Two article series from the "History of Tools" (道具の歴史) essays of Suzuki Kanamono-ten (スズキ金物店), by company president Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭).
Translator's note
This file contains complete translations of two series:
- "On the History of the Kanejaku Smiths" (曲尺鍛冶師の歴史について) — 4 pages (Introduction, two numbered sections, Conclusion), dated December, Heisei 23 (2011). It covers the carpenter's square (kanejaku/sashigane 曲尺): its ritual role in the chōna-hajime (釿始め, "first adze") ceremony, its history and scale systems, and the identifiable square-smiths of Banshū Miki and Echigo Sanjō in the late Edo period.
- "On the Osaka Master Matsubara Zensaku" (大阪の名工 松原善作について) — 5 pages (Introduction, three numbered sections, Conclusion), dated July, Heisei 25 (2013). It covers three generations of the Osaka chisel-smith line signing Zensaku (善作), a family of sword-smith ancestry originally from Miki.
Ambiguities: the name 阿部藤右ヱ門 is rendered Abe Tōemon (the reading of 藤右ヱ門 could also be "Tōuemon"); 中や九助 is rendered "Naka-ya Kyūsuke" (the shop-style spelling uses kana や); 壺ト is rendered "Tsubo-to" (the katakana ト in the brand mark); 伊藤治 (son of Tōbei) is rendered "Itōji," treated as a given name as the source implies; 都祁吐山町 is rendered Tsuge Hayama-chō. The source pages carry navigation links and a 2006 copyright line, omitted here. Era dates are given as in the original with Western years added where the author did not supply them.
Today, when we speak of the tools that represent carpentry, ordinary people will immediately think of three: the saw (nokogiri 鋸), the plane (kanna 鉋), and the chisel (nomi 鑿). Formerly, however, it was the square (sashigane 曲尺), the inkpot (sumitsubo 墨壺), and the adze (chōna 釿) that were the representative carpenter's tools. These three were enshrined in the ceremony held at the start of the working year to pray for a safe year, and in the ceremony (the groundbreaking rite) held when carpentry work began, to pray for the safety of the construction.
This ceremony is called the chōna-hajime (釿始め, "first adze"), and it is said to be a rite handed down from antiquity by the banshō (番匠, the carpenter craftsmen) as part of the building etiquette established by Prince Shōtoku (聖徳太子) in the Nara period.
In the chōna-hajime ceremony, the ritual timber is first measured with the square, a line is struck with the inkpot, and the adze is used to hew (hatsuru 斫る) it — this sequence of gestures is offered before the gods. The square, inkpot, and adze enshrined on that occasion have been called the "Three Sacred Treasures" (三種の神器) of the carpenter's tools and have been treated with great care.
Nowadays these three carpenter's tools have fallen almost entirely out of use, owing to changes in wooden building methods and the like. Nevertheless, at Shitennō-ji (四天王寺) in Osaka, founded by Prince Shōtoku, the chōna-hajime ceremony has been performed continuously since ancient times down to the present: it is held every year on January 11 in the Golden Hall where Prince Shōtoku is enshrined, conducted by the head of Kongō-gumi (金剛組), Japan's oldest wooden-construction company. In this ceremony, it is said that a spear-plane (yarikanna 槍鉋) is used in place of the adze.
Furthermore, the Banshō Preservation Society (番匠保存会) revived the chōna-hajime in Shōwa 56 (1981), and performs the ceremony every year on January 2 at Kōryū-ji (広隆寺) in Kyoto. Kōryū-ji is a temple with deep ties to Prince Shōtoku: it is said to be one of the seven great temples he founded, and also to have been built in AD 622 for his memorial, becoming a temple centered on the veneration of Prince Shōtoku.
This time, let us speak of the history of this square that was enshrined in the chōna-hajime ceremony, and of the smiths who made it.
For this essay I have drawn on: "Dōgu Mandara" 道具曼陀羅 (A Mandala of Tools, Shōwa 51 / 1976); Muramatsu Teijirō (村松貞次郎), "Kaji no Tabi — Waga Natsukashi no Kaji Mandara" 鍛冶の旅―わが懐しの鍛冶まんだら― (A Journey Among Smiths — My Beloved Mandala of Smiths, Shōwa 60 / 1985); Tsuchida Ichirō (土田一郎), "Nihon no Dentō Kōgu" 日本の伝統工具 (Traditional Tools of Japan, Shōwa 64 / 1989); Yasuda Yasuyuki (安田泰幸, illustrations) and the Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum (竹中大工道具館, text), "Suisaiga de Tsuzuru Daiku Dōgu Monogatari" 水彩画で綴る大工道具物語 (The Story of Carpenter's Tools in Watercolors, Heisei 21 / 2009); the free encyclopedia Wikipedia; the City of Sanjō website; Kagawa Ryōhei (香川量平), "Daiku Dōgu ni Ikiru / Chōna no Hanashi" 大工道具に生きる／釿の話 (Living with Carpenter's Tools / The Story of the Adze, Kagawa Construction Industry website); and many other web pages concerning the square. Honorifics are omitted below.
The kanejaku (曲尺, also read sashigane) has borne many alternative names since olden times: magarishaku/kanejaku (曲尺), sashigane written 差金 or 指金, tesshaku (鉄尺, "iron rule"), shakugane (尺金), daiku-gane (大工金, "carpenter's metal"), kanejaku written 矩差, kugishaku (規矩尺), and so on. The characters 曲尺 already existed in the Nara period (710–794), and in the dictionary "Shinsen Jikyō" 新撰字鏡 (Newly Compiled Mirror of Characters), written in 899 in the Heian period, 曲尺 is read "magarikane." In the medieval era, there are pictures depicting banshō carpenters using the square.
The square was brought to Japan at the beginning of the Asuka period (550–710), together with the introduction of Buddhism, by craftsmen who crossed over from the Korean peninsula for the construction of temples, as a tool for taking measurements. The square introduced at that time is said to have been made of wood or bamboo.
The square has an extremely long history: Fuxi (伏羲, Fukugi), the first sovereign appearing in ancient Chinese mythology, is depicted holding a square, and there is also a tradition that it was made by Lu Ban (魯班), the legendary carpenter called the Sage of Craft (工聖), in China's Spring and Autumn / Warring States period of the 6th century BC.
The graduations of the square are today in the metric system, but formerly shaku graduations were marked. There were the Koma-jaku (高麗尺, Korean shaku; 1 shaku = about 35.6 cm); the Taihō Code small shaku (大宝律令小尺, derived from the Tang shaku, which became the general standard from the Heian period on; 1 shaku = about 29.6 cm); the Matashirō-jaku or tesshaku (又四郎尺・鉄尺, said to have been fixed in the latter half of the Muromachi period by the Kyoto joiner Matashirō 又四郎 and used chiefly by carpenters; 1 shaku = about 30.258 cm); and the kanejaku enacted in Meiji 26 (1893; 1 shaku = about 30.3 cm), among others.
There is also the Lu Ban rule (魯班尺, Robanjaku), which divines lucky and unlucky dimensions. It is one of the tools used in feng shui, and is also called the feng-shui rule (風水尺). In Japan, 1 shaku 2 sun was divided into 8 equal parts, to which the eight characters zai 財 (wealth), byō 病 (illness), ri 離 (separation), gi 義 (righteousness), kan 官 (office), gō 劫 (plunder), gai 害 (harm), and kichi 吉 (good fortune) were assigned; since this was used to divine the fortune of a gate being built, it was also called the gate rule (門尺, monjaku), and formerly these fortune characters were also inscribed on carpenter's squares. A tradition survives that this Lu Ban rule was used for Osaka Castle, built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉).
