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Source: Suzuki Kanamono tool-history series (道具の歴史), misyuku-suzuki-kanamonoten.com — slugs aizukatari1–4.html Author: Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭), Representative Director, Suzuki Kanamono Co., Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店) Dated: an auspicious day, April, Heisei 31 (2019)

Translator's note. A 4-page series (Introduction / Section 1 / Section 2 / Conclusion) reviewing the 2018 book 『会津手語り―職人に語られし幻の鍛冶―【鍛冶屋編】』 (Aizu Tegatari: The Phantom Smiths as Told by the Craftsmen — Blacksmith Volume) by the photographer Akanuma Hiroshi (赤沼博志), with the author's own four-point theory of why the Aizu blade-tool industry declined. "Tegatari" (手語り, "telling by hand") is left untranslated as a title word. Ambiguities: the source text itself contains typographical variants of the book title (会津者語り on page 1, and 曾津 for 会津 in a price-list title) — normalized here with the correct form; on page 1 the Tsutsumi book title appears as 中屋安右衛門と安左衛門 where other pages of this site give 中屋保右衛門と保左衛門 (Yasuemon/Yasuzaemon in either case) — kept as printed with kanji. The reading of the smith name 重上 is uncertain (given as kanji only in a chapter title); 重廣 is rendered Shigehiro; 長 (a chisel signature) is rendered "Chō." The author's own book titles are kept in Japanese with translations.

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That Aizu-Wakamatsu in Fukushima Prefecture was once the central carpentry-tool production region of eastern Japan — manufacturing saws, planes, chisels, and more, its techniques propagating to Edo, Echigo, Sendai, Yamagata, and elsewhere, and contributing to the creation of Japan's carpentry-tool culture — is known, I suspect, to few people outside carpentry-tool researchers and dedicated tool collectors. I suspect even among the people of Fukushima Prefecture today, they are not many.

The beginning of Aizu-Wakamatsu as a carpentry-tool production region dates to Tenshō 18 (1590) of the Azuchi–Momoyama period, when Gamō Ujisato (蒲生氏郷) was transferred by order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉) from Ise Matsusaka (伊勢松坂) to Aizu; for castle building, the laying out of the castle town, and the development of industry, he brought many craftsmen from Kyoto, Ōmi (近江), and elsewhere — and among them were blade-tool craftsmen. That is where it begins.

Even before the Gamō transfer this region had a thriving forestry industry, and there were local saw smiths making timber-felling saws; but because advanced blade-and-tool smiths of superior technique also came with him, and because in the Edo period saw smiths were invited from Tennōji in Osaka, and in the latter half of the Edo period there appeared the first-generation Shigefusa (重房, Wakabayashi Yasuemon 若林安右衛門), called the restorer-patriarch of Aizu blades, and the seventh-generation Nakaya Jūzaemon (中屋重左衛門), who devised the rapeseed-oil quenching method for saws (the first generation of that house trained as a saw smith in the Nakaya house of Fushimi 伏見), and further, at the end of the Edo period, the school of the second-generation Shigefusa (初代の次男・猪之吉, the founder's second son Inokichi), acclaimed the finest blade-and-tool smith in Japan, and the master saw smith first-generation Nakaya Yasuemon (中屋保右衛門) — through all these, a blade-and-tool smithing culture centered on carpentry-tool smithing blossomed magnificently in the land of Aizu-Wakamatsu.

On this Aizu blade-tool culture there already exist the painstaking works of Mr. Tsutsumi Akira (堤章), published from the final years of Shōwa into the early Heisei period — Aizu no nokogiri kaji: Nakaya Yasuemon to Yasuzaemon no shūhen (会津の鋸鍛冶―中屋安右衛門と安左衛門の周辺, "The Saw Smiths of Aizu: Around Nakaya Yasuemon and Yasuzaemon"), Aizu no hamono kaji: Fujii Shigemasa no shūhen (会津の刃物鍛冶―藤井重正の周辺, "The Blade Smiths of Aizu: Around Fujii Shigemasa"), Aizu no nokogiri kaji: kindai no gunzō to sono keifu (会津の鋸鍛冶―近代の群像とその系譜, "The Saw Smiths of Aizu: Modern Figures and Their Genealogies"), and Aizu no nokaji: sono waza to gunzō (会津の野鍛冶―その技と群像, "The Field Smiths of Aizu: Their Craft and Figures") — as well as Mr. Yamagishi Seiji's (山岸清次) Aizu no nokogiri kaji (会津の鋸鍛冶, "The Saw Smiths of Aizu"), among others.

