It is a well known fact that
workplace ‘Health & Safety’ courses are necessary.
When lifting a heavy load always remember to bend your knees, not your back.
Yet, however necessary, they are also eyeball-rollingly renowned for pointing
out the seemingly obvious; so obvious, in fact, that we often forget to do
exactly that – bend the knees! … But,
not all workplace ‘Health & Safety’ instruction courses are necessarily boring – it very much
depends on the workplace …
The other week I was lucky enough
to be given a lesson in how to handle Japanese swords safely.
Having worked for many years in
museums, I have a very broad experience in handling a wide variety of objects,
from tiny Mesolithic microliths to large sculptures weighing several tons. A
variety of pieces of equipment are required to handle such artefacts safely –
with both the safety of the object, and your own personal safety as the
object’s handler, each being equally important. In some cases, where the object
is particularly fragile it’s important to handle the object correctly so as to
ensure your handling of it doesn’t hasten the artefact’s deterioration – this
may simply be by wearing gloves so that unseen oils and moisture from your
hands do not transfer onto the object’s surface, or wearing a face mask so that
moisture from your breath doesn’t land on, say, a delicate painted surface if
you need to examine the item up close. Or it may be the need to wear steel
toe-capped footwear if you are moving a large stone sculpture – not all objects
travel in the same orientation in which they are displayed, consequently you
may also need to know how to operate heavy lifting gear, or be qualified to
drive a forklift as well. The general rule for working with objects in museums
is that all objects should be treated with due care and respect, and no such
job of work can be rushed. Forethought, planning, preparation, and awareness
should always be the rule.
Another rule which I believe always
remains true (and this is something I take care to stress when I’m giving
object handling instruction courses), is that no matter how long you’ve worked
in a museum environment, nor however familiar you are with a particular
collection of objects, even if you work with such objects on a daily basis – you
never know it all. You should always expect the unexpected!
Each object is
unique, and not least in the sense that each artefact has its own particular
weaknesses, damage repairs, or dormant corrosion areas (which may reactivate),
which may be invisible or may well have changed since you last handled that
very same object. Take nothing for granted. Working in a museum is very much
like Heraclitus’s river – it’s never the same. Whenever you pick up an artefact
you should do so with the same care and attention as though it were the very
first time you were picking it up (and, by-the-by, if you ever go for a job
interview for a museum technician’s post, this is probably the key point which
the interviewers will most want to see demonstrated that you clearly understand!).
This, though, is also one of the
joys of working in a museum – there’s always something new to learn ... Hence
why I was being shown how to handle Japanese swords. There are several key considerations
to bear in mind when handling this kind of object. They are real marvels of the
metallurgical arts. It’s often hard to credit that they are of such antiquity
when they often look so new and modern; not simply because their shape seems
modern, but rather because the quality of the metal seems so sleek and pure. It
is a testament to how well they have been cared for through the centuries, having
been passed down from one generation to the next.
The two particular swords which we
used to learn the basic procedures each dated from the 15th Century.
They are both wakizashi (脇差)
– a side or companion sword, the shorter of a pair (daishō 大小)
worn by samurai, and each are stored in plain wooden ‘sleeping scabbards.’ The
scabbards naturally enough are formed of two parts, a long section for the
blade and a short section for the blade’s tang (the fittings for the sword
having been dismantled and stored separately). The two pieces form quite a snug
fit and it can be quite a challenging task to ease them apart. Needless to say,
the first time you attempt this it is hard not to be a bit wary as you are all
too aware of the extreme sharpness of the blade concealed within. It’s best to
inspect the scabbard first to ensure it hasn’t cracked or split at all. Like
all museum objects, they need to be kept in a stable environment which
maintains temperature and humidity. With your hand placed firmly around the
back or top (blunt) edge side, you should draw the sword handle out with your
other hand, and then ease the blade covering portion away.
The tang is fixed into the handle
portion of the scabbard with a wooden peg (mekugi
目釘) that passes through a small hole in both
the wood and the metal tang (mekugi ana 目釘穴).
