Live·Awataguchi lineage

粟田口

The Yamashiro Awataguchi School

The aristocratic school of early-Kamakura Kyōto. From a workshop near the Awataguchi gate, a family of brothers — Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu and their kin, the so-called Six Kuni — forged the most refined jigane in Japan, a tradition that culminated in Tōshirō Yoshimitsu and Shintōgo Kunimitsu.

Era

1180 — 1320

Members

Kokuhō

Jūbun

Jūbi

Tokujū

Jūyō

118

For Sale

70smiths10Kokuhō45Jūbun33Jūbi48Tokujū118Jūyō

Branches— schools this lineage shaped

正宗MasamuneSoshu · Teacher → Student · certain 則重NorishigeSoshu · Teacher → Student · certain 行光YukimitsuSoshu · Teacher → Student · certain 國廣KunihiroSoshu · Father → Son · certain 大進房DaishinboSoshu · Father → Son · probable 國廣KunihiroFather → Son · probable+4 more branches

粟田口派 · Yamashiro Awataguchi kakeizuLineage v0.1 · live data

The Yamashiro Awataguchi School (粟田口) Lineage

The The Yamashiro Awataguchi School (粟田口), active 1180–1320 in Yamashiro Province across 70 documented smiths: 10 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 45 Jūbun, 33 Jūbi, 48 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 118 Jūyō.

