White Armor with Color-Edged Skirts, Helmet and Large Sleeves

One Armour, National Treasure since 1953

White Armor with Color-Edged Skirts, Helmet and Large Sleeves (白絲威褄取鎧, Shiroito Odoshi Tsumadori Yoroi) is a Nanbokucho-period craft object owned by Kushihiki Hachimangu in Hachinohe City, Aomori Prefecture, made an Important Cultural Property on 26 March 1915 and designated a National Treasure on 14 November 1953. The quantity is one suit.

Aomori Prefecture gives the address as 3 Hachiman-cho, Hachiman, Hachinohe City, and records it as on view for a fee. The address field in the Agency's database is blank.

The Agency writes the name with the older form of the character for thread, the prefecture and the shrine with the modern form. The red-laced armour at the same shrine divides the same way.

Two Armours of One Shrine, Listed on the Same Two Days

The dates for the shrine's two armours match exactly.

This armour became an Important Cultural Property on 26 March 1915 and a National Treasure on 14 November 1953. The red-laced armour carries the same two dates.

Both steps fall on one day each. At Myoo-in, hall and pagoda reversed their order between the two steps. At Jodoji, the earlier listings were twelve years apart and the designations shared a day.

This armour and the red-laced one share both. The engraved mirror and the Goto Toshiro dagger also shared both dates, but those belong to different owners and different fields.

Here two suits under one owner took both steps together.

Their periods differ. The red-laced armour is Kamakura; this one Nanbokucho.

The Two Helmets Are Counted by Different Units

The helmets are described with different units of counting.

Aomori Prefecture calls this one a star helmet of thirty-eight plates with silvered panels front, back and sides over black lacquered iron. Thirty-eight plates.

Of the red-laced armour it writes that black lacquered iron plates are joined with rivets called stars, the stars in twenty-four rows. Twenty-four rows.

Plates count the sheets of iron; rows count the lines of rivets. Both are star helmets, and the record counts different things in each.

The Nagamitsu naginata has three peg holes and the Goto Toshiro dagger four: the same part, the same unit.

These two armours belong to one shrine and one class of object, and what is counted does not match.

Named for a Colour, with an Absence Recorded

The by-name arises differently from the red-laced armour.

Aomori Prefecture records that the painted leather bears lions and peonies on a white ground and the fittings are silvered, and that the armour is therefore also called the deutzia lacing.

The deutzia is a white flower. The name comes from the colour of the whole.

The red-laced armour is called the chrysanthemum-and-one armour because fittings shaped like the character for one are set on it. That name comes from a shape.

Two armours in one shrine, named one for colour and one for form.

An absence is recorded too: there are no horns, but the ridge down the front of the bowl gives it a commanding air. The red-laced armour carries a heavy pair of horns. As with the railingless veranda at the Kongobuji Fudo hall, what is missing enters the description.

Seeing It

The armour belongs to Kushihiki Hachimangu, and Aomori Prefecture records it as on view for a fee. It is shown in the shrine's treasure hall.

The lacing is described: the shoulder guards and skirt plates are edged in purple, yellow, light green and red braid, and laced through in white.

White forms the ground and four colours enter at the edges. With the Hosoge sutra box, gold and silver were divided by part. Here the colour of the braid changes by place.

Provenance is recorded: the armour is held by tradition to have been received by Nanbu Nobumitsu, seventh head of the Nejo Nanbu house, from Emperor Go-Murakami of the southern court. The red-laced armour is likewise linked to Emperor Chokei, so both are tied to southern court emperors.

The assessment calls it a well-formed and refined armour representative of the Nanbokucho period. Exhibition plans can change, so check before travelling.