Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully aspossible. Some apparent errors in the use of diacritical marks havebeen amended.
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JAPANESE SWORDS
YAMANAKA & CO.
127, New Bond Street, London.
April, 1913.
[Pg 1]
JAPANESE SWORDS
MONGST the numberless articles of Japanese attire, works of art or merehousehold objects which the Restoration of 1868 compelled the Japaneseto cast upon the market, none has met with such wide fame and yet withsuch a limited study as the Sword. When, in 1877, the Governmentprohibited the Samurai from wearing any longer the two swords which hadbeen the privilege and distinctive mark of their martial caste, theImperial wish was obeyed, notwithstanding the feeling that something wassnapping in the life of the nation. Blades had been treasured forcenturies, handed from father to son, looked upon as the soul of theowner for the sake of which he would refrain from any deed unbecoming agentleman; some possessed histories going far back into the eleventh andtwelfth centuries, when the country was at war within itself, aroundothers were entwined romances, and above all, the sword was the faithfulfriend with which the Samurai might honourably end his life, either inthe field or on the mats. A blade given by a father to his daughter onher wedding day was the emblem of that purity of life which the womanwas expected to keep, and it was also the weapon with which she mightseek repose in death, should occasion arise. The Restoration breaking upthe old feudal system compelled the Samurai to part with their worldlygoods to secure the necessities of life, the rich became poor, the poorlost all support, hence anything which might tempt the foreign buyerwent swiftly out of the country; the circumstances had become rathermore straitened for the Samurai class when the edict of 1877 compelledthem to put aside their swords, and blades followed the lacquer, thepaintings, the carvings which eager curio buyers snapped at inadequateprices. Many swords of first quality crossed the waters, besidesthousands of poor blades which could be bought in dozens in the storesand bazaars of the old world. Hardly any attempt was made at keeping inthe country any blades except those which were, so to speak, entailedheirlooms or those whose owners refused to part with at any price.Later, a few earnest people banded themselves into a Society for the[Pg 2]preservation and study of the National weapon: the Sword Society ofTokyo, which has published, during the last twelve years, a mass ofinformation about swords. Collecting swords has become a nationalpropensity, and the modern sword lover may have more blades, carefullykept and oft admired, than his ancestor of a century ago who could onlywear two at a time. Magazines have sprung into existence dealing onlywith the sword and its accessories. Both in Europe and in Americaarticles on the sword have been published, most of which, bas