Phase 1 · The Yamashiro Awataguchi School (粟田口) · 1180 – 1320

70 smiths · 10 Kokuhō · 45 Jūbun · 33 Jūbi · 48 Tokujū · 118 Jūyō

Major smiths

Yoshimitsu (吉光) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Toshiro Yoshimitsu of Awataguchi in Yamashiro, active in the mid to late Kamakura period, is introduced by the published sources with one recurring sentence: he is the smith who crowns the close of the Awataguchi school[[c:1]], and he stands together with Shintogo Kunimitsu of Sagami as "a master of the tanto and a virtuoso of suguha"[[c:2]]. The same notices record that in the Edo period he was celebrated with Masamune and Go as the Three Great Works under Heaven (天下三作), and that among the three he was "placed foremost and most highly treasured"[[c:3]]. His teacher is held to be Kuniyoshi, and the published record anchors the filiation in the work itself: the varied forms of his tanto correspond entirely to shapes found in Kuniyoshi, and the connection, the NBTHK writes, is readily accepted. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku. The forms of his tanto are remarkably varied: blades broad and somewhat compact, slender yet elongated, broad and long, and of standard proportions, nearly all hira-zukuri with uchizori. Within that variety the hand is constant. His celebrated temper is suguha, often a narrow *hoso-suguha*, laid in fine bright *ko-nie* under a bright, clear *nioiguchi*. Small *ko-gunome* are aligned in the lower half toward the *yakidashi*, and the tempered width narrows around the *fukura*. *Ashi* enter, delicate *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* work through the edge, and at times the line carries a *nijuba* effect. The *boshi* turns back in a calm *ko-maru*, and beneath it on the *sashi-omote* the notices repeatedly mark a linear dropping of *nie* into the *ji*, the so-called kuisagari of nie[[c:4]], a habitual trait of his hand. Beneath the temper lies the Awataguchi jigane at its full refinement, and the published sources recognize two forging modes in it. One is a *ko-itame* so tightly packed that it is called nashiji-hada (梨子地肌), the pear-skin surface; the other an *itame* of somewhat larger pattern in which the hada stands a little. In both, fine *ji-nie* adheres thickly and evenly, fine *chikei* enter, and a *nie-utsuri* rises in the *ji*. The steel itself, notice after notice, carries a moist luster (潤い) and is conspicuously clear. Nearly everything he made is a tanto. The published record long held that his only surviving work outside that form was the meibutsu Ichigo Hitofuri (一期一振藤四郎), the tachi once in the collection of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and since retempered; in recent years a signed wakizashi became known, regarded as an early form of the uchigatana[[c:5]], formerly of the Naruse family of Inuyama and published in the Kozan Oshigata. Its signature placement agrees exactly, the sources record, with the ubu tang of the Ichigo Hitofuri as drawn in the Kotoku sword albums. He signed his work: forty-five pieces of record carry a mei against four without, the standard form a large two-character mei cut below the mekugi-ana of an ubu nakago. The calligraphy is itself an object of scholarship. The published sources value the fluent brushwork of his mei as "unrivaled through the history of sword inscriptions"[[c:6]]. The comparative judgments in the published sources are concrete. Of a small tanto with narrow mihaba and exceptionally thick kasane, they write that such a construction is hardly to be seen in the Rai school, that it belongs to the varied shapes of Awataguchi, and that compared with Rai works "the nie of ji and ha is a degree thicker, and felt more strongly"[[c:7]]. Toward his teacher Kuniyoshi the relation is continuity: the slender, elongated silhouette of certain pieces is the same manner seen in the teacher's work. Within his own school, the notices add, his individuality can be grasped clearly through the *gunome* near the base, the narrowing toward the *monouchi*, and the dropping of *nie* beneath the *boshi*. His signed ubu tanto are in turn the standard against which every Yoshimitsu attribution is measured. Seventy-one of his works stand on record. Four are National Treasures and nine are Important Cultural Properties, patrimony preserved in museums, shrines and long-held collections; beneath them stand seven Tokubetsu Juyo and fourteen Juyo, twenty-one blades in those tiers. The Kyoho Meibutsu-cho lists sixteen of his blades headed by the Hirano Toshiro (平野藤四郎), and with its fire-lost and supplementary sections the count reaches thirty-eight. The blades that survive carry their histories openly. The Nabeshima Toshiro (鍋島藤四郎) passed from Nabeshima Naoshige through the Ikeda to Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, and was thereafter handed to each shogunal heir at his coming of age; the Asakura Toshiro (朝倉藤四郎) is named for Asakura Yoshikage of Echizen; one tanto was given by the shogun Iemitsu at the birth of his son Tsunashige and later worn by the sixth shogun Ienobu; another was received by Kyogoku Takatsugu from Tokugawa Ieyasu in Keicho 5. In all, thirty-nine blades carry recorded provenance, running through the Ashikaga shoguns, the Imperial Family, Matsunaga Hisahide, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Owari and Kishu Tokugawa, the Maeda, the Kuroda and the Asano. The National Treasure and Important Cultural Property examples stand permanently outside the market, and of recorded whereabouts twenty-two works rest with institutions, among them the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, Atsuta Jingu, the Maeda Ikutokukai and the Sano Art Museum, against eleven in private hands. A Yoshimitsu coming into the open is among the rarest events in the field; for most collectors he is a smith to be studied in the great collections rather than possessed.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1293-1322. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. In the tenth month of Einin 1 (1293), a blade left the Kamakura forge of Shintogo Kunimitsu bearing the long signature Kamakura junin Shintogo Kunimitsu saku[[c:1]], the oldest of his dated works. The published sources count Awataguchi Kunitsuna and the Bizen smiths Kunimune and Sukezane as the pioneers of Kamakura sword-making, settlers from older centers; the first smith of Sagami itself, who cut his Kamakura residence and his dates into the nakago, was Kunimitsu[[c:2]]. His designation texts open with one standing sentence for half a century: he is the de facto founder of the Soshu tradition, and the raising of the three masters Yukimitsu, Masamune and Norishige is counted his great achievement[[c:3]]. Tradition makes him the son of Awataguchi Kunitsuna and a pupil of Bizen Saburo Kunimune, a transmission the sources say still leaves room for study. His dated work runs to Gentoku 3 (1331), and a tanto of Showa 4 (1315) signed with the Buddhist name Koshin is read as late work, beside the dates of Kagen and Tokuji. What survives is, before all else, the tanto: hira-zukuri and mitsu-mune, of ordinary width with uchizori, ubu and signed with the two-character mei. The sources state his formula in a single sentence: at a glance the work suggests Awataguchi, but the conspicuous chikei and kinsuji expressed in ji and ha point to this smith[[c:4]]. He excels in suguha across its whole range, ito, hoso, chu and hiro[[c:5]]; as a master of the tanto he is paired with Toshiro Yoshimitsu, the two named twin peaks (短刀の名手として藤四郎吉光と双璧). The temper is bright with small nie, crossed by fine kinsuji that flicker; the appraisers have called this play the old man's whiskers (翁の髭) from of old and count it the great point of his work. Honma adds a habit of the hand: the temper ordinarily hardens down past the machi toward the mune; a few authentic pieces instead drop the yaki slightly there. The boshi runs sugu to a calm ko-maru, at times lightly swept; suken, bonji and gomabashi are carved on many blades, and the kanmuri-otoshi construction recurs. The jigane is where his Awataguchi schooling shows. He forges a ko-itame or a tightly knit itame, and lays over it ji-nie thick and often mijin, minutely fine; chikei enter incessantly, the steel is clear, and nie-utsuri frequently stands. The standing hada that came to mark the mature Soshu tradition is almost wholly absent in his own blades, and grows only by degrees in the men after him; the sources note it chiefly in his rare midare work, while the norm is a surface so refined it passes for Awataguchi until the chikei and kinsuji betray it. The ha-nie of these quiet lines is singled out as well, the light-beautiful nie the texts call particular to the upper rank of Soshu work[[c:6]]. From this refined, nie-laden suguha his three pupils drew out the nie-midare of the mature tradition. Tachi are another matter: the sources repeat that nearly everything extant is tanto and the tachi exceedingly rare[[c:7]]; the survivors are slender, with high koshizori, funbari and a compact point, forged exactly as the tanto. At their head stands the meibutsu Mutsu Shintogo, an ubu signed tachi of 76.1 cm with layered horimono, heirloom of the Date of Sendai, by tradition a grant from the Emperor Go-Mizunoo, and listed in the addenda of the Kyoho Meibutsu-cho as no meibutsu, yet a fine tool[[c:8]]. The osuriage mumei katana attributed to him belong here too, and the sources are explicit that such a judgment names Kunimitsu and his three sons collectively[[c:9]]. One such blade carries a Kyoho 7 (1722) origami of Hon'ami Kochu at seventy gold pieces. A small minority departs from the suguha norm altogether: a Juyo Bijutsuhin tanto tempers its lower half in a large midare, the text stating plainly that his midareba is scarce and this piece well made. Honma reads in that scarcity the proof of the school: midareba exists, if rarely, in Kunimitsu, and suguha, if most rarely, in Masamune, the two together confirming the relation of master and pupil. A single katakiriha tanto, retempered, is the only one of its construction in his work. The name ran on past the founder. The old registers give him three sons, Kunihiro, Kunishige and Kuniyasu, all said to have signed Kunimitsu later, and only Kunihiro is met with under his own name; since the hands cannot yet be divided by workmanship, the sources divide them by the mei. The founder's two-character signature follows the rule the appraisers call saji kitakanmuri (左字北冠), the interior of the kuni character cut in the left-hand manner with the crown set toward the mune, in both a fine and a thicker chisel, and the texts admit rare authentic exceptions. On tachi the mei sits on the haki-omote toward the mune; an ubu signed odachi of 96.1 cm is read as Kunihiro's Kunimitsu mei from its workmanship and deep, bold carving. The carving is itself a legacy: the layered horimono later seen in Sadamune is judged to begin with Shintogo, and the work on his blades is connected with Daishinbo Yukei, transmitted as his pupil and a master of the chisel. Much of this oeuvre is patrimony. Four blades hold the rank of National Treasure and ten more are Important Cultural Properties, preserved in museums, shrines and long-held collections; seven are prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, among them tanto of the Seikado and the Kurokawa Institute. The provenance roll runs deep. The meibutsu Kojiri-toshi Shintogo passed from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Osaka treasury through the fire of the summer siege, was retempered by the first Yasutsugu, and descended in the Tokugawa shogun house; his tanto are handed down in the Uesugi of Yonezawa, the Echizen Matsudaira, the Satake, the Hosokawa and the Ogasawara, and one blade entered the collection of W. A. Compton in recent times. Fujishiro rates him Sai-jo saku, and seventy-two designated works stand on record, the great majority signed with the two-character mei in an ubu nakago, the long signature met only a few times. What a private collector may realistically encounter is the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tier, eight and forty-two blades, fifty in the two tiers together, most of them signed tanto of the classic refined manner. Such pieces are held closely and reach the market only rarely; when one does appear, it carries the signed work of the smith in whose forge the Soshu tradition began.
Kuniyoshi (國吉) — Mainline · 1275-1278. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Nearly every published designation text on Awataguchi Kuniyoshi cites the meibutsu Narukitsune, the Crying Fox, a large hira-zukuri wakizashi bearing his long signature Sahyoe-no-jo Fujiwara Kuniyoshi[[c:1]], and newly judged blades are still read against its manner. Kuniyoshi is recorded as the son of Norikuni, by some accounts his pupil, and a grandson of Kunitomo, eldest of the six Awataguchi brothers of Yamashiro; his younger brother was Kunimitsu. Transmitted as either his son or his student is Toshiro Yoshimitsu, the celebrated master of the tanto. A tanto dated Koan 3 (1280) survives, and the sword drawings of the old books preserve dates of Kenji 4 (1278), Koan 6 (1283) and Koan 10 (1287); by these the published sources confirm the traditional sequence of the Awataguchi generations and fix him in the middle Kamakura period. The published record describes his manner in a settled formula: a finely kneaded *ko-itame* rich in *ji-nie*, beautiful in effect, and a *suguha* in well-attached *ko-nie* mixing *ko-midare* and *ko-gunome*, the *ji* and *ha* together judged "a degree stronger than the Rai works"[[c:2]]. Above everything stands the *nijuba*, the doubled line that runs conspicuously along the *ha* and is cited again and again as his greatest point. The Kaifunki already names it his habit: "as a habitual mannerism there is often *nijuba*, and silver often floats in the *ji* as in a cast object"[[c:3]]. At times the line trebles into *sanjuba*, often formed of *yubashiri* strung along the edge, and on more than one blade it carries into the *boshi*. *Ashi* and *yo* enter frequently, *kinsuji* and fine *sunagashi* work through the *ha*, and the *nioiguchi* is repeatedly described as bright and clear. The *boshi* is typically straight with a refined *ko-maru* turnback. The *jigane* carries the school's name. He forges a *ko-itame* mixed with *ko-mokume*, kneaded extremely tight, over which *ji-nie* sits dust-fine and thick with delicate *chikei*, until the steel takes on the so-called *nashiji-hada*, the pear-skin steel of the Awataguchi idiom. *Nie-utsuri* stands over it, at times with a faint *jifu*-like tone mixed in. The Kokon Meizukushi praises the taste of his steel as a gleam deep in the color of the *ji*, "like the silver of a tenmoku bowl dusted with ash"[[c:4]]. His certain signed tachi number only two. One has long been an Important Cultural Property; the second surfaced only at its Juyo designation in 1997, a slender, elegant blade of high *koshi-zori* with *funbari*. A third, shortened, with a two-character mei low on the tang, was admitted at its Tokubetsu Juyo designation as extremely close to those two. The tanto are comparatively many and carry most of his signatures, the ken number several, and the Narukitsune stands apart as the single great wakizashi. The tanto shapes, stubby and wide like a kitchen knife, ordinary, slender and elongated, or wide and elongated, in *uchizori* or without curve, are called "remarkably diverse"[[c:5]] and opposed to the uniformity of the Rai school; like Yoshimitsu he often works the temper down over the *machi*, and *gomabashi* or *bonji* are carved on many. The unsigned blades are the more numerous, *o-suriage* katana of wide *mihaba* and shallow *wa-zori* with the *chu-kissaki* pulled in *ikubi* fashion, where the *suguha* grows busier with *ko-choji* and *gunome*, *ashi* and *yo* thick. On these the *nijuba* is the point on which the judges anchor the attribution, and one *ayame-zukuri* katana is judged to give the very impression of a Narukitsune enlarged[[c:6]]. The ken are elegant, the point not flaring, often in *hoso-suguha* with the *boshi* *yakizume*, and "the ken of this maker often show strong *nie*"[[c:7]]. The signature is normally the two characters Kuniyoshi, the chisel running from fine to ordinary to thick, a variety ascribed to difference of period. On his relation to Yoshimitsu the published sources reason from the dates. Kuniyoshi has the Koan 3 tanto and the dated drawings of the old books; Yoshimitsu has no dated work at all, extant or recorded. Both made few tachi and excelled in tanto of unusually varied shape, and from this the judges find it reasonable to see the two not as father and son but as master and pupil of comparatively small age difference[[c:8]]. One text states plainly that together with Yoshimitsu of his school he produced many tanto, both displaying superior technique. The *nijuba* appears on nearly half of his records, only occasionally in Yoshimitsu's, and never in those of his father Norikuni; the *sanjuba* is met in his work alone among them; and it is on his records that the texts name the *nashiji-hada* outright. Fujishiro rates him Sai-jo saku, and fifty-one designated works stand on record. There are no National Treasures among them, but seven blades are Important Cultural Properties, his long-known signed tachi at their head, and five are prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, one a tanto formerly of the Aoyama viscount family of Sasayama. Eighteen blades hold the Tokubetsu Juyo rank and twenty-one the Juyo, thirty-nine in the two tiers together. The provenance roll is in keeping. A signed tanto with an origami of Hon'ami Koon descends in the Matsudaira house of Iyo Saijo, and a mumei tanto in the Reizei house of court poets; the Tokubetsu Juyo two-character tachi was owned by Okubo Ichio and passed to the Iwasaki house; a signed ken belongs to the Owari Tokugawa Reimeikai; and one signed tanto, by its scabbard inscription, was presented by Todo Takamutsu at a birth celebration in the Tokugawa house. Of recorded whereabouts today, examples rest in the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Kyoto National Museum and the Hikone Castle Museum, with others in private hands. For the collector, Kuniyoshi is by Awataguchi measure not wholly beyond reach. The Important Cultural Properties are patrimony preserved outside the market, but the thirty-nine blades of the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers are where a private example is met, most of them *o-suriage* *mumei* katana whose attribution rests on the doubled line along the *ha*. Such a blade comes to market only rarely, and is an event when it does; a signed tanto is rarer still, and a signed tachi, of which two certain examples exist, is among the rarest encounters the school affords.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1190-1199. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Awataguchi Hisakuni worked at the foot of the Awataguchi slope in Yamashiro in the early Kamakura period, and he is the second of the six Awataguchi brothers, the smith who used the personal name Tojiro (藤次郎). The published record sets the family out plainly: the founder is given as Kunika, and his sons were the six brothers Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo (国清), Arikuni (有国) and Kunitsuna (国綱). That a community of smiths already stood at Awataguchi is attested in the early-Kamakura tale collection Uji Shui Monogatari[[c:1]], so this is a forge with a documented place in the literature of its own century, not a later reconstruction. Hisakuni's standing inside that famous house is the first thing to recognise. The 14th Tokubetsu-Juyo entry calls his manner the most refined and dignified within Awataguchi work[[c:2]], and the 42nd Juyo entry ranks him foremost of the lineage in both technique and refinement of spirit. He is repeatedly named among the bangaji whom the Retired Emperor Go-Toba (後鳥羽院) summoned to forge on rotation at the cloistered court, and one record goes further and transmits him as a teacher to the sovereign (帝王の師). The history is not decoration here. It is the reason a slender tachi with so quiet a temper carries the authority it does. Recognise his hand by the pure Yamashiro register. Over a tightly packed ko-itame, finely worked and dense with ji-nie, he tempers a quiet suguha that leans into a shallow notare, with small gunome and a little ko-midare mixed in, ko-ashi and yo entering, the nioiguchi tight and bright, and kinsuji and sunagashi running in the ha. The boshi is a calm ko-maru, and very often it sweeps with hakikake; one Tokubetsu-Juyo katana records it exactly as a straight tip that brushes into a yakizume-like finish[[c:3]], and the same swept tip recurs across his katana and his tanto. The forging itself draws a recurring word from the appraisers, the so-called tataki-tsume look of a thoroughly consolidated jigane, and the Awataguchi steel praised of old as blue in colour with a white edge[[c:4]]. Among the brothers the connoisseurs single him out for nie. The 24th Juyo entry calls him the smith whose ji and ha carry nie most strongly, sometimes with a slightly coarse nie mixed in, while the 22nd Juyo tachi names him outright the most skilful forger of the six[[c:5]], its tight ko-itame and deep, faintly urumi nioiguchi recalling his younger brother Kuniyasu. His tanto show the same clarity in miniature: the wide, slightly curved Juyo-Bijutsuhin tanto is flagged as an unusual shape for Awataguchi, and the Honma note attached to it draws the very line that separates this house from its successors, the occasional eccentric proportion among Awataguchi tanto being a point of distinction from the Rai school. His place in the wider road of Yamashiro steel runs through that contrast with Rai. The refined nie-suguha he and his brothers fixed at Awataguchi is the wellspring the Rai masters drew from, and through them the eastern Soshu smiths after; one of the katana grouped with him even carries a gold-inlaid attribution to Rai Kunitsugu, a reminder of how closely the early Yamashiro and later Rai hands sit in the eye. Signed work survives in the smallest numbers, a few tachi and tanto, most of them the bold two-character mei cut now with a thick chisel and now with a finer one, with the rare long Tojiro Hisakuni signature confirmed against the old sword books Kotoku Toezu[[c:6]] and Kozan Oshigata (光山押形). The blades carry the names of the great houses: the Kishu Tokugawa[[c:7]] and the Date (伊達家), the Matsudaira of Saijo and the Akimoto, with one tanto authenticated by a Hon'ami Kotsune origami dated Enpo 9. For the collector the arithmetic is severe. A National Treasure and a small group of Important Cultural Properties stand to his name, several of them held in institutions, the Tokyo National Museum and Nikko Toshogu and Itsukushima Jinja among the recorded holders, where they can never trade. Only a handful sit in the Tokubetsu-Juyo and Juyo tiers, and those are spoken for by old daimyo provenance. A Hisakuni in private hands is therefore among the rarest things a student of the early sword can hope to meet, and when one appears it is the quiet, dignified, nie-laden suguha of the imperial forge, not the spectacle of a later age, that the buyer is acquiring.
Kunitsuna (國綱) — Mainline · 1240-1264. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Awataguchi Kunitsuna worked in early Kamakura Kyōto as the youngest of the six Awataguchi brothers, the eldest being Kunitomo, and he styled himself Tōroku Sakon. The published sources transmit that he later went down to Kamakura, summoned by the Hōjō, and there, together with Kunimune and Sukezane of Bizen, became one of the smiths who opened the way for the Sagami tradition. They also concede how little of his hand survives: genuine signed works that can be accepted with confidence are recorded as extremely few[[c:1]], the celebrated Onimaru Kunitsuna standing as the representative piece. He worked under the name 国綱, and a long ōdachi survives signed in full 鎌倉住藤六左近国綱 and dated 建長五年八月日, the only dated trace of the Kamakura years. The published sources draw a sharp line between him and the rest of the school. Awataguchi work is generally an earnest, classical elegance, but his shape, his forging and his temper are called distinctive: a tachi with high koshizori that does not droop toward the tip, a forging in which the itame stands large and prominent over thickly laid ji-nie, and a wide, varied temper in which the ha-nie is conspicuously strong[[c:2]]. The way both ji and ha are vigorously animated, the sources say, is precisely the hallmark of his art[[c:3]]. This is the recognition core: where his brothers refine, Kunitsuna pushes the nie forward, and the steel leans toward the bold Sagami manner that was about to be born. Over that jigane runs a suguha base in shallow notare, mixed with ko-midare, chōji and ko-gunome, with thick ashi and yō, the nioi deep and the interior of the ha thickly covered in nie; kinsuji run frequently, sunagashi hangs, and in places the habuchi shows hotsure with uchinoke and yubashiri. The jigane is the tight Awataguchi steel carried thick with ji-nie and chikei, often standing into ō-itame, with a mizukage rising from the togidame that connects into a jifu-utsuri-like midare-utsuri, an aspect the sources note as often seen in his work. The bōshi is where the older profile had to be corrected: it is not simply a calm ko-maru. On the Tokubetsu-Jūyō tachi it runs straight into a ko-maru with a slight kaeri and the point sweeps a little hakikake[[c:4]], and on the kinzōgan-mei katana it sweeps straight in hakikake toward a yakizume tendency[[c:5]]; elsewhere it enters midarekomi with a pointed turn. That swept, nie-broken point is as much his tell as the standing grain. The published sources are explicit that he has two faces. There are pieces in the orthodox Awataguchi manner, and there are works of a different cast, robust in form with a standing jihada[[c:6]]. The Onimaru belongs to the second, robust group; many of the surviving signed tachi belong to the first, where the forging tightens to a finer ko-itame, the temper a calmer suguha base, the whole quieter and more obviously of the court tradition. For the kantei eye the two faces share the same engine: the conspicuous ha-nie, the busy kinsuji and sunagashi, the midare-utsuri, and the swept hakikake bōshi. The subdued, sunken nioiguchi on the quieter tachi parts him from bright Bizen; the openly strong nie and the standing grain part him from the orthodox Awataguchi suguha of his brothers. The Onimaru is the heart of his fame and the reason a smith of so few blades is known to every collector. Its later transmission reads as a history of power, passing through the great houses and into the Imperial collection, where it survives as an Imperial heirloom and one of the Five Great Swords, shown to almost no one. The published record names, beside it, a Tokubetsu-Jūyō tachi once held by the Viscount Nishitakatsuji family and an Important Art Object once owned by the Aizu Matsudaira house, and counts among the Important Cultural Properties attributed to him the tachi preserved at Hie Shrine. The kinzōgan and kinpun attributions on several of the shortened katana, cut by Hon'ami Kōson and his line, show how seriously the Hon'ami house took a Kunitsuna ascription. For the collector this is among the rarest of the Awataguchi names. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jō saku, and his finest signed work descends through houses of the first rank: the Tosa Yamanouchi family held one kinzōgan-mei katana, and the Sendai Date family received another tachi from Konoe Motohiro and kept it as a treasured heirloom. A handful fall in the Tokubetsu-Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, with a small body of Important Cultural Properties, while the masterpiece itself can never leave the Imperial collection. A signed Kunitsuna in private hands is therefore one of the scarcest things a student of the early Kamakura sword can hope to meet, and the very scarcity is part of why his Sagami descent, by tradition the bridge that ran on to Shintōgo Kunimitsu and the Sōshū line, carries the weight that it does.
Norikuni (則國) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. The record of Awataguchi Norikuni centers on a slender signed *tachi* that preserves its original tang, with an old scabbard whose document of provenance states that Kitabatake Akiie received the sword from Emperor Go-Daigo; it passed Juyo in 1998 and rose to Tokubetsu Juyo in 2000. Norikuni, called Toma no Jo, was the son of Kunitomo, the eldest of the six Awataguchi brothers, and the father of Sahyoe no Jo Kuniyoshi; his dates are given as around Katei (1235 to 1238), the bridge generation between the *goban-kaji* age of his father and uncles and the *tanto* age of Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu. A prewar designation record adds the tradition that he served as a *goban-kaji* on Oki[[c:1]], the island of the exiled Retired Emperor Go-Toba. On one point the published sources never vary: surviving works with secure signatures, *tachi* and *tanto* alike, are very few. His *tanto*, the greater part of what survives, are *hira-zukuri* with *mitsu-mune*, of standard width, with *uchizori*. The *jigane* is a tightly knit *ko-itame*, the *ji-nie* dust-fine and thick, with fine *chikei* woven through. Over it he tempers a calm *suguha* in *ko-nie*, deep in *nioi*, taking in *ko-gunome* or a shallow *notare* with small *ashi*. Fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run within the *ha*, and the *boshi* turns back in a refined *ko-maru*, at times lightly swept. On the *omote* and *ura* he cuts *gomabashi*, often paired with a *suken*; the grooves are spaced narrowly and set close to the *mune*, a placement the published sources call "a habit common to the craftsmen of the school"[[c:2]]. The Kuroda *tanto* that bears his rather large two-character signature is judged sound in *ji*, *ha* and form alike, "one of the foremost works of this smith"[[c:3]]. The steel itself carries the school's name. Of the *ubu* unsigned *tachi* of Juyo session 46 the published sources write that the *ko-itame* is extremely tightly knit, the minute *ji-nie* giving "a moist, pear-skin surface"[[c:4]], with *nie-utsuri* standing and the steel clear. The signed *tachi* shows instead an *itame* mixed with *mokume*, somewhat large in texture yet thoroughly worked and warm, displaying, as the same sources put it, the celebrated virtues of Awataguchi *jigane*[[c:5]]; over it a faint *jifu-utsuri* rises. The published sources divide his manner by form. Among the *tachi* there are works in a *suguha*-based temper mixing *ko-midare*, but for the *tanto* "a calm, graceful *suguha* is general"[[c:6]]. The signed *tachi* register is the rarer one: a slender blade of high *koshizori* with *funbari*, closing in a small point, the temper dropped in a slight *yakiotoshi* just above the *machi*. Its activity gathers from the middle down through the lower half, in *ko-midare* with *ko-choji* and *ko-gunome*, while the upper reaches run a calm *suguha* and the *boshi* ends nearly straight with a *yakitsume* tendency. The thin, short *koshi-hi* on its *omote* is what the old texts call the *wasure-bi* (忘れ樋), the forgotten groove often met on Kamakura *tachi*. The *mei* is of two characters, and the form of the character kuni is noted as close to his son Kuniyoshi's, a point of attention in appraising his signatures. Hon'ami appraisals run the length of the record: an origami of Koon dated 1639 on the Matsudaira *tanto*, an origami of Kochu dated 1713, and a *shu-mei* thought to be the hand of Tadaaki, the nineteenth master; these are attributions by later appraisers, not signatures. So too the *katana* on which the late Edo smith Ishido Unju Korekazu cut an inscription recording that he had shortened a work of Norikuni, a document the judges call greatly treasured as source material[[c:7]]. Within the family his place is fixed by two observations that run in opposite directions. His *tanto* manner is common to Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu, but the published sources state that his *nie* is comparatively stronger[[c:8]]; of the *shu-mei* *tanto* they write likewise that "the *nie* within the *ha* is strong"[[c:9]]. Yet that strength never disorders the line. His *hamon* does not break into minutely complex small patterning, and the judges make this restraint itself the thread of appraisal, writing of the unsigned *tachi* of session 46 that the way the *hamon* does not become so intricately disordered in small patterns "is what connects it to the signed works of this smith"[[c:10]]. The *midare* hand of the school belonged to his uncle Kuniyasu; Norikuni's own *ko-midare* appears only on his *tachi*, and only in the lower half. The Kuroda *tanto* of Tokubetsu Juyo session 20, *suguha*-toned yet shallowly undulant with *ko-gunome* mixed in, is singled out as the exception, good material for knowing the breadth of his work. Fifteen designated works stand on record. Of his rare signed *tachi*, three were designated Juyo Bunkazai, Important Cultural Properties, and one of these has since been elevated to Kokuho, a National Treasure; with them stand three Tokubetsu Juyo, six Juyo and three prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin. The Toko Taikan values him at 3,000 against a ceiling of 3,500, the figure of a Kamakura master of the first rank. The National Treasure and the Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved beyond any market; among the recorded holders of his work are Atsuta Jingu and the Kyoto National Museum. The provenance roll is of the same order. The signed *tachi* carries the old legend of Emperor Go-Daigo and Kitabatake Akiie; the Kuroda house of Chikuzen held the signed *tanto* whose *aikuchi* *koshirae* is scattered with the family's fuji-tomoe crest; the Matsudaira lords of Iyo Saijo kept the *tanto* with its 1639 origami; Mori Motomichi held both prewar Jubi *tanto*; the Ikeda family appears as well. For the private collector the arithmetic is severe: nine blades stand in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, and most have rested long in the same hands. A work of Norikuni reaching the open market is a rare event, and a signed example would be among the rarest encounters the field affords.
Kuniyasu (國安) — Mainline · 1199-1201. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Awataguchi Kuniyasu worked at Awataguchi in Kyoto in the early Kamakura period, third of the six brothers, Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, who made the school famous, and was called Tosaburo (藤三郎). The published sources count him, with his elder brothers Kunitomo and Hisakuni, among the goban-kaji of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba, and the sword references place his activity around the Jokyu era (1219 to 1222). His surviving signed works are tachi, comparatively numerous for so early a smith; the single signed tanto, recognized at Juyo session 31, is for that reason called "extremely precious"[[c:1]]. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku. His blades keep the figure of their day, slender, with high koshizori and a small kissaki, the curve settling faintly toward the point; one source reads the bearing as a gentle taoyame grace. On this figure he tempers a small-patterned ko-midare in ko-nie-deki, mixing ko-choji and ko-gunome over a suguha base, with kinsuji and fine sunagashi in the ha. The intervals of the midare press close, for "many examples show the spacing of the midare drawn tight"[[c:2]], and where the small gunome run linked in series the judges go further, writing of one unsigned katana that by this linked tendency "even within the school it should be possible to specify Kuniyasu"[[c:3]]. The nioiguchi, "as with Kunitomo, characteristically clouds into urumi"[[c:4]]; yubashiri gathers above the yakigashira, where one source finds "this smith's habitual hand"[[c:5]] plainly discernible; on another blade the forked, karimata-like uchinoke at the yakigashira reveals the same characteristic features. The boshi runs sugu to a small ko-maru, at times yakizume, the tip lightly brushed with hakikake. The jigane divides in two, and the published sources state the split outright: in his forging "there are two kinds, one with standing hada and one tightly knit"[[c:6]]. The tight register is packed ko-itame, ji-nie adhering in fine dust, slender chikei woven through, at times a faint nie-utsuri rising toward the shinogi; the surface takes on the pear-skin texture the sources call "the school's characteristic nashiji-hada"[[c:7]], and blades of this kind are read as "the manner closer to Hisakuni"[[c:8]]. The standing register shows itame with the grain raised, jifu mingled in and chikei conspicuous, and the published record ties it to his signed work: "among this smith's signed pieces those with prominently standing itame are comparatively many"[[c:9]]. The two registers sort loosely by signature: most unsigned attributions are of the refined nashiji type and travel on Hon'ami judgments, a kinpun-mei of Hon'ami Koson, a kinzogan of Hon'ami Mitsutada, an origami of Hon'ami Koyu dated Genbun 3 (1738). The scholarship is candid about his softest quality: an early text judges of the shadowed dullness that often settles in his edge that "rather than a point of appreciation it is instead a defect"[[c:10]], while later texts call the urumi "one of this smith's notable features"[[c:11]]. His two-character signature was cut both large and small, and "in either case the character An shows its distinctive features"[[c:12]], its cursive abbreviation always the same, a major point in judging his mei. Honma notes of the attributed pieces that "among the kiwame-mono there are occasionally wide ones like this sword"[[c:13]], robust blades apart from his usual slender build. Within Awataguchi he is the midare brother. The school's later course runs through Norikuni to Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu and settles into bright suguha, while Kuniyasu holds to the compressed ko-midare of the founding generation and its clouded nioiguchi. His sugata follows Hisakuni, and his tightest jigane approaches that brother closely; yet the linked ko-gunome picks him out alone within the school, and the pressed intervals and the urumi he shares only with Kunitomo. Against the later generations the judgment entered on his signed tanto is direct: "compared with Norikuni and Kuniyoshi the interior of the ha works well"[[c:14]], fully showing, the same text concludes, the depth of flavor of Awataguchi work. Twenty-three designated works stand on record: three Important Cultural Properties, all signed tachi, with five Juyo Bijutsuhin, two Tokubetsu Juyo and twelve Juyo, fourteen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers together; nine pieces in the record are signed against eleven unsigned. Eleven blades carry recorded provenance, through the Owari Tokugawa house, one a gift of the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi to Yoshimichi, fourth lord of Owari, and through the Tsugaru, Nanbu, Matsudaira, Mizoguchi and Hosokawa families and the Imperial Family. Of recorded whereabouts his blades rest with the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and the NBTHK itself. The three Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved where they stand; some fifteen blades of recorded rank sit in the tiers that may lawfully change hands, and most are held rather than traded. The published record remarks that signed tachi by Kuniyasu are encountered from time to time, and that is the honest measure of him: a goban-kaji of Go-Toba whose work a patient collector may still hope to meet, though each appearance of a Juyo example is an occasion.
Kunitomo (國友) — Mainline · 1185-1190. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū. Awataguchi Kunitomo is a smith of the early Kamakura period and, by the published account, the senior figure of his house. Awataguchi lay on the highway running from Kyoto toward Omi, where smiths had long resided, and from that quarter Kunitomo is transmitted as the eldest of the six brothers who founded the school's reputation: the published sources record that "Kunitomo was the eldest of the six brothers of the famed signed Awataguchi smiths, and is said to have styled himself Tobayashi Saemon"[[c:1]]. His younger brothers were Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, and together with Hisakuni and Kuniyasu he was summoned as a ban-kaji, a smith in monthly attendance, to the cloister of the retired sovereign Go-Toba (Go-Toba In). The swordbooks place him around the Joukyu era, and he stands among the first hands to carry the refined Yamashiro manner that the school would raise to its height. The characteristic hand is read first in the temper. Over the body of his signed tachi Kunitomo sets a *suguha-cho* mixed only with *ko-midare*, the calm, restrained line of early Awataguchi, into which enter *ko-ashi* and *yo*; the *nioiguchi* lies deep with *ko-nie*, *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* run through it, and here and there the line softens into *urumi*. This is the opposite pole from the clove-flower flamboyance of contemporary Bizen, a quiet edge whose interest is carried in the activity within rather than in the height of the pattern. *Kinsuji* is the constant note, appearing on every blade of his on record, the bright lightning line that marks his deep-*nioi*, *ko-nie* temper. The *jigane* is the school's signature and the surer half of the recognition. He forges a tightly packed *ko-itame* that takes on a *nashiji*-like refinement, in places mixing flowing grain and patches of larger *hada*, with fine *ji-nie* well adhered and the steel clear and bright; on the mumei tachi the same close *ko-itame* shows *chikei* entering the ji. Over so refined a base the *suguha-cho ko-midare* reads with particular clarity. The *boshi* answers the quiet temper, running straight to a *ko-maru*, or straight to a *yakizume*-like point with *hakikake* at the tip, and on the signed prime a *koshi-hi* is carved on the omote. His record divides cleanly into two faces. The first is the ubu, two-character signed tachi, the signature finely cut on the omote toward the mune, slender with high *koshizori*, marked *funbari* and a small *kissaki*, the elegant tachi shape of the period preserved in its original tang. The second is the ubu mumei tachi appraised as his work, slender and dignified in the same register, its forging the finely worked *ko-itame* and its temper the *ko-midare* base with *ko-gunome* and *ko-choji* mixed in. Securely signed examples are the heart of the scholarship around him: the published sources state plainly that "extant works securely bearing his signature are exceedingly few"[[c:2]], counting little more than the tachi preserved at Atsuta Jingu and the pieces designated in modern times. What sets Kunitomo apart is exactly what the judges name. He is held apart from the showier Bizen schools by the restraint of his *suguha-cho* and the refinement of his *nashiji*-like *ko-itame*, the quiet, precise Yamashiro hand rather than the decorative Bizen one. Within his own house he stands at the head of the brothers, beside Hisakuni and Kuniyasu, and his manner is of a piece with the calm, exacting workmanship the Awataguchi line would carry to its summit. The yardstick the published sources reach for is the Atsuta tachi: of his finest signed piece they judge that "in overall workmanship as well as in the manner of the signature it is extremely close to the example at Atsuta Jingu"[[c:3]], and they call it a work in which "the merits and elevated dignity of the early Awataguchi school are superbly displayed"[[c:4]]. For the collector Kunitomo is a rare early name held very largely out of reach. The Toko Taikan places him high among rated smiths. He has no National Treasures; his record runs through an Important Cultural Property, two pieces at the Tokubetsu Juyo rank, and a prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, and the published commentary calls one of the signed tachi "valuable as one of the few signed works"[[c:5]]. The surest of his signed pieces, the Atsuta Jingu tachi, is an Important Cultural Property and remains as patrimony; the Juyo Bijutsuhin signed tachi is held by the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures, and the signed pieces otherwise pass through long-held private hands of recorded whereabouts. With only a couple of blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers and securely signed works numbering only a handful in all, a signed Awataguchi Kunitomo comes to market only very seldom, and a privately held example is among the rarest things an early-Awataguchi collector could encounter, a document of how the school began.
Kunikiyo (國清) — Mainline · 1201-1204. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Kunikiyo was the fourth of the six brother-masters of the early Awataguchi school in Yamashiro, working in the opening years of the Kamakura period. The published sources set him in that celebrated company: a son of Kuniie, his elder brothers Kunitomo, Hisakuni and Kuniyasu and his younger brothers Arikuni and Kunitsuna, the six of whom all served as appointed swordsmiths to the Retired Emperor Go-Toba. Of his own work very little survives in signature. One Jūyō entry states plainly that 'extant signed pieces are few, numbering only two'[[c:1]], so his name is carried today chiefly by a small group of *ō-suriage*, *mumei* katana judged to him, alongside the rare signed *tachi*. His hand is the bright, quiet manner of early Awataguchi. The *jigane* is a closely forged *ko-itame*, in places running a little or mixed with larger grain, carrying abundant *ji-nie* and, on the finest blade, frequent *chikei*; the published sources call the steel notably bright, with a faint *midare-utsuri* standing in places. Over that *jigane* he sets not the flamboyant *chōji* of Bizen but a *suguha*-toned *ko-midare*, shallowly *notare* and worked with *ko-chōji*, *ko-gunome* and *gunome*, *ashi* entering, the *nioiguchi* deep and bright, *nie* well adhered, with fine *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* running through. The *bōshi* goes straight to a *ko-maru* or *ō-maru* and returns. Within that suguha-based edge the judges single out one piece of scenery: patches of *yubashiri* toward the *monouchi* that gather into a *nijūba*-like double line, a feature the published commentary notes on more than one of the *ō-suriage* blades. It is a restrained tell, in keeping with a smith whose whole character is calm rather than showy. The published sources read Kunikiyo closest to his brother Kuniyasu. On the signed *tachi* transmitted in the Unshū Matsudaira house, the commentary finds the temper 'on the whole resembling Kuniyasu'[[c:2]]; on one of the *ō-suriage* katana the tightly packed intervals of the *midare* and an *urumi* tendency of the *nioiguchi* are held to share 'a thread of affinity with Kuniyasu'[[c:3]]. It is exactly this affinity, set on the characteristic bright Awataguchi *ko-itame*, that carries the attribution where the signature is gone, and the sources affirm such blades as work that 'at a glance can be appraised as Awataguchi of the early Kamakura'[[c:4]]. He stands within the early Awataguchi mainstream, before the school's later flowering, the quiet suguha-toned *ko-midare* and the *urumi* *nioiguchi* the marks of the family hand. For the collector Kunikiyo is a rare early Awataguchi name, graded *sai-jō saku* by the Fujishiro appraisers. He has no National Treasures; his record runs through one work designated Important Cultural Property, the Aoyama-family signed *tachi*, together with the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin signed *tachi* from the Unshū Matsudaira house, and a small group of *ō-suriage mumei* katana reaching the Jūyō and Tokubetsu Jūyō tiers, only five works carrying an official designation in all. The Tokubetsu Jūyō katana descended through the Sakai house of Himeji, and the published sources call it a superior blade whose 'glittering *nie* within the temper is especially magnificent'[[c:5]]; among recorded whereabouts a blade is held by the Fukuyama Art Museum, and his provenance runs through old daimyō and imperial collections. With so few works on record and most of them long held, a signed Kunikiyo comes to light only rarely, and a privately held example of either his signed tachi or his attributed katana is among the more notable things a collector of early Yamashiro could hope to encounter.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1299-1302. Jūbun, Jūbi. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Jūbun, Jūyō. Awataguchi Kunimitsu, who styled himself Saemon no Jo, is traditionally held to have been the younger brother of Awataguchi Kuniyoshi, working within the illustrious Awataguchi school of Yamashiro Province during the late Kamakura period. Another tradition identifies him as a son of Awataguchi Norikuni. Extant signed works are exceedingly rare; among the few known signed examples, the tachi of Yoroji in Gifu Prefecture and the tachi of the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures, both designated Important Cultural Properties, stand as representative pieces. He typically inscribed a two-character signature reading simply "Kunimitsu." Kunimitsu's workmanship is defined by a mastery of refined steel and restrained tempering. His *jigane* is characteristically a tightly forged *ko-itame-hada*[[c:1]] in which ultra-fine *ji-nie* adheres like minute particles, producing a steel surface of exceptional clarity. Abundant *chikei* thread through the ground, and faint *nie-utsuri* frequently appears. The *hamon* is a calm *suguha* or *hoso-suguha* into which *ko-ashi* enter; *nie* adheres well along the temper line, with *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running through and a *nioiguchi* that is consistently bright and clear[[c:2]]. The *boshi* turns in *ko-maru*, typically straight, sometimes exhibiting *hakikake*. Several designated works preserve *bo-hi* carved *kaki-nagashi* or *kaki-toshi*, and one example retains an *ubu*-style *suken* and *koshi-hi* near the base, a feature observed among other members of the Awataguchi group. Kunimitsu's work embodies the highest virtues of the Awataguchi school: a well-refined *jigane* of excellent quality united with a bright and orderly *suguha* to produce blades of dignified tone and restrained elegance. Though most surviving examples are *o-suriage* and unsigned, the consistency of his forging and tempering characteristics allows confident attribution. His blades convey a somewhat slender, gentle overall impression that, combined with the luminous *nioiguchi*, yields works of quiet authority representative of the finest Yamashiro tradition in the late Kamakura period.
Kuniie (國家) — Mainline · 1190-1199. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.

