Source: (有)スズキ金物店 Suzuki Kanamono-ten (Ltd.), misyuku-suzuki-kanamonoten.com Author: Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭), Representative Director, Suzuki Kanamono-ten
This file contains complete translations of three related essay series:
- Historical Reflections on the Study of Carpentry Tools (大工道具研究についての史的考察) — 4 pages
- On the Names "Daiku" and "Daiku-Dōgu" (大工と大工道具という呼び名について) — 7 pages
- On the History of the Kiridashi Kogatana (切出小刀の歴史について) — 3 pages
Translator's note (whole file): These three series form the author's historiographical cluster: how the academic study of carpentry tools (daiku-dōgu 大工道具) arose as a field — the author claims his is the first systematic account of that research history — why tools of non-carpenter woodworking trades came to be called "carpenter's tools," and what he presents as the first detailed history of the kiridashi kogatana (切出小刀) utility knife. Fourteen web pages in total (4 + 7 + 3). All content is translated in full; nothing is summarized away. Ambiguities are flagged in the per-series translator's notes; the most notable is the author's inconsistent numbering of Tokugawa shoguns when dating the Wakan Sansai Zue and Wakan Sen'yōshū (details below). One page of series 1 (page 2) was served by the site in UTF-8 rather than the site's usual Shift-JIS; it was decoded accordingly and is complete.
Translator's note: Four pages — Introduction; (1) Heian to Edo periods; (2) Meiji to Heisei periods; Conclusion. Dated by the author "an auspicious day in May, Heisei 26 (2014)." The essay surveys every significant Japanese publication touching on carpentry tools from the 10th century to 2014 and argues that no one before the author had systematized the history of daiku-dōgu research itself. The reading "Fujishiro Mikio" for 藤城幹夫 is a plausible but unverified reading of the given name; the surname 藤城 could also be read Fujiki. The author's shogun-era datings are translated as written even where they conflict with standard chronology (flagged inline).
At present I am writing, with the aim of publication next autumn, a "Cultural Theory of Carpentry Tools" (大工道具文化論, Daiku-Dōgu Bunkaron) — the grand compilation of my several decades of survey and research on carpentry tools. "Cultural theory of carpentry tools" is a term of my own coinage. This cultural theory is a many-sided research approach to the developmental history of carpentry tools such as has not existed before, composed of: the changes in the appellations for carpenters; the oral traditions of carpenter associations; the history of the routes by which smithing spread; the relation between the history of the ancient relocations of the capital and the development of carpentry tools; the population trends of Japan as an indicator of national strength and the populations of the ryōseikoku provinces established under the ritsuryō system; immigrants from the continent (toraijin 渡来人) and the development of carpentry tools; carpentry-tool production regions; the carpentry-tool industry; the state of research on carpentry tools up to the present day; the connection between the chōna-hajime ceremony (手斧始め, "first adze" rite) and carpentry tools; the master craftsmen among carpentry-tool artisans; and so on.
I have already written a large part of it, and one of its components is the history of research concerning carpentry tools. Full-scale academic research on carpentry tools began only in the Shōwa 40s (from 1965); because it is a comparatively new field of learning, no essay has yet — so far as I know — been published that systematizes the history of daiku-dōgu research from the past to the present.
Therefore, as reference material for people interested in carpentry tools, I have rewritten this as one independent essay, and shall publish it here under the title "Historical Reflections on the Study of Carpentry Tools." In what follows, honorific titles are omitted.
In Japan, from the Heian period until the coming of the Meiji era, many introductory and explanatory books concerning carpentry tools were published. To cite representative works: from the Shōtai era of the mid-Heian period (898–901) there is the Shinsen Jikyō (新撰字鏡, "Newly Compiled Mirror of Characters"), said to have been compiled by the monk Shōjū (昌住).
This work is a dictionary classifying Chinese characters, and is the oldest extant Chinese-character/Japanese dictionary. In it, the meanings of characters denoting carpentry tools are briefly introduced — the kanejaku (曲尺, carpenter's square, sashigane), the saw (鋸, nokogiri), the inkpot (墨斗, sumitsubo), the chisel (鑿, nomi), the adze (釿, chōna), the spear-plane (錺/鉇, yarikanna), the axe (斧), and so on.
Likewise from mid-Heian, in the Jōhei era (931–938), there is the dictionary Wamyō Ruijushō (和名類聚抄, "Categorized Collection of Japanese Names") compiled by Minamoto no Shitagō (源順). This work is treasured not only as a precious source for knowing with what Japanese readings the Chinese vocabulary of the time was read, but is also regarded as important in each scholarly field as historical material for knowing the society, customs and institutions of the age.
In this work too, just as in the Shinsen Jikyō, the characters signifying carpentry tools — square, saw, inkpot, chisel, adze, spear-plane (鉇, yarikanna), iron hammer (鉄槌), and so forth — are briefly explained.
From the Shinsen Jikyō and the Wamyō Ruijushō we cannot clearly tell what form each carpentry tool had at that time, but we can know from the written characters the kinds of carpentry tools in use in the Heian period.
Thereafter, from the Kamakura period through the Edo period, many pictures of artisans engaged in carpentry work were painted. Depending on the era in which a picture was painted, we come to understand concretely what forms of carpentry tools were then in use.
The Edo period was called the century of the artisan: the bench plane (台鉋, dai-ganna) and the rip saw (縦挽き鋸, tatebiki nokogiri), which had been transmitted from the Chinese continent in the Muromachi period, developed still further, and the kinds and forms of carpentry tools increased. In this era many encyclopedias introducing carpentry tools were also brought into the world.
To cite the representative introductory and explanatory works of the Edo period: in Kanbun 6 (1666), in the latter half of the era of the fourth shōgun Tokugawa Ietsuna, the illustrated encyclopedia Kinmō Zui (訓蒙図彙, "Illustrated Compendium for Instructing the Unenlightened") was published, compiled by the Confucian scholar Nakamura Tekisai (中村惕斎) with pictures drawn by the painter Shimokōbe Shūsui (下河辺拾水). Later this work was greatly enlarged and revised, and was published in Genroku 8 (1695) under the title Tōsho Zōho Kinmō Zui (頭書増補訓蒙図彙) and in Kansei 1 (1789) as Tōsho Zōho Kinmō Zui Taisei (頭書増補訓蒙図彙大成).
Around Shōtoku 3 [1713], in the last years of the era of the sixth shōgun Tokugawa Ienobu, there is the illustrated encyclopedia Wakan Sansai Zue (和漢三才図会, "Illustrated Sino-Japanese Encyclopedia of the Three Powers"), said to have been compiled and issued by the Osaka physician Terajima Ryōan (寺島良安) over a span of about thirty years.
Also, there is the illustrated great encyclopedia Wakan Sen'yōshū (和漢船用集, "Sino-Japanese Compendium of Ship Use"), written in Hōreki 11 [1761], at the close of the era of the ninth shōgun Tokugawa Ieshige, by the Osaka shipwright Kanazawa Kanemitsu (金沢兼光), and published in Meiwa 3 (1766). This encyclopedia was reprinted in Bunsei 10 (1827), in the latter half of the era of the eleventh shōgun Tokugawa Ienari.
Further, in Genji 1 (1864), at the close of the era of the fourteenth shōgun Tokugawa Iemochi, there is the illustrated dictionary Dōgu Jibiki Zukai (道具字引図解, "Illustrated Dictionary of Tools") issued by Yūgensai Nanka (又玄斎南可).
These dictionaries, by the very purpose the books held, naturally only introduce the kinds and forms of carpentry tools within their pages; they are not research works that systematically discuss the history, types, methods of use, or methods of manufacture of carpentry tools. Nevertheless, they are precious materials from which we can know the kinds and forms of the carpentry tools in use at the time.
With the culture of Edo-period carpentry-tool making as its foundation, through the Meiji, Taishō and first half of the Shōwa eras — despite several intervening recessions — the culture of carpentry tools burst into full bloom on the increase of demand for wooden construction, and reached its golden age. Masters, master craftsmen and virtuosos of carpentry-tool making emerged all over the country, and a carpentry-tool culture that Japan could boast to the world attained its zenith.
During this interval, in the Meiji and Taishō periods, many textbooks related to handicrafts were published, and the carpentry-tool wholesale houses and retail shops of Tokyo, Miki, Niigata and elsewhere issued catalogues and other trade publications for the purpose of selling their goods, introducing the kinds, forms and usage of carpentry tools; but systematic research on carpentry tools was almost nonexistent.
Around Shōwa 30 (c. 1955), some time after the end of the Pacific War, powered woodworking tools for carpenters engaged in wooden construction appeared in a Japan then experiencing the construction boom of postwar reconstruction. Moreover, the mainstay of construction in urban areas gradually shifted from wood to concrete, and in the Shōwa 40s (from 1965) the appearance of house manufacturers and the shift of wooden-house construction to pre-cut methods dealt heavy blows to the traditional wooden-construction industry.
Through these and other causes, the traditional carpentry tools gradually fell out of use, and Japan's world-class carpentry-tool culture began to decline.
It was at such a moment, from the Shōwa 40s (from 1965), that research papers and books concerning carpentry tools began to be published. From the mere introduction and explanation of carpentry tools as heretofore, this was the beginning of full-scale research as an academic discipline.
Until then there had existed a small number of academic studies of carpentry tools, such as "A Historical Survey of Woodworking Tools for Construction" (造営用木工具の史的展望) published in Shōwa 10 (1935) by Professor Fujishima Gaijirō (藤島亥治郎) of the University of Tokyo, and "Tools" (工具) and "The Tools of Hōryū-ji" (法隆寺の工具) published in Shōwa 36 (1961) by Inui Kanematsu (乾兼松), technical official of the Ministry of Education; but these were not published as independent books — they were papers within multi-volume collections.
The first full-scale research publication systematized as scholarship may fairly be called the book published in Shōwa 43 (1968) by Associate Professor Nakamura Yūzō (中村雄三) of Nishinippon Institute of Technology: Zusetsu Nihon Mokkōgu-shi — Nihon Kenchiku Kōgu no Shiteki Kenkyū (図説 日本木工具史―日本建築工具の史的研究―, "Illustrated History of Japanese Woodworking Tools — A Historical Study of Japanese Building Tools"). It was reissued in Shōwa 49 (1974) as Zōtei Zusetsu Nihon Mokkōgu-shi (増訂 図説 日本木工具史, enlarged and revised edition).
Associate Professor Nakamura Yūzō's book, on the basis of abundant figures and photographs, systematically describes the evolution of woodworking tools, the history of woodworking tools viewed individually, woodworking tools and religious belief, and heirloom woodworking tools transmitted to the present. Of this work Professor Emeritus Fujishima Gaijirō of the University of Tokyo gave the appraisal: "As research on this problem it overwhelms all that came before and has attained an almost complete plane; I bow to it." Yet, while it can be highly esteemed as pioneering research, when compared with the detailed later research on carpentry tools one does sense the limitations imposed by its era.
Thereafter, in Shōwa 48 (1973), Professor Muramatsu Teijirō (村松貞次郎) of the University of Tokyo published from Iwanami Shinsho the book Daiku Dōgu no Rekishi (大工道具の歴史, "The History of Carpentry Tools"), which received the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award. In Shōwa 51 (1976) Professor Muramatsu brought out Dōgu Mandara (道具曼荼羅, "Tool Mandala"), introducing carpentry tools and other implements in photographs and prose, and afterwards its sequels Zoku Dōgu Mandara, Zokuzoku Dōgu Mandara and Shin Dōgu Mandara.
In Shōwa 51 (1976), Yoshikawa Kinji (吉川金次), a former saw-smith who was also a saw-sharpening craftsman, brought out Mono to Hito no Bunkashi / Nokogiri (ものと人の文化史／鋸, "A Cultural History of Things and People: The Saw"), a book which, on the basis of abundant historical sources and materials, systematically describes excavated saws from antiquity to the Kamakura period, the development of medieval and early-modern saws, saw manufacture, saws appearing in paintings and documents, and Chinese and Western saws. In Shōwa 59 (1984) he further brought out Mono to Ningen no Bunkashi / Ono, Nomi, Kanna (ものと人間の文化史／斧・鑿・鉋, "A Cultural History of Things and Humanity: Axe, Chisel, Plane"), written systematically from axes, chisels and planes excavated from tumuli and other sites, and from paintings and documents.
In Shōwa 53 (1978) appeared Shirasaki Hideo's (白崎秀雄) book Chiyozuru Korehide (千代鶴是秀), which recounted on the basis of abundant materials the life of Chiyozuru Korehide, who attained the summit of carpentry-tool making; and in Shōwa 55 (1980) Professor Hirasawa Kazuo (平澤一雄) of Tokyo University of Agriculture published Sangyō Bunkashi / Nokogiri (産業文化史／鋸, "An Industrial Cultural History: The Saw"), which systematically treats the history of the saw, the evolution of saw-production technology, surveys and reflections on celebrated saws, the origins and genealogies of saw smiths, and thoughts on modern woodworking tools.
In Shōwa 64 (1989), Tsuchida Ichirō (土田一郎), a saw-sharpening craftsman who had been publishing on carpentry tools in magazines and elsewhere since the Shōwa 30s and who possessed abundant knowledge of carpentry tools, brought out the book Nihon no Dentō Kōgu (日本の伝統工具, "The Traditional Tools of Japan"), based upon stories he had heard from Chiyozuru Korehide, with whom he had associated since boyhood. For a time he was something of an adviser for those researching carpentry tools; at present, however, much of the content of his talks and his book rests on hearsay, and there are numerous passages whose credibility is problematic.
Even so, his recording, as documentation, of the oral traditions of the old-time carpenters and of the artisans who made carpentry tools — traditions which would otherwise have vanished in the current of time — was a great contribution, providing historical materials for later carpentry-tool research to consult and examine.
In Shōwa 59 (1984), at the birthplace of the Takenaka Corporation in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, the Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum (竹中大工道具館) was established by Takenaka Corporation for the purposes of the survey, collection, research, education, exhibition of, and events concerning, carpentry tools.
There, people who studied architecture at university and who hold doctorates or equivalent standing serve as curators and conduct research. Once every year the Bulletin of Research of the Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum (竹中大工道具館研究紀要) is published; as of Heisei 25 (2013) number 24 has appeared, a great contribution to carpentry-tool research. The founding of this Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum may be said to have been the turning point that put subsequent carpentry-tool research on a still more solid footing and greatly advanced it.
Research on carpentry tools, which is thus a very new field of learning, divides broadly into two approaches: the architectural-engineering approach and the folklore-studies (minzokugaku) approach.
The former considers the history of Japanese wooden architecture in relation to the history of the development of carpentry tools; its chief aim is to elucidate, in technological-engineering terms, roughly when each carpentry tool appeared, and what carpentry tools were used in wooden construction, and how, in each successive age.
The latter takes as its basis the tangible and intangible folk-historical materials and documents handed down among the artisans who have made carpentry tools and the carpenters who use them; its chief aims are to elucidate the master–apprentice lineages of carpentry-tool artisans and the time of appearance, types, usage and history of each carpentry tool. Within this approach, accordingly, there appears research that considers carpentry tools as a culture, and that becomes one of its major themes.
These two approaches, however, do not exist separately and independently; it is fair to say that they intersect one another.
As of January, Heisei 26 (2014), many primers aimed at beginners and specialist books aimed at those with elementary knowledge of carpentry tools are in print; but if one lists the principal works of scholarship or serious introduction aimed at readers of intermediate knowledge and above, apart from the works introduced above, they are as follows.
As the architectural-engineering approach: Watanabe Akira's (渡邊晶) Nihon Kenchiku Gijutsushi no Kenkyū — Daiku Dōgu no Hattatsushi (日本建築技術史の研究―大工道具の発達史―, "Studies in the History of Japanese Building Technology — the Developmental History of Carpentry Tools") (2004), Daiku Dōgu no Nihonshi (大工道具の日本史, "A Japanese History of Carpentry Tools") (2004), and Daiku Dōgu no Bunmeishi: Nihon, Chūgoku, Yōroppa no Kenchiku Gijutsu (大工道具の文明史：日本・中国・ヨーロッパの建築技術, "A Civilizational History of Carpentry Tools: the Building Technologies of Japan, China and Europe") (2014); and Fujishiro Mikio's (藤城幹夫) Nihon no Daiku Dōgu — Takumi no Chie to Shinka no Rekishi (日本の大工道具―匠の知恵と進化の歴史―, "Japan's Carpentry Tools — the Wisdom of the Craftsman and the History of their Evolution") (2008), among others.
As the folklore approach: Muramatsu Teijirō's 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 Smith Mandala") (1985) and Dōgu to Teshigoto (道具と手仕事, "Tools and Handwork") (2014); Matsunaga Yukako's (松永ゆかこ) Edo Tōkyō Daiku Dōgu Shokunin (江戸東京大工道具職人, "The Carpentry-Tool Artisans of Edo-Tokyo") (1993); Chiyozuru Korehide (千代鶴是秀) (2006), text by Tsuchida Noboru (土田昇), photographs by Akiyama Minoru (秋山実), with its Chiyozuru Korehide Shashinshū (千代鶴是秀 写真集, photograph collections) volume 1 (2007) and volume 2 (2008); and my own books Nihon no Daiku Dōgu Shokunin — Sekai ni Hokoru Nihon no Daiku Dōgu o Kōsei ni Tsutaeru Kiroku (日本の大工道具職人―世界に誇る日本の大工道具を後世に伝える記録―, "Japan's Carpentry-Tool Artisans — A Record to Transmit to Posterity the Carpentry Tools Japan Boasts to the World") (2011) and Zoku: Nihon no Daiku Dōgu Shokunin (続・日本の大工道具職人―世界に誇るこれは文化である レクイエムとして堂々完成―, "Japan's Carpentry-Tool Artisans, Continued — This Is a Culture to Boast to the World; Completed in Full as a Requiem") (2012), among others.
As stated in the Introduction, full-scale research on carpentry tools dates from the Shōwa 40s (from 1965) — not yet fifty years have passed. It is a very new field of scholarship. In recent years it has at last escaped from hearsay and may be said to have entered the stage of genuine research grounded in historical sources and materials.
I have maintained in my books and papers that carpentry tools are not mere implements used in building but one of the cultures Japan can boast to the world, and that it is the artisans who make carpentry tools who, over a long history, created this culture. I further think as follows.
The people of antiquity, finding that edged tools used in construction — the broadaxe (鉞, masakari), the adze (手斧, chōna), the chisel, the yarikanna spear-plane and the rest — could cut and shave with an ease beyond stone tools, feared and revered the mysterious power that iron possesses, and had the custom of worshipping and honoring these edged tools as tools in which a deity dwells.
For that reason, in antiquity, together with the preciousness of iron — then produced only in small quantity — these tools were handled with the greatest care; when a palace where the emperor dwelt or a shrine was to be built, the rites of the sacred axe (斎斧, imi-ono) and sacred spade (斎鋤, imi-suki) were solemnly performed, and this liturgy later became fixed in form as the "chōna-hajime ceremony" (手斧始めの儀式, the rite of first adze).
But with the passage of time, people came to take it for granted that the building tools (carpentry tools) — adze, broadaxe, chisel, saw, plane — would of course cut and of course shave; at some point there were no longer people who feared and revered the deity dwelling in those tools, and eventually an age came in which this was wholly forgotten.
In the process of modernization, in which carpentry tools were commodified and circulated in quantity, this was perhaps inevitable; yet I wish that the carpenters who use carpentry tools would know at least a little that these tools were once made and used with such feelings.
That the "chōna-hajime rite" has been revived in many places in recent years is a cause for joy; but I also hope that the faith hidden in the depths of the "first adze" will be firmly taken to heart.
