Maru Mune

[Prewar70]

It doesn't seem like these are nearly as common, but perhaps my sample size is too small.  When you encounter one, does it tell you anything different about the blade itself?  Were they used for a particular reason?  As a kantei point, on a mumei sword, should it lead a person in any direction, to a particular school or smith?

[Shugyosha]

Hi James,

 

From Markus Sesko:

 

A maru-mune is also typical for ancient swords but was occasionally also applied by the following smiths or schools: The Hasebe (長谷部) school, Nobukuni (信国), the Heianjô (平安城) school, Kaga Shirô Sukemasa (加賀四郎資正), the Môgusa (舞草) school, Fuyuhiro (冬広), the Ko-Bizen (古備前) school (Masatsune [正恒], Tomonari [友成], Kanehira [包平]), Osafune Nagamitsu (長光), Bizen Shirô Kuniyasu (備前四郎国安), Sukezane (助真), the Ko-Aoe (古青江) and Aoe (青江) school, the Mihara (三原) school, the Miike (三池) school, the Taira-Takada (平高田) school, and the Naminohira (波平) school. 

 

Due to the extra time and effort involved in making a maru mune, it's usually an indicator of a better quality sword.

[b.hennick]

I have seen amateur polished sword where the mune has been rounded off to make a "mostly maru" mune. Look carefully for it may be a sign of a poor polish.

Regards,

Barry Hennick

[Prewar70]

It's not a poor polish issue.

[SAS]

In a conversation last year with Benson sensei, he told me that mune shapes are not necessarily a good kantei point as they can be subject to change over time depending on what has happened to them. Having made swords, i can say that a rounded mune shape is one of the easier ones to make; iore mune being more difficult in my opinion.

[Lineaments]

I have heard marumune is "rural style" , but also popular on womens tanto. Recently I saw a sword specially made to a temple (forgot to wich and by who). I also believe it is easier to make than iori.

[nagamaki - Franco]

One of the benefits of holding club kantei events is the exposure to a wide variety of correctly identified swords from all time periods, traditions, schools, smiths and most importantly in a proper state of polish. While correctly identifying a sword in bidding in a kantei event has its rewards, among the things miserably failing teaches us is that it is essential to remain fully cognizant of which features of a sword are fixed and which are a function of polish. It will be paying attention to those minute details which often makes the difference between success and becoming "completely lost" in our kantei efforts. 

[Lineaments]

I found an oshigata of a unique blade with marumune, an Ohira-zukuri with a yokote. Made by Yosozaemon no jo Sukesada of Bizen. (the most skillful of the Sukesadas) According to the attached text it is unusual with marumune on Honba-mono, more common on Waki-mono. (Honba-mono, a center and well known swordproduction place. Waki-mono, made far away from such well known places)

But sometimes Marumune appear on Sue-Bizen blades.

[Darcy]

I have heard marumune is "rural style" , but also popular on womens tanto. Recently I saw a sword specially made to a temple (forgot to wich and by who). I also believe it is easier to make than iori.

 

 

The roughing in by the swordsmith for ihori-mune is a lot closer to the final shape. Planes mean you can work the surface with other planes and flat tools are easier to make and maintain than curved ones. 

 

If you want to sharpen a flat chisel or draw blade you have a pretty straight forward task. A curved surface though, is different. Trying to make a tapering half cylinder with a perfect circular edge is involving a lot more work and trickery than one with simple planes. 

 

Maru mune that I have encountered was on Aoe which is one of the more refined schools, and on a copy of a Rai blade made by Izumi no Kami Kanesada (Nosada, he was known to copy Rai and did a good job at it). Quickly referring to the Token Bijutsu it's on Rai Kunimitsu and they do mention this ba-chigai-mono and use Enju as an example, but then they say Aoe did it but they are not far enough away from Bizen to qualify (sounds a trifle handwavingy to me). I also had it on a Gassan Sadakatsu which was Kogarasu-zukuri and this is what is in the Shoso-in as well, Ko-Aoe Masatsune (Heian). And I had it on a signed Shintogo Kunimitsu tanto also with Honami Kojo origami. I've seen it on a Tokuju Awataguchi Kuniyoshi katana. 

 

It's on the Kokuho Heishi-shorin ken and Kokuho Shichisei ken. The Miike O-Denta Kokuho has it. The zaimei Kokuho Awataguchi Hisakuni has it.