Other smiths

Kunisada (國定) — Mainline · 1240-1243. Kunisada (国定) is traditionally identified as a disciple of Kuninobu of the Yamashiro Awataguchi school, and it is transmitted that around the Bun'ei era (1264–1275) he relocated to Tanba Province. His workmanship continues the Awataguchi tradition, and his blades at first glance possess what the NBTHK describes as "the dignified quality characteristic of Kyo work." A separate line of attribution links the name to the Rai school under the reading Rai Kunisada, recorded in sword catalogs as a student of Rai Kunitoshi, though the relationship between the two lineages remains a subject for further research. In his Awataguchi-line tachi, the forging shows *itame-hada* with plentiful *ji-nie*, and the temper is fundamentally *suguha* mixed with small *midare*, into which *ashi* and *yo* enter strongly. A recurring feature across these works is a feeling of *nijubba* — a doubled or layered effect in the hardened edge — intermingled within the temper pattern. One tachi displays a *choji*-like intent recalling Ayakoji Sadatoshi together with a pronounced *jubba* tendency. Works attributed to the Rai school line show a markedly different character: *hira-zukuri* with thin *kasane* and wide *mihaba* in sunnobi proportions, *ko-itame hada* well-forged with ji-nie, and a hamon of *gunome-midare* with *ko-notare* intermixed that becomes *hitatsura* in the upper half — characteristics described as typical of Nanbokucho period workmanship and comparable in hamon style to Hasebe Kunishige. The NBTHK's assessments emphasize the continuity of Awataguchi school aesthetics in the tachi attributed to this smith, noting in particular the dignified quality of Kyoto tradition forging and the distinctive nijubba character of the temper. The presence of works in the Imperial Household collection and transmission through the Tayasu Tokugawa family attests to the historical esteem in which blades bearing this name have been held. Published references include the Kozan Oshigata, Kanto Zuiroku, and Kusanagi no Ya Oshigata.
Kagehisa (景久) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1312-1323. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1229-1232. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kuninobu (國延) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunitsuna (國綱) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1213-1219. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimitsu (有光) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimitsu (有光) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimitsu (有光) — Mainline · 1288-1293. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimoto (有元) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimoto (有元) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinaga (有永) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinaga (有永) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinaga (有永) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinobu (有延) — Mainline · 1247-1249. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Aritada (有忠) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Aritaka (有隆) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Ariyuki (有行) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Ariyuki (有行) — Mainline · 1331-1336. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1261-1264. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Hisamitsu (久光) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagehisa (景久) — Mainline · 1171-1175. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kageie (景家) — Mainline · 1184-1185. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kageie (景家) — Mainline · 1324-1326. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagekuni (景國) — Mainline · 1213-1219. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagenaga (景長) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagenaga (景長) — Mainline · 1329-1331. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagenaga (景長) — Mainline · 1356-1361. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunisue (國末) — Mainline · 1219-1222. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kuniyori (國頼) — Mainline · 1185-1190. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Nobukane (信兼) — Mainline · 1207-1211. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Nobumitsu (延光) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norikane (則兼) — Mainline · 1207-1211. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norikiyo (則清) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norikuni (則國) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norimori (則守) — Mainline · 1288-1293. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadaie (忠家) — Mainline · 1346-1370. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadatsugu (忠次) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadatsugu (忠次) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadayoshi (忠吉) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tama (玉) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tameto (爲遠) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tomohisa (友久) — Mainline · 987-1596. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Torin (藤林) — Mainline · 1232-1233. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (俊延) — Mainline · 1219-1222. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (俊延) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (利延) — Mainline · 1219-1222. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (利延) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tsuneto (常遠) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoriie (頼家) — Mainline · 1303-1306. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshikuni (吉國) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshimasa (吉正) — Mainline · 1229-1232. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshimasa (吉正) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshimasa (吉正) — Mainline · 1303-1306. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.

Live·Awataguchi lineage

粟田口

The Yamashiro Awataguchi School

Era

1180 — 1320

Members

Kokuhō

Jūbun

Jūbi

Tokujū

Jūyō

118

For Sale

70smiths10Kokuhō45Jūbun33Jūbi48Tokujū118Jūyō

Branches— schools this lineage shaped

粟田口派 · Yamashiro Awataguchi kakeizuLineage v0.1 · live data

The Yamashiro Awataguchi School (粟田口) Lineage

Phase 1 · The Yamashiro Awataguchi School (粟田口) · 1180 – 1320

70 smiths · 10 Kokuhō · 45 Jūbun · 33 Jūbi · 48 Tokujū · 118 Jūyō

Major smiths

Yoshimitsu (吉光) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Toshiro Yoshimitsu of Awataguchi in Yamashiro, active in the mid to late Kamakura period, is introduced by the published sources with one recurring sentence: he is the smith who crowns the close of the Awataguchi school[[c:1]], and he stands together with Shintogo Kunimitsu of Sagami as "a master of the tanto and a virtuoso of suguha"[[c:2]]. The same notices record that in the Edo period he was celebrated with Masamune and Go as the Three Great Works under Heaven (天下三作), and that among the three he was "placed foremost and most highly treasured"[[c:3]]. His teacher is held to be Kuniyoshi, and the published record anchors the filiation in the work itself: the varied forms of his tanto correspond entirely to shapes found in Kuniyoshi, and the connection, the NBTHK writes, is readily accepted. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku. The forms of his tanto are remarkably varied: blades broad and somewhat compact, slender yet elongated, broad and long, and of standard proportions, nearly all hira-zukuri with uchizori. Within that variety the hand is constant. His celebrated temper is suguha, often a narrow *hoso-suguha*, laid in fine bright *ko-nie* under a bright, clear *nioiguchi*. Small *ko-gunome* are aligned in the lower half toward the *yakidashi*, and the tempered width narrows around the *fukura*. *Ashi* enter, delicate *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* work through the edge, and at times the line carries a *nijuba* effect. The *boshi* turns back in a calm *ko-maru*, and beneath it on the *sashi-omote* the notices repeatedly mark a linear dropping of *nie* into the *ji*, the so-called kuisagari of nie[[c:4]], a habitual trait of his hand. Beneath the temper lies the Awataguchi jigane at its full refinement, and the published sources recognize two forging modes in it. One is a *ko-itame* so tightly packed that it is called nashiji-hada (梨子地肌), the pear-skin surface; the other an *itame* of somewhat larger pattern in which the hada stands a little. In both, fine *ji-nie* adheres thickly and evenly, fine *chikei* enter, and a *nie-utsuri* rises in the *ji*. The steel itself, notice after notice, carries a moist luster (潤い) and is conspicuously clear. Nearly everything he made is a tanto. The published record long held that his only surviving work outside that form was the meibutsu Ichigo Hitofuri (一期一振藤四郎), the tachi once in the collection of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and since retempered; in recent years a signed wakizashi became known, regarded as an early form of the uchigatana[[c:5]], formerly of the Naruse family of Inuyama and published in the Kozan Oshigata. Its signature placement agrees exactly, the sources record, with the ubu tang of the Ichigo Hitofuri as drawn in the Kotoku sword albums. He signed his work: forty-five pieces of record carry a mei against four without, the standard form a large two-character mei cut below the mekugi-ana of an ubu nakago. The calligraphy is itself an object of scholarship. The published sources value the fluent brushwork of his mei as "unrivaled through the history of sword inscriptions"[[c:6]]. The comparative judgments in the published sources are concrete. Of a small tanto with narrow mihaba and exceptionally thick kasane, they write that such a construction is hardly to be seen in the Rai school, that it belongs to the varied shapes of Awataguchi, and that compared with Rai works "the nie of ji and ha is a degree thicker, and felt more strongly"[[c:7]]. Toward his teacher Kuniyoshi the relation is continuity: the slender, elongated silhouette of certain pieces is the same manner seen in the teacher's work. Within his own school, the notices add, his individuality can be grasped clearly through the *gunome* near the base, the narrowing toward the *monouchi*, and the dropping of *nie* beneath the *boshi*. His signed ubu tanto are in turn the standard against which every Yoshimitsu attribution is measured. Seventy-one of his works stand on record. Four are National Treasures and nine are Important Cultural Properties, patrimony preserved in museums, shrines and long-held collections; beneath them stand seven Tokubetsu Juyo and fourteen Juyo, twenty-one blades in those tiers. The Kyoho Meibutsu-cho lists sixteen of his blades headed by the Hirano Toshiro (平野藤四郎), and with its fire-lost and supplementary sections the count reaches thirty-eight. The blades that survive carry their histories openly. The Nabeshima Toshiro (鍋島藤四郎) passed from Nabeshima Naoshige through the Ikeda to Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, and was thereafter handed to each shogunal heir at his coming of age; the Asakura Toshiro (朝倉藤四郎) is named for Asakura Yoshikage of Echizen; one tanto was given by the shogun Iemitsu at the birth of his son Tsunashige and later worn by the sixth shogun Ienobu; another was received by Kyogoku Takatsugu from Tokugawa Ieyasu in Keicho 5. In all, thirty-nine blades carry recorded provenance, running through the Ashikaga shoguns, the Imperial Family, Matsunaga Hisahide, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Owari and Kishu Tokugawa, the Maeda, the Kuroda and the Asano. The National Treasure and Important Cultural Property examples stand permanently outside the market, and of recorded whereabouts twenty-two works rest with institutions, among them the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, Atsuta Jingu, the Maeda Ikutokukai and the Sano Art Museum, against eleven in private hands. A Yoshimitsu coming into the open is among the rarest events in the field; for most collectors he is a smith to be studied in the great collections rather than possessed.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1293-1322. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. In the tenth month of Einin 1 (1293), a blade left the Kamakura forge of Shintogo Kunimitsu bearing the long signature Kamakura junin Shintogo Kunimitsu saku[[c:1]], the oldest of his dated works. The published sources count Awataguchi Kunitsuna and the Bizen smiths Kunimune and Sukezane as the pioneers of Kamakura sword-making, settlers from older centers; the first smith of Sagami itself, who cut his Kamakura residence and his dates into the nakago, was Kunimitsu[[c:2]]. His designation texts open with one standing sentence for half a century: he is the de facto founder of the Soshu tradition, and the raising of the three masters Yukimitsu, Masamune and Norishige is counted his great achievement[[c:3]]. Tradition makes him the son of Awataguchi Kunitsuna and a pupil of Bizen Saburo Kunimune, a transmission the sources say still leaves room for study. His dated work runs to Gentoku 3 (1331), and a tanto of Showa 4 (1315) signed with the Buddhist name Koshin is read as late work, beside the dates of Kagen and Tokuji. What survives is, before all else, the tanto: hira-zukuri and mitsu-mune, of ordinary width with uchizori, ubu and signed with the two-character mei. The sources state his formula in a single sentence: at a glance the work suggests Awataguchi, but the conspicuous chikei and kinsuji expressed in ji and ha point to this smith[[c:4]]. He excels in suguha across its whole range, ito, hoso, chu and hiro[[c:5]]; as a master of the tanto he is paired with Toshiro Yoshimitsu, the two named twin peaks (短刀の名手として藤四郎吉光と双璧). The temper is bright with small nie, crossed by fine kinsuji that flicker; the appraisers have called this play the old man's whiskers (翁の髭) from of old and count it the great point of his work. Honma adds a habit of the hand: the temper ordinarily hardens down past the machi toward the mune; a few authentic pieces instead drop the yaki slightly there. The boshi runs sugu to a calm ko-maru, at times lightly swept; suken, bonji and gomabashi are carved on many blades, and the kanmuri-otoshi construction recurs. The jigane is where his Awataguchi schooling shows. He forges a ko-itame or a tightly knit itame, and lays over it ji-nie thick and often mijin, minutely fine; chikei enter incessantly, the steel is clear, and nie-utsuri frequently stands. The standing hada that came to mark the mature Soshu tradition is almost wholly absent in his own blades, and grows only by degrees in the men after him; the sources note it chiefly in his rare midare work, while the norm is a surface so refined it passes for Awataguchi until the chikei and kinsuji betray it. The ha-nie of these quiet lines is singled out as well, the light-beautiful nie the texts call particular to the upper rank of Soshu work[[c:6]]. From this refined, nie-laden suguha his three pupils drew out the nie-midare of the mature tradition. Tachi are another matter: the sources repeat that nearly everything extant is tanto and the tachi exceedingly rare[[c:7]]; the survivors are slender, with high koshizori, funbari and a compact point, forged exactly as the tanto. At their head stands the meibutsu Mutsu Shintogo, an ubu signed tachi of 76.1 cm with layered horimono, heirloom of the Date of Sendai, by tradition a grant from the Emperor Go-Mizunoo, and listed in the addenda of the Kyoho Meibutsu-cho as no meibutsu, yet a fine tool[[c:8]]. The osuriage mumei katana attributed to him belong here too, and the sources are explicit that such a judgment names Kunimitsu and his three sons collectively[[c:9]]. One such blade carries a Kyoho 7 (1722) origami of Hon'ami Kochu at seventy gold pieces. A small minority departs from the suguha norm altogether: a Juyo Bijutsuhin tanto tempers its lower half in a large midare, the text stating plainly that his midareba is scarce and this piece well made. Honma reads in that scarcity the proof of the school: midareba exists, if rarely, in Kunimitsu, and suguha, if most rarely, in Masamune, the two together confirming the relation of master and pupil. A single katakiriha tanto, retempered, is the only one of its construction in his work. The name ran on past the founder. The old registers give him three sons, Kunihiro, Kunishige and Kuniyasu, all said to have signed Kunimitsu later, and only Kunihiro is met with under his own name; since the hands cannot yet be divided by workmanship, the sources divide them by the mei. The founder's two-character signature follows the rule the appraisers call saji kitakanmuri (左字北冠), the interior of the kuni character cut in the left-hand manner with the crown set toward the mune, in both a fine and a thicker chisel, and the texts admit rare authentic exceptions. On tachi the mei sits on the haki-omote toward the mune; an ubu signed odachi of 96.1 cm is read as Kunihiro's Kunimitsu mei from its workmanship and deep, bold carving. The carving is itself a legacy: the layered horimono later seen in Sadamune is judged to begin with Shintogo, and the work on his blades is connected with Daishinbo Yukei, transmitted as his pupil and a master of the chisel. Much of this oeuvre is patrimony. Four blades hold the rank of National Treasure and ten more are Important Cultural Properties, preserved in museums, shrines and long-held collections; seven are prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, among them tanto of the Seikado and the Kurokawa Institute. The provenance roll runs deep. The meibutsu Kojiri-toshi Shintogo passed from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Osaka treasury through the fire of the summer siege, was retempered by the first Yasutsugu, and descended in the Tokugawa shogun house; his tanto are handed down in the Uesugi of Yonezawa, the Echizen Matsudaira, the Satake, the Hosokawa and the Ogasawara, and one blade entered the collection of W. A. Compton in recent times. Fujishiro rates him Sai-jo saku, and seventy-two designated works stand on record, the great majority signed with the two-character mei in an ubu nakago, the long signature met only a few times. What a private collector may realistically encounter is the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tier, eight and forty-two blades, fifty in the two tiers together, most of them signed tanto of the classic refined manner. Such pieces are held closely and reach the market only rarely; when one does appear, it carries the signed work of the smith in whose forge the Soshu tradition began.
Kuniyoshi (國吉) — Mainline · 1275-1278. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Nearly every published designation text on Awataguchi Kuniyoshi cites the meibutsu Narukitsune, the Crying Fox, a large hira-zukuri wakizashi bearing his long signature Sahyoe-no-jo Fujiwara Kuniyoshi[[c:1]], and newly judged blades are still read against its manner. Kuniyoshi is recorded as the son of Norikuni, by some accounts his pupil, and a grandson of Kunitomo, eldest of the six Awataguchi brothers of Yamashiro; his younger brother was Kunimitsu. Transmitted as either his son or his student is Toshiro Yoshimitsu, the celebrated master of the tanto. A tanto dated Koan 3 (1280) survives, and the sword drawings of the old books preserve dates of Kenji 4 (1278), Koan 6 (1283) and Koan 10 (1287); by these the published sources confirm the traditional sequence of the Awataguchi generations and fix him in the middle Kamakura period. The published record describes his manner in a settled formula: a finely kneaded *ko-itame* rich in *ji-nie*, beautiful in effect, and a *suguha* in well-attached *ko-nie* mixing *ko-midare* and *ko-gunome*, the *ji* and *ha* together judged "a degree stronger than the Rai works"[[c:2]]. Above everything stands the *nijuba*, the doubled line that runs conspicuously along the *ha* and is cited again and again as his greatest point. The Kaifunki already names it his habit: "as a habitual mannerism there is often *nijuba*, and silver often floats in the *ji* as in a cast object"[[c:3]]. At times the line trebles into *sanjuba*, often formed of *yubashiri* strung along the edge, and on more than one blade it carries into the *boshi*. *Ashi* and *yo* enter frequently, *kinsuji* and fine *sunagashi* work through the *ha*, and the *nioiguchi* is repeatedly described as bright and clear. The *boshi* is typically straight with a refined *ko-maru* turnback. The *jigane* carries the school's name. He forges a *ko-itame* mixed with *ko-mokume*, kneaded extremely tight, over which *ji-nie* sits dust-fine and thick with delicate *chikei*, until the steel takes on the so-called *nashiji-hada*, the pear-skin steel of the Awataguchi idiom. *Nie-utsuri* stands over it, at times with a faint *jifu*-like tone mixed in. The Kokon Meizukushi praises the taste of his steel as a gleam deep in the color of the *ji*, "like the silver of a tenmoku bowl dusted with ash"[[c:4]]. His certain signed tachi number only two. One has long been an Important Cultural Property; the second surfaced only at its Juyo designation in 1997, a slender, elegant blade of high *koshi-zori* with *funbari*. A third, shortened, with a two-character mei low on the tang, was admitted at its Tokubetsu Juyo designation as extremely close to those two. The tanto are comparatively many and carry most of his signatures, the ken number several, and the Narukitsune stands apart as the single great wakizashi. The tanto shapes, stubby and wide like a kitchen knife, ordinary, slender and elongated, or wide and elongated, in *uchizori* or without curve, are called "remarkably diverse"[[c:5]] and opposed to the uniformity of the Rai school; like Yoshimitsu he often works the temper down over the *machi*, and *gomabashi* or *bonji* are carved on many. The unsigned blades are the more numerous, *o-suriage* katana of wide *mihaba* and shallow *wa-zori* with the *chu-kissaki* pulled in *ikubi* fashion, where the *suguha* grows busier with *ko-choji* and *gunome*, *ashi* and *yo* thick. On these the *nijuba* is the point on which the judges anchor the attribution, and one *ayame-zukuri* katana is judged to give the very impression of a Narukitsune enlarged[[c:6]]. The ken are elegant, the point not flaring, often in *hoso-suguha* with the *boshi* *yakizume*, and "the ken of this maker often show strong *nie*"[[c:7]]. The signature is normally the two characters Kuniyoshi, the chisel running from fine to ordinary to thick, a variety ascribed to difference of period. On his relation to Yoshimitsu the published sources reason from the dates. Kuniyoshi has the Koan 3 tanto and the dated drawings of the old books; Yoshimitsu has no dated work at all, extant or recorded. Both made few tachi and excelled in tanto of unusually varied shape, and from this the judges find it reasonable to see the two not as father and son but as master and pupil of comparatively small age difference[[c:8]]. One text states plainly that together with Yoshimitsu of his school he produced many tanto, both displaying superior technique. The *nijuba* appears on nearly half of his records, only occasionally in Yoshimitsu's, and never in those of his father Norikuni; the *sanjuba* is met in his work alone among them; and it is on his records that the texts name the *nashiji-hada* outright. Fujishiro rates him Sai-jo saku, and fifty-one designated works stand on record. There are no National Treasures among them, but seven blades are Important Cultural Properties, his long-known signed tachi at their head, and five are prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, one a tanto formerly of the Aoyama viscount family of Sasayama. Eighteen blades hold the Tokubetsu Juyo rank and twenty-one the Juyo, thirty-nine in the two tiers together. The provenance roll is in keeping. A signed tanto with an origami of Hon'ami Koon descends in the Matsudaira house of Iyo Saijo, and a mumei tanto in the Reizei house of court poets; the Tokubetsu Juyo two-character tachi was owned by Okubo Ichio and passed to the Iwasaki house; a signed ken belongs to the Owari Tokugawa Reimeikai; and one signed tanto, by its scabbard inscription, was presented by Todo Takamutsu at a birth celebration in the Tokugawa house. Of recorded whereabouts today, examples rest in the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Kyoto National Museum and the Hikone Castle Museum, with others in private hands. For the collector, Kuniyoshi is by Awataguchi measure not wholly beyond reach. The Important Cultural Properties are patrimony preserved outside the market, but the thirty-nine blades of the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers are where a private example is met, most of them *o-suriage* *mumei* katana whose attribution rests on the doubled line along the *ha*. Such a blade comes to market only rarely, and is an event when it does; a signed tanto is rarer still, and a signed tachi, of which two certain examples exist, is among the rarest encounters the school affords.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1190-1199. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Awataguchi Hisakuni worked at the foot of the Awataguchi slope in Yamashiro in the early Kamakura period, and he is the second of the six Awataguchi brothers, the smith who used the personal name Tojiro (藤次郎). The published record sets the family out plainly: the founder is given as Kunika, and his sons were the six brothers Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo (国清), Arikuni (有国) and Kunitsuna (国綱). That a community of smiths already stood at Awataguchi is attested in the early-Kamakura tale collection Uji Shui Monogatari[[c:1]], so this is a forge with a documented place in the literature of its own century, not a later reconstruction. Hisakuni's standing inside that famous house is the first thing to recognise. The 14th Tokubetsu-Juyo entry calls his manner the most refined and dignified within Awataguchi work[[c:2]], and the 42nd Juyo entry ranks him foremost of the lineage in both technique and refinement of spirit. He is repeatedly named among the bangaji whom the Retired Emperor Go-Toba (後鳥羽院) summoned to forge on rotation at the cloistered court, and one record goes further and transmits him as a teacher to the sovereign (帝王の師). The history is not decoration here. It is the reason a slender tachi with so quiet a temper carries the authority it does. Recognise his hand by the pure Yamashiro register. Over a tightly packed ko-itame, finely worked and dense with ji-nie, he tempers a quiet suguha that leans into a shallow notare, with small gunome and a little ko-midare mixed in, ko-ashi and yo entering, the nioiguchi tight and bright, and kinsuji and sunagashi running in the ha. The boshi is a calm ko-maru, and very often it sweeps with hakikake; one Tokubetsu-Juyo katana records it exactly as a straight tip that brushes into a yakizume-like finish[[c:3]], and the same swept tip recurs across his katana and his tanto. The forging itself draws a recurring word from the appraisers, the so-called tataki-tsume look of a thoroughly consolidated jigane, and the Awataguchi steel praised of old as blue in colour with a white edge[[c:4]]. Among the brothers the connoisseurs single him out for nie. The 24th Juyo entry calls him the smith whose ji and ha carry nie most strongly, sometimes with a slightly coarse nie mixed in, while the 22nd Juyo tachi names him outright the most skilful forger of the six[[c:5]], its tight ko-itame and deep, faintly urumi nioiguchi recalling his younger brother Kuniyasu. His tanto show the same clarity in miniature: the wide, slightly curved Juyo-Bijutsuhin tanto is flagged as an unusual shape for Awataguchi, and the Honma note attached to it draws the very line that separates this house from its successors, the occasional eccentric proportion among Awataguchi tanto being a point of distinction from the Rai school. His place in the wider road of Yamashiro steel runs through that contrast with Rai. The refined nie-suguha he and his brothers fixed at Awataguchi is the wellspring the Rai masters drew from, and through them the eastern Soshu smiths after; one of the katana grouped with him even carries a gold-inlaid attribution to Rai Kunitsugu, a reminder of how closely the early Yamashiro and later Rai hands sit in the eye. Signed work survives in the smallest numbers, a few tachi and tanto, most of them the bold two-character mei cut now with a thick chisel and now with a finer one, with the rare long Tojiro Hisakuni signature confirmed against the old sword books Kotoku Toezu[[c:6]] and Kozan Oshigata (光山押形). The blades carry the names of the great houses: the Kishu Tokugawa[[c:7]] and the Date (伊達家), the Matsudaira of Saijo and the Akimoto, with one tanto authenticated by a Hon'ami Kotsune origami dated Enpo 9. For the collector the arithmetic is severe. A National Treasure and a small group of Important Cultural Properties stand to his name, several of them held in institutions, the Tokyo National Museum and Nikko Toshogu and Itsukushima Jinja among the recorded holders, where they can never trade. Only a handful sit in the Tokubetsu-Juyo and Juyo tiers, and those are spoken for by old daimyo provenance. A Hisakuni in private hands is therefore among the rarest things a student of the early sword can hope to meet, and when one appears it is the quiet, dignified, nie-laden suguha of the imperial forge, not the spectacle of a later age, that the buyer is acquiring.
Kunitsuna (國綱) — Mainline · 1240-1264. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Awataguchi Kunitsuna worked in early Kamakura Kyōto as the youngest of the six Awataguchi brothers, the eldest being Kunitomo, and he styled himself Tōroku Sakon. The published sources transmit that he later went down to Kamakura, summoned by the Hōjō, and there, together with Kunimune and Sukezane of Bizen, became one of the smiths who opened the way for the Sagami tradition. They also concede how little of his hand survives: genuine signed works that can be accepted with confidence are recorded as extremely few[[c:1]], the celebrated Onimaru Kunitsuna standing as the representative piece. He worked under the name 国綱, and a long ōdachi survives signed in full 鎌倉住藤六左近国綱 and dated 建長五年八月日, the only dated trace of the Kamakura years. The published sources draw a sharp line between him and the rest of the school. Awataguchi work is generally an earnest, classical elegance, but his shape, his forging and his temper are called distinctive: a tachi with high koshizori that does not droop toward the tip, a forging in which the itame stands large and prominent over thickly laid ji-nie, and a wide, varied temper in which the ha-nie is conspicuously strong[[c:2]]. The way both ji and ha are vigorously animated, the sources say, is precisely the hallmark of his art[[c:3]]. This is the recognition core: where his brothers refine, Kunitsuna pushes the nie forward, and the steel leans toward the bold Sagami manner that was about to be born. Over that jigane runs a suguha base in shallow notare, mixed with ko-midare, chōji and ko-gunome, with thick ashi and yō, the nioi deep and the interior of the ha thickly covered in nie; kinsuji run frequently, sunagashi hangs, and in places the habuchi shows hotsure with uchinoke and yubashiri. The jigane is the tight Awataguchi steel carried thick with ji-nie and chikei, often standing into ō-itame, with a mizukage rising from the togidame that connects into a jifu-utsuri-like midare-utsuri, an aspect the sources note as often seen in his work. The bōshi is where the older profile had to be corrected: it is not simply a calm ko-maru. On the Tokubetsu-Jūyō tachi it runs straight into a ko-maru with a slight kaeri and the point sweeps a little hakikake[[c:4]], and on the kinzōgan-mei katana it sweeps straight in hakikake toward a yakizume tendency[[c:5]]; elsewhere it enters midarekomi with a pointed turn. That swept, nie-broken point is as much his tell as the standing grain. The published sources are explicit that he has two faces. There are pieces in the orthodox Awataguchi manner, and there are works of a different cast, robust in form with a standing jihada[[c:6]]. The Onimaru belongs to the second, robust group; many of the surviving signed tachi belong to the first, where the forging tightens to a finer ko-itame, the temper a calmer suguha base, the whole quieter and more obviously of the court tradition. For the kantei eye the two faces share the same engine: the conspicuous ha-nie, the busy kinsuji and sunagashi, the midare-utsuri, and the swept hakikake bōshi. The subdued, sunken nioiguchi on the quieter tachi parts him from bright Bizen; the openly strong nie and the standing grain part him from the orthodox Awataguchi suguha of his brothers. The Onimaru is the heart of his fame and the reason a smith of so few blades is known to every collector. Its later transmission reads as a history of power, passing through the great houses and into the Imperial collection, where it survives as an Imperial heirloom and one of the Five Great Swords, shown to almost no one. The published record names, beside it, a Tokubetsu-Jūyō tachi once held by the Viscount Nishitakatsuji family and an Important Art Object once owned by the Aizu Matsudaira house, and counts among the Important Cultural Properties attributed to him the tachi preserved at Hie Shrine. The kinzōgan and kinpun attributions on several of the shortened katana, cut by Hon'ami Kōson and his line, show how seriously the Hon'ami house took a Kunitsuna ascription. For the collector this is among the rarest of the Awataguchi names. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jō saku, and his finest signed work descends through houses of the first rank: the Tosa Yamanouchi family held one kinzōgan-mei katana, and the Sendai Date family received another tachi from Konoe Motohiro and kept it as a treasured heirloom. A handful fall in the Tokubetsu-Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, with a small body of Important Cultural Properties, while the masterpiece itself can never leave the Imperial collection. A signed Kunitsuna in private hands is therefore one of the scarcest things a student of the early Kamakura sword can hope to meet, and the very scarcity is part of why his Sagami descent, by tradition the bridge that ran on to Shintōgo Kunimitsu and the Sōshū line, carries the weight that it does.
Norikuni (則國) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. The record of Awataguchi Norikuni centers on a slender signed *tachi* that preserves its original tang, with an old scabbard whose document of provenance states that Kitabatake Akiie received the sword from Emperor Go-Daigo; it passed Juyo in 1998 and rose to Tokubetsu Juyo in 2000. Norikuni, called Toma no Jo, was the son of Kunitomo, the eldest of the six Awataguchi brothers, and the father of Sahyoe no Jo Kuniyoshi; his dates are given as around Katei (1235 to 1238), the bridge generation between the *goban-kaji* age of his father and uncles and the *tanto* age of Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu. A prewar designation record adds the tradition that he served as a *goban-kaji* on Oki[[c:1]], the island of the exiled Retired Emperor Go-Toba. On one point the published sources never vary: surviving works with secure signatures, *tachi* and *tanto* alike, are very few. His *tanto*, the greater part of what survives, are *hira-zukuri* with *mitsu-mune*, of standard width, with *uchizori*. The *jigane* is a tightly knit *ko-itame*, the *ji-nie* dust-fine and thick, with fine *chikei* woven through. Over it he tempers a calm *suguha* in *ko-nie*, deep in *nioi*, taking in *ko-gunome* or a shallow *notare* with small *ashi*. Fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run within the *ha*, and the *boshi* turns back in a refined *ko-maru*, at times lightly swept. On the *omote* and *ura* he cuts *gomabashi*, often paired with a *suken*; the grooves are spaced narrowly and set close to the *mune*, a placement the published sources call "a habit common to the craftsmen of the school"[[c:2]]. The Kuroda *tanto* that bears his rather large two-character signature is judged sound in *ji*, *ha* and form alike, "one of the foremost works of this smith"[[c:3]]. The steel itself carries the school's name. Of the *ubu* unsigned *tachi* of Juyo session 46 the published sources write that the *ko-itame* is extremely tightly knit, the minute *ji-nie* giving "a moist, pear-skin surface"[[c:4]], with *nie-utsuri* standing and the steel clear. The signed *tachi* shows instead an *itame* mixed with *mokume*, somewhat large in texture yet thoroughly worked and warm, displaying, as the same sources put it, the celebrated virtues of Awataguchi *jigane*[[c:5]]; over it a faint *jifu-utsuri* rises. The published sources divide his manner by form. Among the *tachi* there are works in a *suguha*-based temper mixing *ko-midare*, but for the *tanto* "a calm, graceful *suguha* is general"[[c:6]]. The signed *tachi* register is the rarer one: a slender blade of high *koshizori* with *funbari*, closing in a small point, the temper dropped in a slight *yakiotoshi* just above the *machi*. Its activity gathers from the middle down through the lower half, in *ko-midare* with *ko-choji* and *ko-gunome*, while the upper reaches run a calm *suguha* and the *boshi* ends nearly straight with a *yakitsume* tendency. The thin, short *koshi-hi* on its *omote* is what the old texts call the *wasure-bi* (忘れ樋), the forgotten groove often met on Kamakura *tachi*. The *mei* is of two characters, and the form of the character kuni is noted as close to his son Kuniyoshi's, a point of attention in appraising his signatures. Hon'ami appraisals run the length of the record: an origami of Koon dated 1639 on the Matsudaira *tanto*, an origami of Kochu dated 1713, and a *shu-mei* thought to be the hand of Tadaaki, the nineteenth master; these are attributions by later appraisers, not signatures. So too the *katana* on which the late Edo smith Ishido Unju Korekazu cut an inscription recording that he had shortened a work of Norikuni, a document the judges call greatly treasured as source material[[c:7]]. Within the family his place is fixed by two observations that run in opposite directions. His *tanto* manner is common to Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu, but the published sources state that his *nie* is comparatively stronger[[c:8]]; of the *shu-mei* *tanto* they write likewise that "the *nie* within the *ha* is strong"[[c:9]]. Yet that strength never disorders the line. His *hamon* does not break into minutely complex small patterning, and the judges make this restraint itself the thread of appraisal, writing of the unsigned *tachi* of session 46 that the way the *hamon* does not become so intricately disordered in small patterns "is what connects it to the signed works of this smith"[[c:10]]. The *midare* hand of the school belonged to his uncle Kuniyasu; Norikuni's own *ko-midare* appears only on his *tachi*, and only in the lower half. The Kuroda *tanto* of Tokubetsu Juyo session 20, *suguha*-toned yet shallowly undulant with *ko-gunome* mixed in, is singled out as the exception, good material for knowing the breadth of his work. Fifteen designated works stand on record. Of his rare signed *tachi*, three were designated Juyo Bunkazai, Important Cultural Properties, and one of these has since been elevated to Kokuho, a National Treasure; with them stand three Tokubetsu Juyo, six Juyo and three prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin. The Toko Taikan values him at 3,000 against a ceiling of 3,500, the figure of a Kamakura master of the first rank. The National Treasure and the Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved beyond any market; among the recorded holders of his work are Atsuta Jingu and the Kyoto National Museum. The provenance roll is of the same order. The signed *tachi* carries the old legend of Emperor Go-Daigo and Kitabatake Akiie; the Kuroda house of Chikuzen held the signed *tanto* whose *aikuchi* *koshirae* is scattered with the family's fuji-tomoe crest; the Matsudaira lords of Iyo Saijo kept the *tanto* with its 1639 origami; Mori Motomichi held both prewar Jubi *tanto*; the Ikeda family appears as well. For the private collector the arithmetic is severe: nine blades stand in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, and most have rested long in the same hands. A work of Norikuni reaching the open market is a rare event, and a signed example would be among the rarest encounters the field affords.
Kuniyasu (國安) — Mainline · 1199-1201. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Awataguchi Kuniyasu worked at Awataguchi in Kyoto in the early Kamakura period, third of the six brothers, Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, who made the school famous, and was called Tosaburo (藤三郎). The published sources count him, with his elder brothers Kunitomo and Hisakuni, among the goban-kaji of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba, and the sword references place his activity around the Jokyu era (1219 to 1222). His surviving signed works are tachi, comparatively numerous for so early a smith; the single signed tanto, recognized at Juyo session 31, is for that reason called "extremely precious"[[c:1]]. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku. His blades keep the figure of their day, slender, with high koshizori and a small kissaki, the curve settling faintly toward the point; one source reads the bearing as a gentle taoyame grace. On this figure he tempers a small-patterned ko-midare in ko-nie-deki, mixing ko-choji and ko-gunome over a suguha base, with kinsuji and fine sunagashi in the ha. The intervals of the midare press close, for "many examples show the spacing of the midare drawn tight"[[c:2]], and where the small gunome run linked in series the judges go further, writing of one unsigned katana that by this linked tendency "even within the school it should be possible to specify Kuniyasu"[[c:3]]. The nioiguchi, "as with Kunitomo, characteristically clouds into urumi"[[c:4]]; yubashiri gathers above the yakigashira, where one source finds "this smith's habitual hand"[[c:5]] plainly discernible; on another blade the forked, karimata-like uchinoke at the yakigashira reveals the same characteristic features. The boshi runs sugu to a small ko-maru, at times yakizume, the tip lightly brushed with hakikake. The jigane divides in two, and the published sources state the split outright: in his forging "there are two kinds, one with standing hada and one tightly knit"[[c:6]]. The tight register is packed ko-itame, ji-nie adhering in fine dust, slender chikei woven through, at times a faint nie-utsuri rising toward the shinogi; the surface takes on the pear-skin texture the sources call "the school's characteristic nashiji-hada"[[c:7]], and blades of this kind are read as "the manner closer to Hisakuni"[[c:8]]. The standing register shows itame with the grain raised, jifu mingled in and chikei conspicuous, and the published record ties it to his signed work: "among this smith's signed pieces those with prominently standing itame are comparatively many"[[c:9]]. The two registers sort loosely by signature: most unsigned attributions are of the refined nashiji type and travel on Hon'ami judgments, a kinpun-mei of Hon'ami Koson, a kinzogan of Hon'ami Mitsutada, an origami of Hon'ami Koyu dated Genbun 3 (1738). The scholarship is candid about his softest quality: an early text judges of the shadowed dullness that often settles in his edge that "rather than a point of appreciation it is instead a defect"[[c:10]], while later texts call the urumi "one of this smith's notable features"[[c:11]]. His two-character signature was cut both large and small, and "in either case the character An shows its distinctive features"[[c:12]], its cursive abbreviation always the same, a major point in judging his mei. Honma notes of the attributed pieces that "among the kiwame-mono there are occasionally wide ones like this sword"[[c:13]], robust blades apart from his usual slender build. Within Awataguchi he is the midare brother. The school's later course runs through Norikuni to Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu and settles into bright suguha, while Kuniyasu holds to the compressed ko-midare of the founding generation and its clouded nioiguchi. His sugata follows Hisakuni, and his tightest jigane approaches that brother closely; yet the linked ko-gunome picks him out alone within the school, and the pressed intervals and the urumi he shares only with Kunitomo. Against the later generations the judgment entered on his signed tanto is direct: "compared with Norikuni and Kuniyoshi the interior of the ha works well"[[c:14]], fully showing, the same text concludes, the depth of flavor of Awataguchi work. Twenty-three designated works stand on record: three Important Cultural Properties, all signed tachi, with five Juyo Bijutsuhin, two Tokubetsu Juyo and twelve Juyo, fourteen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers together; nine pieces in the record are signed against eleven unsigned. Eleven blades carry recorded provenance, through the Owari Tokugawa house, one a gift of the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi to Yoshimichi, fourth lord of Owari, and through the Tsugaru, Nanbu, Matsudaira, Mizoguchi and Hosokawa families and the Imperial Family. Of recorded whereabouts his blades rest with the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and the NBTHK itself. The three Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved where they stand; some fifteen blades of recorded rank sit in the tiers that may lawfully change hands, and most are held rather than traded. The published record remarks that signed tachi by Kuniyasu are encountered from time to time, and that is the honest measure of him: a goban-kaji of Go-Toba whose work a patient collector may still hope to meet, though each appearance of a Juyo example is an occasion.
Kunitomo (國友) — Mainline · 1185-1190. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū. Awataguchi Kunitomo is a smith of the early Kamakura period and, by the published account, the senior figure of his house. Awataguchi lay on the highway running from Kyoto toward Omi, where smiths had long resided, and from that quarter Kunitomo is transmitted as the eldest of the six brothers who founded the school's reputation: the published sources record that "Kunitomo was the eldest of the six brothers of the famed signed Awataguchi smiths, and is said to have styled himself Tobayashi Saemon"[[c:1]]. His younger brothers were Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, and together with Hisakuni and Kuniyasu he was summoned as a ban-kaji, a smith in monthly attendance, to the cloister of the retired sovereign Go-Toba (Go-Toba In). The swordbooks place him around the Joukyu era, and he stands among the first hands to carry the refined Yamashiro manner that the school would raise to its height. The characteristic hand is read first in the temper. Over the body of his signed tachi Kunitomo sets a *suguha-cho* mixed only with *ko-midare*, the calm, restrained line of early Awataguchi, into which enter *ko-ashi* and *yo*; the *nioiguchi* lies deep with *ko-nie*, *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* run through it, and here and there the line softens into *urumi*. This is the opposite pole from the clove-flower flamboyance of contemporary Bizen, a quiet edge whose interest is carried in the activity within rather than in the height of the pattern. *Kinsuji* is the constant note, appearing on every blade of his on record, the bright lightning line that marks his deep-*nioi*, *ko-nie* temper. The *jigane* is the school's signature and the surer half of the recognition. He forges a tightly packed *ko-itame* that takes on a *nashiji*-like refinement, in places mixing flowing grain and patches of larger *hada*, with fine *ji-nie* well adhered and the steel clear and bright; on the mumei tachi the same close *ko-itame* shows *chikei* entering the ji. Over so refined a base the *suguha-cho ko-midare* reads with particular clarity. The *boshi* answers the quiet temper, running straight to a *ko-maru*, or straight to a *yakizume*-like point with *hakikake* at the tip, and on the signed prime a *koshi-hi* is carved on the omote. His record divides cleanly into two faces. The first is the ubu, two-character signed tachi, the signature finely cut on the omote toward the mune, slender with high *koshizori*, marked *funbari* and a small *kissaki*, the elegant tachi shape of the period preserved in its original tang. The second is the ubu mumei tachi appraised as his work, slender and dignified in the same register, its forging the finely worked *ko-itame* and its temper the *ko-midare* base with *ko-gunome* and *ko-choji* mixed in. Securely signed examples are the heart of the scholarship around him: the published sources state plainly that "extant works securely bearing his signature are exceedingly few"[[c:2]], counting little more than the tachi preserved at Atsuta Jingu and the pieces designated in modern times. What sets Kunitomo apart is exactly what the judges name. He is held apart from the showier Bizen schools by the restraint of his *suguha-cho* and the refinement of his *nashiji*-like *ko-itame*, the quiet, precise Yamashiro hand rather than the decorative Bizen one. Within his own house he stands at the head of the brothers, beside Hisakuni and Kuniyasu, and his manner is of a piece with the calm, exacting workmanship the Awataguchi line would carry to its summit. The yardstick the published sources reach for is the Atsuta tachi: of his finest signed piece they judge that "in overall workmanship as well as in the manner of the signature it is extremely close to the example at Atsuta Jingu"[[c:3]], and they call it a work in which "the merits and elevated dignity of the early Awataguchi school are superbly displayed"[[c:4]]. For the collector Kunitomo is a rare early name held very largely out of reach. The Toko Taikan places him high among rated smiths. He has no National Treasures; his record runs through an Important Cultural Property, two pieces at the Tokubetsu Juyo rank, and a prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, and the published commentary calls one of the signed tachi "valuable as one of the few signed works"[[c:5]]. The surest of his signed pieces, the Atsuta Jingu tachi, is an Important Cultural Property and remains as patrimony; the Juyo Bijutsuhin signed tachi is held by the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures, and the signed pieces otherwise pass through long-held private hands of recorded whereabouts. With only a couple of blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers and securely signed works numbering only a handful in all, a signed Awataguchi Kunitomo comes to market only very seldom, and a privately held example is among the rarest things an early-Awataguchi collector could encounter, a document of how the school began.
Kunikiyo (國清) — Mainline · 1201-1204. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Kunikiyo was the fourth of the six brother-masters of the early Awataguchi school in Yamashiro, working in the opening years of the Kamakura period. The published sources set him in that celebrated company: a son of Kuniie, his elder brothers Kunitomo, Hisakuni and Kuniyasu and his younger brothers Arikuni and Kunitsuna, the six of whom all served as appointed swordsmiths to the Retired Emperor Go-Toba. Of his own work very little survives in signature. One Jūyō entry states plainly that 'extant signed pieces are few, numbering only two'[[c:1]], so his name is carried today chiefly by a small group of *ō-suriage*, *mumei* katana judged to him, alongside the rare signed *tachi*. His hand is the bright, quiet manner of early Awataguchi. The *jigane* is a closely forged *ko-itame*, in places running a little or mixed with larger grain, carrying abundant *ji-nie* and, on the finest blade, frequent *chikei*; the published sources call the steel notably bright, with a faint *midare-utsuri* standing in places. Over that *jigane* he sets not the flamboyant *chōji* of Bizen but a *suguha*-toned *ko-midare*, shallowly *notare* and worked with *ko-chōji*, *ko-gunome* and *gunome*, *ashi* entering, the *nioiguchi* deep and bright, *nie* well adhered, with fine *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* running through. The *bōshi* goes straight to a *ko-maru* or *ō-maru* and returns. Within that suguha-based edge the judges single out one piece of scenery: patches of *yubashiri* toward the *monouchi* that gather into a *nijūba*-like double line, a feature the published commentary notes on more than one of the *ō-suriage* blades. It is a restrained tell, in keeping with a smith whose whole character is calm rather than showy. The published sources read Kunikiyo closest to his brother Kuniyasu. On the signed *tachi* transmitted in the Unshū Matsudaira house, the commentary finds the temper 'on the whole resembling Kuniyasu'[[c:2]]; on one of the *ō-suriage* katana the tightly packed intervals of the *midare* and an *urumi* tendency of the *nioiguchi* are held to share 'a thread of affinity with Kuniyasu'[[c:3]]. It is exactly this affinity, set on the characteristic bright Awataguchi *ko-itame*, that carries the attribution where the signature is gone, and the sources affirm such blades as work that 'at a glance can be appraised as Awataguchi of the early Kamakura'[[c:4]]. He stands within the early Awataguchi mainstream, before the school's later flowering, the quiet suguha-toned *ko-midare* and the *urumi* *nioiguchi* the marks of the family hand. For the collector Kunikiyo is a rare early Awataguchi name, graded *sai-jō saku* by the Fujishiro appraisers. He has no National Treasures; his record runs through one work designated Important Cultural Property, the Aoyama-family signed *tachi*, together with the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin signed *tachi* from the Unshū Matsudaira house, and a small group of *ō-suriage mumei* katana reaching the Jūyō and Tokubetsu Jūyō tiers, only five works carrying an official designation in all. The Tokubetsu Jūyō katana descended through the Sakai house of Himeji, and the published sources call it a superior blade whose 'glittering *nie* within the temper is especially magnificent'[[c:5]]; among recorded whereabouts a blade is held by the Fukuyama Art Museum, and his provenance runs through old daimyō and imperial collections. With so few works on record and most of them long held, a signed Kunikiyo comes to light only rarely, and a privately held example of either his signed tachi or his attributed katana is among the more notable things a collector of early Yamashiro could hope to encounter.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1299-1302. Jūbun, Jūbi. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Jūbun, Jūyō. Awataguchi Kunimitsu, who styled himself Saemon no Jo, is traditionally held to have been the younger brother of Awataguchi Kuniyoshi, working within the illustrious Awataguchi school of Yamashiro Province during the late Kamakura period. Another tradition identifies him as a son of Awataguchi Norikuni. Extant signed works are exceedingly rare; among the few known signed examples, the tachi of Yoroji in Gifu Prefecture and the tachi of the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures, both designated Important Cultural Properties, stand as representative pieces. He typically inscribed a two-character signature reading simply "Kunimitsu." Kunimitsu's workmanship is defined by a mastery of refined steel and restrained tempering. His *jigane* is characteristically a tightly forged *ko-itame-hada*[[c:1]] in which ultra-fine *ji-nie* adheres like minute particles, producing a steel surface of exceptional clarity. Abundant *chikei* thread through the ground, and faint *nie-utsuri* frequently appears. The *hamon* is a calm *suguha* or *hoso-suguha* into which *ko-ashi* enter; *nie* adheres well along the temper line, with *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running through and a *nioiguchi* that is consistently bright and clear[[c:2]]. The *boshi* turns in *ko-maru*, typically straight, sometimes exhibiting *hakikake*. Several designated works preserve *bo-hi* carved *kaki-nagashi* or *kaki-toshi*, and one example retains an *ubu*-style *suken* and *koshi-hi* near the base, a feature observed among other members of the Awataguchi group. Kunimitsu's work embodies the highest virtues of the Awataguchi school: a well-refined *jigane* of excellent quality united with a bright and orderly *suguha* to produce blades of dignified tone and restrained elegance. Though most surviving examples are *o-suriage* and unsigned, the consistency of his forging and tempering characteristics allows confident attribution. His blades convey a somewhat slender, gentle overall impression that, combined with the luminous *nioiguchi*, yields works of quiet authority representative of the finest Yamashiro tradition in the late Kamakura period.
Kuniie (國家) — Mainline · 1190-1199. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.