In that sense, while the architectural-engineering approach is extremely important to carpentry-tool research, there is a domain of folklore that cannot be known by the architectural-engineering approach alone; and I believe that henceforth an approach incorporating folklore studies will become an even more important task of carpentry-tool research.
An auspicious day, May, Heisei 26 (2014) Suzuki Kanamono-ten, Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店) Representative Director, Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭)
(References)
- The free encyclopedia Wikipedia
- Nakamura Yūzō (中村雄三), Zōho Zusetsu Nihon Mokkōgu-shi — Nihon Kenchiku Kōgu no Shiteki Kenkyū (増補 図説日本木工具史―日本建築工具の史的研究―, "Enlarged Illustrated History of Japanese Woodworking Tools") (1974)
- Funabiki Etsuko (船曳悦子), paper "Kingendai ni okeru Kanna no Hensen ni tsuite" (近現代における鉋の変遷について, "On the Evolution of the Plane in the Modern and Contemporary Eras") (2011)
- My book Nihon no Daiku Dōgu Shokunin (日本の大工道具職人) (2011)
- My book Zoku Nihon no Daiku Dōgu Shokunin (続日本の大工道具職人) (2012)
Translator's note: Seven pages — Introduction; (1) Kofun to Nara periods; (2) Heian period; (3) Kamakura period; (4) Muromachi to Azuchi-Momoyama periods; (5) Edo period; Conclusion. Dated "an auspicious day in August, Heisei 29 (2017)." The essay traces the occupational name of building carpenters from kodakumi (木工) through banshō (番匠) to daiku (大工), and explains why tools of non-carpenter woodworking trades are nonetheless called 大工道具. Ambiguities: on the Heian page the source text contains a stray quotation mark in the rank list 「大工・」引頭・長・連」; context makes clear the intended series is daiku, indō, otona/chō, ren, and it is translated so. The date "720" attached to『日本書紀：雄略天皇記』is the compilation date of the Nihon Shoki as a whole, as the author writes it. The author's phrase 室尾谷神社 is rendered Muroodani Shrine (reading not certain).
At present we call the occupational name of the artisans directly engaged in wooden construction "daiku" (大工). We also call their master "tōryō" (棟梁). Naturally, we call the tools these people use in building "daiku-dōgu" (大工道具, carpentry tools).
If one looks closely at the tools called "daiku-dōgu," they include not only the tools used by carpenters but also the specialized tools of joiners (tategu-shoku), furniture makers, coopers, sawyers (kobiki), builders of wooden ships, and others — all placed within the category of "carpentry tools." Strictly speaking, since these are not the tools used by the people called carpenters, they should not be callable "carpentry tools." Why, then, are they put into the category of "daiku-dōgu" and so called? And from what era did the appellation "daiku-dōgu" come into use?
Moreover, although the word "daiku" appears in antiquity, its meaning was then entirely different from the present one. The occupational name of the master builders directly engaged in construction was likewise a different appellation. "Tōryō," meaning the carpenter's master, also began to be used from a certain era; before that it was used in a different sense.
Concerning these matters, among researchers of "carpentry tools," carpenters, and tool collectors alike, almost no interest has been taken and almost nothing said, down to the present. Among such people great misunderstandings have even arisen.
To resolve these questions, one must unravel the history of the changes in the occupational names of the master builders engaged in wooden construction in Japan from antiquity to the present. In May 2015 I published Daiku-Dōgu Bunkaron (大工道具文化論, "A Cultural Theory of Carpentry Tools"), and spoke of this in detail in chapter 1, "The Changes in the Appellations of Master Builders Engaged in Construction." Here, adding my subsequent survey and research, I shall speak of these matters under the title "On the Names Daiku and Daiku-Dōgu," for publication in our "History of Tools" column.
In this age, what were the master builders directly engaged in wooden construction called as an occupational name? In the Nihon Shoki: Chronicle of Emperor Yūryaku (日本書紀：雄略天皇記) (720), the oldest history written in the Nara period, there is the passage: "the woodworker (木工) Inabe no Mane (韋那部真根), setting a stone as his block, continued all day cutting wood with an axe without ever chipping the blade." The characters 木工 are read kodakumi, or also moku.
Looking at the text that follows in the Chronicle of Yūryaku, this figure is a master builder directly engaged in construction. From this we know that at that time the master builders directly engaged in building were written with the characters 木工 and called kodakumi.
In the entry for the tenth month of Hakuchi 1 (650), in the Asuka period, the Nihon Shoki records "Shōsaku-daishō Aratai no Atai Hirafu (将作大匠荒田井直比羅夫)," apparently a building craftsman. This "daishō" (大匠) is a title of rank and office denoting the head of the government bureau in charge of construction as then used in China; it is not an occupational name.
There is the "ritsuryō system," implemented from the late 7th century (late Asuka period) and reaching its height in the 8th century (Nara period). The ritsuryō system was the institution that fixed the laws and organization of the state. Under this system there was an agency belonging to the Ministry of the Imperial Household called the Mokuryō (木工寮), in the Japanese reading kodakumi no tsukasa ("Bureau of Carpentry").
The Mokuryō was the office that carried out the construction and repair of palaces, the repair of public facilities within the capital, and the manufacture of wooden articles, and also managed the procurement of labor and materials and the drafting of budgets for these. Within the Mokuryō the section in charge of construction was the takumi-be (工部); the takumi-be side was where the master builders doing construction were commanded and managed. In its carpentry division (木工方) there were the official posts of ōkitakumi (大工), sukunatakumi (少工), chōjōkō (長上工) and banjōkō (番上工).
In this case the post of 大工 (ōkitakumi) was the highest responsible officer; the sukunatakumi was his vice-official; the chōjōkō was a supervising official possessing advanced building technique; the banjōkō were senior technicians serving under the chōjōkō in rotation for fixed periods. The 大工 (ōkitakumi) here is the name of an official post, and differs from today's 大工 (daiku), the occupational name of the artisan directly engaged in building work.
Further, in this era offices such as the Zō-Tōdaiji-shi (造東大寺司, Office for the Construction of Tōdai-ji), Zō-Yakushiji-shi (造薬師寺司) and Zō-Daianji-shi (造大安寺司) were established at the various official temples, and were run with the same status organization as the Mokuryō — ōkitakumi, sukunatakumi, chōjōkō, banjōkō. These men held public office and were classed as ryōge no kan (令外官, officials outside the codes).
In time the temple-construction offices run on the state budget were abolished; the temples had to maintain themselves by their own resources, and each temple came to establish a construction bureau (zōji-sho 造寺所) within its own organization. The master builders belonging to these came to be designated by a ranked status organization of daiku (大工), gon-daiku (権大工), otona (長) and ren (連). Reading 大工 as daiku seems to have been in order to distinguish it from the official title read ōkitakumi.
