Never seen menuki mounted as is.....

[Lindus]

This Tsuka has what may be the most unusual Menuki positions ever. The menuki, and would appreciate opinions, although a little worn seem pretty good quality as are the F&K.

The seppa are engraved with designs of village and floral while the Tsuba looks odd although the sword was carried in WW2 and would have stood up well to military use.

 

Question really in two parts, How old the menuki & their position on the Tsuka, is the second mekugi ana near Kashira any hint to the way mounted?.

Roy

 

http://www.collectorsloot.homestead.com

[NihontoEurope]

Roy,

 

It could have been dismounted and then displaced when remounted.

 

Other than that I have no answers.

 

/Martin

[Lindus]

Roy,

 

It could have been dismounted and then displaced when remounted.

 

Other than that I have no answers.

 

/Martin

Thanks for the thought Martin,the menuki have been on for a long time and the ito is well handled so I would guess they have been in that position for many years,perhaps a martial art thing with the second peg hole??.

 

"oops" just checked the second hole,to small for peg, would guess this is where a Sarute went for the officers rank tassel>

Roy

[Soshin]

Hi Roy,

 

One quick but important question about the menuki mounted on tsuka. Are they in the palms of your hands when hold the tsuka with two hands? This is assuming you holding the tsuka with two hands as if your are doing iai or batto.

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles

[sanjuro]

David.

In reality there are no hard and fast rules concerning where the menuki should be placed. Yes, it is accepted that the menuki should fit into the palm of each hand to enhance the grip, however there are some swordsmen who preferred the menuki to be where the fingers exert pressure on the tsuka. This present tsuka seems to indicate both by its wear characteristics and the menuki placement, that the swordsman preferred to have the menuki where the the fingers exerted pressure and also that he had a long grip that is typical of a trained swordsman. Bear in mind that the 'rules' concerning the placement of menuki originated in the early Edo period. The practicality originated much earlier and was subject to individual preferences. Once the menuki ceased to be the heads of the mekugi which were rigidly fixed and had no alternative placement, they were subject to the preference of the user. hence the sometimes reversed placement we sometimes see as in this case.

[John A Stuart]

Here is an excerpt from Marku Sesko's translation of an article from NBTHK AB. John

PS I used an OCR program from a scan in English so the Japanese characters were not recognised.

 

Function und practicability of menuki

The menuki is first of all an ornament but for not affecting or hindering the hand of the fencer on the sword hilt, the position of the menuki has to be chosen carefully. That means on tachi-koshirae and uchigatana-koshirae from the most warring periods of Japan, i.e. until the Muromachi period, the menuki are often not placed underneath the hilt wrapping where the hands of the fencer rest on the hilt. And there are also some pure battlefield-designed uchigatana-koshirae extant which have no menuki at all. For example at the sword hilts of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Yagyu-koshirae and the famous koshirae with the red-lacquered and golden band-wrapped saya, the menuki are so-called "gyaku¬menuki" (逆目貫), menuki which are mounted the other way round so that they lie in the palm and not in the fingers when grasping the hilt of the sword.

From the Muromachi period onwards the menuki were positioned in a way that the omote-menuki lies between the little and the ring finger of the right hand when holding the hilt near the tsuba. This position was later kept of aesthetical reasons and shows once more that the menuki had later merely an ornamental character. But I asked renowned martial artists about this matter and they told me that the position of the menuld between little and the ring finger is beneficial to the so-called "tenouchi" 手の内 At the kobusho-koshirae and Shonai-koshirae emerging during the bakumatsu era, the menuki are positioned centrally on the hilt, that means they do not affect the fingers at all. So we can say that the position of the menuki depends also on the koshirae (i.e. ceremonial mounting, mounting for wearing the daisho pair with the kamishimo, battlefield mounting, local characteristics like at Higo-, Yagyu- or Owari-koshirae and so on). That means when one is going to have a blade newly mounted, also all these factors should be taken into consideration.

 

I have inserted some kanji and corrected some errors of the OCR program.

[Brian]

http://www.una.edu/faculty/takeuchi/DrT ... cement.htm

 

Brian

[Lindus]

That would have been so interesting if I could have understood just a part....

 

Thanks Brian

Roy

[Soshin]

Hi Everyone,

 

In asking my question I was just thinking that the tsuka and it's placement reminded be of my tsuka that I purposely placed the menuki in the reverse position as recommended by my school of batto which has its origin in Owari province during the early part of the Edo Period. I was just thinking that the original owner might have practiced the same or similar style of batto. Thank you John for providing additional information.

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles

[Lindus]

Thanks for the comment David.

 

Enjoyed your web site, the photographs of your Japan trip brought back some very happy memories.

Roy

[Soshin]

Hi Roy,

 

Thanks for the nice comment about my website. I am glad you enjoyed it. Its still a work in progress. I just added another tsuba research write up on the Azuchi-Momoyama Period webpage. It's a nice small (i.e. for wakazashi) to the best of my knowledge Ko-Shoami tsuba. The owner before me was thinking it dated from the Muromachi Period. It is very thin at 1.5 mm at the rim and about 2.0 mm at the seppa-dai. Here is the direct link: http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo23jk/id18.html.

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles