Menpo!

[Viper6924]

Hi guys!

 

I picked up this menpo years ago from an old man that have a lot of things from asia. He said it was EDO-period. The thing that made it a bit special is that it´s not made from iron. Only the throatprotection is ironplate. I have two other menpos made from iron. This one is wood covered in some kind of resin, I guess.

I really would like to know more about this special mask. Was this common practise? I guess a menpo made from wood was cheaper to make than from iron. And with the Edo-period there were really now reason to dress for real combat. This looks like somekind of showpeace.

 

Thanks in advance for Your input!

 

Jan

[IanB]

Jan, A menpo of wood would be totally impractical. Far more likely is that it is of rawhide, nerigawa. Although not as common as iron, leather masks do occur reasonably often. The wet hide was hammered into a wooden mould and then allowed to dry. It was then lacquered to keep out moisture. Contrary to common belief, leather armour was expensive. It was also very practical, being nearly as tough as iron but much lighter.

Ian Bottomley

[Viper6924]

Thanks for Your comment, Ian. I acctually couldn´t make up my mind what this matr could be. Felt kind of strange. It´s acctually pretty light now when You mention it.

So they used this nerigawa in battle outfits? Very intresting. Was there any period that this was more common than others?

 

Thanks again, Ian!

 

Jan

[IanB]

Jan, No, not really. Even in the Heian most of the scales in an o-yoroi would be of nerigawa with iron scales concentrated over vital areas. Even where iron scales were used, they were always alternated with hide ones - an arrangement that gave good protection against missiles since the iron scales resisted penetration whilst the rawhide between them absorbed energy by being compressed. During the Sengoku Jidai lesser parts of the armour were often of nerigawa to help keep the weight down. By coincidence, I have just bought an armour that is entirely of rawhide except for the sleeves, haidate and shinguards. Most remarkably the lacquer is all in good order so there is no warping or distortion of the parts. The lacing is in a bit of a state so it will need a bit of TLC when it arrives and before it can be mounted. I will get some images posted asap.

Ian Bottomley

[Viper6924]

Ian, the whole rawhide in armourproduction is really a new topic for me. And a very intresting one. I´ve had this menpo for at least 5 years. Always wonderigng what it could have been made of. I didn´t think this was of any value at all, except as a funny peace of Japanese history.

I´m looking forward to some pics of your armour. And I will be content by placing my menpo in the Edo-period. Perhaps I will promote it to my full Sengoku armour. As You said rawhide beats iron

 

Thansk again, Ian!

 

 

Jan

[Lindus]

The leather armour put me off in the early days, had a couple of masks and a full armour but thought them cheap alternative untill I dropped in on John Anderson one day. He said as Ian has that these were more expensive,lighter so favoured by older Samurai and just about as tough.

Remind me about the "Cow of Kanto" story Ian

 

Roy

 

Here is one, now in Germany, that was the first Hide mask I had.

 

PS, While on the subject of Leather{Wrong string} I had an Itomaki Tachi that had a beutifull lacquered leather Tsuba,was light and the lacquer had chipped off on the Mimi. Anyone seen similar?.

[IanB]

Jan and Roy, I promised to post images of the leather menpo belonging to the armour made of nerigawa. As I mentioned the whole thing needs quite a lot of TLC and I have starting with the menpo. The major problem is the lacing which looks too narrow for the spacing of the holes in the plates and is broken in places. In general it looks rather 'mean' as if it has been re-laced with some braid that was on hand but not quite right for the job. I have used 8mm stuff for the menpo and thinks it looks about right.

Ian Bottomley

[Viper6924]

Nice looking "fix up" with the menpo, Ian.

With Your closeup I can def see some similarities in the matr with my menpo. And also the general look of it. As I said before this nerigawa has really opened up a new avenue of knowledge regarding armour of the samurai. I have acctually replaced my iron menpo on the fully dressed Takigawa-samurai with this nerigawa one. He deservs nothing but the best :D

 

Thanks again, Ian!

 

 

Jan

[Lindus]

Very nice Nara style,your lace job looks pretty good,spent some time with JA who showed me the way to "Tie" the knots,far more simple than I had thought.

Shame that leather armour is so less sought, who were the mainstream makers?.

Did you also do the lacquer work on the throat guard?.

 

Roy

[IanB]

Roy, No the mask and tare are both untouched and both have all of the original lacquer. It was the amazing condition of the various plates and their lacquer that attracted me to the armour. There isn't a single plate or component that has cracks in the lacquer and hence nothing is distorting. The only slight exception is that the curve of the lower plates of the shikoro have opened out very slightly because it has been stored with pressure on it. I will try to pull the outer ends together with a temporary cord in the hope it recovers the original curvature.

When I bought it I assumed the brilliance and soundness of the lacquer was because it wasn't particularly old - possibly Bakamatsu period or even Meiji period. However it has a pouch attached to the breastplate, the internal fabric of which has crumbled to dust. The helmet lining is also very fragile and crumbling (it has bonji in ink on the upper surface by the way). It takes quite a while for textiles to get into this state, unless they have become acidic through contact with the outer layer of leather. I does however suggest it may be older than I first thought.

