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Umetada is a Japanese style of decoration for metal work. It may have been used by silversmiths since the Muromachi period. [1] But in the Momoyama period, a certain Umetada Myoju (1558–1631) [2] [3] emerged to become the founder of the manufacture of so-called "new swords," or shinto, [4] and to rank with Kaneie and Nobuie as a great designer and maker of sword guards.
Apprentices to sword-guard makers must have grown in numbers, and probably feudal lords outside the capital invited these men to work for them. From the Muromachi period until the nineteenth-century edict prohibiting the carrying of swords, Shoami guards in a wide range of styles were being produced all over Japan. In fact, so numerous are the ...
A diagram of a katana and koshirae with components identified. Fuchi (縁): The fuchi is a hilt collar between the tsuka and the tsuba.; Habaki (鎺): The habaki is a wedge-shaped metal collar used to keep the sword from falling out of the saya and to support the fittings below; fitted at the ha-machi and mune-machi which precede the nakago.
At least three Japanese terms (budō, bujutsu, and bugei) are used interchangeably with the English phrase Japanese martial arts. The usage of the term budō (武道) to mean martial arts is a modern one: historically the term meant a way of life encompassing physical, spiritual and moral dimensions with a focus on self-improvement ...
A fully mounted scabbard (koshirae) may consist of a lacquered body, a taped hilt, a sword guard and decorative metal fittings. [145] Though the original purpose was to protect a sword from damage, from early times on Japanese sword mountings became a status symbol and were used to add dignity. [146]
Japanese swords were often forged with different profiles, different blade thicknesses, and varying amounts of grind. Wakizashi and tantō, for instance, were not simply scaled-down versions of katana; they were often forged in a shape called hira-zukuri, in which the cross-sectional shape of the blade becomes an isosceles triangle. [130]
Yamatorige was forged during the middle Kamakura period (13th century). [2]According to Kanzan Sato, a nihontō (Japanese sword) appraiser and researcher, it was named so in order to honor the beauty of the tachi by likening it to the feather of a copper pheasant or the landscape of sunset mountains. [3]
The Kabutowari (Japanese: 兜割, lit. "helmet breaker" or "skull breaker" [1]), also known as hachiwari, was a type of knife-shaped weapon, resembling a jitte in many respects. This weapon was carried as a side-arm by the samurai class of feudal Japan. Antique Japanese hachiwari with a nihonto style of handle