 

So I am not buying into this being "made far away from well known places" as we are looking at Kyoto, Nara, Osafune, and Kamakura as the culprits in this list. And the smiths and the levels of the blade in these situations are all at the pinnacle levels so it is not a cheap time saving trick for a throwaway blade. 

 

Another NBTHK mention is more blanket than the weird "schools located in a place that is not the place where they originated" rationale, which is just this:

 

"The Aoe school and Kyushu smiths occasionally make their sugata with maru-mune as well as Sue-Bizen smiths"

 

In notes about a Yosozaemon. So that would cover Miike and Enju and Yosozaemon and the Aoe blades all mentioned. 

 

I see it noted in Hojoji Masahiro, in Uda, and these now we are getting into second tier, and Kyushu can be said to be far away. Sa Kunhiro used it and he is in Kyushu but again a highly skilled Tokuju level Soshu style smith. Chikanori in Gassan used it, and Dewa is the boondocks but he is said to have come to Osafune and learned from Yosozaemon's teacher Hikobei-jo. So again it's not really a rural technique, Osafune is the center of swordmaking in the koto period. In the time of Sue Bizen it is almost literally the only place making great swords other than a couple of microdot exceptions in Nosada, Kanemoto and Muramasa and those three really do not make swords as good as the best works of the Sue-Bizen smiths. 

 

With some of the authors and the explanations we have to remember always that they are trying to grab at an explanation that makes sense based on what they see, and if someone is just seeing this show up in Kyushu blades but nowhere else he's going to say "ah well it's a rural technique". Meanwhile Awataguchi is the polar opposite of rural technique, as is Aoe, and they are featuring it.

 

After these we see a scattering of good Shinto and Shinshinto smiths (Horikawa Kunhiro, Sokan) using it but they are emulating past work and not really so useful in analysis.

 

I'd have to look through 13,000 oshigata to get a better handle on it than the above, this is what I can sift out of the info that I have. But from this it looks to me like:

 

1. the technique is old, hand in hand with suguba, coming from the earliest swords pre-dating curved tachi

2. that it is present in Kyushu then is not surprising because they held onto a lot of traditional things

3. The occasional use in Aoe, Sue-Bizen, Uda, Rai and Awataguchi becomes harder to understand, no clear reason ties all of them together except that if they did it only on occasion, it was for a special reason. Either the smith or the customer had that reason, but if it were the customer we'd see it more spread.

 

I can only think in these cases that the smiths were trying to call back to an older style. The Tsugunao on my site is signed katanamei and this is also not usual for Aoe smiths of his time period, it's an older Aoe thing to do that. Were they specifically trying in these cases to generate classical appearing blades? I see no mention of Nosada making these but I had one and it was definitely a Rai copy. So he is definitely making a throwback blade from his perspective, and is adding maru-mune then part of this?

 

I think the "rural" putdown then or "away from centers of production" or "schools that moved from their origin" is just authors pulling reasons out of their butts.

 

A side note: mitsu-mune is possible to add to any ihori-mune blade without much fuss. It's harder to take off.  It's possible to convert maru-mune to mitsu mune or ihori-mune as well. If Nosada is copying Rai and adding this, and we see it in Rai Kunimitsu but noted as being rare among Rai Kunimitsu and it's rare among Awataguchi... are some of those reworked in later times?

 

We know that the Japanese do not like deviations from The Book of Knowledge and rather than expand the book of knowledge traditionally the facts have been altered to fit conveniently with the book. Masamune has kengyo nakago jiri, and this blade is a Masamune but doesn't have it, well, let's put it on and save us all some embarrassment. Even if it's already suriage. 

 

Or is it in these cases each one of these smiths throwing back to ancient swords?

 

Awataguchi Hisakuni copying stuff from the Shoso-in.

Awataguchi Kuniyoshi copying Hisakuni

Rai Kunimitsu and Shintogo Kunimitsu copying Kunyoshi

Nosada copying Rai Kunimitsu

 

There is an unbroken line of Yamashiro technique here transferring over to Soshu and into Mino. But always occasional special case use. 

 

So it's interesting to think of the why. The smiths though, again, the level of work and the schools involved dismiss this theory of hackery and country bumpkinness.

[Simon]

On Maru Mune .....the blade I have is not just rounded over from the top edge edge , each side of the mune has a flat level lip just before the dome of the Mune proper begins

I would imagine that this would take considerable skill to accomplish

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

 

1. the technique is old, hand in hand with suguba, coming from the earliest swords pre-dating curved tachi

I totally agree. Present in chinese and korean blades of Tang period and in some Japanese excavated blades of the same time.