You push this peg out using a wooden punch, yet the tang often remains tightly
settled within its housing, so you need to deftly ‘knock’ it out. Again this is
quite a daunting task for the first-timer, because the correct way to do this
is to hold the sword upright in front of you (with the sharp edge facing away),
holding your arm straight and slightly away from your body, you then have to
thump the top of the hand holding the sword with the underside of your free
hand made into a fist – this has the affect of ‘popping’ the sword from the
tang housing (the weight of the blade keeps it from jumping clear of the
wood!). This does get easier (and less daunting) with practice, but as the
blades can settle into and become stuck in the wood, particularly if they’ve
been stored in their sleeping scabbards for quite some time, you may well end
up with a fair few self-inflicted bruises on the point where your hand meets
your wrist as you repeatedly thump away harder and harder!
The blades themselves are periodically
polished and cared for with oil. Before putting them on display they are
usually cleaned, a light dusting of uchiko
(打ち粉) powder can be applied and wiped off with
a soft cloth. There is a set technique for doing this – first you draw the
cloth from the centre of the blade to the tip, and then from the centre to the
tang. This is primarily so that you do not transfer any possible rust which
might be present on the tang to the blade itself. This respect for care and cleanliness
is key.
It’s important to bear in mind
exactly what kind of object the sword actually is when handling it, for in
Japan especially, the sword is not simply a deadly weapon – it is also a work
of skilled and artistic craftsmanship; and, as such, it is heavily imbued with
a distinct spiritual essence. My long-time friend and colleague (now retired),
Victor Harris, is one of the world’s leading authorities on Japanese swords and
is a skilled practitioner of Kendo (剣道). He has
summed this up best in his book Cutting
Edge: Japanese Swords in the British Museum (2004):
“In
traditional Japanese culture every workplace has a shrine dedicated to the
deity of that particular profession, and sword-making is no exception. The
concept of cleanliness is applied to man as well as material, and the smith
will bathe and purify his thoughts in preparation for the job. Each process is
governed by the practices of Shintō, the native religion of Japan, in
which the deities of nature commune with man in his professions and other daily
activities. It is often said that Shintō is not a religion but a set of
working principles. Whereas it has no specific moral teachings, its great
precepts include cleanliness, respect for materials and traditions, and an
awareness of the spiritual nature of the world around us.”
As a practical ethos we would do
well to echo this mindfulness in our approach to the curatorial aspects of
handling and storing ancient artefacts.
The two swords we were practicing with
were, as I’ve said, each made in the 15th Century, during the
Muromachi period (1392-1573). They are both pictured and described in detail in
Victor Harris’s catalogue (No.s 2 & 3). The first dates to around 1400-1428,
from Bizen Province (present day south-eastern Okayama Prefecture), and is
signed by the swordsmith, Yasumitsu of Osafune village. The second is a little
later. It is signed and dated by the swordsmith, Norimitsu, also from Osafune,
in 1449. It was also subsequently modified, having been shortened possibly to
fit a second owner who was perhaps shorter in physical stature than its first.
These wakizashi were worn at all
times, both indoors and outside, whereas their longer companion swords, or katana (刀),
would only have been carried when out of doors as a pair with the wakizashi. In appraising the quality of
a particular sword’s craftsmanship there are many elements to look for, the
most notable perhaps being the grain and the hamon (波紋), or ‘the badge of
the blade’ – the crystalline pattern formed along the hardened edge of the
blade (often seen as an undulating, smoky burnish along the blade’s cutting
edge), which is a result of the technique by which the blade is heated until it
is red hot and then quenched by plunging into a bath of cold water. There is a
detailed lexicon of terms used to describe all the many aspects and variations
which characterise Japanese sword typologies and manufacture techniques, to fully
understand all the intricacies would require a lifetime of dedication and study,
and indeed many of the traditions of sword-making are still practiced and
passed on across Japan to this day by the descendents of the same families who
created these swords in the 15th Century (click on the images of
each sword above to read more about them).
Further Reading:
Cutting
Edge: Japanese Swords in the British Museum by Victor Harris (London: British
Museum Press, 2004)
The
Japanese Sword: The Soul of the Samurai by Gregory Irvine (London: Victoria
& Albert Museum/Weatherhill, 2000)
* * *
Victor Harris will be giving a lecture entitled 'Sword: The Essence of Japanese Art' at the British Museum, Saturday July 12th, 2015 at 1:30pm. More information & how to book here
* * *
Listen to another friend of mine,
Greg Irvine from the V&A Museum, on the BBC Radio 4 programme, ‘In Our Time’ - discussing ‘The Samurai’
here
All
images (except the image of the book) © The Trustees of the British Museum
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