Early uchigatana in scrolls

Gents,

whoever wants to see some early uchigatana in Japanese scrolls, is encouraged to look at the Heiji Monogatarki Emaki (Heiji scroll), which is shown in great detail here:

http://www.bowdoin.edu/~ktravers/projec ... intro.html

Please go to the interactive viewer: http://www.bowdoin.edu/~ktravers/projec ... iewer.html

I have found a few instances where footsoldiers (apparently of lower rank) carry uchigatana. Now, early uchigatana were pretty short, comparable to the later wakizashi companion sword. The scroll describes events of the Heiji disturbance in 1159 (i.e. in the Heian period), which were the interact to the Genpei war. The scroll has been painted in the second half of the 13th century, i.e. in the Kamakura period.

I have chosen all views of uchigatana I could find.

Uchigatana are also to be seen in the Ban Dainagon scroll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Dainagon_Ekotoba) - the kebiishi (police and judicial officers in the Heian and Kamakura periods) carry such swords and not tachi. Sasano has chosen exactly this part as an illustration of early uchigatana use in his "Tosogu no Kigen".

On kebiishi: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... 2/Kebiishi

Please note: We are talking about the uchigatana being used as the principal and not a as a companion sword. The uchigatana depicted here have a pronounced curvature. They should not be confused with koshigatana, the forerunner of the tanto. It seems, that the samurai in picture 6 may actually be wearing a koshigatana as his principal sword.

Enjoy :-)

And here is a kebiishi from the Ban Dainagon scroll. And two early uchigatana published in the "Uchigatana Koshirae" book by the Tokyo National Museum.

Nice post Mariuszk. Japanese paintings is another interest of mine.

The Heiji Tale as well as the Mongol Invasion scrolls http://www.bowdoin.edu/mongol-scrolls/ are war tales style of painting. The origin of this type of painting marked the start of the bakufu government in 1185 when the Minamoto clan gained power. They reflect a shift from an interest in courtly affairs as seen in Heian period paintings, to an interest in the code of the warrior, their equipment and tactics, reflecting the fall of the Fujiwara Heian period class and the rise of the Kamakura period warrior class. These hand scrolls and the ones that you posted are particularly interesting because they consist of styles called onna-e (feminine painting), otoko-e (masculine painting), or a combination of both.

Put simply, onna-e is a painting style that depicts the “inner world” representing the reserved nature of the Heian courtiers, and this style is used to express introvert feelings and emotions. The “frames” of these scrolls seem frozen in time, they lack movement or action and attention is paid to hair and costume, with facial features and detail to buildings and rooms as a secondary concern. They usually represent the moment just before or after an emotion-filled encounter and thus have a tension that anticipates what is going to happen or what will be the consequence of what has just happened. Classic Kano school paintings of the Genji Tales are very good examples of the onna-e style. Below is an example and you can see there is a stillness, with only the blinds ruffling in the wind, and the emotional interplay between Niou as he serenades Nakanokimi is very apparent. In onno-e lines of the paintings are usually thin and weak, adding to the finesse. Check out this link for more information on the Tale of Genji.

http://www.taleofgenji.org/summary.html

On the other hand, otoko-e paintings are action packed and basically are the opposite to onna-e. They usually depict outside, historical events (not always apparently) and the emphasis is on realism which is a contrast to the onna-e were a kind of dreaminess is strived for. A piece of otoko-e painting typically illustrates multiple actions and attention is paid to facial features, clothing, equipment and anything else that adds to the realism. Exaggeration is typically avoided but motion and dynamism is an essential part of the style. Otoko-e are very detailed and viewing such scrolls from right to left, there is a sense of speed and momentum as the story unfolds. The lines of the paintings are thicker and have more curves which adds to the sense of action. Below is an extract from the Shigi San Engi which exemplifies the otoko-e style.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigisan-engi

In the epic stories such as the Heiji scrolls as posted by Mariuszk, there are usually crowds of people that are running and congregating in arrow-head shaped crowd, with a key figure at the front and this arrangement enhances the sense of motion.

The Ban Dainagon scrolls as a whole is a combination of the onno-e and otoko-e style of painting. The fast pace of the political row in the streets of Kyoto is broken up with scenes in the Imperial residence as the Emperor is informed of the trouble, and at Minamoto no Makoto’s residence as he contemplates his possible sentence as the wrongly accused of the burning of the Imperial the gate. Incidentally, the Imperial residence is inaccurately drawn and the police force are very accurately drawn which hints at the artists background.

In short, the main purpose of onna-e is to encourage the viewer to savour and linger over the individual frames that make up the whole story. With otoko-e, the point is to excite and push the eye of the viewer across the scroll.

Interesting and good to be able to read across the scroll. Quite a few guys with naginata are carrying uchigatana in the pics. That seems to make sense, a smaller weapon as reserve. Ive always been slightly puzzled about the uchigatana being used in battle. Yes, if you have one in each hand i can see how it could be of benefit, but one, as in the pictures makes me wonder why the shield didnt really catch on, off topic, but hopefully someone will put me right on this. Is it also possible that a lot of the uchigatana where uchigatana because they where broken tachi/katana?. The point im trying to make is, was the uchigatana a reserve weapon for folk carrying yumi,yari and naginata?, if not, then id jump to the naginata que :D

Alex

Alex,

Uchigatana are known from the Heian period, when the katana as we know it today was nonexistent. Musings on shields make no great sense without knowledge of samurai warfare, tactics and weaponry.

