The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (36 page)

2. The handle of our swords fits the size of our hand; theirs is over one span
⁴
in length, and sometimes up to three
.

Frois clearly has in mind the civilian sword or rapier that was worn by European elites (relatively light-weight; quick to unsheathe; great for dueling or fending off a thief). As Frois noted in
Chapter 1
(
#34a
), the Japanese cutlass was gripped with both hands. Placement of the hands varied depending on one's technique and power, much as a baseball player varies his grip of a baseball bat (i.e. some like to “choke up”).

3. Our men carry their swords in baldrics; their men have a hook on their sash es
.

The heavier long sword used by European military required a sling-style belt, or baldric, that hung over one shoulder. The low side of the baldric tended to be lower than the Japanese
obi
, so that European swords often hung way down the thigh. Although the Japanese
katana
originally was carried on a hook on the
obi
(as Frois suggests here), by 1585 most Japanese men were tucking their swords directly under or between the wraps of the
obi
(what Frois termed a sash).
⁵

4. Our men wear a sword on one side and a dagger on the other; the Japanese always wear their sword and dagger on the left
.

By the time Frois left Europe (1548) the parrying dagger was a regular accompaniment to the dueling sword or rapier. As Capwell points out, fighting with dagger and sword amounted to a new, fearsome fighting style; it also created an opportunity to indulge in yet more fashion accessorizing.
⁶

The “dagger” mentioned here by Frois was, in the Japanese case, more like a small cutlass. Because the Japanese themselves sometimes referred to this smaller cutlass, or
adaga
, as a dagger (
wakizashi
), Frois is reflecting rather than creating a confusing nomenclature. Generally, the sword or
katana
was for battle and the dagger or
wakizashi
for self-defense (a warrior going into a building left his
katana
on a rack and kept his dagger with him.
⁷
)

Apparently the Japanese did not always wear their
adaga
to one side, since Avila Giron
⁸
wrote that it was worn crosswise over the stomach.

5. Our daggers are short; some of theirs are more than half the length of their cutlass
⁹

Again, Frois uses dagger to refer to the Japanese
adaga
, thereby creating a contrast that only makes nominal sense and which is clarified below (see
#11
).

6. On our swords we hang our gloves; they hang a cord that serves no purpose
.

The gloves frequently worn by Europeans during swordplay otherwise hung from the sword handle. During a military campaign the Japanese “sword knot” functioned to secure a scabbard to the outside of the
obi
. As noted, by Frois' time most Japanese tucked their swords inside their
obis
, so the “sword knot” was largely a vestige of former times.

7. The people of Europe are accustomed to thrusting during swordfights; the Japanese never do so
.

The most famous swordsman in Japanese history, Miyamato Musashi, who was born in 1584, included thrusting strokes in his “Water Book” or second volume of
The Book of Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho)
, a treatise on sword fighting and “the
proper way of the warrior.” Still, the stabbing or thrusting that is characteristic of Western fencing
¹⁰
seemingly was never a first resort in Japan. In 1560, Hayashizaki Jinsuke Shigenobu founded a school of swordsmanship that standardized fighting techniques. Shigenobu emphasized mastery of fluid motion, self-defense and, if necessary, killing an opponent with one swift stroke of the sword.
¹¹

8. Among us, swords of good quality iron are given to lords as gifts; in Japan, they give them wooden swords with scabbards made of cloth
.

