Tachi〈Meiichi〉

A Single Character on the Tang

Turn this blade over and look at the tang, the unpolished section that once sat inside the hilt, and you find no swordsmith's name. There is only one cut sign, the character ichi (一), meaning "one," struck near the center with a fairly thick chisel. That mark is the entire signature, and it is also the school's identity. Swords carrying it come from the Ichimonji workshops of medieval Bizen Province, in what is now Okayama Prefecture, and this particular tachi is held by the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures in Nishinomiya, Hyogo.

A tachi is a long curved sword of the kind worn slung from the belt with the edge facing down, the standard fighting sword of the mounted warrior before the later katana. This one has a blade length of 69.1 centimeters and a curvature (sori) of 2.5 centimeters. It was designated an Important Cultural Property on 22 June 1955.

The Ichimonji Schools of Bizen

Kamakura-period Bizen produced two great currents of swordmaking: the Osafune line and the Ichimonji line. The Ichimonji smiths took their collective name from the habit of signing with the single stroke ichi, sometimes alone, sometimes above an individual smith's name. The earliest group worked at Fukuoka, on the Yoshii River, from the early thirteenth century. As the generations passed, offshoots formed at other villages along the same river.

This sword belongs to the Yoshioka branch. Yoshioka Ichimonji grew up at Yoshioka, a settlement on the bank of the Yoshii River north of Fukuoka, and its founder is traditionally given as Sukeyoshi, a grandson of the Fukuoka master Sukemune. The smiths of the branch shared the character suke (助) in their names, among them Sukemitsu and Sukenori, who are counted as its leading hands. The Agency for Cultural Affairs assigns this blade to Yoshioka work of the middle to late Kamakura period. Because it is signed only with ichi and carries no personal name, the specific maker is inferred from the style of the steel and the temper rather than stated outright.

Why It Was Designated

The official appraisal describes the sword as robust in form, with generous hiraniku, the rounded fullness of metal between the ridge line and the edge that gives a blade its solidity in the hand. Its temper pattern displays the showy character that made the Ichimonji name, and the appraisers rank it as a fine example of the school. Those qualities, together with its state of preservation, placed it among the Important Cultural Properties recognized in 1955.

The Yoshioka smiths are usually read against their Fukuoka predecessors. Fukuoka work tends toward wide, exuberant temper with strong peaks and valleys; Yoshioka work keeps much of that flamboyance but pulls the pattern slightly tighter and lets a faint reversed slant creep into the temper. Reading those small differences is how connoisseurs separate one branch from another, and this blade sits clearly on the Yoshioka side of that line.

What to Look For

The element that rewards the closest looking is the hamon, the bright crystalline band along the cutting edge created when the smith coated the blade in clay and quenched it. Here the pattern is choji, a row of irregular clove-shaped heads, mixed with gunome, rounder half-moon shapes. Fine lines called ashi and small detached spots called yo reach into the band repeatedly, and a slight reverse lean runs through it. The boundary of the temper, the nioiguchi, stays tight and controlled rather than misty.

Above the edge, in the body of the steel, watch for midare-utsuri. This is a faint, irregular shadow that floats in the surface like breath on cold glass, a hallmark of good Bizen forging and one of the surest signs that a blade is the real article. The grain itself, the jihada, is a tight ko-itame, a fine wood-grain pattern. The point area, the boshi, turns back in a gentle wave with a pointed tendency.

One more detail tells a story of long use. The tang has been shortened, a process called suriage, which usually happened when an old tachi was cut down to suit a later owner's needs or fashions. Even after shortening, the blade keeps its koshizori, the deepest part of the curve sitting low near the hand, which is the silhouette of a genuine Kamakura sword. The tang carries five peg holes from its successive mountings, each one a quiet record of the centuries it passed through different hands.

Where the Sword Lives: The Kurokawa Institute

The Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures occupies a quiet hillside in the Kurakuen district of Nishinomiya, with a long view over the Osaka plain. It is not a conventional museum but a private research foundation devoted to the older cultures of China and Japan. The collection was built across three generations of the Kurokawa family, who ran a securities business in Osaka, and was given to the public as a foundation in 1950. The institute moved to its present hilltop site in 1974, chosen in part to keep the artworks away from city exhaust.

Among roughly 8,500 holdings are two National Treasures and sixteen Important Cultural Properties, and the sword collection is regarded as one of the strongest in Japan by both quality and number. This tachi is one of those sixteen Important Cultural Properties. The institute opens to the public only twice a year, for spring and autumn exhibitions of about a month each, and the displays are arranged around a theme that changes every season. Anyone hoping to see this specific blade should check the current exhibition before traveling, since not every piece is shown in every run.

During the open seasons the hours are 10:00 to 16:00, with last entry at 15:30, and general admission is 600 yen in cash, free for university students and younger visitors. The institute closes on Mondays during exhibition periods.

Around Nishinomiya

The institute sits in the residential hills between Kobe and Osaka, an area easy to fold into a wider day out. Down the slope, Shukugawa runs through a riverside park famous for its cherry trees, counted among the country's finest blossom spots in early April. Closer to the coast, Nishinomiya Shrine is the head shrine of the many Ebisu shrines across Japan and the home of the boisterous Tōka Ebisu festival each January, when crowds race through the gates at dawn to be named the year's "lucky man." Baseball fans will know Hanshin Kōshien Stadium, also in Nishinomiya, the historic ground of the national high school tournaments. Frequent trains on the Hankyu and JR lines link the whole strip back toward Kobe and Osaka.