Mitsudo-gumi

What mitsudo-gumi is

Mitsudo-gumi is a Kumimono in which an arm is laid across the main block on the column head and three smaller blocks are set along it. The name counts those three blocks.

It does not project. Unlike the stepped types it carries the purlin directly above the column, which makes it the most basic of the bracket forms.

Shrine records use it constantly. The subsidiary Yasaka Shrine at Kasuga in Oita Prefecture, from the later Edo period, is described as standing on a cut-stone base with round columns tied by Nageshi and tie beams, brackets of this type, double rows of closely spaced Taruki, and a gable ornament of Kaerumata alone with the Kōryō omitted. The offering hall in the same precinct uses the same brackets.

Gates use it too. The gate at Fukusenbo in Hiroshima Prefecture, built in 1830, has three blocks set on its upper beam carrying the purlin and a curved beam, a Yakuimon with this bracket on top.

Variants and the wider sequence

Where the three-block sets are run continuously along the wall, records name the variant separately. Gassan Shrine at Chokaisan Omonoimi in Yamagata Prefecture, built in 1711, has round columns, continuous three-block brackets, frog-leg struts between and double rows of closely spaced rafters.

In the sequence of bracket forms it comes after the plain arm on the column head and before the stepped types. The Kasuga Shrine bell tower, built in 1830, has square posts tied by head-beams and a bearing plate, three-block brackets, and frog-leg struts between them. That pairing is the standard for small religious buildings.

On site, look above the column. A horizontal arm on the main block with three small blocks along it carrying the purlin, and nothing stepping forward, is this form.