Hank Reinhardt's The Book of the Sword (30 page)

But don't let the reaction to the hype fool you. The Japanese sword is a superb sword even without the hype. Certainly no weapon in the history of man has had as much care, attention and love devoted to it as the Japanese katana. Old heirlooms are treasured and kept, and have been throughout the history of Japan. As a result there are swords extant that are over a thousand years old still capable of being used in combat.

I have had a chance to examine one of these rare treasures, and will relate the anecdote. I have to admit the anecdote is rather flattering. (If it were unflattering, I wouldn't mention it.)

Back in the mid 1970s, I was attending a weapons show with a close friend who is a knife maker, and can produce Damascus blades of exceptional beauty, toughness, and sharpness. While chatting with a dealer who had a few modern katanas, the subject of the old Japanese swords came up. It turns out that the dealer was also a collector and had just recently sold an old katana to the Japanese government for "over $150,000" and was delivering it that evening to their rep. The sword had been dated to the 13th century and authenticated to the name of the maker (which I have forgotten). He asked if I would like to see it, and I immediately agreed. From under the table he took out a box, opened it, unwrapped a sheathed sword and handed it to me. Not wishing to be gauche, I went through the usual formalities of unsheathing a sword, but as the sword started to clear the sheath I was unable to contain myself, and fully unsheathed the blade and held it in both hands.

Let me say up front that I am not a metaphysical type. I am a hard-nosed realist, and I don't believe in crystals, spirits or magic. I will, when frustrated, curse an inanimate object with great venom and originality, but I really don't think it works.

I held the sword in my hands, glanced around the show, and realized that I could cut down everyone in the place, and no one could stop me. I held the sword in my hands; I did not make any silly passes or poses or any of the nonsense that is designed to impress the onlookers. Instead I held the sword, and I felt a strange power course through my body. It was with great reluctance that I handed the sword back. Had I had $200,000 in my pocket I would have paid it even if it meant starving for months. Alas, I did not have the money. We continued talking, and he commented that my friend's Damascus knives were incredibly good, and shortly I took my leave.

At last I fully understood Ewart Oakeshott's comment about "a sword that woos you to strike!"

Shortly afterwards, the blacksmith friend (Jim Fikes of Jasper, Alabama) came back from talking to the collector, and he was laughing. I asked him what was so funny and he wanted to know what I did when I held the sword. I told him that I didn't do anything.

"Waal," he said in his Alabama drawl, "he said you had a touch of the samurai about you. I told him you
were
crazy as hell, and asked him what he meant. He said that when you picked up the sword, it looked like you thought you could cut down everyone here without any problem, and would really like to do it."

I hadn't realized it showed. . . . 

But how good is the Japanese sword, and what is the truth about it?

The Japanese are a most meticulous people. A great deal of their handiwork is not merely excellent, but actually borders on genius. Metal serpents, with each scale articulated, birds of steel, with wings that hold whatever position you put them in, and so lifelike that you expect them to fly: in so many areas the handiwork is incredible.

So too with the sword. The Japanese sword makers created truly beautiful weapons, and it is easy to see why the Japanese sword was traditionally regarded as the "soul of the samurai."

A brief history of this sword is in order.

Early Japanese weapons were directly descended from swords from the mainland. We know this because there are many excavated swords that are very similar to Chinese swords of the same periods. Aside from the single-edged swords mentioned above, there are swords that are straight, with parallel double edges and a sharp point. Modern terminology would call them cut-and-thrust weapons, since they were capable of both. These early swords are of iron, and do not appear to have been of layered construction. However, I have not been able to find any reports of any metallurgical analysis of these blades in the various books and papers on these early swords.

While the Japanese will admit to the influence of China in the early blades, they feel that the later developments are strictly their own. This is particularly true in the manufacturing process (which we will deal with a little later in this chapter).

Sometime between 400–500 AD the Japanese increased the use of both horse and bow, eventually combining them to produce horse archers. This is a little strange, as the majority of Japan is quite mountainous. But there are central flatlands, and it is probably there that the Japanese horse archer developed. This adoption and reliance on the horse could easily have been a contributing factor toward the development of the katana. Regardless of how effective the horse archer is, there are times when combat comes down to swordplay, whether afoot or on horseback, and curved swords have been preferred by horsemen all over the world.