The daiku was the highest responsible officer and at the same time a producer-like architect; the gon-daiku was the deputy commander; the otona were senior technicians; the ren meant the workmen under the otona.
In this era, then, there were various official titles and various names of rank organization, but the occupational name of the master builders directly engaged in construction was kodakumi (木工).
In the first half of this period, owing to the increase of construction projects and to financial difficulties, many of the temple-construction offices of Nara were abolished, and separately from the Mokuryō a Repairs Office (修理職, shuri-shiki) was established to take charge of the repair and upkeep of existing buildings; it was run with the same rank organization as the Mokuryō — ōkitakumi, sukunatakumi, chōjōkō, banjōkō.
The large existing temples likewise set up within their construction bureaus not only a carpentry division but also earthworks, tile-work and smithing divisions; the Tōdai-ji construction bureau was run with daiku, gon-daiku, otona and ren, and the other temple construction bureaus with a rank organization named daiku (大工), indō (引頭), otona/chō (長), and ren/tsura/tsure (連). Depending on the building site, the deputy commander might be called gon-daiku, ko-daiku (小工), indō or bantō (番頭), and the ren might also be called retsu (列) or makkō (末工).
Thus building craftsmen not belonging to the Mokuryō appeared as temple carpenters (寺工) of the great temples, and by the end of the Heian period they had formed at their respective temples craft guilds called "za" (座), or "mokkō-za" (木工座, carpenters' guilds).
According to building records of the late Heian period, at the roof-raising of the Golden Hall on Kōyasan there were the daiku Tamesue (大工為末), 2 indō, 12 otona and 59 retsu; and at the koto-hajime (event of commencement) of the Great Pagoda of Kōyasan the old documents record the daiku San'i Fujiwara no Kunitō (大工散位藤原国任), 2 indō and 8 retsu. The koto-hajime is the chōna-hajime (first-adze rite) of the groundbreaking ceremony.
According to the old documents of the shrines, construction was carried out at Katori Jingū with daiku, waki-takumi (脇工) and ko-daiku (小工); at Ise Jingū with tō-takumi (頭工), tō-dai (頭代) and ko-daiku; and at Kumano Shrine with daiku, bantō and otona.
Thus even in the Heian period there were many appellations for the ranks of the master builders engaged in wooden construction, but the occupational name of the craftsmen was still generally written 木工 and called kodakumi.
In the encyclopedia Nichūreki (二中暦), completed in the early Kamakura period, among those introduced as technical occupations there appears 木工 (kodakumi), mixed in with painters (eshi), fine-craftsmen (saiku), Buddhist-image carvers (busshi) and others. From this we know that even then the occupational name of those directly engaged in building was "kodakumi."
At the same time, however, in the Kōya Kōhaiki (高野興廃記, "Record of the Rise and Decline of Kōya"), an old document of the early Kamakura period, it is recorded that "at the time of the repair of the Great Pagoda of Kōyasan, nineteen banshō (番匠) came from Kyoto, and one of them was a taifu-daiku (大夫大工)." A taifu-daiku was a commander of advanced building technique who came from the Mokuryō or the Repairs Office and had been granted high court rank.
Also, in an old document from the slightly later construction of the Hokuen-dō pagoda [Northern Round Hall] of Kōfuku-ji, there appears a record listing: banshō daiku 2, indō 8, otona 20, ren 11; tile-roofing daiku 1, indō 2; tile-making daiku 1; smith otona 2; caster (imoji) daiku 1. In every case the "daiku" here means a commander or leader.
The point to note here is that the woodworkers who came from Kyoto and the temple carpenters of Kōfuku-ji are called "banshō" (番匠). We can see that at that time, in both Kyoto and Nara, the occupational name was beginning to change from "kodakumi" to "banshō."
By inference: from about mid-Heian, with the decline of the Mokuryō and the Repairs Office, woodworkers not attached to those offices — like the temple carpenters — formed "za" and began to operate; and among those woodworkers, the craftsmen who held roles like the banjōkō of the Mokuryō came, as craftsmen keeping watch by turns (番をする匠), to be called banshō as a civilian occupational name, in place of the official title banjōkō. The accepted theory today is that the word banshō appears from the medieval period and that its origin is the banjōkō of the Mokuryō.
On the ridge-tag (munafuda 棟札) of the main hall of Muroodani Shrine (室尾谷神社) in Kyoto, affixed at the close of the Kamakura period, it is recorded that the daiku Munetaka (大工宗高), a master craftsman of the Southern Capital [Nara], erected the shrine hall, and that Fujiwara no Kuniie (藤原国家), a banshō of Tango Province, erected the covering structure (ōiya 覆屋) that stands enclosing the hall. A munafuda is the tag nailed to the ridgepole at the ridge-raising ceremony, recording the date of the work, the patron, those in charge of the work, and so on. Here the daiku is written above the banshō in precedence.
In the Kamakura period, the Yamato region centered on temple-rich Nara was the flourishing place of construction; but with the Muromachi period, through the [building of the] shōgunal palace and the restoration of the temples and shrines of Kyoto, the Kyoto region became the center of construction activity.
And the word banshō, which had appeared in the early Kamakura period, came through the following Muromachi period to be recorded frequently in the documents and ridge-tags of temples and shrines, and banshō spread more widely than kodakumi as the occupational name.
Around the middle of the Muromachi period, the term tōryō (棟梁) begins to become general as the title of the quasi-commander of building craftsmen. On the ridge-tags of temples and shrines of this time we find rank orders such as daiku–tōryō–kodaiku (大工・棟梁・小工), daiku–tōryō (大工・頭領), or dairi o-daiku–tōryō–Yoshida daiku (内裏御大工・頭領・吉田大工).
Until then the word tōryō had been used to indicate the head figure of monk or warrior society, a person commanding a group; before mid-Muromachi it was not generally used as the occupational title of the commander of building craftsmen.
It may be an influence of the craftsmen in the exclusive service of the Ashikaga shōgunal house — protected by the authority of that house, which appeared at the start of the Muromachi period — who became active in the ranked hierarchy of o-daiku (御大工), tōryō (棟梁), banshō (番匠). Most of them were temple carpenters of Zen monasteries or banshō attached to the temples and shrines of Nara.
As the age advanced, the role of tōryō, at first a quasi-leader position next after the daiku, or next after the daiku and gon-daiku, attained by the end of the Muromachi period a leadership position equal and comparable to the daiku. And by about the middle of the Azuchi-Momoyama period, the tōryō, in place of the daiku, came to hold the position of highest leader and commander of building works.