The greatest distinguishing feature of the Japanese square lies in its back-face graduations (urame 裏目). Holding the long arm (nagate 長手) of the square so that the short arm (tsumate 妻手) is on the left, the graduations facing you are the urame. Among these back graduations are the kakume (角目, diagonal scale) and the marume (丸目, circumference scale). The kakume is a scale of √2 times the front scale, allowing the hypotenuse of a right triangle to be obtained without calculation — enormously useful in marking out the corners (hips) of a building.
There is a theory that this kakume was inscribed on squares at the end of the Heian period, and another placing it in the mid-Heian period, when the Five-Storied Pagoda of Daigo-ji (醍醐寺五重塔), with its complexly interlocking corners, was built. In any case, with the invention of the kakume, the art of kiku (規矩術, carpenter's geometry) — the method of solving the complex joinery of corner roof members — advanced by leaps and bounds.
The marume is a scale divided by pi (π): simply by measuring the diameter of a round timber, one knows its circumference. This marume seems to have been inscribed on squares only in more recent times. The marume is a scale that fundamentally has no connection to kiku geometry.
The square has a great variety of uses. For example, it establishes right angles, lengths, and parallel lines, and checks the flatness of a finished surface; the width of the square itself (5 bu) determines mortise dimensions; and by using the front and back scales, even three-dimensional drafting is possible. Moreover, in the Edo period, thanks to the development of Japanese mathematics (wasan 和算), everything from multiplication and division, square roots (areas), and cube roots (volumes) to proportional-division calculations became possible — the square even possessed the functions of a calculator.
In Shōwa 34 (1959), with the revision of the Metric Law, the shakkan-hō (尺貫法, traditional measures) was prohibited, and from Shōwa 35 (1960) it became impossible to mark shaku graduations on squares. But through the efforts of Ei Rokusuke (永六輔) and others who stood at the head of a national movement in the Shōwa 40s (late 1960s–70s) to protect Japan's architectural culture, squares with sun graduations were preserved.
As for the material of the square, over its long history it changed from wood or bamboo to iron, to steel, and to brass; then in Shōwa 6 (1931) Kawaguchi Doki (川口度器) of Tokyo manufactured a stainless-steel square, and today this stainless-steel, metric-graduated square is the one chiefly used. In China, the birthplace of the square, there are no metal squares.
Nowadays one can obtain a square at a modest price, but from ancient times the square was an extremely expensive and precious carpenter's tool. This can be inferred from the fact that even when the stainless-steel square first appeared, its price was 4 yen 50 sen — the equivalent of three days' carpenter's wages.
Until now, when one spoke of square-smiths, the known names were Naka-ya Kyūsuke (中や九助), the master craftsman of Echigo Sanjō (越後三条) at the end of the Edo shogunate, introduced in Tsuchida Ichirō's "Nihon no Dentō Kōgu" (日本の伝統工具, Traditional Tools of Japan) as the first maker of steel squares; and Tsuboya Tōbei (壺屋藤兵衛) of the Tsubo-to (壺ト) mark, the master craftsman of Miki (三木) at the end of the Edo shogunate, introduced in "Dōgu Mandara" (道具曼陀羅).
Squares had long been made in Miki as well. From the record (Muramatsu Teijirō, "Kaji no Tabi" 鍛冶の旅) that in Tenpō 6 (1835), in the final years of the era of the 11th shōgun Tokugawa Ienari (徳川家斉), there were eight houses each of square-blank makers (kanejaku-ji 曲尺地) and square-graduation cutters (kanejaku megiri 曲尺目切) in Miki, we can infer that squares were being made there in quantity. The man who raised the fame of the Miki square was Tsuboya Tōbei (壺屋藤兵衛).