European swordsmiths of the sixteenth century in places such as Milan crafted swords that were not only beautiful to look at—decorated with gold, silver, enamels and jewels—but wonderfully balanced and highly effective at stabbing and cutting. Such swords made great gifts for those seeking to endear themselves to a rich merchant, prince, or king.
¹²

For almost a thousand years before Frois' time, the rulers of Japan received gifts of wooden swords called
tsukuridachi, kidachi
or
kodachi
. These swords were worn on mostly ceremonial occasions. As Frois points out, the swords were carried in special “cord bags” (
tsurubukuro
) that resembled quivers (one Japanese dictionary defines them as “bags that were not really bags”). The Japanese also had
bokuto
, blunt wooden swords that served for exercise and were sometimes used in matches between heads of schools. (Made of heavy oak, they could kill.) They also had the equivalent (while also opposite) of the Euro-American square-edged foil, which was post-Frois. These tubular swords, or
shinai
, are made of strips of bamboo that are bound at intervals with strips of leather. They produce an extraordinarily pleasant sound when they collide. Even today, one-on-one
shinai
matches are part of physical education (
kendo
classes for both sexes) in all public schools in Japan. Because “
xinai
” appears in the 1604 Japanese-Portuguese dictionary, they probably predate Frois.

Frois overlooked a perhaps more interesting “ceremonial weapon,” the
hamaya
, which are demon-destroying arrows with no head that ordinary people still acquire at shrines as talismans to undo a bad event or year and to insure happiness in the future.

9. We place nothing more than a sword in our scabbards; the Japanese place a knife in one side of theirs, and in the other a kougai that serves no purpose
.

The knife mentioned here by Frois apparently is a pocket knife of sorts called a
kogatana
. The
kougai
, which is almost as old as the wooden swords mentioned above, was almost as long as a chopstick, about twice as thick and rounded at one end. Often it was made of ivory or silver, and at least as far back as the eleventh century nobles used the
kougai
to scratch their scalp or re-arrange their hair after putting on their armor. By Frois' time the
kougai
was largely superfluous. Subsequently, women adopted it as a “hair pin.” (The
kougai
worn by women
generally were made of gold, silver or tortoise-shell.) During the peaceful Edo period, the
kougai
was split in two and became
wari-kôgai
, portable chopsticks for samurai.

10. If our swords are of high quality, they are very costly, even when new; in Japan the new ones have no value, and it is only very old swords that are expensive
.

The Japanese still revere swords “with a history,” swords that have proven themselves, particularly in battle. Japanese sword technology reached its apogee in the early fourteenth century and by the sixteenth century the secrets of the old sword smiths had been lost.
¹³
Thus, very old swords often were worth more than new ones.

Frois may never have heard Japanese legends or stories associated with their valued swords.
¹⁴
Even still, you would think that he would have appreciated how legends and stories might have mattered, given the famous swords of European epic heroes such as Arthur, Charlemagne, or El Cid.

11. Among us, one carries at most one sword and one dagger; the Japanese sometimes wear two swords and a wakizashi on their belt
.

Generally speaking, more Japanese men wore three blades than did their European counterparts. With two “swords” and a
wakizashi
, we might assume that the latter is the dagger. Actually, it is hard to say, for the
wakazashi
had a cutting blade one to two feet in length, while the small “swords” (
kogatana, tanto
) had blades sticking out less than a foot beyond their blade-guards.

12. Our knives generally have wooden handles; Japanese knives have handles made of copper or other metals
.

The Japanese knives are the “small swords” already mentioned.

13. When we cut with a knife, the movement is usually either toward the body or from left to right; the Japanese always cut away from the body
.

While Europeans and Americans learn
not
to point a gun at themselves or others because one never knows when it might be loaded, the Japanese have traditionally taken great care when handling sharp blades; they neither whittle toward themselves nor when examining a sword in company allow the cutting side of the blade to face others.

14. Our prayer beads, as well as our crosses, are always turned on a lathe; the Japanese frequently make theirs with a knife, and these turn out just as well as those made using a lathe
.

Small lathes, often consisting of a hand-held bow that was used to spin a piece of wood that simultaneously was carved, have great antiquity in various parts of the world, including Europe. During the sixteenth century pole lathes also were common throughout Europe. The lathe amounted to a treadle-operated rope or pulley that rapidly moved a piece of wood back and forth in a reciprocating rather than a continuous, spinning movement.