One great cause of this was the total collapse in this era of the "za," the organization of building craftsmen. The daiku-shiki (大工職) — the right to contract construction — also disappeared. The membership of the "za" attached to temples and shrines alone could not answer the great building demands of the daimyō — the construction of castles and castle towns — and it became necessary to gather craftsmen widely, free of the fetters of the "za" organization. In the process of the dissolution of the "za" and the reorganization of craft organization, the newly rising craftsmen, the tōryō, are thought to have raised their standing.
At almost the same time, the occupational name of the craftsmen directly engaged in building changed from banshō to daiku. The Shinchō Kōki (信長公記, "Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga") records the highest responsible master builder of Azuchi Castle as o-daiku tōryō (御大工棟梁), while daiku is used as equivalent in rank to the banshō under the tōryō. In the old documents of the Kaga domain at the end of this era, likewise, daiku is treated as the same rank as banshō. In this era there were still documents using daiku in the sense of leader and commander, but the occupational name of craftsmen directly engaged in building — daiku, replacing banshō — was beginning to become general.
With this era, daiku as the occupational name of the craftsmen directly engaged in building permeated widely in place of banshō and became the general term. On Edo-period ridge-tags too the ranks are recorded in the order daiku-tōryō (大工棟梁), tōryō, ji-tōryō (次棟梁, second tōryō), daiku — and the characters for banshō disappear. In the shōgunal capital of Edo there also formed daiku-machi (大工町), quarters where people of the occupational name daiku lived in a body.
From then until today, the occupational name of artisans directly engaged in wooden construction is daiku, and the masters are called tōryō. (A skilled veteran carpenter, however, is also sometimes called tōryō as an honorific.)
Moreover, this Edo period being called the century of the artisan, many artisans appeared bearing the name daiku: miya-daiku (宮大工, shrine carpenters), machiya-daiku (町屋大工, townhouse carpenters), funa-daiku (船大工, shipwrights), kuruma-daiku (車大工, cartwrights), hata-daiku (機大工, loom-wrights), tategu-daiku (建具大工, joiners), kagu-daiku (家具大工, furniture makers), okeya-daiku (桶屋大工, coopers), and so on. Hence daiku came to be used also in the sense of a general term for artisans who handle and work wood, not only in wooden construction.
It was in the Edo period, with the wide spread of the artisan name daiku, that the woodworking tools they used came to be called "daiku-dōgu." From exactly when in the Edo period the term came into use is not yet precisely known.
According to my present investigations, the characters 大工道具 ("daiku-dōgu") appear in the great encyclopedia Wakan Sen'yōshū (和漢船用集), published in 1766 in the era of the tenth shōgun Tokugawa Ieharu. Also, according to the "History of the Kiya" (木屋の歴史), in 1791, in the era of the eleventh shōgun Tokugawa Ienari, the "Edo Guild of Wholesalers of Carpentry Tools and Forged Edge Tools" (江戸大工道具打刃物問屋仲間) was formed. From this we know that by that time the term "daiku-dōgu" was in wide use.
As for the kinds of these carpentry tools: they were not merely the tools used by building carpenters; since the artisans who handle and work wood were then also called such-and-such daiku, I think the woodworking tools those artisans used were included as well. This, I believe, is why, when one says daiku-dōgu, even tools not used by building carpenters are placed within the category — a practice continuing to this day.
Incidentally, in the Edo period, even one who had become a carpenter's apprentice, completed his training, and become a full-fledged building carpenter could not set up independently and take orders for house construction unless he held the right called a daiku-kabu (大工株, carpenter's share). This was because in the early Edo period an organization called the daiku-nakama (大工仲間, carpenters' association) was formed under shogunal sanction, and the number of daiku-kabu was fixed. This was in a sense a closed system protecting the vested rights of carpenters; it was abolished in the Meiji era.
This time I have recounted by what occupational names the master builders or artisans directly engaged in wooden construction were called from antiquity to the early modern period, and have pointed out that up to the Heian period the name was "kodakumi" (木工), in the medieval period "banshō" (番匠), and from the early modern period "daiku" (大工).
From this, strictly speaking, we ought perhaps to distinguish by era "kodakumi tools," "banshō tools," and "daiku tools"; but since they were the tools of people directly engaged in the same wooden construction, I think we need not force the point, and may call them all "daiku-dōgu." Still, since misunderstanding arises, the history of the changes of appellation should be known.
Again, the category "daiku-dōgu" includes tools that the wooden-construction carpenter does not use; but through the appearance in the Edo period of many wood-handling, wood-working artisans called such-and-such daiku, the woodworking tools they used were also, I believe, placed within "daiku-dōgu." Today, interpreting broadly, we call all these woodworking tools "daiku-dōgu."
Also, the word "tōryō," now meaning the carpenter's master, entered vigorously from about the middle of the Muromachi period and rose in status; I think the appearance of the word tōryō derives from the ranked hierarchy of the carpenters in service to the Ashikaga shōgunal house.
What I have related in this essay has heretofore been almost never discussed, and misunderstandings have arisen; I hope that the many people connected with carpentry tools will come to know these things, and I look forward to further survey and research.
(References)
- My book Daiku-Dōgu Bunkaron (大工道具文化論, "A Cultural Theory of Carpentry Tools"), 2015
An auspicious day, August, Heisei 29 (2017) Suzuki Kanamono-ten, Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店) Representative Director, Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭)
Translator's note: Three pages — Introduction; a long central page with sections (1) Antiquity, (2) Late medieval to early modern, (3) Modern to contemporary, (4) Chiyozuru Korehide and the kiridashi; Conclusion. Dated "an auspicious day in August, Heisei 28 (2016)." The author states no one had previously written a detailed history of this knife. Chronological caution: the central page dates the Wakan Sansai Zue to "the last years of the sixth shōgun Tokugawa Ieshige, Shōtoku 3 (1713)" — a slip; series 1 of this file gives the sixth shōgun correctly as Ienobu, and Ieshige (the ninth shōgun) belongs to the Wakan Sen'yōshū dating that follows. Translated as written, with the discrepancy flagged here. The three tumulus/artifact datings (e.g. a "late Jōmon" bronze tōsu from "Misakiyama kofun") are the author's statements. 末古刀期 is rendered "sue-kotō period (final phase of the old-sword era)."
From of old, among the types of small edged folk implements used in wooden construction, woodworking, wood carving, bamboo craft and the like, there are the "kiridashi kogatana" (切出小刀) and the "kuri-kogatana" (繰り小刀). The kiridashi kogatana is also called simply "kiridashi" (切り出し). Kuri-kogatana is also written 刳り小刀.