Other smiths

Kunisada (國定) — Mainline · 1240-1243. Kunisada (国定) is traditionally identified as a disciple of Kuninobu of the Yamashiro Awataguchi school, and it is transmitted that around the Bun'ei era (1264–1275) he relocated to Tanba Province. His workmanship continues the Awataguchi tradition, and his blades at first glance possess what the NBTHK describes as "the dignified quality characteristic of Kyo work." A separate line of attribution links the name to the Rai school under the reading Rai Kunisada, recorded in sword catalogs as a student of Rai Kunitoshi, though the relationship between the two lineages remains a subject for further research. In his Awataguchi-line tachi, the forging shows *itame-hada* with plentiful *ji-nie*, and the temper is fundamentally *suguha* mixed with small *midare*, into which *ashi* and *yo* enter strongly. A recurring feature across these works is a feeling of *nijubba* — a doubled or layered effect in the hardened edge — intermingled within the temper pattern. One tachi displays a *choji*-like intent recalling Ayakoji Sadatoshi together with a pronounced *jubba* tendency. Works attributed to the Rai school line show a markedly different character: *hira-zukuri* with thin *kasane* and wide *mihaba* in sunnobi proportions, *ko-itame hada* well-forged with ji-nie, and a hamon of *gunome-midare* with *ko-notare* intermixed that becomes *hitatsura* in the upper half — characteristics described as typical of Nanbokucho period workmanship and comparable in hamon style to Hasebe Kunishige. The NBTHK's assessments emphasize the continuity of Awataguchi school aesthetics in the tachi attributed to this smith, noting in particular the dignified quality of Kyoto tradition forging and the distinctive nijubba character of the temper. The presence of works in the Imperial Household collection and transmission through the Tayasu Tokugawa family attests to the historical esteem in which blades bearing this name have been held. Published references include the Kozan Oshigata, Kanto Zuiroku, and Kusanagi no Ya Oshigata.
Kagehisa (景久) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1312-1323. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1229-1232. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kuninobu (國延) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunitsuna (國綱) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1213-1219. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimitsu (有光) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimitsu (有光) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimitsu (有光) — Mainline · 1288-1293. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimoto (有元) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimoto (有元) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinaga (有永) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinaga (有永) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinaga (有永) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinobu (有延) — Mainline · 1247-1249. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Aritada (有忠) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Aritaka (有隆) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Ariyuki (有行) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Ariyuki (有行) — Mainline · 1331-1336. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1261-1264. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Hisamitsu (久光) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagehisa (景久) — Mainline · 1171-1175. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kageie (景家) — Mainline · 1184-1185. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kageie (景家) — Mainline · 1324-1326. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagekuni (景國) — Mainline · 1213-1219. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagenaga (景長) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagenaga (景長) — Mainline · 1329-1331. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagenaga (景長) — Mainline · 1356-1361. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunisue (國末) — Mainline · 1219-1222. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kuniyori (國頼) — Mainline · 1185-1190. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Nobukane (信兼) — Mainline · 1207-1211. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Nobumitsu (延光) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norikane (則兼) — Mainline · 1207-1211. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norikiyo (則清) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norikuni (則國) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norimori (則守) — Mainline · 1288-1293. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadaie (忠家) — Mainline · 1346-1370. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadatsugu (忠次) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadatsugu (忠次) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadayoshi (忠吉) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tama (玉) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tameto (爲遠) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tomohisa (友久) — Mainline · 987-1596. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Torin (藤林) — Mainline · 1232-1233. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (俊延) — Mainline · 1219-1222. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (俊延) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (利延) — Mainline · 1219-1222. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (利延) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tsuneto (常遠) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoriie (頼家) — Mainline · 1303-1306. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshikuni (吉國) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshimasa (吉正) — Mainline · 1229-1232. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshimasa (吉正) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshimasa (吉正) — Mainline · 1303-1306. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.