Around the Kansei era (1789–1801), in the time of the 11th shōgun Tokugawa Ienari, a traveling ascetic (gyōja 行者) stayed at the house of Tōbei's grandfather San'emon (三右衛門), who was then a dyer (kon'ya 紺屋); the ascetic passed on to the grandfather the method of making squares and departed. The grandfather thereby began making squares; his son Kichibei (吉兵衛) carried on after him; and in the generation of the grandson Tōbei, a great innovation was made in the square's angles, graduations, and springiness, raising the renown of the Tsubo-to (壺ト) brand square — it is even said that banshō carpenters who owned a square of this mark commanded higher wages (Muramatsu Teijirō, "Kaji no Tabi").
Thereafter, Tōbei trained many apprentices and contributed to square-making in Miki. Tōbei's son Itōji (伊藤治) also carried on after his father; but in Meiji 44 (1911) the Harima Measuring Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (播磨度器製造株式会社) was established, gathering together the six square-smithies then in Miki; around Taishō 10 (1921) the square-smiths moved to a measuring-instrument company in Yamashina (山科), or moved to Sanjō in Niigata; and so square-making in Miki faded away.
When the square was first introduced to Japan, it appears to have been made of wood or bamboo, and it is not certain from what period smiths made iron squares. However, the tesshaku (鉄尺) — so called because it was made of iron (tetsu), and said to be either another name for the square or a variety of it — was made to the Matashirō-jaku standard (about 30.258 cm) fixed by the Kyoto joiner Matashirō in the Eishō era (1504–1521) of the late Muromachi period, and was used chiefly by carpenters; from this, there is no doubt that iron squares were made in this period. Whether this was the moment iron squares first appeared cannot be determined, for lack of sources.
This tesshaku was at first made mainly by the tesshaku craftsmen of Nanba (難波, in Osaka); from the mid-Edo period onward production spread across the country, and later Echigo Sanjō became the principal production center. It is said that the master standard (genki 原器) of these Nanba tesshaku craftsmen was a copy of the measuring rule that Prince Shōtoku made when he founded Shitennō-ji in Osaka — but the truth of this cannot be known.
The names of smiths who made squares first appear in the records only after squares came to be made in Banshū Miki (播州三木) and Echigo Sanjō (越後三条). That period begins around the middle of the era of the 11th shōgun Tokugawa Ienari. Having spoken above of the square-smiths of Banshū Miki, let us now speak of the history of the square-smiths of Echigo Sanjō, drawing on "The Smith's Art: The Kanejaku" (鍛冶の技「曲尺」) published on the City of Sanjō website.
The history of square-making in Sanjō begins in the Tenmei era (1781–1789), spanning the latter part of the era of the 10th shōgun Tokugawa Ieharu (徳川家治) and the beginning of that of the 11th shōgun Tokugawa Ienari, when squares were first made in iron; but the maker at that time is unknown, and the work was not continued.
Later, in the Bunka era (1804–1818), the kogatana-smith (small-blade smith) Kido Kakubei (木戸覚兵衛) of Kaji-machi (鍛冶町, "Smiths' Quarter") attempted the manufacture of steel squares, but died without completing it.
In the Kaei era (1848–1854), in the latter part of the era of the 12th shōgun Tokugawa Ieyoshi (徳川家慶), the ornamental-metal craftsman (kazari-shokunin 錺職人) Takano Hisamatsu (高野久松) of Sanjō went to Edo, and after more than ten years of application mastered the method of making brass squares; returning home, he began the manufacture of brass squares.
Around the middle of the Bunkyū era (1861–1864), in the time of the 14th shōgun Tokugawa Iemochi (徳川家茂), Tōemon (藤右ヱ門), a native of Wakino-machi in Santō District (三島郡脇野町) who had become an adopted son of the Abe (阿部) family of Sanjō, went to Aizu (会津) to learn the method of making steel squares. That steel squares were already being made in Aizu at this time shows us how high the level of Aizu's carpenter-tool forging technology was in the Japan of that day.