This is not to say that horse archers were the only force, but only that they were the dominant one. The spear was also used on horseback, not in the European mode of couching the lance, but rather in stabbing and cutting on both sides of the rider. But the horse archer was favored, and even today they still practice the art of the bow while on horseback.

The samurai class began to develop in the early Heian period. The social forces that combined with both religious and economic forces are not fully known, and it is not in the province of this book to go into this type of detail. Suffice it to say that the samurai class developed into the upper crust of Japanese society, and remained that way until the 19th century. But do not think that all warriors were samurai, or that all samurai were warriors. This varied greatly both with time and location.

Japanese swords present a unique contrast when compared to European swords. Whereas the Europeans tried very many types and styles, straight single-edged, straight double-edged, curved cutting swords, thick butcher-type cleavers, wide and sharply tapering swords, slim thick bars of steel to punch through armor, and later, long thin rapiers, the Japanese adopted one type of sword and stuck with it. It is quite easy to see a sword and tell whether it is Japanese or not.

 
Samurai with katana (left) and samurai with tachi (right).

To the untrained Western eye, all Japanese swords look the same. One might notice that in some the grip is curved and the blade straighter, or that this blade has a little more curve than the other, but that is about all the average Westerner can tell. However, to the trained eye there are many differences, and many experts are stunned to hear someone say that they all look alike. But then I have heard some say the same thing about Viking swords and later medieval ones.

The Japanese sword can be classified in two ways. When worn thrust through the waist sash with the edge up the sword is called a "katana." When strapped to the waist with the edge down it is called a "tachi."

Generally speaking, the tachi is usually longer, and often somewhat more curved than the katana. The usual katana has a blade length of about 27 inches, while the tachi has a blade length of 28 inches. But this is a most general statement, and meant only as a rough guide.

For instance, the great duelist Kojiro Sasaki had a katana about five feet overall, which he called his "clothes pole." He was a contemporary of the most famous Japanese duelist, Myamoto Musashi. Interestingly, I have encountered several versions of Sasaki's duel with Musashi. The most common version has Musashi arriving late to the island. He rows up to the island, out of the rising sun, with a very long oar on his shoulder. He then marches up to Sasaki, who cannot see the length of the oar, and promptly bashes Sasaki in the head. This was perfectly acceptable behavior in ancient Japan. It would appear that equal opportunity was not important as far as dueling was concerned.

Another important sword was the wakizashi. The wakizashi was a proportionately smaller katana, and made with the same painstaking and loving care that was lavished on its big brother. This was a short sword with a blade length of about 16–20 inches. In the later years, when worn with the katana, the two in combination were called "daisho." Only the samurai were allowed to wear the two swords.

Reproduction wakizashi. HRC104.

The wakizashi was a very convenient item to have. In the low-ceiling rooms favored by the Japanese it was a formidable weapon. It was the custom for a samurai to remove his katana when entering a dwelling, but he continued to wear the wakizashi. In sudden encounters, the wakizashi could be quicker out of the scabbard, particularly when the action was close. Musashi, observing the Portugese play with sword and dagger, developed his famous two-sword school, with katana in his right hand, and the wakizashi in his left. (The Portugese first arrived in 1543.) This can be a formidable combination to face under any circumstances and, when the wielder happened to be Musashi, it was really bad.

Another formidable sword was the "odachi," or as some have it, the "no dachi." In the wonderful film
The Seven Samurai
this is the sword carried by the Toshiro Mifune character. It is a really long sword, and often they were wider than normal as well, sometimes as much as 1-3/4 of an inch. Sometimes these swords reached lengths of over 5 feet 6 inches. More about these in the following chapter.

There is one example of a double-edged katana, a very famous sword called "Little Crow." The blade is double-edged for about half its length. It was probably made in the 10th or 11th century. It is a beautiful sword, but the style never gained much favor. I feel that this could been due to two factors. One is that it would be more difficult to produce, and two, the steeper angle required by having two edges would affect some of its cutting power.

"Little Crow" Japanese sword.