As for the lacing, it isn't quite as easy as it looks. I would far rather do kebiki lacing - it is much easier to make it look neat. Sukage lacing involves inserting tiny leather plugs where the lacing passes through the holes and it is tricky to get it hanging straight, parallel and flat. Who the makers of these armours were is a bit uncertain. The Iwai were known to make them and of course many Sengoku period armours have nerigawa plates in the gessan and elsewhere. I suppose most armourers were familiar with using the stuff for relatively simply shaped plates - it is the mask and helmet that would have needed specialist skills.

Ian Bottomley

[uwe]

Nice work Ian I would really like to see the whole armor. Is it misleading to assume, that the tataki-nuri finish of the suso-no-ita is pointing towards Kaga?

 

Uwe

[Veli]

I just started wondering... were the nerigawa armourers considered Eta since they worked with rawhide? So a regular katsuchi would not utilize leather even if it would offer advantages, but he maybe would have subcontracted the work?

 

Veli

[Luc T]

most of the nerigawa armors were lost in time, because they are far more difficult to conservate. Personally, I only own some old domaru and haramaki partially made of kawa. Some parts are damaged by hungry insects.. I store them in a dark room (only LED lights) , with 50-70% humidity.

I saw several Iwai pieces of kawa. The big avantage is the weight indeed. Some say the were used by older samurai.

nice men Jan , with haruta influence.

[IanB]

Veli, You have hit on a good point. Armour making as a profession was regarded as being rather unsavoury because of the handling of leather. I think this is the reason why most armour until the Sengoku Jidai is unsigned and so little is known about early armour makers. There are early references to Nara being a centre for armour making but no mention of who was making it. Nara continued to be a major centre, during the Edo period being well known for its mask production. They must have churned out thousands for sale in the trade. When you look at armour carefully it soon become apparent that armourers could buy-in items like kanamono, sleeves and haidate to cut down on cost and time. Like swords, the production of an armour must have involved a lot of individual skills. No doubt the armourer himself would forge the helmet bowl and the major plates, but I bet he didn't drill all the holes or do much lacquering. I am convinced this is how the Myochin started, making minor armour components when the demand for horse bits fell off. They themselves admit they were originally called Masuda and that was their trade. It was probably this that caused them to adopt the name Myochin and attempt to break into the armour making business rather than continuing as sub-contractors.

Ian Bottomley

[estcrh]

Here is a link to one of the most complete nerigawa armor you will ever see.

 

 

http://www.winterjapaneseart.com/index. ... &Itemid=77

[IanB]

Eric, Our Robert does get some fabulous things.

Ian

[falconj]

Thanks for this information,

maybe a question for Ian ( or perhaps other's) was iron and cowhide the only manufacture type of making mempo etc? , I have a few, and one in particular that I bought in Japan many years ago, I was told that this armor was made from a form of what we would call paper-mache and then laquered, it is extremely tough, but I may have this interpretation wrong in the Japanese-English translation as I usually do, could this form of armour manufacture have been used? I believe it to be a lady's mempo.

thanks

John

( maybe just a gullible Australian )

[IanB]

John, Your menpo is unlikely to be paper-mache. I have seen parts of an armour made of paper, quite crude and laced in vivid colours. I think it may have been made for kabuki. Yours looks like a perfectly normal nerigawa mask.

Ian

[falconj]

many thanks for that information Ian, I rather suspected that, that was the case, as in the way it is constructed, however, I suppose there was a women's and men mempo because of their face? size ? preference, that must also come in to consideration? or not?

regards

John

[IanB]

John, Probably not for a woman but possibly from a boy's armour. I have however seen a few armours made for the wives of daimyo. I doubt they ever actually wore them and I suspect they were really symbolic. In Sendai Museum there are the armours of the various Date daimyo and the accompanying armours for their wives. As far as I could tell, there was nothing to really differentiate them from men's armours. One thing that stuck in my mind was that one armour had a curious feature where, by turning part of the tehen kanamono, a kind of iris diaphragm closed off the actual hole. What the heck that was all about I know not - it would hardly be needed to keep out rain. They also have the famous silver lacquered armour of Hideyoshi with the hair covered helmet and crests in the form of gunbai. Talk about small! That armour is tiny - he was a really diminutive guy.

Ian

[DaveT]

I think leather armours are being completely overlooked by collectors. As Ian said they were expensive back in the day.

Weight wise, well I have three Nerigawa Gusoku, one Kuroda Clan (Photo attached) is heavy, it's the heaviest armour I've ever handled and its 98% leather including the kabuto. The other is a Yukinoshita-Do, all leather, but about he same weight as my iron one. I did however replace the odoshi on a dou about 3wks ago, that was super light.

 

So my 2 cents is buy a good one with hardly any damaged if you can, and store it correctly. The main issue with leather is the de-lamination of the lacquered layers from the sub structure. Once an armour has got wet and the sabi urushi is damaged it's going to fall apart.

 

I have some photographs from the vaults of the Watanabe Collection of an outstanding armour, completely junked due to damp storage. (I can't post the photo's because they are the copyright of Trevor Absolon).

 

 

Dave