Live·Awataguchi lineage

粟田口

The Yamashiro Awataguchi School

Era

1180 — 1320

Members

Kokuhō

Jūbun

Jūbi

Tokujū

Jūyō

118

For Sale

70smiths10Kokuhō45Jūbun33Jūbi48Tokujū118Jūyō

Branches— schools this lineage shaped

粟田口派 · Yamashiro Awataguchi kakeizuLineage v0.1 · live data

The Yamashiro Awataguchi School (粟田口) Lineage

Phase 1 · The Yamashiro Awataguchi School (粟田口) · 1180 – 1320

70 smiths · 10 Kokuhō · 45 Jūbun · 33 Jūbi · 48 Tokujū · 118 Jūyō

Major smiths

Yoshimitsu (吉光) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Toshiro Yoshimitsu of Awataguchi in Yamashiro, active in the mid to late Kamakura period, is introduced by the published sources with one recurring sentence: he is the smith who crowns the close of the Awataguchi school[[c:1]], and he stands together with Shintogo Kunimitsu of Sagami as "a master of the tanto and a virtuoso of suguha"[[c:2]]. The same notices record that in the Edo period he was celebrated with Masamune and Go as the Three Great Works under Heaven (天下三作), and that among the three he was "placed foremost and most highly treasured"[[c:3]]. His teacher is held to be Kuniyoshi, and the published record anchors the filiation in the work itself: the varied forms of his tanto correspond entirely to shapes found in Kuniyoshi, and the connection, the NBTHK writes, is readily accepted. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku. The forms of his tanto are remarkably varied: blades broad and somewhat compact, slender yet elongated, broad and long, and of standard proportions, nearly all hira-zukuri with uchizori. Within that variety the hand is constant. His celebrated temper is suguha, often a narrow *hoso-suguha*, laid in fine bright *ko-nie* under a bright, clear *nioiguchi*. Small *ko-gunome* are aligned in the lower half toward the *yakidashi*, and the tempered width narrows around the *fukura*. *Ashi* enter, delicate *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* work through the edge, and at times the line carries a *nijuba* effect. The *boshi* turns back in a calm *ko-maru*, and beneath it on the *sashi-omote* the notices repeatedly mark a linear dropping of *nie* into the *ji*, the so-called kuisagari of nie[[c:4]], a habitual trait of his hand. Beneath the temper lies the Awataguchi jigane at its full refinement, and the published sources recognize two forging modes in it. One is a *ko-itame* so tightly packed that it is called nashiji-hada (梨子地肌), the pear-skin surface; the other an *itame* of somewhat larger pattern in which the hada stands a little. In both, fine *ji-nie* adheres thickly and evenly, fine *chikei* enter, and a *nie-utsuri* rises in the *ji*. The steel itself, notice after notice, carries a moist luster (潤い) and is conspicuously clear. Nearly everything he made is a tanto. The published record long held that his only surviving work outside that form was the meibutsu Ichigo Hitofuri (一期一振藤四郎), the tachi once in the collection of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and since retempered; in recent years a signed wakizashi became known, regarded as an early form of the uchigatana[[c:5]], formerly of the Naruse family of Inuyama and published in the Kozan Oshigata. Its signature placement agrees exactly, the sources record, with the ubu tang of the Ichigo Hitofuri as drawn in the Kotoku sword albums. He signed his work: forty-five pieces of record carry a mei against four without, the standard form a large two-character mei cut below the mekugi-ana of an ubu nakago. The calligraphy is itself an object of scholarship. The published sources value the fluent brushwork of his mei as "unrivaled through the history of sword inscriptions"[[c:6]]. The comparative judgments in the published sources are concrete. Of a small tanto with narrow mihaba and exceptionally thick kasane, they write that such a construction is hardly to be seen in the Rai school, that it belongs to the varied shapes of Awataguchi, and that compared with Rai works "the nie of ji and ha is a degree thicker, and felt more strongly"[[c:7]]. Toward his teacher Kuniyoshi the relation is continuity: the slender, elongated silhouette of certain pieces is the same manner seen in the teacher's work. Within his own school, the notices add, his individuality can be grasped clearly through the *gunome* near the base, the narrowing toward the *monouchi*, and the dropping of *nie* beneath the *boshi*. His signed ubu tanto are in turn the standard against which every Yoshimitsu attribution is measured. Seventy-one of his works stand on record. Four are National Treasures and nine are Important Cultural Properties, patrimony preserved in museums, shrines and long-held collections; beneath them stand seven Tokubetsu Juyo and fourteen Juyo, twenty-one blades in those tiers. The Kyoho Meibutsu-cho lists sixteen of his blades headed by the Hirano Toshiro (平野藤四郎), and with its fire-lost and supplementary sections the count reaches thirty-eight. The blades that survive carry their histories openly. The Nabeshima Toshiro (鍋島藤四郎) passed from Nabeshima Naoshige through the Ikeda to Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, and was thereafter handed to each shogunal heir at his coming of age; the Asakura Toshiro (朝倉藤四郎) is named for Asakura Yoshikage of Echizen; one tanto was given by the shogun Iemitsu at the birth of his son Tsunashige and later worn by the sixth shogun Ienobu; another was received by Kyogoku Takatsugu from Tokugawa Ieyasu in Keicho 5. In all, thirty-nine blades carry recorded provenance, running through the Ashikaga shoguns, the Imperial Family, Matsunaga Hisahide, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Owari and Kishu Tokugawa, the Maeda, the Kuroda and the Asano. The National Treasure and Important Cultural Property examples stand permanently outside the market, and of recorded whereabouts twenty-two works rest with institutions, among them the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, Atsuta Jingu, the Maeda Ikutokukai and the Sano Art Museum, against eleven in private hands. A Yoshimitsu coming into the open is among the rarest events in the field; for most collectors he is a smith to be studied in the great collections rather than possessed.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1293-1322. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. In the tenth month of Einin 1 (1293), a blade left the Kamakura forge of Shintogo Kunimitsu bearing the long signature Kamakura junin Shintogo Kunimitsu saku[[c:1]], the oldest of his dated works. The published sources count Awataguchi Kunitsuna and the Bizen smiths Kunimune and Sukezane as the pioneers of Kamakura sword-making, settlers from older centers; the first smith of Sagami itself, who cut his Kamakura residence and his dates into the nakago, was Kunimitsu[[c:2]]. His designation texts open with one standing sentence for half a century: he is the de facto founder of the Soshu tradition, and the raising of the three masters Yukimitsu, Masamune and Norishige is counted his great achievement[[c:3]]. Tradition makes him the son of Awataguchi Kunitsuna and a pupil of Bizen Saburo Kunimune, a transmission the sources say still leaves room for study. His dated work runs to Gentoku 3 (1331), and a tanto of Showa 4 (1315) signed with the Buddhist name Koshin is read as late work, beside the dates of Kagen and Tokuji. What survives is, before all else, the tanto: hira-zukuri and mitsu-mune, of ordinary width with uchizori, ubu and signed with the two-character mei. The sources state his formula in a single sentence: at a glance the work suggests Awataguchi, but the conspicuous chikei and kinsuji expressed in ji and ha point to this smith[[c:4]]. He excels in suguha across its whole range, ito, hoso, chu and hiro[[c:5]]; as a master of the tanto he is paired with Toshiro Yoshimitsu, the two named twin peaks (短刀の名手として藤四郎吉光と双璧). The temper is bright with small nie, crossed by fine kinsuji that flicker; the appraisers have called this play the old man's whiskers (翁の髭) from of old and count it the great point of his work. Honma adds a habit of the hand: the temper ordinarily hardens down past the machi toward the mune; a few authentic pieces instead drop the yaki slightly there. The boshi runs sugu to a calm ko-maru, at times lightly swept; suken, bonji and gomabashi are carved on many blades, and the kanmuri-otoshi construction recurs. The jigane is where his Awataguchi schooling shows. He forges a ko-itame or a tightly knit itame, and lays over it ji-nie thick and often mijin, minutely fine; chikei enter incessantly, the steel is clear, and nie-utsuri frequently stands. The standing hada that came to mark the mature Soshu tradition is almost wholly absent in his own blades, and grows only by degrees in the men after him; the sources note it chiefly in his rare midare work, while the norm is a surface so refined it passes for Awataguchi until the chikei and kinsuji betray it. The ha-nie of these quiet lines is singled out as well, the light-beautiful nie the texts call particular to the upper rank of Soshu work[[c:6]]. From this refined, nie-laden suguha his three pupils drew out the nie-midare of the mature tradition. Tachi are another matter: the sources repeat that nearly everything extant is tanto and the tachi exceedingly rare[[c:7]]; the survivors are slender, with high koshizori, funbari and a compact point, forged exactly as the tanto. At their head stands the meibutsu Mutsu Shintogo, an ubu signed tachi of 76.1 cm with layered horimono, heirloom of the Date of Sendai, by tradition a grant from the Emperor Go-Mizunoo, and listed in the addenda of the Kyoho Meibutsu-cho as no meibutsu, yet a fine tool[[c:8]]. The osuriage mumei katana attributed to him belong here too, and the sources are explicit that such a judgment names Kunimitsu and his three sons collectively[[c:9]]. One such blade carries a Kyoho 7 (1722) origami of Hon'ami Kochu at seventy gold pieces. A small minority departs from the suguha norm altogether: a Juyo Bijutsuhin tanto tempers its lower half in a large midare, the text stating plainly that his midareba is scarce and this piece well made. Honma reads in that scarcity the proof of the school: midareba exists, if rarely, in Kunimitsu, and suguha, if most rarely, in Masamune, the two together confirming the relation of master and pupil. A single katakiriha tanto, retempered, is the only one of its construction in his work. The name ran on past the founder. The old registers give him three sons, Kunihiro, Kunishige and Kuniyasu, all said to have signed Kunimitsu later, and only Kunihiro is met with under his own name; since the hands cannot yet be divided by workmanship, the sources divide them by the mei. The founder's two-character signature follows the rule the appraisers call saji kitakanmuri (左字北冠), the interior of the kuni character cut in the left-hand manner with the crown set toward the mune, in both a fine and a thicker chisel, and the texts admit rare authentic exceptions. On tachi the mei sits on the haki-omote toward the mune; an ubu signed odachi of 96.1 cm is read as Kunihiro's Kunimitsu mei from its workmanship and deep, bold carving. The carving is itself a legacy: the layered horimono later seen in Sadamune is judged to begin with Shintogo, and the work on his blades is connected with Daishinbo Yukei, transmitted as his pupil and a master of the chisel. Much of this oeuvre is patrimony. Four blades hold the rank of National Treasure and ten more are Important Cultural Properties, preserved in museums, shrines and long-held collections; seven are prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, among them tanto of the Seikado and the Kurokawa Institute. The provenance roll runs deep. The meibutsu Kojiri-toshi Shintogo passed from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Osaka treasury through the fire of the summer siege, was retempered by the first Yasutsugu, and descended in the Tokugawa shogun house; his tanto are handed down in the Uesugi of Yonezawa, the Echizen Matsudaira, the Satake, the Hosokawa and the Ogasawara, and one blade entered the collection of W. A. Compton in recent times. Fujishiro rates him Sai-jo saku, and seventy-two designated works stand on record, the great majority signed with the two-character mei in an ubu nakago, the long signature met only a few times. What a private collector may realistically encounter is the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tier, eight and forty-two blades, fifty in the two tiers together, most of them signed tanto of the classic refined manner. Such pieces are held closely and reach the market only rarely; when one does appear, it carries the signed work of the smith in whose forge the Soshu tradition began.
Kuniyoshi (國吉) — Mainline · 1275-1278. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Nearly every published designation text on Awataguchi Kuniyoshi cites the meibutsu Narukitsune, the Crying Fox, a large hira-zukuri wakizashi bearing his long signature Sahyoe-no-jo Fujiwara Kuniyoshi[[c:1]], and newly judged blades are still read against its manner. Kuniyoshi is recorded as the son of Norikuni, by some accounts his pupil, and a grandson of Kunitomo, eldest of the six Awataguchi brothers of Yamashiro; his younger brother was Kunimitsu. Transmitted as either his son or his student is Toshiro Yoshimitsu, the celebrated master of the tanto. A tanto dated Koan 3 (1280) survives, and the sword drawings of the old books preserve dates of Kenji 4 (1278), Koan 6 (1283) and Koan 10 (1287); by these the published sources confirm the traditional sequence of the Awataguchi generations and fix him in the middle Kamakura period. The published record describes his manner in a settled formula: a finely kneaded *ko-itame* rich in *ji-nie*, beautiful in effect, and a *suguha* in well-attached *ko-nie* mixing *ko-midare* and *ko-gunome*, the *ji* and *ha* together judged "a degree stronger than the Rai works"[[c:2]]. Above everything stands the *nijuba*, the doubled line that runs conspicuously along the *ha* and is cited again and again as his greatest point. The Kaifunki already names it his habit: "as a habitual mannerism there is often *nijuba*, and silver often floats in the *ji* as in a cast object"[[c:3]]. At times the line trebles into *sanjuba*, often formed of *yubashiri* strung along the edge, and on more than one blade it carries into the *boshi*. *Ashi* and *yo* enter frequently, *kinsuji* and fine *sunagashi* work through the *ha*, and the *nioiguchi* is repeatedly described as bright and clear. The *boshi* is typically straight with a refined *ko-maru* turnback. The *jigane* carries the school's name. He forges a *ko-itame* mixed with *ko-mokume*, kneaded extremely tight, over which *ji-nie* sits dust-fine and thick with delicate *chikei*, until the steel takes on the so-called *nashiji-hada*, the pear-skin steel of the Awataguchi idiom. *Nie-utsuri* stands over it, at times with a faint *jifu*-like tone mixed in. The Kokon Meizukushi praises the taste of his steel as a gleam deep in the color of the *ji*, "like the silver of a tenmoku bowl dusted with ash"[[c:4]]. His certain signed tachi number only two. One has long been an Important Cultural Property; the second surfaced only at its Juyo designation in 1997, a slender, elegant blade of high *koshi-zori* with *funbari*. A third, shortened, with a two-character mei low on the tang, was admitted at its Tokubetsu Juyo designation as extremely close to those two. The tanto are comparatively many and carry most of his signatures, the ken number several, and the Narukitsune stands apart as the single great wakizashi. The tanto shapes, stubby and wide like a kitchen knife, ordinary, slender and elongated, or wide and elongated, in *uchizori* or without curve, are called "remarkably diverse"[[c:5]] and opposed to the uniformity of the Rai school; like Yoshimitsu he often works the temper down over the *machi*, and *gomabashi* or *bonji* are carved on many. The unsigned blades are the more numerous, *o-suriage* katana of wide *mihaba* and shallow *wa-zori* with the *chu-kissaki* pulled in *ikubi* fashion, where the *suguha* grows busier with *ko-choji* and *gunome*, *ashi* and *yo* thick. On these the *nijuba* is the point on which the judges anchor the attribution, and one *ayame-zukuri* katana is judged to give the very impression of a Narukitsune enlarged[[c:6]]. The ken are elegant, the point not flaring, often in *hoso-suguha* with the *boshi* *yakizume*, and "the ken of this maker often show strong *nie*"[[c:7]]. The signature is normally the two characters Kuniyoshi, the chisel running from fine to ordinary to thick, a variety ascribed to difference of period. On his relation to Yoshimitsu the published sources reason from the dates. Kuniyoshi has the Koan 3 tanto and the dated drawings of the old books; Yoshimitsu has no dated work at all, extant or recorded. Both made few tachi and excelled in tanto of unusually varied shape, and from this the judges find it reasonable to see the two not as father and son but as master and pupil of comparatively small age difference[[c:8]]. One text states plainly that together with Yoshimitsu of his school he produced many tanto, both displaying superior technique. The *nijuba* appears on nearly half of his records, only occasionally in Yoshimitsu's, and never in those of his father Norikuni; the *sanjuba* is met in his work alone among them; and it is on his records that the texts name the *nashiji-hada* outright. Fujishiro rates him Sai-jo saku, and fifty-one designated works stand on record. There are no National Treasures among them, but seven blades are Important Cultural Properties, his long-known signed tachi at their head, and five are prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, one a tanto formerly of the Aoyama viscount family of Sasayama. Eighteen blades hold the Tokubetsu Juyo rank and twenty-one the Juyo, thirty-nine in the two tiers together. The provenance roll is in keeping. A signed tanto with an origami of Hon'ami Koon descends in the Matsudaira house of Iyo Saijo, and a mumei tanto in the Reizei house of court poets; the Tokubetsu Juyo two-character tachi was owned by Okubo Ichio and passed to the Iwasaki house; a signed ken belongs to the Owari Tokugawa Reimeikai; and one signed tanto, by its scabbard inscription, was presented by Todo Takamutsu at a birth celebration in the Tokugawa house. Of recorded whereabouts today, examples rest in the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Kyoto National Museum and the Hikone Castle Museum, with others in private hands. For the collector, Kuniyoshi is by Awataguchi measure not wholly beyond reach. The Important Cultural Properties are patrimony preserved outside the market, but the thirty-nine blades of the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers are where a private example is met, most of them *o-suriage* *mumei* katana whose attribution rests on the doubled line along the *ha*. Such a blade comes to market only rarely, and is an event when it does; a signed tanto is rarer still, and a signed tachi, of which two certain examples exist, is among the rarest encounters the school affords.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1190-1199. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Awataguchi Hisakuni worked at the foot of the Awataguchi slope in Yamashiro in the early Kamakura period, and he is the second of the six Awataguchi brothers, the smith who used the personal name Tojiro (藤次郎). The published record sets the family out plainly: the founder is given as Kunika, and his sons were the six brothers Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo (国清), Arikuni (有国) and Kunitsuna (国綱). That a community of smiths already stood at Awataguchi is attested in the early-Kamakura tale collection Uji Shui Monogatari[[c:1]], so this is a forge with a documented place in the literature of its own century, not a later reconstruction. Hisakuni's standing inside that famous house is the first thing to recognise. The 14th Tokubetsu-Juyo entry calls his manner the most refined and dignified within Awataguchi work[[c:2]], and the 42nd Juyo entry ranks him foremost of the lineage in both technique and refinement of spirit. He is repeatedly named among the bangaji whom the Retired Emperor Go-Toba (後鳥羽院) summoned to forge on rotation at the cloistered court, and one record goes further and transmits him as a teacher to the sovereign (帝王の師). The history is not decoration here. It is the reason a slender tachi with so quiet a temper carries the authority it does. Recognise his hand by the pure Yamashiro register. Over a tightly packed ko-itame, finely worked and dense with ji-nie, he tempers a quiet suguha that leans into a shallow notare, with small gunome and a little ko-midare mixed in, ko-ashi and yo entering, the nioiguchi tight and bright, and kinsuji and sunagashi running in the ha. The boshi is a calm ko-maru, and very often it sweeps with hakikake; one Tokubetsu-Juyo katana records it exactly as a straight tip that brushes into a yakizume-like finish[[c:3]], and the same swept tip recurs across his katana and his tanto. The forging itself draws a recurring word from the appraisers, the so-called tataki-tsume look of a thoroughly consolidated jigane, and the Awataguchi steel praised of old as blue in colour with a white edge[[c:4]]. Among the brothers the connoisseurs single him out for nie. The 24th Juyo entry calls him the smith whose ji and ha carry nie most strongly, sometimes with a slightly coarse nie mixed in, while the 22nd Juyo tachi names him outright the most skilful forger of the six[[c:5]], its tight ko-itame and deep, faintly urumi nioiguchi recalling his younger brother Kuniyasu. His tanto show the same clarity in miniature: the wide, slightly curved Juyo-Bijutsuhin tanto is flagged as an unusual shape for Awataguchi, and the Honma note attached to it draws the very line that separates this house from its successors, the occasional eccentric proportion among Awataguchi tanto being a point of distinction from the Rai school. His place in the wider road of Yamashiro steel runs through that contrast with Rai. The refined nie-suguha he and his brothers fixed at Awataguchi is the wellspring the Rai masters drew from, and through them the eastern Soshu smiths after; one of the katana grouped with him even carries a gold-inlaid attribution to Rai Kunitsugu, a reminder of how closely the early Yamashiro and later Rai hands sit in the eye. Signed work survives in the smallest numbers, a few tachi and tanto, most of them the bold two-character mei cut now with a thick chisel and now with a finer one, with the rare long Tojiro Hisakuni signature confirmed against the old sword books Kotoku Toezu[[c:6]] and Kozan Oshigata (光山押形). The blades carry the names of the great houses: the Kishu Tokugawa[[c:7]] and the Date (伊達家), the Matsudaira of Saijo and the Akimoto, with one tanto authenticated by a Hon'ami Kotsune origami dated Enpo 9. For the collector the arithmetic is severe. A National Treasure and a small group of Important Cultural Properties stand to his name, several of them held in institutions, the Tokyo National Museum and Nikko Toshogu and Itsukushima Jinja among the recorded holders, where they can never trade. Only a handful sit in the Tokubetsu-Juyo and Juyo tiers, and those are spoken for by old daimyo provenance. A Hisakuni in private hands is therefore among the rarest things a student of the early sword can hope to meet, and when one appears it is the quiet, dignified, nie-laden suguha of the imperial forge, not the spectacle of a later age, that the buyer is acquiring.