The basic form of the kiridashi kogatana is that of a thin, plate-like, single-bevel knife whose unsharpened portion is gripped in the hand; the obliquely set edge, with forge-welded steel (hagane), is broad, and the point of the blade is sharply acute. There are versions consisting of the bare steel plate without handle or sheath; versions in which the hand-gripped portion of the plate is wrapped with rattan or the like; and versions fitted with wooden handle and sheath.
This blade may be called an all-purpose knife serviceable for every use. Its simple form makes it easy to make; it is the first blade that apprentices training under an edge-tool smith make in the course of their training. As a blade it is sturdy and yet keen of edge. Today, events are held at which ordinary people make a kiridashi kogatana under the guidance of a smith.
The kuri-kogatana has a narrower blade width, a longer edge length, and a point still finer and more keenly acute than the kiridashi kogatana. It is used for precise shaving in places that chisel or plane cannot reach — the curved parts of board offcuts, moldings (kurigata), and the like.
Since the kiridashi kogatana has no particular constraint in its form of use, today kiridashi of every size, with ingenuity lavished on their shaping and ornament, are made by carpentry-tool smiths, swordsmiths, kitchen-knife smiths and others. They are made not only as practical implements but as kiridashi of an art-object character, and are collected by kogatana enthusiasts as collections in the manner of Japanese swords. Kiridashi made by famous smiths are traded at high prices.
I have long been interested in this edged folk implement, the kiridashi kogatana, and have investigated its history in various ways. Since no one has yet discussed the history of the kiridashi kogatana in detail, I shall publish the results of my investigations here in our shop's "History of Tools" column, in the hope that enthusiasts of the kiridashi and researchers of carpentry tools will carry the investigation of this knife further.
The spread of iron implements in Japan began in the Kofun period, and from many tumuli iron "tōsu" (刀子) are excavated as grave goods. The oldest excavated iron tōsu come from 4th-century tumuli of the early Kofun period, in Kyoto Prefecture and elsewhere. As royalty and the great magnates were buried in the early tumuli, the appearance of the tōsu among grave goods shows how much value that blade then had as a rarity.
A bronze tōsu has also been excavated from the Misakiyama tumulus (三崎山) in Yamagata Prefecture, of the late Jōmon period. This tōsu is said to have been made on the Chinese continent about 3,000 years ago.
The tōsu is a kind of single-bevel small knife for cutting and shaving, some 15–30 cm in length. In general its point is not acute like that of the kiridashi kogatana but has a ring-pommel form (kantō), and its edge is not an oblique edge but a straight edge. It seems to have been used like today's small all-purpose knives.
From the 6th century onward it came into wide use, and tōsu with luxuriously ornamented hilts and sheaths appear. In an age when paper was precious and wooden and bamboo writing slips were widely used, this tōsu was also used as a kind of eraser for shaving away and correcting miswritten characters. It was not a weapon for combat but existed mainly as a kind of stationery used by literati and civil officials. Among the Shōsō-in treasures there are tōsu of that age.
As for the kiridashi kogatana, there are no examples of excavation from sites or tumuli. Nor is one held in the Shōsō-in. One might suppose the kiridashi was not preserved because it was an ordinary folk implement without value; but in that age iron itself was a great rarity, and the common people could scarcely own iron articles of any kind. It is therefore better to think that the kiridashi kogatana did not yet exist.
The sword enthusiast Mr. Toyama Noboru (外山登), in his internet blog "On Japanese Swords: On the kogatana among sword fittings," states that the tōsu is conjectured to have become, from about the sue-kotō period (final phase of the old-sword era) — the end of the Muromachi period into the Azuchi-Momoyama period — a kind of accessory of the sword, as a sword fitting.
The small blade that went from "tōsu" to being called the "kozuka kogatana" (小柄小刀) continued thereafter to be used not as a weapon but as an all-purpose blade for daily use. It is distinct from the tantō (短刀) and the aikuchi (匕首).
With the Edo period, encyclopedias introducing carpentry tools came into the world. There is the Wakan Sansai Zue (和漢三才図会), said to have been published around Shōtoku 3 (1713), in the last years of the era of the sixth shōgun Tokugawa Ieshige [sic — see translator's note]. In its section 24, "The Tools of the Hundred Crafts" (百工具), there is a small blade named "kogatana" (小刀). That kogatana, it says, is fitted with handle and sheath, which may be ornamented; it is convenient for shaving bamboo and wood, cutting paper, and use in woodworking. Its Japanese name is given as 古加太奈 (kogatana); and in the accompanying picture the blade is a straight-edged single bevel with a rounded, unpointed tip — an entirely different form from what is today called the kiridashi kogatana.
There is the great encyclopedia Wakan Sen'yōshū (和漢船用集), written in Hōreki 11 (1761), at the close of the era of the ninth shōgun Tokugawa Ieshige, by the Osaka shipwright Kanazawa Kanemitsu (金沢兼光), and published in Meiwa 3 (1766). In its volume 12, "Section on Carpentry Tools" (大工道具之部), under "kogatana," is written: "Japanese name kogatana (古加太奈); there are large, medium and small; those with narrow blades are called kuri-kogatana; there is also the kiridashi kogatana" (和名 古加太奈 大中小アリ 其刃 細キ者繰小刀ト云 又切出小刀アリ). So far as my searches of old documents extend, the Wakan Sen'yōshū is the first appearance of the written words "kiridashi kogatana."
Its form is not shown in a picture, but from the description it seems to be today's kiridashi kogatana and kuri-kogatana. Accordingly it appears that by this time the shipwrights of Osaka were already using it. But whether the kiridashi and kuri-kogatana were in use nationwide, and roughly when they appeared, remains unknown today.
Also: Siebold, the German physician and naturalist, came to Japan in Bunsei 6 (1823), around the middle of the era of the eleventh shōgun Tokugawa Ienari in the late Edo period, stayed five years until Bunsei 11 (1828), gathered vast materials on Japan and took them back to Europe. On the basis of those materials he published NIPPON (日本) (1832–1851). In this work many of the carpentry tools he collected are also presented. Among them are one kuri-kogatana with handle (柄付繰小刀), one kiridashi kogatana whose iron grip portion appears wrapped with rattan, and one broad large-format kiridashi kogatana (幅広大型切出小刀).
There is the illustrated dictionary Dōgu Jibiki Zukai (道具字引図解), published in Genji 1 (1864) at the close of the era of the fourteenth shōgun Tokugawa Iemochi; carpentry tools are introduced in it, but nothing whatever is recorded concerning the "kogatana."
Complete sets of the carpentry tools used by several shrine-carpenter master builders (miya-daiku tōryō) of the late Edo period survive, but in none of them is a kiridashi kogatana or kuri-kogatana to be found.