Abe Tōemon (阿部藤右ヱ門) mastered that secret method, returned home, and transmitted it to Munemura Kyūsuke (宗村九助) of Kaji-machi (born Tenpō 3 / 1832). Thus steel squares came to be made in Sanjō as well. Munemura Kyūsuke was none other than the master smith who made the steel squares known under the mark Naka-ya Kyūsuke (中や九助).
Around the time the Weights and Measures Law (度量衡法) came into force in Meiji 26 (1893), the square-smiths of Sanjō are said to have numbered over twenty. Among them, the first to receive a manufacturing license under the revised law was the brass-square smith Kawasaki Yoshijirō (川崎由次郎). Thereafter Kawaguchi Zōkichi (川口造吉) and Ishida Chōjirō (石田長次郎) obtained manufacturing licenses, and square production in Sanjō flourished.
Subsequently, however, with the establishment in Meiji 34 (1901) of the Echigo Measuring Instruments Manufacturing Partnership (越後度器製作合資会社), reorganized in Taishō 12 (1923) as the Sanjō Measuring Instruments Co., Ltd. (三条度器株式会社), production shifted from the individual work of smiths to factory manufacture, and the square-smiths gradually disappeared.
This time I have written about the smiths who made the square, while recounting the history of the square in Japan. From ancient times the square was, for the master carpenter (daiku tōryō 大工棟梁), an exceedingly important calculating rule: from small houses to great Buddhist temples and enormous castles, he drew his plans and raised his buildings with this one square. The art of kiku using the square is truly an art of wonder, and one marvels at the excellence of the skills of the master carpenters of old.
Yet of the smiths who made these squares, almost nothing remains in the records. There must have been square-smiths in the tool-producing regions from times long past, but the only ones we can now know are the few smiths of Banshū Miki and Echigo Sanjō in the latter half of the Edo period.
It was this that prompted the writing of the present essay; and in the course of my various researches I was able to learn in detail that the tesshaku, a variety of the square, was at first made by the smiths of Nanba in Osaka; that this was in the late Muromachi period; that the manufacture of squares of Japanese steel (wakō 和鋼) was extremely difficult; that the square was very expensive; and that in Edo-period Aizu, squares of Japanese steel had been made from a considerably earlier date — and so I was able to complete this essay.
An even greater discovery was that Naka-ya Kyūsuke, the master square-smith of Echigo who had until now been a mystery, was Munemura Kyūsuke (宗村九助), born in Tenpō 3 (1832) in Kaji-machi, Sanjō; and that the method was transmitted to him by Abe Tōemon, who had gone to Aizu to train in making steel squares and returned home — this came to light quite unexpectedly. This was truly a great harvest. I hope this essay, too, will remain as a record for later generations.
An auspicious day, December, Heisei 23 (2011)
Suzuki Kanamono-ten Co., Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店) Representative Director, Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭)
In Chapter 1 of my book "Zoku: Nihon no Daiku Dōgu Shokunin" 続・日本の大工道具職人 (Japan's Carpentry-Tool Craftsmen, Continued), published in September, Heisei 24 (2012), under the title "On Zensaku, Master Carpenter-Tool Smith of Osaka," I discussed the three generations of Matsubara Zensaku (松原善作), the second and third generations, and methods for distinguishing works of the original Zensaku from wholesaler-issued Zensaku-branded pieces, among other matters. However, there were parts for which sources could not be found; I could not speak fully about "Zensaku," and this left me with lingering regret.
Then, quite recently, I happened upon an article posted on the Internet by Kagawa Ryōhei (香川量平): "Daiku Dōgu ni Ikiru — Sono Kenchiku no Yomoyama-banashi, No. 46: The Story of the Master Chisel-Smith 'Zensaku'" (大工道具に生きる その建築のよもやま話 その４６ 名工鑿鍛冶「善作」の話), and reading it, I was astonished. For it spoke in detail of things such as the Matsubara family's ancestors having been sword-smiths, the year the first-generation Zensaku died, and the birth years and periods of activity of the second and third generations. These were exactly the things I had wished to know when writing about Zensaku, but regrettably had been unable to learn.
