The two previous materials on this topic aroused genuinely genuine interest of VO readers, so it makes sense to continue this topic and talk about what, firstly, was not included in the previous material, and secondly, to move from the countries of Central Asia to the coast Pacific Ocean and see what the Japanese short-bladed weapon looked like in order to compare it with the Indian, Persian, Turkish and North African.
And here, perhaps, the time will be "to hit the memories" and talk about how I first got to know melee weapons and where I got an interest in them. It so happened that I grew up in an old wooden house built in 1882, with a bunch of sheds and cellars, in which everything was not stored. My grandfather had a Winchester in 1895, which he received when he went with a food detachment to beat out bread from the peasants, a bayonet from a Gra rifle, which was given to him for this rifle, without taking care that it did not fit on the barrel - I used it to mow nettles in the garden and burdocks, and at home there was a completely creepy-looking dagger with a rhombic blade, a twisted crosshair, a bone handle and a wooden sheath covered with black lacquer. He was found by my uncle, who died later in the war, and my grandfather told me that he found him in the cemetery and he was covered in blood. My grandfather taught me to throw him at a target, at the wall of a shed and … then I showed this to some of my classmates, it is clear for what purpose.
Having read the "Dagger", I carved an encrypted inscription on the scabbard: "This dagger was found in the cemetery," which increased its value dramatically, and as a student, I sold it to a collector. Since it was simply dangerous to keep such horror at home in Soviet times!
And then my mother got married again, and it turned out that her chosen one was a former officer of the Polish Army and part-time Soviet military intelligence Pyotr Shpakovsky. Later, in the novel "Let's Die Near Moscow," he will be displayed under the name of Pyotr Skvortsovsky, but then (and I studied at that time in the ninth grade), acquaintance with such a person, of course, interested me, well, just to the point of stuttering. Houses are a museum! Pictures from the Dresden gallery ("awards from Marshal Rokossovsky"), a bunch of all kinds of "antiques", the saber of a German general - "he surrendered to me!" and, finally, a Japanese dagger. He thought it was a wakizashi, but now I know for sure that it was a tanto. And he got it in a duel with a German officer, who is also described in the novel and … took it off as a trophy! I also got a cigar pipe (!), A parabellum, a tablet with papers and this very dagger hanging from his belt. Looks like the German was a fool and a dude, for which he paid! And, of course, I wanted to know more about it, began to read the corresponding books, and so I got carried away. Well, now there is also the Internet for this!
This is how the tanto dagger from my distant childhood looked like.
True, my dagger did not have a sheath on the handle - it was entirely covered with shark skin and looked very simple, but the scabbard was very beautiful. On the black lacquer in gold was masterfully painted bamboo in the wind, and below, under the bamboo, sat a tiny demon cast from bronze, attached to a scabbard. His teeth were silver, his wrist bracelets were gold, and his eyes were rubies. And all this is the size of a fingernail!
So, without the Japanese theme, we are, as they say, "nowhere", but before talking about Japanese blades, we should at least go back a little to the past. So, the chilanum daggers were described in the previous article, but there was no "picture". In addition, these daggers are not only on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, but also in many others. For example, this Indian dagger from the Deccan, South India, 1500-early 1600 AD. is located at Higgins Arsenal, Worcester County, Massachusetts. But today it is closed, so it is useless to go there, but thanks to the Internet we can see it. It is interesting, first of all, for its typing. The dagger is all-metal, weighs one pound and is decorated with blacksmithing and gold and silver notching.
And here is another dagger of the same from the Louvre. And what can you say about him, speaking in the language of modernity? Solid show-off! Because its entire hilt, along with the guard, is carved out of a milky-white stone. Stone! That is, in any case, this thing is fragile, because it is thin. Wearing it on a belt against the background of a colored robe was probably very impressive, but using it in battle is hardly possible.
Another Indian dagger, also from the Louvre and also with a stone handle. The handle is simple, massive, and the master decided not to decorate it. But he worked on the blade from the heart, so even sharpening it is … scary. Well, how can you spoil such beauty?
Here are daggers from the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai, India. Now everyone is changing (they say) Turkey and Egypt to India, Vietnam and Borneo, so that those who go to Mumbai (or Mumbai) will be able to see them. Again, chalcedony, carnelian, rubies, emeralds - everything that India is rich in was used to decorate them. Moreover, the most surprising thing is that the handle of the left dagger ends with the head of a dog, and that of the right dagger ends with a mountain goat. Well, okay horses, okay dogs … But why a goat?
One of the commentators of the previous material wrote that due to their size and the fact that daggers like jambia were worn in the belt, they could play the role of … body armor! A controversial statement, but if you really look at the photos of the same Yemenis with their daggers in their belt, then this may well come to mind.
Typical Yemeni man. Rather, its middle part.
Usually we think that a dagger is something rather miniature, while a saber or the Turkish scimitar is something big. Not always like this! Here, for example, is a Turkish dagger jambiya (above) of the 18th century and a scimitar (below), also Turkish, made in 1866. As you can see, jambiya is downright frightening in comparison with this scimitar, although a little shorter. But not much, by the way! Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
And these are two daggers from North India. Upper - pesh-kabz, which served to pierce chain mail, XVII century. But unlike the Metropolitan Museum exhibit with a simple bone grip, it has a pistol grip made of stone with gold inlay.
Well, this knife - seemingly very simple, in fact is valuable, first of all, not for decoration, but for its material - it is made of meteorite iron! Belonged to Shah Jahangir of the Vilik Mughal dynasty, 1621. Exhibit at the Art Gallery of the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in Washington DC.
