June, 1917 
25 
An 18th Century sword 
guard showing horses 
in the wood 
The spool winder pat¬ 
tern and wood grain 
effect is found in a 
16th Century example 
A tsuba signed by the 
maker, Hoyen, and 
made in 1840 
history, heroism, folklore, 
manners and customs, and the 
physical aspect and natural 
history of the country.” 
The Japanese Sword 
The ornamental “furniture” 
of a Japanese sword consists 
primarily of the tsiiha or 
guard, a circular or oval 
(sometimes square and occa¬ 
sionally irregular) piece of 
metal, with a triangular aper¬ 
ture to receive the sword- 
blade. On either side are 
smaller openings to close over 
the tops of the two smaller implements that 
accompany many of the Japanese swords— 
the short dagger or kokatana, and the kogai, 
a skewer-shaped instrument. x\fter the 
tsiiba or sword-guard come the smaller 
ornaments placed on either side of the hilt 
to enable the wielder of the sword to have a 
firmer grasp of it. These small metal orna¬ 
ments are called menuki. We find them, 
too, on the scabbards of swords, especially 
on the daggers or wakizashi. Of great 
beauty and interest are the kashira, metal 
caps fitting the head of the sword-handles, 
secured in place by means of cords laterally 
placed. The fuchi are oval rings through 
This 18th Century A striking red copper 
tsuba is attributed to guard wrought by 
Kanai of Echizen Masaharu, circa 1800 
which the blade passes; they encircle the 
base of the handles where the blade is se¬ 
cured. The kurikata are cleats for secur- 
family were without rivals. 
Mosle suggests that one of the 
requisites in a Japanese con¬ 
noisseur’s education is to 
recognize the iyebori (per¬ 
sonal style) of the first thir¬ 
teen centuries of Got5! 
Piercing, chasing and in a 
few instances inlaying and 
damascening came into the 
practice of the metal-workers 
with the advent of the 16th 
Century. Umetada Shigey- 
oshi, who has been called the 
“master of masters,” began 
the free use of the graver in 
ornamentation. To him mainly are due the 
decorative changes that marked the tsuba 
which were made during this period. 
The close of the 16th Century brought a 
stretch of 250 peaceful years after the tur¬ 
bulence that had shaken Japan until then. 
Naturally in the years of war, the sword of 
the Japanese fighter called for a guard prac¬ 
tical and tough in texture, something that 
would deflect the powerful blow of an 
opponent. In the years of peace the tsuba 
were mainly adapted to court use and for 
the adornment of the person. The tsuba 
makers of Osaka produced marvels of 
{Continued on page 62) 
A rare tsuba of 
the nth Century 
is of unusual pro¬ 
portions, being 
4%" wide 
A very early ex¬ 
ample shows fine 
workmanship in 
an open design 
The tsuba of the 
dragon is a char¬ 
acteristic piece of 
late 18th Century 
work 
A concave tsuba 
with raised de¬ 
sign and round- 
punched sageo 
holes 
ing the cords {sageo) which held back the 
warrior’s sleeve whilst he was fighting, and 
finally there is the kojiri, the metal endpiece 
to the scabbard. 
There is not one of the ornamental deco¬ 
rations of a Japanese sword that would not 
have awakened the admiration and envy of 
Benvenuto Cellini. And to think that after 
the edict of 1877 they were, literally mil¬ 
lions of them, relegated to the rubbish heaps 
of the Japanese junkman! Too few of the 
menuki escaped melting up. Theirs is a fas¬ 
cination difficult to resist, but the tsuba more 
directly engages our attention for the pres¬ 
ent, and the smaller ornaments have been 
referred to here only in order that the reader 
may have some suggestion of their relation¬ 
ship to the tsuba. 
CoTo AND His Followers 
xA.ccording to Huish, “The earliest period 
in connection with artistic work which will 
interest the general reader is that known as 
the Ashikaga, a time that covered the pro¬ 
ducts of the first of the Coto, Miochin and 
Umetada families. At its commencement, 
1390, there lived at Hagi Nagato Nakai, Mit- 
sutsune, the earliest name to be met with on 
sword-guards. Later Kaneiye of Fushimi 
in Yamashiro, Umetada Shigeyoshi (the re¬ 
nowned swordsmith). Goto Yu jo (died 
1504), Miochin Nobuiye (1507-1555), Iran- 
ken Yamakichi (1570) and Hoan were all 
renowned for their tsuba. Thin and soft 
iron with a heavy reddish patina distin¬ 
guishes the tsuba of Nobuiye. On his work 
and that of his followers for a time we find 
left the hammer marks. The refined aca¬ 
demic work of the Goto family is, in Japan¬ 
ese estimation, given the first place. Goto 
Yujo, the founder, lived and died in Mino 
(1426-1504). Work by him and by his 
descendants is known to the Japanese as 
iyebori, which, translated, is equivalent to 
‘style of the family.’ ” 
The work on those sword-guards whose 
surface is punched into a texture of small 
dots until it resembles fish roe is called 
Nanakoji, and for tsuba so finished the Goto 
Large kokatana 
openings are 
found in the late 
18th Century 
tsuba 
A late 18th Cen¬ 
tury guard of bal¬ 
anced pattern and 
decorations 
A very early tsuba 
shows punched 
scroll decorations 
in crude sym¬ 
metry 
A characteristic 
tsuba of the latter 
half of the 18th 
Century. Floioer 
and leaf design 
