naoshi naginata and swords made in the style. Just imagine what the naginata looked like before the tip was reworked.

Here's a naginata (Tadatsuna) with a normal boshi - try to imagine the boshi once you've practised the naoshi, the kaeri will have disappeared.

[Franco]

7 hours ago, Jacques said:

Once again, there are real naoshi naginata and swords made in the style.

 

Quote

 It was designated by the NBTHK as being a katana / naginata naoshi.

 

Are you saying that the NBTHK is making the wrong call?

 

[Bugyotsuji]

16 hours ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

@Bugyotsuji Was it perhaps this big naginata by Jirōzaemon Katsumitsu & Yosōzaemon Sukesada made in 1522 that you saw. For this I could understand the asking price, it has Date family provenance. I believe this one is privately owned around Okayama area. If it wasn't this one then there is another great item that is still hiding away from my data collection.

 

Jussi, forgive the thread drift, but yes, it is a different naginata, but both were special order items, made for the same person, Miyake Ason, about 20 years apart!

 

Funnily enough, I was round there again today, and doubly funny, there was an article in today's Sanyo Shimbun about the one you just mentioned above! I took a photo of the newspaper article about the Date naginata, and the NBTHK explanation of the tokubetsu juyo naginata owned by my friend. I will pm them to you.

(All of my information above was correct except that it is not a Prefectural Bunkazai. That was a different blade.)

[Jussi Ekholm]

Thank you Piers your friend has absolutely amazing naginata I personally like the sugata of it much more than the Date family one that I posted.

 

I feel Jacques is in general correct with his view on how naoshi will alter the tip of the naginata. However there are naginata shapes with no "swelling" in the upper area so altering them will be different from the other common form. I think polishers or swordsmiths would be much more qualified to answer than myself but in naoshi process we need to think 3D view of the item. Of course the most important end result is to make it as workable sword blade as you can. Basically I feel you cannot have 80 cm naginata with 80 cm nakago and just cut 60 cm of nakago and shave off bit of the curvature, as the end result would be far from good sword blade. You will need to think about length, curvature, thickness, profile taper.

 

Hopefully I will find time to make a small combination photo of some various styles or original surviving naginata from Kamakura & Nanbokuchō periods to show that some can be tweaked into sword blades with slight adjustments, while for some quite extreme measures would be required in order to fix them as swords. Unfortunately in pictures we only get to see the 2D view of the item, so it does not make the 3D alteration thinking easy. Generally the naginata are not too often displayed in popular museums but there are some shrines in Japan that have amazing naginata in their museum rooms. I have been lucky to see many of them.

[Jacques]

Okay, let's explain how to make a naoshi: you must take the moto haba into account and make sure that the saki haba is less than the moto haba and that the sori is reasonable, even if it's often saki sori.  Try to do this while keeping a kaeri, bearing in mind that the width is only reduced from the mune side and that on a naginata the saki haba is greater than the moto haba.