Kikuzukuri Waist Sword (Blade Unsigned, Attributed to Toma)

One Blade, National Treasure since 1952

Kikuzukuri Waist Sword (Blade Unsigned, Attributed to Toma) (菊造腰刀, Kikuzukuri Koshigatana) is a Kamakura-period craft object at the Mohri Museum, 1-15-1 Tatara, Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, made an Important Cultural Property on 23 January 1933 and designated a National Treasure on 29 March 1952. The quantity is one blade and the owner the Hofu Mohri Hokokai foundation.

23 January 1933 is the day on which the buildings of Aoi Aso Shrine and the Mikazuki Munechika also became Important Cultural Properties.

The dimensions are given as a total length of 40.9 centimetres, a blade length of 26.5 centimetres and a width at the base of 2.6 centimetres. The total covers the mounting; the blade length the steel alone. The Masamune katana likewise carried two lengths.

The Name Comes from the Mounting, Not the Blade

It is worth establishing what the chrysanthemum in the title refers to.

The Agency records that the hilt bears sprays of chrysanthemum carved in high relief on a punched ground of copper alloy. The flower is on the hilt.

The blade is another matter. The title says the blade is unsigned and attributed to Toma: no signature, and an ascription by tradition.

The first half of the title names an ornament of the mounting, the second a tradition about the steel. There is no chrysanthemum on the blade.

The Mikazuki Munechika took its by-name from a pattern in the steel, the Inaba Tenmoku from an owner's family name, the Masamune katana from a transcribed inscription.

Here a pattern carved on the mounting gives the name. Not the thing inside but the thing wrapped around it settles what the property is called.

One of the Chrysanthemums Is a Later Replacement

A short note closes the field for form and condition.

The collar and pommel with their silver-edged metal sleeve, the small knife, the skewer and the scabbard end are all by the same hand; only the chrysanthemum of the hilt ornament is a later replacement.

That ornament sits on the hilt. Its flower alone was supplied afterwards.

The other fittings came from one maker. This one did not.

At the Jodoji pagoda, the railing was recorded as having been set up for the first time in 1732: a part of a building added later.

Here what was added later belongs to the very ornament the property is named for. Within the chrysanthemum scheme that gives the title, one flower comes from another age.

Another Blade of the Same Name in Tokyo

This is not the only property called Kikuzukuri Koshigatana.

The Tokyo National Museum holds one, dated to the Nanbokucho and Muromachi periods, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This one is Kamakura.

Both are counted as one blade. Same title, different period.

With the Saibara-fu, a National Treasure in Saga and an Important Cultural Property in Tokyo shared a title and differed even in measure word. With the tachi inscribed Masatsune, several swords shared a signature.

The Tokyo record holds one further point of interest. Its commentary carries readings marked off with symbols, left in the running text.

A device for showing pronunciation appears in the body of the text. At the Ataka and Kurohashi shell mounds a filename remained; in the butterfly hand box a Roman letter did. Records showing how they were made now number several.

Seeing It

The blade is at the Mohri Museum, owned by the Hofu Mohri Hokokai foundation. It is a museum holding, not kept on permanent display.

The assessment is recorded: taken to be a work of the late Kamakura period, it answers to the sleeved waist sword that appears here and there in medieval war tales; few such pieces survive, and among those that do it is of fine quality.

What is written about in war tales survives as an object. A thing named in texts can be checked against the thing itself.

Of the blade: in a form common to work of the Yamato tradition, with straight grain in the forging and a straight temper line worked in fine crystals. It is attributed to Toma, typical of late Kamakura Yamato work, and sound.

The tang is untouched and was never signed. It has not been cut back, and carried no signature from the first. Exhibition plans can change, so check the museum's information before travelling.