Since Kagawa relates these matters on the basis of materials held by the Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum (竹中大工道具館) and materials he investigated and collected on foot himself, I believe them to be reliable. This is an extremely precious source on "Zensaku." So delighted was I that, although I had never once met Kagawa, I telephoned him that very night to express my thanks for bringing such precious material into the world.
Accordingly, since there were errors in some passages concerning "Zensaku" in my book "Zoku: Nihon no Daiku Dōgu Shokunin" (Heisei 24 / 2012), let me speak of "Zensaku" anew — by way of correction and supplement, avoiding repetition, and drawing on Kagawa's account. Honorifics are omitted below.
The first-generation Zensaku's real name was Matsubara Kijirō (松原喜次郎). Born in Miki, Hyōgo Prefecture (兵庫県三木市), he went to Osaka while young, lived first in Edobori, Nishi Ward (西区江戸堀) and later at 3-chōme, Okamoto-chō, Minato Ward (港区岡本町), and worked as an edge-tool smith. Almost none of the first Zensaku's works survive; he is said to have died in Taishō 10 (1921) at the age of 72.
Calculating back from his age at death, he was born in Miki in Kaei 2 (1849), around the middle of the era of the 12th shōgun Tokugawa Ieyoshi (徳川家慶) — that is, about twenty years before the Meiji Restoration.
The Matsubara family is said to have formerly been sword-smiths. From long ago, sword-smiths — all but a select few — could not live by sword-forging alone and made edge tools as well, so the Matsubara family was presumably no different. Whether the first Zensaku himself forged swords is not known; at the time of the sword-abolition edict (haitō-rei 廃刀令) of Meiji 9 (1876), the first Zensaku was 27 years old.
The first Zensaku had two children: the elder son Tokutarō (徳太郎, born Meiji 22 / 1889) and, two years younger, the second son Jūjirō (重次郎, born Meiji 24 / 1891). From childhood they helped with their father's forge work and trained as edge-tool smiths under their strict father. It was no doubt this paternal severity that laid the foundation for the two men later called master craftsmen, or genius smiths.
In Taishō 10 (1921), after the death of his father Kijirō, the elder son Tokutarō succeeded as the second-generation Zensaku. As Tokutarō was born in Meiji 22 (1889), he was then 32 years old.
The second Zensaku displayed outstanding talent as a carpenter-tool smith, forging a wide range of tools — nail-pullers (kuginuki 釘抜き), chisels (nomi 鑿), planes (kanna 鉋), rebate planes (sakuri 作里), adzes (chōna 釿), and more. In particular he devised the wood-grain gennō hammer (mokume gennō 木目玄能), which sold well at the time to the anaya-daiku (穴屋大工), the carpenters who specialized in mortise-cutting. The second Zensaku is also said to have sometimes struck the mark Tokuhiro (徳弘) on his works.
This second Zensaku, however, worked as a carpenter-tool smith for only about ten years after succeeding to the name, then moved to a company called Osaka Tekkō (大阪鉄工, Osaka Ironworks), putting his forging skills to use there. He was about 41. Around Shōwa 5 (1930), when the second Zensaku changed occupations, Japan was in deep depression in the wake of the world economic crisis; carpenter's tools did not sell and times were very hard. His eldest son Zenji (善治), who had been doing the finishing work on the pieces his father forged, gave up carpenter-tool smithing together with him.
At that time Ochiai Uichi (落合宇一), then forging planes in Tokyo — later the third-generation Chiyozuru Nobukuni (千代鶴延国) — had likewise, because of the great depression, left plane-smithing for a naval arsenal, putting his forging skills to use. But whereas Nobukuni later returned to plane-smithing, the second Zensaku never returned, and is said to have died in Shōwa 19 (1944), at the age of 55.