As for myself, concerning this carpentry-tool culture of Aizu: in Chapter 2 of my book Nihon no daiku dōgu shokunin (日本の大工道具職人, "Japan's Carpentry-Tool Craftsmen") I told of "The Master of the Aizu Blade-and-Tool Smiths, Nagamine Shigenobu (長嶺重延)" and "The Last Saw Smith of Aizu, Nakaya Denzaemon (中屋伝左衛門)"; in Chapter 3 of Zoku: Nihon no daiku dōgu shokunin (続・日本の大工道具職人, "Japan's Carpentry-Tool Craftsmen, Continued") I treated "The Restorer of the Aizu Saw, the Master Seventh-Generation Nakaya Jūzaemon (中屋重左衛門)" and "Yoshifusa (吉房) and Shigemichi (重道), Senior Pupils of the Aizu Blade Smith Shigefusa (重房)," narrating historically their master–pupil genealogies; and in Chapter 3, "The History of Carpentry Tools and Its Study," of my culminating work of carpentry-tool research, Daiku dōgu bunkaron (大工道具文化論, "A Cultural Theory of Carpentry Tools"), I considered Aizu-Wakamatsu historically as a carpentry-tool production region and told of its formation, development, and disappearance.

The book introduced this time, Aizu tegatari: shokunin ni katarareshi maboroshi no kaji — Kajiya-hen (会津手語り―職人に語られし幻の鍛冶―【鍛冶屋編】, "Aizu Tegatari: The Phantom Smiths as Told by the Craftsmen — Blacksmith Volume"), is composed of photographs and text by Mr. Akanuma Hiroshi (赤沼博志), a photographer from Fukushima Prefecture, and was published last year on December 25, 2018. It was compiled as supplementary material to transmit and preserve for posterity the vanished forged-cutlery culture of the Aizu region, once the central forged-cutlery production region of eastern Japan. Naturally, the smith craftsmen of this region who forged carpentry tools — saws, planes, chisels, and the like — form its core.

Regrettably, the forged blade-tool culture of the Aizu region disappeared in the Shōwa 50s (mid-1970s to mid-1980s), but this book, presenting what may be thought the full picture of that culture, will surely become a most precious document. Since it carries photographs and text of interest to many carpentry-tool researchers and collectors as well, let me introduce Aizu Tegatari — Blacksmith Volume here in the "History of Tools" (道具の歴史) column of Suzuki Kanamono.

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The book's author is Mr. Akanuma Hiroshi (赤沼博志), born in 1959 in the former town of Shiokawa (旧塩川町), which lies between Kitakata City (喜多方市) and Aizu-Wakamatsu City in Fukushima Prefecture. From Fukushima Prefectural Wakamatsu Commercial High School he went on to the Tokyo College of Photography, and in 2000 became independent as a photographer. As one may gather from this background, he appears to be a person with a strong attachment to the vanished forged blade-tool culture of Aizu-Wakamatsu, which may be called his home ground.

The structure of the book is as follows:

[Opening gravure]

[Chapter 1] The genealogy of the vanished Aizu smiths

[Chapter 2] The shape of the hatchet (nata 鉈) varies by district

[Chapter 3] The saw smiths of Aizu

[Chapter 4] The shapes of chisels

[Chapter 5] Kitchen knives of many kinds

[Chapter 6] The nakiri vegetable knife (菜切り包丁)

[Chapter 7] The adzes (chōna 釿) left at Tatsusawa (達沢)

That is the whole of it.