Japanese wakizashi is a double sword for katana. Why wakizashi, because the handle is not braided? But because in this case, the length of the blade matters!
Well, now we finally got to Japan. And what do we not see there at all? Well, yes, of course, the abundance of "crooked ninjals"! Both the blades of the famous Japanese tachi and katana, and the wakizashi and tanto blades have a very moderate curvature. Because it's more convenient that way. You don't need to be "crooked" to cut!
Dagger tanto from the British Museum. As you can see, this is not just a blade attached to the hilt. There are details such as a tsuba (we traditionally call it a guard, although this is not entirely true), a seppa clutch, a habaki plate, as well as fun accessories - a small goat knife and kogai hairpins. The knife was inserted into the groove of the scabbard (not for all tantos) and which could be thrown (although this was hardly of great benefit). More often it was stuck in the head of a killed enemy (in the ear or in a bun of hair) to show who exactly killed him, since the name of the owner was engraved on it. A hairpin (one, in this case, for some reason, two) could be worn in a scabbard from the opposite side, or instead of a goat. There was a spoon on the hairpin - to get the sulfur from the ears. For these items, special holes were provided in the tsuba.
Here are the most various Japanese daggers of the Edo era, that is, peacetime, when their wearing has already become a tradition and an indicator of status. The George Walter Vincent Smith Museum of Art. Springfield, USA.
Kaiken is a dagger for women. It was simple in design, but if it was necessary to defend its honor, the Japanese woman used it without hesitation, and inflicted a fatal blow on the carotid artery.
Well, there were only two main types of daggers: tanto and aiguchi. The tanto had the usual size of the guard, and outwardly it looked like a smaller copy of a short sword. Aiguchi (literally - "open mouth") usually did not have a winding on the handle, so the skin of a stingray or shark on it was clearly visible. Aiguti did not have a guard, he did not have sepp washers, and the attachment to the scabbard was made in the form of a hanging ring.
Aykuti. Blade by master Umetada Akinaga of Yamashiro 1704 by George Walter Vincent Smith. Springfield, USA.
It is believed that samurai usually went with tanto in the service, but those who had already retired had aiguchi (as proof that they were still good for something, because a dagger, although without a guard, is still a dagger). The samurai also used the original stylet, the hasiwara, and the samurai used the blade to pierce the shells, but they also knew double-edged blades that had a fuller, but attached to the traditional Japanese handle - yoroidoshi-tanto, and their blades were very similar to the tip of the Japanese spear su-yari.
Tanto, signed by Uji-fusa. Handle. George Walter Vincent Smith. Springfield, USA.
Kojiri is the head of the scabbard.
Tanto is Masamune's blade. Tokyo National Museum.
Kubikiri-zukuri was also sharpened the other way around, and moreover, it did not have a point. The word "kubikiri" means "head cutter", so what it was intended for is clear. And why does he need the edge then? Such daggers were worn by the servants of the samurai, with its help they cut off the heads of dead enemies, since they served as "battle trophies". True, by the 17th century, kubikiri-zukuri was already worn as an insignia. "Like, this is what I got from my warlike ancestors - look!"
During the period of peace, a lot of frankly decorative weapons were produced in Japan. Here is a dagger in an ivory sheath, with the same tsuba and a hilt. George Walter Vincent Smith. Springfield, USA.
Kusungobu is a dagger for hara-kiri. Its length was about 25 cm. If the samurai did not have this dagger, hara-kiri could be performed with the help of tanto and even wakizashi, but then the latter was held not by the handle, but by the blade, for which it was wrapped with rice paper. How it all happened is well shown in the movie "Shogun".
Jutte daggers were purely Japanese weapons of self-defense. Its cylindrical or multifaceted blade had neither a blade nor a pronounced point, but on the side it had a massive hook. These weapons, usually in pairs, were used by the Japanese police during the Edo period in order to disarm an enemy armed with a sword. For this purpose, with a blade and a hook extending from the side, they caught his sword, after which they pulled out or broke with a blow on the blade. A lanyard with a colored brush was attached to the ring on the handle, by the color of which one could judge the rank of the policeman. There were entire schools that developed within their walls the art of fighting in jutte and, first of all, methods of countering fighters with a samurai sword with these daggers.
This jutte is very interesting for its guard, and is rather rare in collections. He was called "the strength of ten hands", and he often replaced the short belt sword - wakizashi or tanto at official receptions or during visits to drinking establishments by samurai of different ranks and clans. This weapon had a large number of variants, from the simplest to very valuable and very expensive, which received the title of kokuho ("national treasure") with the passage of time. He was often supplied with a tsuba and a scabbard. The length of this sample is 47 cm. Weight is 1, 2 kg.
Jutte of the Edo period police officer.
Knife simpu kamikaze from the Second World War. The original is “dressed” in a statutory syrosay (sheath for storage). The hardening line of the ham is not visible, but if the blade is polished, then it will certainly appear.
That is, the Japanese rightly judged that in order to slaughter either themselves or their neighbor "beautifully" it is not at all necessary to somehow bend the blade of a knife or dagger too much, and that in order to use it, neither gold, nor diamonds, nor jade, in general, is also not needed. Living on the shore of the ocean, they did not even use corals for decoration, well, they practically did not use it, unlike the Turks. Wood, stingray skin, a little of his famous varnish, a few brush strokes in gold and - most importantly, an almost straight, sharp blade sharpened on one side and that's it. This is enough!
The author expresses his gratitude to the Antiques Japan company (https://antikvariat-japan.ru/) for the opportunity to use her photos and materials.