The Japanese had lathes as early as at least the eight century. Between 764–770 CE they were put to work producing a million miniature pagodas containing Buddhist incantations, which the Empress Shoken distributed to ten monasteries.
¹⁵
Even so, making religious items by hand was itself a form of devotion (not unlike the
santeros
of New Mexico who are inspired to carve wooden images of particular saints). People carved everything from statues of the Goddess of Mercy to prayer beads. Because the focus of the chapter is weapons and war, Frois presumably was not deprecating Japanese technology (an absence of lathes) but praising the quality of Japanese blades and the skill of Japanese workers.

15. We generally cut our nails using scissors; the Japanese always cut theirs with a knife
.

As discussed in
Chapter 1
–
#28
, the Japanese seem not to have had much use for scissors and preferred quality knives for cutting things like cloth or their nails.

16. The leaves and twigs that we gather from trees to adorn gifts, the Japanese make by hand using their kogatanas
.

The Japanese did not simply whittle replicas. Their foliage, if that is what it stood for, resembles the “tinder sticks” made by Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, but the shavings are much finer and longer, so they curl like a ribbon. This art form may have originated with the Ainu, who are perhaps the world's most prolific shaving artists.

17. Our lances have long, broad blades; the blades of their lances are short and narrow
.

The lances carried by mounted European cavalry often had spear points that looked something like the ace of spades (Frois' “broad blades”). Charging in formation, such cavalrymen were very effective in shattering and breaching enemy infantry lines.

The Japanese had various lances and Frois focuses here on the most common variety (
yari
), which had a double-edged blade from twelve to twenty-nine inches in length. If thrusting through armor or simply stabbing a body is the main intent (the
yari
was not thrown), a short and narrow blade is quite efficient. The
yari
was standard issue for Japanese infantry (
ashigaru
) during the “Warring States period” (1467–1568).
¹⁶

18. Our lances are smooth, [
the shaft being
] the natural color of the wood; theirs have either lacquered or gilded shafts
.

Originally, Japanese spear shafts were made of natural wood, but during the sixteenth-century it was common to cover the wood with black lacquer, mother-of-pearl, or vermillion; the last was retricted to those who had distinguished themselves in battle.
¹⁷

19. We use halberds; they use naginata shape d like a sickle
.

European halberds were ferocious looking infantry weapons: spears with a sharp point as well as an axe-like head (angled in such a way as to add some slice to the hack) that also featured a prong or hook jutting out the back, which was effective in pulling horsemen to the ground.

The
naginata
was more like a curved sword on a long shaft. Traditional varieties, which feature large blades, look a lot like sickles. During the Edo era, when the
naginata
became the official weapon of noblewomen, the blade shrunk to knife length and became even more curved. (Japanese “Easterns” often include scenes where
naginata
are whirled around like huge batons in defense of lords and castles.)

20. We use bombards; they do not have them, but they do use matchlocks
.

The bombard originally was a stone thrower but came to mean a cannon or mortar, which used gunpowder to shoot cut stone balls or lead shot weighing up to 200 pounds. Cannon and artillery (more mobile cannons) proved particularly valuable in siege warfare in fifteenth century Europe and were used with great success by Portugal's King Afonso in his “conquest” of Morocco.
¹⁸
The effective use of cannon contributed to the end of the medieval castle as we know it and the appearance of “star forts,” which themselves used strategically placed cannon and a system of cross firing to counter artillery bombardment and other siege tactics.
¹⁹

Although the Japanese were very quick to adopt European firearms,
²⁰
they were decidedly slower to manufacture and make use of cannon.
²¹
Perhaps this lack of interest was due, in part, to Japanese fortifications, which often were temporary constructions of brush or wood.
²²
That said, in 1576 Nobunaga began construction of Azuchi Castle, which had massive stone walls and was described by Frois as comparable to the greatest buildings in Europe.
²³
Subsequent castles that were
inspired by Azuchi (e.g. Osaka, Fushimi, Himeji) and erected by Nobunaga's successor, Hideyoshi, were likewise on a grand scale.
²⁴