“… Military armor and equipment, distinguished by ostentatious splendor, are considered evidence of the weakness and uncertainty of their owner. They allow you to look into the heart of the wearer."
Yamamoto Tsunetomo. "Hagakure" - "Hidden under the leaves" - instruction for samurai (1716).
Any story about Japanese armor, and even more so about weapons, cannot be complete without considering the famous Japanese sword. Well, of course, after all, this is the "soul of a samurai", and how in such an important matter without a "soul"? But since only a lazy one did not write about Japanese swords at one time, then … you have to look for "novelty" and the search for this very "novelty" is delayed. However, there is such a detail in the Japanese sword as tsuba and here it too, it turns out, can tell a lot to the one who studies it. And this detail is also interesting in that it could be richly decorated, have different shapes and sizes, so that the scope for its study is simply immense. So, our story will go about the tsuba * or guard for such types of Japanese edged weapons as tachi, katana, wakizashi, tanto or naginata. Moreover, all these varieties are similar to each other in that they have a cutting-stabbing blade and a handle, just separated from the latter by such a detail as tsuba.
Let's start with what can be called a tsubu guard only conditionally, proceeding again from our European tradition and our views on edged weapons. In Japan, where everything was always different from in Europe, tsuba was not considered a guard! True, the ancient swords of Europeans had no guard as such. So - a small stop for a hand clenched into a fist and nothing more, whether it be a sword from Mycenae, a piercing Roman gladius or a long cutting sword of a Sarmatian rider. Only in the Middle Ages did the crosshairs appear on swords, which protected the fingers of a warrior from hitting the enemy's shield. From the 16th century, guards in the form of a basket or a bowl began to be used, as well as complex guards that protected the brush from all sides, although shields were no longer used in Europe at that time. Have you seen the bow-guard on sabers? This is exactly what she is, so she can not be considered in more detail here. It is also clear how she protected the hand of her owner. But the tsuba of the Japanese sword was intended for a completely different purpose.
And the thing is that in Japanese fencing, blade-on-blade strikes were, in principle, impossible. What is shown to us in the cinema is nothing more than the fantasy of directors who need "action". After all, the katana sword was made of steel of very high hardness, and its hardened edge was rather fragile, no matter how hard the blacksmith tried to combine both hard and viscous layers of metal in one blade. Its cost could reach (and did!) Depending on the quality of a very large value, therefore samurai, the owners of such swords here, took care of them like the apple of their eye. But the katanas that were forged by village blacksmiths, and the katanas, which were made by the most famous masters by the orders of the nobility, when hitting blade on blade had a very high chance of being scattered into pieces, and it was imperative to be damaged. Well, as if you began to fence with your grandfathers' straight razors! The blocks of the enemy blade were not provided for either by their own blade or by the tsuba. But tsuba, in addition to decorative functions, still had a practical purpose, as it served … as a support for the hand at the moment of a thrusting blow. By the way, this and a number of other reasons caused in kendo (the Japanese art of fencing) a large number of thrusting attacks, which, however, the filmmakers for some reason do not show us! It was much more difficult to make such a lunge with a heavy European sword with a narrow guard, which is why they were mainly used for chopping. Although, yes, the tsuba could well protect against an accidental blow. Another thing is that it was simply not intended specifically for this!
During a duel, warriors could, at the level of a tsuba, rest the blade against the blade and press them against each other in order to win an advantageous position for the next blow. For this, even a special term was invented - tsubazeriai, which literally means "pushing tsuboi on each other", and this position occurs quite often in kendo. But even with this position, fighting blade-on-blade strikes are not to be expected. Today, as a memory of the past, this word means "to be in fierce competition." Well, in the historical periods of Muromachi (1333 - 1573) and Momoyama (1573 - 1603), tsuba had a functional, and not at all decorative value, and for its manufacture they took the simplest materials, and its appearance was just as uncomplicated. During the Edo period (1603 - 1868), with the onset of the era of long-term peace in Japan, tsuba became real works of art, and gold, silver and their alloys began to be used as materials for it. Iron, copper and brass were also used, and sometimes even bone and wood.
Japanese craftsmen have reached such a level of skill that they made multi-colored alloys that were not inferior in their brightness and beauty to gems of the most diverse range of colors and shades. Among them were the bluish-black color of the shakudo alloy (copper with gold in the ratio of 30% copper and 70% gold), and reddish-brown coban, and even "blue gold" - ao-kin. Although the oldest specimens were characterized by ordinary iron.