From these facts we know the kiridashi kogatana existed; but whether it was a blade little used by carpenters and the other artisans, or was regarded as a mere edged folk implement and never taken seriously, or had simply not spread widely among artisans — such things can be conjectured, but nothing is yet clearly known.
Hitherto writing had been done with ink and brush; but in the elementary-school education begun in Meiji 5 (1872), since pencils had not yet sufficiently spread, pupils at first wrote on slate tablets (sekiban) with slate pencils (sekihitsu). In time, pencils came to be imported and then produced domestically.
Thus from about the middle of the Meiji era, the kiridashi kogatana came into favored use as a stationery implement for sharpening pencils — so states Mr. Nozawa Matsuo (野沢松男), a researcher of writing implements and stationery. By this, the kiridashi kogatana, hitherto a blade of artisans only — of wooden construction, woodworking, wood carving, bamboo craft — spread widely among the general populace.
In the late Meiji era, the folding knife "Higonokami" (肥後守) was devised and began to be manufactured in Miki, Hyōgo Prefecture, and this Higonokami in its turn came to be used for pencil sharpening.
According to Mr. Nozawa Matsuo, by the Shōwa 30s (from 1955) almost everyone had come to use the Higonokami as the pencil-sharpening implement. The kiridashi kogatana returned, as before, to being a blade used mainly by artisans.
With the Shōwa era there appeared a smith who took this kiridashi kogatana — till then a mere edged tool — and, working it with creative ingenuity into sculptural, art-like form, raised it to the plane of a refined work of art: the great master of carpentry-tool smithing, Chiyozuru Korehide (千代鶴是秀). Born in Meiji 7 (1874), he died in Shōwa 32 (1957) at the age of 84 [as given by the author], and in the course of his life made many masterpiece kiridashi kogatana.
Into the kiridashi he made he himself cut inscriptions in accomplished calligraphy with a chisel (tagane), and housed them in paulownia boxes on which he wrote with brush the work's name, its provenance and his own signature. Chiyozuru Korehide was the first tool smith to treat the kiridashi kogatana in this way.
Chiyozuru Korehide made kiridashi before the end of the Pacific War as well; but especially after the war's end he grew ever riper as a smith of edged tools, and produced numerous masterpiece kiridashi. The masterpieces of Chiyozuru Korehide's kiridashi are presented in Chiyozuru Korehide (千代鶴是秀; text by Tsuchida Noboru 土田昇, photographs by Akiyama Minoru 秋山実) and elsewhere.
To make a kiridashi kogatana is simple; yet for the smith it is said that one "begins with the kiridashi and ends with the kiridashi" — so deep is it, so fascinating a blade-work, and at the same time a work in which the smith's skill and character appear unmistakably. In that sense it may be called, for the smith, a truly fearsome work.
Since then many edge-tool smiths have walked the road Chiyozuru Korehide opened and made kiridashi; and smiths have appeared of whom it may be said that they reached the plane, never before attained by anyone, of Chiyozuru Korehide. One is the swordsmith Katō Chōzaemon Shinpei II (２代目加藤長左衛門真平), known also as the edge-tool smith Suishinshi Fujiwara Yoshiaki II (２代目水心子藤原良明). He retired from active work in Heisei 12 (2000) and died eight years later at 92, leaving many masterpiece kiridashi from his late years.
The other is Chiyozuru Sadahide II (２代目千代鶴貞秀), now 72 years old. He is a plane smith (kanna-kaji), but through the study of the Japanese sword and other pursuits he has ripened, and in recent years produces splendid masterpiece kiridashi works.
The work by the late Fujiwara Yoshiaki II [pictured] is a piece I received three years ago, when I visited the forge of Fujiwara Yoshiaki III in Takane-chō, Hokuto City, Yamanashi Prefecture, as a courtesy in return for a copy of my book which I presented. It is finished as a well-proportioned, refined work.
The work by Chiyozuru Sadahide II — a kiridashi in yarikanna (spear-plane) form with the signature "Tenshaku" (天爵銘槍鉋型切出小刀) — is a piece I purchased this July, captivated by its splendor, when I visited the "Third DENSAN Craftsmen's Exhibition by Production Region" (産地選別 第３回 ＤＥＮＳＡＮ ザ・職人展) held at the Traditional Crafts Aoyama Square in Akasaka, Minato Ward, and saw it displayed in a glass case at the back of the hall.
As a kiridashi it attempts what no one had yet attempted: an irregular hamon like the gunome-midare (互の目乱) temper pattern of the Japanese sword, a pear-skin (nashiji) surface pattern, and a well-proportioned beauty of form — splendid in every regard; it may be called one of the finest masterpieces of Chiyozuru Sadahide II.
This time I have spoken of the "history of the kiridashi kogatana." This small blade was not among the principal carpentry tools; and although it has been much used by artisans of woodworking, wood carving, bamboo craft and the like, of the kiridashi before the Meiji era almost no actual examples, records or materials survive. Unlike swords and sword-fittings, the kiridashi was, we may gather, a small blade held in that much less regard.
It was Chiyozuru Korehide who turned the spotlight on this utterly unremarkable small blade, and that is his achievement. Some call Chiyozuru Korehide's kiridashi-making a kind of play, or a side-craft; I do not think so. Certainly there were the physical limits of age in forging planes and chisels; but those carpentry tools are always constrained in form by their use, and are not things ordinary people care to own.
The kiridashi kogatana has no such constraint; it has the delight of free creative invention. That requires artistic sense together with advanced forming and forging technique. Chiyozuru Korehide was captivated by this kiridashi-making, and with strong will poured into it all the technique and artistic sense won from his long smithing life, opening a new horizon.
At all events, if by reading this essay you have come to know the history of the kiridashi kogatana; Chiyozuru Korehide, who opened a new horizon in kiridashi-making; and the names of the swordsmith Katō Chōzaemon Shinpei II and the plane smith Chiyozuru Sadahide II, who attained the plane he created — then my purpose is fulfilled.
An auspicious day, August, Heisei 28 (2016) Suzuki Kanamono-ten, Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店) Representative Director, Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭)
References
- My book Nihon no Daiku Dōgu Shokunin (日本の大工道具職人)
- The entries "Tōsu" (刀子) and "Higonokami" (肥後守) in the free encyclopedia Wikipedia
- Internet materials: "The Bronze Tōsu of Misakiyama" (三崎山の青銅刀子); "Pencils and the History of the Japanese Pencil Industry" (鉛筆と日本の鉛筆工業の歴史); "Archives," A Modern History of Familiar Tools (身近な道具の近代史「アーカイブス」), Fukuoka City Museum; the entry "Kiridashi" (切出し) in the Nihon Dai-hyakka Zensho encyclopedia