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This book carries photographs taken by Mr. Akanuma as a photographer — of plane blades, chisels, saws, adzes, hatchets, kitchen knives, whetstones, and more — together with text, from which one can learn the state of the Aizu blade-tool culture of those days. Furthermore, it contains: the Meiji 44 (1911) "Aizu Specialty — Wakamatsu City Forged Cutlery Association Fixed Price List" (会津特産 若松市打刃物組合定價表); prepared from documentary sources based on the researches of the Aizu blade-tool researcher Mr. Tsutsumi Akira, a "Chronology of Representative Aizu Blade Smiths and Table of Plane Backing-Irons" (会津を代表する刃物鍛冶年表と鉋の地鉄表), an "Aizu Blade Smiths' Relationship Chart" (会津刃物鍛冶相関図), an "Aizu Nakaya-Surname Saw Smiths' Relationship Chart" (会津中屋姓鋸鍛冶相関図), and a "List of Aizu Field-Smith Signatures" (会津の野鍛冶銘一覧); also the Shōwa 44 (1969) fee schedules of the "Aizu Federated Field-Smiths' Association" (会津連合野鍛冶組合); the Kaei 5 (1852) "Wakamatsu Midori Kōmyō Gofuku-tsui" (若松緑高名五幅對, a five-scroll set of celebrated Wakamatsu names); the "Wakamatsu New City Hall Completion Commemorative Aizu Directory of Five Trades" (若松新市廰舎落成記念職業別會津五名鑑) issued in Shōwa 12 (1937); and a photograph of the "Products Exhibition Hall blade display room" (物産陳列館刃物展示場) thought to date from Taishō 10 (1921). For those who would learn the culture of the carpentry-tool smiths in particular, among the forged cutlery of Aizu-Wakamatsu, these will be precious materials.

Of interest too: one can learn the later story of the blade smith Shigehiro (重廣), a master hitherto little known, who is recorded in the smiths' column of the Kaei 5 "Wakamatsu Midori Kōmyō Fuku-tsui"; and the introductions, in photographs and text, of the field smith Mr. Tsutsumi Akira — who contributed so greatly to preserving the record of Aizu blade-tool culture — and of a hime-kuwa (姫鍬, light hoe) manufacturing workshop, of the third-generation Aizu saw smith Nakaya Denzaemon (中屋伝左衛門), and of the second-generation knife smith Shigenari (重成).

Also, the views of Mr. Kubota Hirofumi (窪田弘文) — who presents his collecting and research on carpentry tools in a blog — concerning the chisels of Yoshifusa (吉房) and the plane smith Shigekatsu (重勝) are carried as special contributions; as one theory among others, they are of interest.

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Mr. Akanuma Hiroshi's Aizu Tegatari — Blacksmith Volume is a book I found and immediately purchased when, in mid-March, my health failed and I was urgently hospitalized; discharged at the end of that month, and convalescing at home at the beginning of April, I happened to browse Amazon's book listings on my computer and came upon it.

As I had imagined, it tells the full picture of the vanished Aizu blade-tool culture in photographs and text; for me, researching carpentry-tool culture in particular, it contained much that was new, and I read it with great interest.

However, it is regrettable that a historical examination of why the once-so-flourishing blade-tool culture of Aizu met its end cannot yet be said to be solidly set down in it. On this point, in "A Historical Examination of Carpentry-Tool Production Regions" in my book Daiku dōgu bunkaron (大工道具文化論, "A Cultural Theory of Carpentry Tools," 2015), I too took up Aizu-Wakamatsu and identified the major factors of its decline as follows:

  1. The devastation of Aizu-Wakamatsu in the Boshin War (戊辰戦争);
  2. Its great distance, after Meiji, from Tokyo — which had become the political and economic center — and its poor transport connections;
  3. The lateness of its conversion from Japanese steel (wakō 和鋼) to Western steel (yōkō 洋鋼);
  4. The absence of an Aizu merchant collective, comparable to the Echigo merchant collectives, that would shoulder blade tools such as carpentry tools and actively peddle them in Tokyo, the Tōhoku region, and other districts so as to expand the local blade-tool industry.

There may well be those who disagree with this thesis; I look forward to future research in this field by many hands.

Furthermore, the closing pages of the book introduce the founding activities of the "Aizu Forged Cutlery Preservation Society" (會津打ち刃物保存会), which seeks to transmit the traces of Aizu forged cutlery to posterity. It is not yet too late, and I hope this activity will develop greatly.

An auspicious day, April, Heisei 31 (2019) Suzuki Kanamono Co., Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店) Representative Director, Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭)

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