Ken-Hawaii

Roy, there have been a couple of interesting one-hour TV segments on how your treasure hunters have found incredible stashes of artifacts, including a couple who got bloody rich from their finds! So if you have a metal detector, please go find a large enough stash so you can treat us all to a Nihonto. :D Ken

Brian, out of curiosity, how many books on Nihonto do you own? Ken

Good question, Matt. My concept of looting entails removing items from a place that either doesn't know about them, or is actively against their being removed. But the thesaurus defines looting as "Valuables pillaged in time of war; spoils" so maybe my concept isn't exactly by the book. But since the Japanese used swords as weapons in war, not to mention starting the entire fracas, I find it hard to think of looting when the primary reason for bringing them over here was to get them out of unfriendly hands. And of course many thousands of swords were simply melted down, & that certainly isn't looting. If our government was bringing swords over just to find a market for them, or because they had some intrinsic worth, then I think a case might be made for a looting mentality, but that isn't what happened. Ken

It's not just in Canada that the government is "protecting us from ourselves...". You'd think that we all need to be pushed around in baby buggies! Ken

Matt, I think you missed the point of that article. They are saying that museums are no longer willing to accept ancient artifacts that may have been looted from their original locations. I really doubt that this applies to Nihonto, although I agree with Grey that U.S. museums are seldom the appropriate repository for our blades. As a case in point, the Honolulu Academy of Arts (http://honolulumuseum.org/)has an excellent collection of Nihonto donated from now-deceased members of our sword society, but they are not on display. And if you do a search on their collections, nothing comes up indicating that they even have any Japanese blades. Robert Benson donates his time to keep those blades in good condition, & I am wondering why he bothers. I'm sure other members can offer similar situations. Ken

I agree that it's gunome, Chris, but I can't really see any slant. Ken

David, please sign ALL of your posts, per Brian's rules. Can you please post some photos of the nakago? Hard to tell much without seeing the entire blade. Ken

If you can download the individual images, Microsoft's free ICE compositor (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/) will easily & quickly interlace them seamlessly. Ken

Aloha: I have a question related to traditionally-mounted blades. Would you say that the vast majority of traditionally-mounted swords stayed housed in homes of those who did not have a son of fighting age? I understand that thousands of traditionally-mounted blades did make it to battle, but does anyone have an idea of a rough percentage of each? Ken

To complete what, Robert? I also own Nihonto Koza, BTW. Ken

I e-mailed Harry a few months ago with the same question, but he didn't even bother to respond. Ken

Jamie is right - the first thing to do is to keep it off grass! The second is to get a soft piece of toweling & gently wipe the blade down with mineral oil, but don't wipe the nakago (the part that was covered by the tsuka, or handle). Keep the blade in its saya (sheath) unless you're looking at it, & try to keep any moisture away from the sword. That will at least keep it in the shape you have it in right now. Ken

I really did understand what you meant, Grey - I should have made that clear in my last message. Any guesstimate on what a Jumonji polish should cost? I don't have a clue. Ken

Thanks for those yari shots, Ed, especially the closeups. I'm still puzzling over whether the yari blade can be removed after the wrapping is done without destroying the wrapping. On my shaft, there is a small piece of wood at the bottom of the nakago groove that holds the edges apart, & is obviously meant to be removed after the blade is mounted. And having to somehow locate the mekugiana to match the nakagoana after wrapping doesn't seem like an easy task, so I'm tending towards thinking that the blade will be mounted, mekugi in place, & only then will the shaft be wrapped. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks! Grey, there's always a chance that someone who looks strange is actually legit, but that's why I asked. Ken

Okay, I just found out that the togishi won't be able to get to my yari for the better part of a year.... So in an on-line search, I found the San Francisco Sword Restoration Center (https://sites.google.com/site/sfswordsociety/san-francisco-sword-restoration-center) as part of the San Francisco Japanese Sword Society. They offer a kenma/shitaji/shiage polish of Jumonji yari for a flat $550, which seems a bit low to me. Has anyone heard of this group or had any experience with them? I'm not impressed that they have only a Google Web-site, & their sensei is a bit strange-looking, not to mention the martial arts they teach. Ken

Chris, I just met with my Japanese Sword Society of Hawaii Board of Directors, & we would be very interested in hosting an NTHK-NPO shinsa here in Hawaii. What will it take & how do we formally apply? Aloha! Ken

Nice diagrams, Eric - thanks! Makes it easier to figure out what I will be doing with the shaft. Ken

The tachi ba hiri is the part of the shaft that holds the nakago, Eric. The reinforced part is called the tachiuchi. Here's a quick snapshot: http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/8048/yarishaft.jpg Ken

Okay, just got the Knudsen polearms book, & it has a lot of useful info...but nothing at all on repair or rebuilding of the yari shaft. So I guess I have to put my engineer's brain in low gear & move forward. Ian, let me ask a very basic question. Once the yari nakago is inserted into the tachi ba hiri & the mekugi is in place, is that when the shaft wrapping takes place? And, if that's so, how is the blade removed later? Or is it removed at all? I guess I'm used to being able to take Nihonto apart for study or cleaning, so if the shaft is permanently bonded to the blade, I'm scratching my head as to why it was done that way. Ken

Thanks for those sets of close-ups, Piers. They give me some ideas, but I'm not sure if I have the right materials to proceed. I have several square feet of white samegawa; several types of cordage, including some that I hand-made from local plants; a plethora of eggshells from our ducks; our local equivalent of wicker; &, interestingly, a very large mango tree that produces urushiol in its sap. Of course red lacquer & black paint are available locally, too. Now what I need is a plan of attack to build up the yari shaft, & I think may have to wait for the polearms book to get that level of detail. Ken

Do you use your yari to cram those lead balls down the barrel of your musket, Piers? :D Ken

Wow! Thanks to all three of you for helping out with my project! Obviously being knowledgeable about Nihonto doesn't translate all that well to yari shaft components, & I really appreciate the images & ideas you're passing along. Right now, I'm concentrating on getting Bob Benson's deshi, Woody Hall, to find time to work on the blade's polish, hopefully in time for me to show it at our sword exhibition the end of September. I've also ordered Knudsen's Japanese Polearms book, & hopefully it will give me some clues on how to get started on the shaft, as well as examples. Lord knows I'm not the world's best woodworker (just ask my wife!), but we have a full set of tools. Thanks, again! Ken

Ian, are there any guides on how to approach this project? I'm not even sure how the finished shaft would look.... Ken

So is there anything I should do to the shaft, Ian? Ken

Ian, the shaft of my new yari looks very much like the Peabody shafts you describe: http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/9208/tachibahiri.jpg http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/1492 ... iriclo.jpg http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5737 ... rumaki.jpg The pale-colored wood is what seems the most fragile, although it will still hold the blade very firmly. There are also two mekugiana on the shaft, neither of which comes close matching the one on the blade - a bit strange that, as the nakago appears to be ubu. Ken