Kunitsuna (國綱) — Mainline · 1240-1264. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Awataguchi Kunitsuna worked in early Kamakura Kyōto as the youngest of the six Awataguchi brothers, the eldest being Kunitomo, and he styled himself Tōroku Sakon. The published sources transmit that he later went down to Kamakura, summoned by the Hōjō, and there, together with Kunimune and Sukezane of Bizen, became one of the smiths who opened the way for the Sagami tradition. They also concede how little of his hand survives: genuine signed works that can be accepted with confidence are recorded as extremely few[[c:1]], the celebrated Onimaru Kunitsuna standing as the representative piece. He worked under the name 国綱, and a long ōdachi survives signed in full 鎌倉住藤六左近国綱 and dated 建長五年八月日, the only dated trace of the Kamakura years. The published sources draw a sharp line between him and the rest of the school. Awataguchi work is generally an earnest, classical elegance, but his shape, his forging and his temper are called distinctive: a tachi with high koshizori that does not droop toward the tip, a forging in which the itame stands large and prominent over thickly laid ji-nie, and a wide, varied temper in which the ha-nie is conspicuously strong[[c:2]]. The way both ji and ha are vigorously animated, the sources say, is precisely the hallmark of his art[[c:3]]. This is the recognition core: where his brothers refine, Kunitsuna pushes the nie forward, and the steel leans toward the bold Sagami manner that was about to be born. Over that jigane runs a suguha base in shallow notare, mixed with ko-midare, chōji and ko-gunome, with thick ashi and yō, the nioi deep and the interior of the ha thickly covered in nie; kinsuji run frequently, sunagashi hangs, and in places the habuchi shows hotsure with uchinoke and yubashiri. The jigane is the tight Awataguchi steel carried thick with ji-nie and chikei, often standing into ō-itame, with a mizukage rising from the togidame that connects into a jifu-utsuri-like midare-utsuri, an aspect the sources note as often seen in his work. The bōshi is where the older profile had to be corrected: it is not simply a calm ko-maru. On the Tokubetsu-Jūyō tachi it runs straight into a ko-maru with a slight kaeri and the point sweeps a little hakikake[[c:4]], and on the kinzōgan-mei katana it sweeps straight in hakikake toward a yakizume tendency[[c:5]]; elsewhere it enters midarekomi with a pointed turn. That swept, nie-broken point is as much his tell as the standing grain. The published sources are explicit that he has two faces. There are pieces in the orthodox Awataguchi manner, and there are works of a different cast, robust in form with a standing jihada[[c:6]]. The Onimaru belongs to the second, robust group; many of the surviving signed tachi belong to the first, where the forging tightens to a finer ko-itame, the temper a calmer suguha base, the whole quieter and more obviously of the court tradition. For the kantei eye the two faces share the same engine: the conspicuous ha-nie, the busy kinsuji and sunagashi, the midare-utsuri, and the swept hakikake bōshi. The subdued, sunken nioiguchi on the quieter tachi parts him from bright Bizen; the openly strong nie and the standing grain part him from the orthodox Awataguchi suguha of his brothers. The Onimaru is the heart of his fame and the reason a smith of so few blades is known to every collector. Its later transmission reads as a history of power, passing through the great houses and into the Imperial collection, where it survives as an Imperial heirloom and one of the Five Great Swords, shown to almost no one. The published record names, beside it, a Tokubetsu-Jūyō tachi once held by the Viscount Nishitakatsuji family and an Important Art Object once owned by the Aizu Matsudaira house, and counts among the Important Cultural Properties attributed to him the tachi preserved at Hie Shrine. The kinzōgan and kinpun attributions on several of the shortened katana, cut by Hon'ami Kōson and his line, show how seriously the Hon'ami house took a Kunitsuna ascription. For the collector this is among the rarest of the Awataguchi names. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jō saku, and his finest signed work descends through houses of the first rank: the Tosa Yamanouchi family held one kinzōgan-mei katana, and the Sendai Date family received another tachi from Konoe Motohiro and kept it as a treasured heirloom. A handful fall in the Tokubetsu-Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, with a small body of Important Cultural Properties, while the masterpiece itself can never leave the Imperial collection. A signed Kunitsuna in private hands is therefore one of the scarcest things a student of the early Kamakura sword can hope to meet, and the very scarcity is part of why his Sagami descent, by tradition the bridge that ran on to Shintōgo Kunimitsu and the Sōshū line, carries the weight that it does.
Norikuni (則國) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. The record of Awataguchi Norikuni centers on a slender signed *tachi* that preserves its original tang, with an old scabbard whose document of provenance states that Kitabatake Akiie received the sword from Emperor Go-Daigo; it passed Juyo in 1998 and rose to Tokubetsu Juyo in 2000. Norikuni, called Toma no Jo, was the son of Kunitomo, the eldest of the six Awataguchi brothers, and the father of Sahyoe no Jo Kuniyoshi; his dates are given as around Katei (1235 to 1238), the bridge generation between the *goban-kaji* age of his father and uncles and the *tanto* age of Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu. A prewar designation record adds the tradition that he served as a *goban-kaji* on Oki[[c:1]], the island of the exiled Retired Emperor Go-Toba. On one point the published sources never vary: surviving works with secure signatures, *tachi* and *tanto* alike, are very few. His *tanto*, the greater part of what survives, are *hira-zukuri* with *mitsu-mune*, of standard width, with *uchizori*. The *jigane* is a tightly knit *ko-itame*, the *ji-nie* dust-fine and thick, with fine *chikei* woven through. Over it he tempers a calm *suguha* in *ko-nie*, deep in *nioi*, taking in *ko-gunome* or a shallow *notare* with small *ashi*. Fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run within the *ha*, and the *boshi* turns back in a refined *ko-maru*, at times lightly swept. On the *omote* and *ura* he cuts *gomabashi*, often paired with a *suken*; the grooves are spaced narrowly and set close to the *mune*, a placement the published sources call "a habit common to the craftsmen of the school"[[c:2]]. The Kuroda *tanto* that bears his rather large two-character signature is judged sound in *ji*, *ha* and form alike, "one of the foremost works of this smith"[[c:3]]. The steel itself carries the school's name. Of the *ubu* unsigned *tachi* of Juyo session 46 the published sources write that the *ko-itame* is extremely tightly knit, the minute *ji-nie* giving "a moist, pear-skin surface"[[c:4]], with *nie-utsuri* standing and the steel clear. The signed *tachi* shows instead an *itame* mixed with *mokume*, somewhat large in texture yet thoroughly worked and warm, displaying, as the same sources put it, the celebrated virtues of Awataguchi *jigane*[[c:5]]; over it a faint *jifu-utsuri* rises. The published sources divide his manner by form. Among the *tachi* there are works in a *suguha*-based temper mixing *ko-midare*, but for the *tanto* "a calm, graceful *suguha* is general"[[c:6]]. The signed *tachi* register is the rarer one: a slender blade of high *koshizori* with *funbari*, closing in a small point, the temper dropped in a slight *yakiotoshi* just above the *machi*. Its activity gathers from the middle down through the lower half, in *ko-midare* with *ko-choji* and *ko-gunome*, while the upper reaches run a calm *suguha* and the *boshi* ends nearly straight with a *yakitsume* tendency. The thin, short *koshi-hi* on its *omote* is what the old texts call the *wasure-bi* (忘れ樋), the forgotten groove often met on Kamakura *tachi*. The *mei* is of two characters, and the form of the character kuni is noted as close to his son Kuniyoshi's, a point of attention in appraising his signatures. Hon'ami appraisals run the length of the record: an origami of Koon dated 1639 on the Matsudaira *tanto*, an origami of Kochu dated 1713, and a *shu-mei* thought to be the hand of Tadaaki, the nineteenth master; these are attributions by later appraisers, not signatures. So too the *katana* on which the late Edo smith Ishido Unju Korekazu cut an inscription recording that he had shortened a work of Norikuni, a document the judges call greatly treasured as source material[[c:7]]. Within the family his place is fixed by two observations that run in opposite directions. His *tanto* manner is common to Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu, but the published sources state that his *nie* is comparatively stronger[[c:8]]; of the *shu-mei* *tanto* they write likewise that "the *nie* within the *ha* is strong"[[c:9]]. Yet that strength never disorders the line. His *hamon* does not break into minutely complex small patterning, and the judges make this restraint itself the thread of appraisal, writing of the unsigned *tachi* of session 46 that the way the *hamon* does not become so intricately disordered in small patterns "is what connects it to the signed works of this smith"[[c:10]]. The *midare* hand of the school belonged to his uncle Kuniyasu; Norikuni's own *ko-midare* appears only on his *tachi*, and only in the lower half. The Kuroda *tanto* of Tokubetsu Juyo session 20, *suguha*-toned yet shallowly undulant with *ko-gunome* mixed in, is singled out as the exception, good material for knowing the breadth of his work. Fifteen designated works stand on record. Of his rare signed *tachi*, three were designated Juyo Bunkazai, Important Cultural Properties, and one of these has since been elevated to Kokuho, a National Treasure; with them stand three Tokubetsu Juyo, six Juyo and three prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin. The Toko Taikan values him at 3,000 against a ceiling of 3,500, the figure of a Kamakura master of the first rank. The National Treasure and the Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved beyond any market; among the recorded holders of his work are Atsuta Jingu and the Kyoto National Museum. The provenance roll is of the same order. The signed *tachi* carries the old legend of Emperor Go-Daigo and Kitabatake Akiie; the Kuroda house of Chikuzen held the signed *tanto* whose *aikuchi* *koshirae* is scattered with the family's fuji-tomoe crest; the Matsudaira lords of Iyo Saijo kept the *tanto* with its 1639 origami; Mori Motomichi held both prewar Jubi *tanto*; the Ikeda family appears as well. For the private collector the arithmetic is severe: nine blades stand in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, and most have rested long in the same hands. A work of Norikuni reaching the open market is a rare event, and a signed example would be among the rarest encounters the field affords.
Kuniyasu (國安) — Mainline · 1199-1201. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Awataguchi Kuniyasu worked at Awataguchi in Kyoto in the early Kamakura period, third of the six brothers, Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, who made the school famous, and was called Tosaburo (藤三郎). The published sources count him, with his elder brothers Kunitomo and Hisakuni, among the goban-kaji of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba, and the sword references place his activity around the Jokyu era (1219 to 1222). His surviving signed works are tachi, comparatively numerous for so early a smith; the single signed tanto, recognized at Juyo session 31, is for that reason called "extremely precious"[[c:1]]. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku. His blades keep the figure of their day, slender, with high koshizori and a small kissaki, the curve settling faintly toward the point; one source reads the bearing as a gentle taoyame grace. On this figure he tempers a small-patterned ko-midare in ko-nie-deki, mixing ko-choji and ko-gunome over a suguha base, with kinsuji and fine sunagashi in the ha. The intervals of the midare press close, for "many examples show the spacing of the midare drawn tight"[[c:2]], and where the small gunome run linked in series the judges go further, writing of one unsigned katana that by this linked tendency "even within the school it should be possible to specify Kuniyasu"[[c:3]]. The nioiguchi, "as with Kunitomo, characteristically clouds into urumi"[[c:4]]; yubashiri gathers above the yakigashira, where one source finds "this smith's habitual hand"[[c:5]] plainly discernible; on another blade the forked, karimata-like uchinoke at the yakigashira reveals the same characteristic features. The boshi runs sugu to a small ko-maru, at times yakizume, the tip lightly brushed with hakikake. The jigane divides in two, and the published sources state the split outright: in his forging "there are two kinds, one with standing hada and one tightly knit"[[c:6]]. The tight register is packed ko-itame, ji-nie adhering in fine dust, slender chikei woven through, at times a faint nie-utsuri rising toward the shinogi; the surface takes on the pear-skin texture the sources call "the school's characteristic nashiji-hada"[[c:7]], and blades of this kind are read as "the manner closer to Hisakuni"[[c:8]]. The standing register shows itame with the grain raised, jifu mingled in and chikei conspicuous, and the published record ties it to his signed work: "among this smith's signed pieces those with prominently standing itame are comparatively many"[[c:9]]. The two registers sort loosely by signature: most unsigned attributions are of the refined nashiji type and travel on Hon'ami judgments, a kinpun-mei of Hon'ami Koson, a kinzogan of Hon'ami Mitsutada, an origami of Hon'ami Koyu dated Genbun 3 (1738). The scholarship is candid about his softest quality: an early text judges of the shadowed dullness that often settles in his edge that "rather than a point of appreciation it is instead a defect"[[c:10]], while later texts call the urumi "one of this smith's notable features"[[c:11]]. His two-character signature was cut both large and small, and "in either case the character An shows its distinctive features"[[c:12]], its cursive abbreviation always the same, a major point in judging his mei. Honma notes of the attributed pieces that "among the kiwame-mono there are occasionally wide ones like this sword"[[c:13]], robust blades apart from his usual slender build. Within Awataguchi he is the midare brother. The school's later course runs through Norikuni to Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu and settles into bright suguha, while Kuniyasu holds to the compressed ko-midare of the founding generation and its clouded nioiguchi. His sugata follows Hisakuni, and his tightest jigane approaches that brother closely; yet the linked ko-gunome picks him out alone within the school, and the pressed intervals and the urumi he shares only with Kunitomo. Against the later generations the judgment entered on his signed tanto is direct: "compared with Norikuni and Kuniyoshi the interior of the ha works well"[[c:14]], fully showing, the same text concludes, the depth of flavor of Awataguchi work. Twenty-three designated works stand on record: three Important Cultural Properties, all signed tachi, with five Juyo Bijutsuhin, two Tokubetsu Juyo and twelve Juyo, fourteen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers together; nine pieces in the record are signed against eleven unsigned. Eleven blades carry recorded provenance, through the Owari Tokugawa house, one a gift of the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi to Yoshimichi, fourth lord of Owari, and through the Tsugaru, Nanbu, Matsudaira, Mizoguchi and Hosokawa families and the Imperial Family. Of recorded whereabouts his blades rest with the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and the NBTHK itself. The three Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved where they stand; some fifteen blades of recorded rank sit in the tiers that may lawfully change hands, and most are held rather than traded. The published record remarks that signed tachi by Kuniyasu are encountered from time to time, and that is the honest measure of him: a goban-kaji of Go-Toba whose work a patient collector may still hope to meet, though each appearance of a Juyo example is an occasion.
Kunitomo (國友) — Mainline · 1185-1190. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū. Awataguchi Kunitomo is a smith of the early Kamakura period and, by the published account, the senior figure of his house. Awataguchi lay on the highway running from Kyoto toward Omi, where smiths had long resided, and from that quarter Kunitomo is transmitted as the eldest of the six brothers who founded the school's reputation: the published sources record that "Kunitomo was the eldest of the six brothers of the famed signed Awataguchi smiths, and is said to have styled himself Tobayashi Saemon"[[c:1]]. His younger brothers were Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, and together with Hisakuni and Kuniyasu he was summoned as a ban-kaji, a smith in monthly attendance, to the cloister of the retired sovereign Go-Toba (Go-Toba In). The swordbooks place him around the Joukyu era, and he stands among the first hands to carry the refined Yamashiro manner that the school would raise to its height. The characteristic hand is read first in the temper. Over the body of his signed tachi Kunitomo sets a *suguha-cho* mixed only with *ko-midare*, the calm, restrained line of early Awataguchi, into which enter *ko-ashi* and *yo*; the *nioiguchi* lies deep with *ko-nie*, *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* run through it, and here and there the line softens into *urumi*. This is the opposite pole from the clove-flower flamboyance of contemporary Bizen, a quiet edge whose interest is carried in the activity within rather than in the height of the pattern. *Kinsuji* is the constant note, appearing on every blade of his on record, the bright lightning line that marks his deep-*nioi*, *ko-nie* temper. The *jigane* is the school's signature and the surer half of the recognition. He forges a tightly packed *ko-itame* that takes on a *nashiji*-like refinement, in places mixing flowing grain and patches of larger *hada*, with fine *ji-nie* well adhered and the steel clear and bright; on the mumei tachi the same close *ko-itame* shows *chikei* entering the ji. Over so refined a base the *suguha-cho ko-midare* reads with particular clarity. The *boshi* answers the quiet temper, running straight to a *ko-maru*, or straight to a *yakizume*-like point with *hakikake* at the tip, and on the signed prime a *koshi-hi* is carved on the omote. His record divides cleanly into two faces. The first is the ubu, two-character signed tachi, the signature finely cut on the omote toward the mune, slender with high *koshizori*, marked *funbari* and a small *kissaki*, the elegant tachi shape of the period preserved in its original tang. The second is the ubu mumei tachi appraised as his work, slender and dignified in the same register, its forging the finely worked *ko-itame* and its temper the *ko-midare* base with *ko-gunome* and *ko-choji* mixed in. Securely signed examples are the heart of the scholarship around him: the published sources state plainly that "extant works securely bearing his signature are exceedingly few"[[c:2]], counting little more than the tachi preserved at Atsuta Jingu and the pieces designated in modern times. What sets Kunitomo apart is exactly what the judges name. He is held apart from the showier Bizen schools by the restraint of his *suguha-cho* and the refinement of his *nashiji*-like *ko-itame*, the quiet, precise Yamashiro hand rather than the decorative Bizen one. Within his own house he stands at the head of the brothers, beside Hisakuni and Kuniyasu, and his manner is of a piece with the calm, exacting workmanship the Awataguchi line would carry to its summit. The yardstick the published sources reach for is the Atsuta tachi: of his finest signed piece they judge that "in overall workmanship as well as in the manner of the signature it is extremely close to the example at Atsuta Jingu"[[c:3]], and they call it a work in which "the merits and elevated dignity of the early Awataguchi school are superbly displayed"[[c:4]]. For the collector Kunitomo is a rare early name held very largely out of reach. The Toko Taikan places him high among rated smiths. He has no National Treasures; his record runs through an Important Cultural Property, two pieces at the Tokubetsu Juyo rank, and a prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, and the published commentary calls one of the signed tachi "valuable as one of the few signed works"[[c:5]]. The surest of his signed pieces, the Atsuta Jingu tachi, is an Important Cultural Property and remains as patrimony; the Juyo Bijutsuhin signed tachi is held by the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures, and the signed pieces otherwise pass through long-held private hands of recorded whereabouts. With only a couple of blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers and securely signed works numbering only a handful in all, a signed Awataguchi Kunitomo comes to market only very seldom, and a privately held example is among the rarest things an early-Awataguchi collector could encounter, a document of how the school began.
Kunikiyo (國清) — Mainline · 1201-1204. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Kunikiyo was the fourth of the six brother-masters of the early Awataguchi school in Yamashiro, working in the opening years of the Kamakura period. The published sources set him in that celebrated company: a son of Kuniie, his elder brothers Kunitomo, Hisakuni and Kuniyasu and his younger brothers Arikuni and Kunitsuna, the six of whom all served as appointed swordsmiths to the Retired Emperor Go-Toba. Of his own work very little survives in signature. One Jūyō entry states plainly that 'extant signed pieces are few, numbering only two'[[c:1]], so his name is carried today chiefly by a small group of *ō-suriage*, *mumei* katana judged to him, alongside the rare signed *tachi*. His hand is the bright, quiet manner of early Awataguchi. The *jigane* is a closely forged *ko-itame*, in places running a little or mixed with larger grain, carrying abundant *ji-nie* and, on the finest blade, frequent *chikei*; the published sources call the steel notably bright, with a faint *midare-utsuri* standing in places. Over that *jigane* he sets not the flamboyant *chōji* of Bizen but a *suguha*-toned *ko-midare*, shallowly *notare* and worked with *ko-chōji*, *ko-gunome* and *gunome*, *ashi* entering, the *nioiguchi* deep and bright, *nie* well adhered, with fine *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* running through. The *bōshi* goes straight to a *ko-maru* or *ō-maru* and returns. Within that suguha-based edge the judges single out one piece of scenery: patches of *yubashiri* toward the *monouchi* that gather into a *nijūba*-like double line, a feature the published commentary notes on more than one of the *ō-suriage* blades. It is a restrained tell, in keeping with a smith whose whole character is calm rather than showy. The published sources read Kunikiyo closest to his brother Kuniyasu. On the signed *tachi* transmitted in the Unshū Matsudaira house, the commentary finds the temper 'on the whole resembling Kuniyasu'[[c:2]]; on one of the *ō-suriage* katana the tightly packed intervals of the *midare* and an *urumi* tendency of the *nioiguchi* are held to share 'a thread of affinity with Kuniyasu'[[c:3]]. It is exactly this affinity, set on the characteristic bright Awataguchi *ko-itame*, that carries the attribution where the signature is gone, and the sources affirm such blades as work that 'at a glance can be appraised as Awataguchi of the early Kamakura'[[c:4]]. He stands within the early Awataguchi mainstream, before the school's later flowering, the quiet suguha-toned *ko-midare* and the *urumi* *nioiguchi* the marks of the family hand. For the collector Kunikiyo is a rare early Awataguchi name, graded *sai-jō saku* by the Fujishiro appraisers. He has no National Treasures; his record runs through one work designated Important Cultural Property, the Aoyama-family signed *tachi*, together with the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin signed *tachi* from the Unshū Matsudaira house, and a small group of *ō-suriage mumei* katana reaching the Jūyō and Tokubetsu Jūyō tiers, only five works carrying an official designation in all. The Tokubetsu Jūyō katana descended through the Sakai house of Himeji, and the published sources call it a superior blade whose 'glittering *nie* within the temper is especially magnificent'[[c:5]]; among recorded whereabouts a blade is held by the Fukuyama Art Museum, and his provenance runs through old daimyō and imperial collections. With so few works on record and most of them long held, a signed Kunikiyo comes to light only rarely, and a privately held example of either his signed tachi or his attributed katana is among the more notable things a collector of early Yamashiro could hope to encounter.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1299-1302. Jūbun, Jūbi. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Jūbun, Jūyō. Awataguchi Kunimitsu, who styled himself Saemon no Jo, is traditionally held to have been the younger brother of Awataguchi Kuniyoshi, working within the illustrious Awataguchi school of Yamashiro Province during the late Kamakura period. Another tradition identifies him as a son of Awataguchi Norikuni. Extant signed works are exceedingly rare; among the few known signed examples, the tachi of Yoroji in Gifu Prefecture and the tachi of the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures, both designated Important Cultural Properties, stand as representative pieces. He typically inscribed a two-character signature reading simply "Kunimitsu." Kunimitsu's workmanship is defined by a mastery of refined steel and restrained tempering. His *jigane* is characteristically a tightly forged *ko-itame-hada*[[c:1]] in which ultra-fine *ji-nie* adheres like minute particles, producing a steel surface of exceptional clarity. Abundant *chikei* thread through the ground, and faint *nie-utsuri* frequently appears. The *hamon* is a calm *suguha* or *hoso-suguha* into which *ko-ashi* enter; *nie* adheres well along the temper line, with *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running through and a *nioiguchi* that is consistently bright and clear[[c:2]]. The *boshi* turns in *ko-maru*, typically straight, sometimes exhibiting *hakikake*. Several designated works preserve *bo-hi* carved *kaki-nagashi* or *kaki-toshi*, and one example retains an *ubu*-style *suken* and *koshi-hi* near the base, a feature observed among other members of the Awataguchi group. Kunimitsu's work embodies the highest virtues of the Awataguchi school: a well-refined *jigane* of excellent quality united with a bright and orderly *suguha* to produce blades of dignified tone and restrained elegance. Though most surviving examples are *o-suriage* and unsigned, the consistency of his forging and tempering characteristics allows confident attribution. His blades convey a somewhat slender, gentle overall impression that, combined with the luminous *nioiguchi*, yields works of quiet authority representative of the finest Yamashiro tradition in the late Kamakura period.
Kuniie (國家) — Mainline · 1190-1199. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.