(BTW, you might be surprised that Yayoi period warriors, who were no samurai, of course, have used wooden shields).

Besides, my post was meant to show people that the uchigatana has appeared pretty early.

Below is a link to a discussion on the reliability of such scrolls.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=15258

Thanks for the cross-link, Henry. It is very useful.

Hi Mariusz, i know what your point is, excuse my novice curiositys!

When i say tachi/katana i was refering to length only, as you know uchigatana where used in the late muromachi period when the katana was in use, i was simply refering to sword length in a battle situation.

As far as tactics go, again excuse my naiveness!, i cant help but wonder how fast tactics go out of the window in the full heat of a battle and when what you have in your hands is all that counts, a valid point, by my thinking, sorry to interfere with your intended responses my good man

A

No problem Alex, it is good to discuss these things. I just thought that we had better keep the discussion on track.

I am just too serious at times and too full of myself :lol: In this particular case this may be due to the fact that I have just held a lecture on the development of tsuba between from the 8th to the early 17th century and uchigatana played an important role in this context.

But since this is turning into a conversation of my humble self with Henry, heck, why don't we go wild! Why not speculate why they didn't use tanks or something

I understand, no wories. :D, sure you have heard it before. There as been a lot of talk on uchigatana lately and its got me thinking on where they stand on a battlefield. I will look into it, then maybe start a post to try and find out more.

Alex.

Assuming the scrolls are accurate, the next question is where are all the tosogu from that era? According to the scrolls, there seems to have been an abundance of metal fittings. Over time many would have been lost, damaged beyond repair and recycled, neglected and left to rust and so on, however there should be some still around.

Here are two iron tsuba from my collection which I think could be as a long shot the kind depicted in the scrolls. (Sorry about the blurry pictures).

The first is a Ko Tosho tsuba that is perfect round, 7.2cm and 0.2 cm thick and was discussed last year here:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13468

In my opinion there is a chance it could be the kind of iron tsuba worn by low ranking individuals on early uchigatana, such as the kebiishi in the Ban Dainagon Scrolls.

By the way this tsuba will be in the up-and-coming KTK catalogue alongside the mikatsuki sukashi tsuba once owned by Sasano.

The next is hard to categorise and is discussed embedded in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13495&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15

It was apparently found on a tachi, however it has been fitted in a box as an uchigatana tsuba. It is 8.5 cm, perfect round and in my opinion an early example of a tachi tsuba. From the scrolls I have found tsuba mounted on tachi which are very similar. The left hand picture below is of warriors (the ones with shaved heads are probably warrior monks) and they seem to have tsuba on their tachi of a similar style. The right hand picture is of a warrior resting during the attempted Mongol invasion. The tsuba on his tachi is of a similar shape, however there seems to be file marks radiating from the centre and the inner ring is probably a seppa commonly found on tachi. I have a feeling that this tsuba was probably soft metal but stylistically it appears to be of a similar style.

As I say these comparisons are a long shot, however don’t let that put you off going through the scrolls and finding paintings of tsuba that are similar to your own tsuba! If you do, please share them with the rest of us.

Thanks for starting this topic! I'm preparing a talk on ko-tosho and ko-katchushi tsuba for my local Token Kai meeting this weekend, and the development of the uchigatana is a key part of this. I also hadn't visualized just how short the early ones were, so this is very useful. Cheers!

Henry,

your tsuba always makes me

Fact is - we have no idea on what kind of sword those ubu tsuba with no hitsu-ana have been mounted. We can only speculate - tachi? nodachi? nagamaki? uchigatana?

I guess the only way to learn is to get information on swords which rest in various shrines and temples. There are actual fighting weapons, not only those made specifically as offerings. Sakanoue no Tamuramaro's tachi with a very imporatant iron tsuba is an example here. Jim Gilbert has shown an interesting example of a tachi mounting with a nerikawa tsuba, in th Oyamazumi Jinja: http://home.earthlink.net/~jggilbert/nerikawa.htm

Hi Mariusz

Thanks for the I am flattered.

You are indeed right that we can't really tell what kind of koshirae they were mounted on but it is fun to have a wild guess at it.

I have never been to Oyamazumi Shrine but I have been told that there are some tsuba like the ubu iron one above with the concentric circles on display on some old tachi koshirae. I have not seen then myself but hope to visit some day to find out for sure.

Many thanks for the great thread.

Posted from my iPhone.

Henry,

your tsuba certainly looks like the one on Suenaga Takezane's scroll. It seems very likely that it was mounted on a tachi. There are four forms of tsuba, which were mounted on early tachi (I have excluded the kara tsuba and the Tamuramaro sukashi tsuba from this list):

shitogi, genshi aoi, aoi and aorigata.

We also have thisinteresting picture of Ashikaga Takauji holding a huge sword in his right hand, a regular tachi hanging from his belt. The large sword could be a nodachi - it has a large kuruma sukashi tsuba.

After you visit the shrine, please do not forget to post your findings :-)

I have been to the shrine a couple of times and they were, as most older tsuba are, typically aoigata.There are a number of swords with koshirae that have marugata tsuba. These are of a quite small diameter and surprisingly very thick. I don't think there were any of the larger, what we can think of as transitional tsuba, like illustrated here. As best as I can remember. John

Thanks John,

Do you remember if those koshirae with maru tsuba were tachi or uchigatana? Judging by thickness, I would suppose tachi...

Tachi and Odachi. There were a couple of koshirae that had no ashi that may have been adapted for use as uchigatana, but, were longish and I remember one that had only one ashi so these may just have been damaged. John