Other so-called "soft metals" include such as: gin - silver; suaka or akagane - copper without any impurities; sinchu - brass; yamagane - bronze; shibuichi - a copper-gold alloy with one fourth of silver (“si-bu-iti” just means “one fourth”); close to silver in color; rogin - an alloy of copper with silver (50% copper, 70% silver); karakane - "Chinese metal", an alloy of 20% tin and lead with copper (one of the options for dark green bronze); sentoku is another variant of brass; sambo gin - an alloy of copper with 33% silver; sirome and savari are hard and whitish copper alloys that darkened with time and therefore were especially valued for this quality.
But neither precious stones, nor pearls, nor corals were practically used as tsuba jewelry, although nature could have given all this to the Japanese in abundance. After all, pearls, for example, were used in the design of Indian weapons, and not only the hilts or scabbards, but even the blades themselves. Accordingly, Turkish weapons were often decorated with corals without measure, which could cover the hilt of a saber or a scimitar almost entirely, and even about such stones as turquoise and rubies, one could not even talk about. Everyone knows that one of the signs of the Great Migration Period was the decoration of the handles and scabbards of swords of the same Frankish kings and Scandinavian kings with gold and precious stones. Cloisonne enamel was also very popular, but all this truly barbaric splendor and sometimes obvious luridness, which is also characteristic of Turkish weapons, bypassed the work of Japanese armourers.
True, a distinctive feature inherent in the reign of the third shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (1623-1651) was the tsuba and other details of the sword made of gold. They were popular among the daimyo, the Japanese high nobility, up until the 1830 edict aimed at combating luxury. However, he was bypassed, covering the same gold with an ordinary black varnish.
But it was not the material that most often formed the basis for the creativity of tsubako (the blacksmith of the tsub), but literary works, the nature surrounding them, scenes from urban life. Nothing escaped their close attention - not a dragonfly on a water lily leaf, not a stern profile of Mount Fuji. All this could become the basis of the plot for decorating tsuba, which, like swords, were each time made to order. As a result, the art of making tsuba turned into a national artistic tradition that survived the centuries, and the skill of making them became a craft that was inherited by the master. In addition, the development of this art, as is often the case, was helped by such a phenomenon as fashion. It changed, the old tsuba were replaced with new ones, that is, without the work of the master for making tsub (tsubako) they did not sit!
The sizes of all tsuba were different, but still we can say that on average, the diameter of a tsuba for a katana was approximately 7.5-8 cm, for a wakizashi - 6, 2-6, 6 cm, for a tanto - 4, 5-6 cm. The most common was a diameter of 6-8 cm, a thickness of 4-5 mm and a weight of about 100 grams. In the center was the nakago-ana hole for the shank of the sword, and next to it there were two more holes on the sides for accessories such as kozuka and kogai **. Bushido reprimanded the samurai for wearing rings, earrings and other jewelry. But the samurai found a way out in decorating the scabbard and tsuba. So, without formal violation of their code, they could show others both their exquisite taste and considerable wealth.
The main elements of tsuba had the following names:
1.dzi (the actual plane of the tsuba)
2.seppadai (platform corresponding to the profile of the scabbard and handle)
3.nakago-ana (wedge-shaped hole for the tail of the sword)
4.hitsu-ana (holes for kogatan knife and kogai studs)
5.mimi (tsuba edging)
The most popular form of tsuba was the disc (maru-gata). But the imagination of the Japanese masters was truly limitless, so you can see tsubas both in strict geometric shapes and in the form of a leaf of a tree or even a hieroglyph. Tsuba were known in the form of an oval (nagamaru-gata), a quadrangle (kaku-gata), four-petal (aoi-gata), an octahedron, etc.
Moreover, the very shape of a tsuba with an ornament or image cut into it could also represent its main decorative element, although in the Edo period it was its surface (both external and internal) that most often became the field of work for its master.
Usually, both sides of the tsuba were decorated, but the front side was the main one. Here, too, the Japanese had everything the other way around, since the front side was considered the one that was facing the handle! Why? Yes, because swords were worn tucked into the belt, and only in this case an outsider could see all its beauty! The side facing the blade could continue the plot of the front side, but it was possible to look at it only with the permission of the owner of the sword, who, in order to show it, had to draw the sword from his belt or remove the blade from its scabbard.
* We remind you that there are no declensions in Japanese, but in some cases you have to resort to them and change Japanese words, following the norms of the Russian language.
** Kozuka - the handle of a ko-gatan knife, which was put into a special container in the sheath of a wakizashi short sword. Its length was usually 10 cm. This is an exquisite sword decoration, which often depicted chrysanthemums, flowering trees, animals, and even whole plots. Kogai were located on the front of the scabbard and represented a needle or hairpin. The characteristic features of the kogai are the extension towards the top and the graceful spoon at the end of the handle for cleaning the ears. They were decorated in the same way as the kozuka.
The author expresses his gratitude to the company "Antiques of Japan" (https://antikvariat-japan.ru/) for informational support and provided photographs.