Other smiths

Kunisada (國定) — Mainline · 1240-1243. Kunisada (国定) is traditionally identified as a disciple of Kuninobu of the Yamashiro Awataguchi school, and it is transmitted that around the Bun'ei era (1264–1275) he relocated to Tanba Province. His workmanship continues the Awataguchi tradition, and his blades at first glance possess what the NBTHK describes as "the dignified quality characteristic of Kyo work." A separate line of attribution links the name to the Rai school under the reading Rai Kunisada, recorded in sword catalogs as a student of Rai Kunitoshi, though the relationship between the two lineages remains a subject for further research. In his Awataguchi-line tachi, the forging shows *itame-hada* with plentiful *ji-nie*, and the temper is fundamentally *suguha* mixed with small *midare*, into which *ashi* and *yo* enter strongly. A recurring feature across these works is a feeling of *nijubba* — a doubled or layered effect in the hardened edge — intermingled within the temper pattern. One tachi displays a *choji*-like intent recalling Ayakoji Sadatoshi together with a pronounced *jubba* tendency. Works attributed to the Rai school line show a markedly different character: *hira-zukuri* with thin *kasane* and wide *mihaba* in sunnobi proportions, *ko-itame hada* well-forged with ji-nie, and a hamon of *gunome-midare* with *ko-notare* intermixed that becomes *hitatsura* in the upper half — characteristics described as typical of Nanbokucho period workmanship and comparable in hamon style to Hasebe Kunishige. The NBTHK's assessments emphasize the continuity of Awataguchi school aesthetics in the tachi attributed to this smith, noting in particular the dignified quality of Kyoto tradition forging and the distinctive nijubba character of the temper. The presence of works in the Imperial Household collection and transmission through the Tayasu Tokugawa family attests to the historical esteem in which blades bearing this name have been held. Published references include the Kozan Oshigata, Kanto Zuiroku, and Kusanagi no Ya Oshigata.
Kagehisa (景久) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1312-1323. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1229-1232. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kuninobu (國延) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunitsuna (國綱) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1213-1219. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arikuni (有國) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimitsu (有光) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimitsu (有光) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimitsu (有光) — Mainline · 1288-1293. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimoto (有元) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arimoto (有元) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinaga (有永) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinaga (有永) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinaga (有永) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Arinobu (有延) — Mainline · 1247-1249. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Aritada (有忠) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Aritaka (有隆) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Ariyuki (有行) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Ariyuki (有行) — Mainline · 1331-1336. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1261-1264. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Hisamitsu (久光) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagehisa (景久) — Mainline · 1171-1175. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kageie (景家) — Mainline · 1184-1185. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kageie (景家) — Mainline · 1324-1326. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagekuni (景國) — Mainline · 1213-1219. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagenaga (景長) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagenaga (景長) — Mainline · 1329-1331. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kagenaga (景長) — Mainline · 1356-1361. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kunisue (國末) — Mainline · 1219-1222. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Kuniyori (國頼) — Mainline · 1185-1190. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Nobukane (信兼) — Mainline · 1207-1211. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Nobumitsu (延光) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norikane (則兼) — Mainline · 1207-1211. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norikiyo (則清) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norikuni (則國) — Mainline · 1222-1224. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Norimori (則守) — Mainline · 1288-1293. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadaie (忠家) — Mainline · 1346-1370. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadatsugu (忠次) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadatsugu (忠次) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tadayoshi (忠吉) — Mainline · 1249-1256. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tama (玉) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tameto (爲遠) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tomohisa (友久) — Mainline · 987-1596. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Torin (藤林) — Mainline · 1232-1233. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (俊延) — Mainline · 1219-1222. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (俊延) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (利延) — Mainline · 1219-1222. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Toshinobu (利延) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Tsuneto (常遠) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoriie (頼家) — Mainline · 1303-1306. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshikuni (吉國) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshimasa (吉正) — Mainline · 1229-1232. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshimasa (吉正) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.
Yoshimasa (吉正) — Mainline · 1303-1306. Smith of the Yamashiro Awataguchi School.