But then a problem arose with the individual identification of the samurai. How do you know which of them is who, if all of them, say, are fighting under one or ten nobori, and the whole army is marching under the banners of traditional khata-jirushi? The solution was found in placing a flag with a monom behind the back of a samurai! This flag was a small copy of the nobori and was called sashimono. The identical sashimonos with the emblem of the daimyo received units of ashigaru-arquebusiers, archers and spearmen, and immediately it became much easier to distinguish them on the battlefield, but the samurai had different sashimonos that emphasized their status. Their units stood out only for the Nobori, so their numbers began to grow too!
Nobori of the participants of the famous battle of Sekigaraha - "traitors" and the commander of the "western" army.
Nobori of the participants of the famous battle of Sekigaraha - "traitors" and messengers of Ieyasu Tokugawa.
Ashigaru sashimonos were very simple. For example, the ashigaru of the Ii clan has a simple red cloth.
Very soon, however, it seemed to the samurai to wear ordinary flags behind their backs … "somehow not interesting." They needed to stand out at any cost, including their appearance. Therefore, their sashimono took on a completely extravagant look. First of all, they have become voluminous. But since such a sign could not be heavy by definition, they began to make them from paper, feathers and fur. It could have been two or three fur balls on a bamboo rod of different colors, a pole with ema prayer tablets hanging on them, or a figurine … of a bear or a crane. Sashimono are known in the form of "rice pestle", "anchor", "lamp", "umbrella", "fan", "skull". That is, the imagination of their creators was truly limitless. Moreover, very often the samurai had one mon, but the sashimono depicted something completely different.
Mori Nagatsugu Clan Standards (1610 - 1698)
Hori Niori Clan Standards
Modern reconstruction of the Nobori Ishida Mitsunari
Daimyo, if they had to go into battle, often immediately removed the jinbaori and attached sashimono to the armor, since it was impossible to wear both at the same time. For example, daimyo Hirado had a sasomono in the form of a golden disc on a black field.
Sashimono Takeda Shingen. Reconstruction.
But with the appearance of such a huge number of flags, the problem of identifying the daimyo itself, his headquarters and his entourage was again aggravated. And by the beginning of the 17th century, it was possible to solve it with the beginning of the use of the so-called "big standard" and "small standard" - respectively - o-uma-jirushi and ko-uma jirushi. Very often these were flags similar to the nobori, but only with a square-shaped banner. But much more often they also took the form of various objects - Buddhist bells, umbrellas, fans, sun discs.
Nobori participants in the siege of Osaka Castle. Ieyasu Tokugawa had a simple white cloth.
Some of the standards were very large and heavy. The most powerful commoners were trusted to carry such a standard, and it was a great honor for them. Sometimes they were fastened behind the back, like sashimono, but the standard-bearer himself supported the pole with a couple of stretch marks, and two more people held it by the stretch marks from the sides.
This is how the fukinuki were worn. Sometimes (a clear relic of matriarchy) the banner of the samurai squad was … a woman, usually the mother of a samurai, who took a vow of vengeance. Drawing from the magazine "Armor Modeling"
But the hardest part was wearing a fukinuki - a long pennant that resembles the carp emblem at the Boys' Festival. The wind blew him out like a huge stocking, and it was very beautiful, but it was really hard to keep him from falling.
The Japanese would not be Japanese if they did not come up with a lot of devices in order to wear sashimono and nobori and tried to give them a complete and elegant look.
In this figure, we see all the main details with which the sashimono was attached to the samurai's armor on his back.
The sashimono shaft was inserted into a pencil case, which could be either square or round in cross-section, and which was called uke-zutsu. It was customary to cover it with varnish, so that although this accessory was purely utilitarian, it looked like a genuine work of art. Since there could be two, three, or even five flags behind the back, the number of pencil cases corresponded to their number.
In the upper part of the shell, the uke-zutsu was held by a gattari bracket. It could consist of one or two parts, and gattari are also known from a wooden plate, again with one or more holes according to the number of flags. This detail was attached to the hinged back plates of the armor. This made it possible to easily disassemble the back structure with a sashimono attachment and remove the armor itself for storage in the ship's box, and with it put all its accessories in it.
At the level of the belt was attached the "heel" of the pencil case - machi-uke (uketsudo). Usually this part was metal and varnished in the color of the armor.
This photo shows the fully assembled sashimono pencil case. For the ashigaru, a standard wooden fixture was provided in the shape of a triangle, with rounded corners. They wore it with ties like a backpack. At the same time, it did not require armor, which made it possible to impress the enemy with the number of its troops, even in the case when most of them did not have armor at all. (Tokyo National Museum)
Gattari bracket.
There were several more identification marks used by the Japanese in a combat situation. These are field screens maku or ibaku, which fenced off the command post from all sides. As a rule, they depicted the mon commander very large. Next to the command post was a detachment of messengers - tsukai-ban, with the help of which the commander gave orders. And here was his most important standard, visible from afar. It seems strange, but how he generally commanded, sitting behind the curtains, but in general, an overview towards the enemy was left to him. But the main thing was that all the Japanese generals knew how to read a map, had shinobi scouts with the army, and most importantly, they could not count on the unquestioning obedience of their commanders. That is, where they were placed, indicating their location on the map, there they had to stand, and move back and forth only to the order given by the messengers. Within the framework of all this, you could show your personal courage as much as you like, chop off as many heads as you like and collect them across the battlefield. But the order had to be carried out immediately.
Horo from Armor Modeling magazine. Sometimes they were just amazingly complex designs!
By the way, the messengers were identified by another very amusing device - a horo - a large bag made of colored fabric that looked like a huge bubble. It had a base of flexible rods, so that when jumping, even under the pressure of the wind, it did not lose its shape. It was worn well not only by messengers, but also by soldiers of a detachment of bodyguards. It was fastened in the same way as sashimono. For this, it had a pin that was inserted into the uke-zutsu. But as always, there were originals, which were not enough just one good. A pipe for the sashimono or the badge of the koshi-sashi officers was also attached to it. The shape of the "basket" could be very diverse. For example - to resemble a dome or … a European ladies' crinoline! Since the horo had a very large volume, which, by the way, is clearly seen in the picture given here from the magazine "Armor Modeling", the figure of a samurai with a well behind his shoulders acquired grotesque dimensions, which, as it is believed, frightened the enemy horses!
Horos were usually sewn from fabric of a bright color, and besides, they also depicted mon daimyo, which made it possible to instantly identify the messenger. But it could serve well for other purposes as well. For example, one of the Japanese manuscripts indicated that both horo and sashimono could serve to wrap the severed heads of their owners in them. "After removing the head from the warrior who wore the horo, wrap it in a silk horo cape, and if it is the head of a simple warrior, wrap it in a silk sashimono." These indications tell us not only that silk was used as a fabric for sashimono and khoro, but also that warriors who wore khoro had a special status, higher than that of others.
Interestingly, the Japanese approached the production of the same sashimono rather rationally. And if they tried to make them for samurai, for simple ashigaru they sometimes even felt sorry for an extra stick for the crossbar, but simply bent a bamboo pole and put a narrow piece of fabric on it. The main role in this case was played by … its length!