Since the second Zensaku gave up carpenter-tool smithing around Shōwa 5 (1930), his younger brother Jūjirō succeeded as the third-generation Zensaku. As Jūjirō was born in Meiji 24 (1891), he was then about 39. The third Zensaku, Jūjirō, was a master craftsman in no way inferior to his brother, and is said to have been called a genius smith by the carpenters of the Kansai region.
Before the war, when the third Zensaku was working as a carpenter-tool smith in Ichioka (市岡), Osaka, Nomura Toshinobu (野村俊信) of Fukuno-machi, Higashi-Tonami District, Toyama Prefecture (富山県東栃波郡福野町) was accepted as an apprentice on the introduction of a scissors-smith of Sakai (堺). Toshinobu was 18 at the time. As Toshinobu was 96 as of Heisei 24 (2012), calculating back he was born in Taishō 5 (1916), and his apprenticeship to the third Zensaku began in Shōwa 9 (1934).
After training for five years, Toshinobu returned home to help with his father's forge work, forging chisels and the like for carpenters and joiners (tategu shokunin 建具職人). Since the training lasted five years, he completed it in Shōwa 14 (1939).
In Shōwa 18 (1943), as the air raids intensified, the third Zensaku took his wife and children and evacuated from Ichioka in Osaka to the countryside at Tsuge Hayama-chō, Nara City, Nara Prefecture (奈良県奈良市都祁吐山町), where he is said to have carried on his forge work in the midst of hardship.
After the war he set up a forge in Horie (堀江), near Taishō Bridge (大正橋) in Osaka, and forged chisels until about Shōwa 26 (1951); he then moved to Hyōtan-yama in Ikoma (生駒の瓢箪山), and by around Shōwa 27 (1952) was doing forge work in the mountains of Haibara (榛原) in Nara. From Shōwa 28 (1953) onward, his whereabouts became unknown.
Here a great mystery arises. The third Zensaku, Jūjirō, was born in Meiji 24 (1891), so at the time of the evacuation to Nara in Shōwa 18 (1943) he was 52 years old. Yet the farmer who lent the third Zensaku his outbuilding says that the third Zensaku was then in his late thirties. What is the meaning of this clear discrepancy in age? Did he simply look young — or was there some other person who was mistaken for him? A new riddle remains.
In closing this essay: Kagawa Ryōhei relates that when he visited Nomura Toshinobu's home in August, Heisei 24 (2012), he "asked Mr. Nomura Toshinobu why he had not succeeded as the fourth-generation Zensaku, but he said nothing." On this point let me offer my own view. I surmise the reasons were such as these:
I. Toshinobu trained under the third Zensaku for a mere five years, and after his training returned home and did forge work under his own father.
II. After the war, his master continued forge work until around Shōwa 27 (1952); only by a formal transfer of the Zensaku name from the master could he officially call himself the fourth-generation Zensaku, and by custom one cannot simply assume the Zensaku name on one's own initiative.
III. The Miki hardware wholesaler that held the registered trademark of the Zensaku mark began, immediately after the war, to forge chisels and other tools under the registered Zensaku brand.
At all events, while a good deal has now been clarified about "Zensaku," the Osaka carpenter-tool smith, he must still be called a man of many mysteries.
I have published my books "Nihon no Daiku Dōgu Shokunin" 日本の大工道具職人 (Japan's Carpentry-Tool Craftsmen) and its sequel, and have presented my latest research findings in the "History of Tools" section of our shop's website, attempting to leave for posterity a record of carpenter's tools and of the craftsmen, past and present, who create them; but partly because sources are so hard to find, I cannot yet say I have fully accomplished this.
I hope that henceforth, not only Zensaku but also the other still little-understood craftsmen who made the carpenter's tools of old will be elucidated by universities, research institutions, and independent researchers, and that they will be recorded on the basis of accurate sources rather than hearsay.
An auspicious day, July, Heisei 25 (2013)
Suzuki Kanamono-ten Co., Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店) Representative Director, Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭)