Carried from Yamato to the northern province of Etchū, the Uda smiths kept a masame-laced tradition through two phases — the founding Ko-Uda generations of the Nanbokuchō, and the long Uda line that worked the forges into the late Muromachi.
Other smiths of this phase— students & parallel lines
Phase 02
宇多Uda1390 – 1596
36smiths0Kokuhō0Jūbun0Jūbi0Tokujū35Jūyō
Other smiths of this phase— students & parallel lines
The Etchū Uda School (宇多) Lineage
The The Etchū Uda School (宇多), active 1310–1596 in Etchū Province across 47 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 0 Jūbun, 4 Jūbi, 1 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 68 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · Ko-Uda (古宇多) · 1310 – 1394
Ko-Uda (古宇多) names the founding stratum of the Uda school, the work that does not descend later than the Nanbokucho period and so stands before the long Muromachi continuation that the same studio names would carry. The setsumei place the origin in Yamato: around the Bunpo era at the close of Kamakura, the monk-smith Ko-nyudo Kunimitsu left Uda District in Yamato and settled at Utsu in Etchu, and from him the lineage took root. His sons Kunifusa and Kunimune are recorded, and across the *Juyo* and *Jubi* explanations the active founding hands are listed together as Kunifusa, Kunimune, and Kunitsugu, the generations that worked through the Nanbokucho period before the name-bearing successions ran down into late Muromachi. A signed Ko-nyudo Kunimitsu is hard to fix among several smiths who used the name; the *Tokuju* tachi is read as the founder precisely because it shows the most archaic character of the surviving examples, earlier even than the Kunifusa pieces taken for Nanbokucho.
The early steel is the school read at its source. The forging is *itame* mixed with *mokume* and running *nagare-hada* that tends to stand (*hada-dachi*), *ji-nie* adhering with *chikei*, and over it a whitish *shirake-utsuri* or, on the founder's own work, a *nie-utsuri*; the *jigane* carries a blackish, golden-toned cast that the explanations call a northern-province feeling. The temper sits in narrow to *chu-suguha*, opening into *ko-notare*, *ko-gunome*, *ko-midare*, and *togariba*, with *ko-ashi* and *yo* and *ko-nie* well set; along the *habuchi* the Yamato signature of *hotsure* and *kuichigai-ba* appears, while *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through. Against the later Uda generations, the Ko-Uda face is the purer one. The *Tokuju* founder is appraised as workmanship entirely like Yamato; the Hie Shrine and Kurokawa tachi by the shodai Kunifusa hold a tight, clear *nioiguchi* and a bright forging, and the *nie* in the best stands strong and rounded where the later hands run coarser and more provincial. A Soshu lean exists, traced to the study of Norishige and Go, yet in this phase the steel and *nioiguchi* keep returning the blade to Yamato roots rather than dissolving into them.
To *kantei* a Ko-Uda blade is to catch the standing, whitish *jigane* with its *masame* tendency and *utsuri* beneath a *suguha* that might otherwise recall Yamashiro, and to bring a *nie*-rich, *chikei*-laden example home from Soshu by the dark steel and the subdued (*shizumi*) *nioiguchi*. The named early hands recur across the corpus: the shodai Kunifusa, fixed against dated pieces no earlier than Koo 1 (1389) and the calligraphy of the lattice-broken 国; the signed Ko-Uda Kunimitsu and Ko-Uda Tomonori of around Meitoku; and the rare Tomoshige and Tomonori, smiths of few survivals through whom the phase's reach is gauged. Because signed early work is uncommon, the phase leans on *mumei* attributions read off forging and temper, several entered as *den* Ko-nyudo Kunimitsu. Provenance settles into shrine and institutional holding, the Hie Shrine and Kurokawa Institute tachi serving as the calibrating standards against which other early Kunifusa are judged, and the dated examples valued as documentary footing for the study of how Yamato workmanship took its northern form.
Kunifusa (國房) — Mainline · 1368-1405. Jūbi, Jūyō. Uda Kunifusa is the first-generation master of the Etchū Uda school, and one of the very few Ko-Uda smiths whose name survives in signed work. The published sources record him as a son of the Uda founder Ko-Nyūdō Kunimitsu, who carried the craft from Uda District in Yamato north to Etchū in the late Kamakura period, and they hold by tradition that Kunifusa himself studied under Etchū Norishige, naming the smith called Gō alongside as a model. The school's whole record is overwhelmingly mumei, ō-suriage, and appraised only to the group, so a signed Kunifusa is already a document; an early signed Kunifusa is rarer still. The appraisers anchor his shodai identity on two tachi designated Important Art Objects, one held by Hie Shrine and one by the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures, and judge further blades to him by the close calligraphic match of the inscription, in which, as one Jūyō entry puts it, the kuni enclosure of the character 国 is collapsed almost like a lattice. The earliest dated example of the name is a piece of Kōō 1 (1389).
His hand runs in two registers the Uda school never fused, and Kunifusa works both. The first is the Yamato root, seen most clearly in his tantō and wakizashi: hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune and a faint uchizori, several with a slightly elongated sun-nobi proportion, the kitae a well-packed itame or ko-itame with a flowing tendency. Over it he sets a chū-suguha mixed with ko-gunome and a shallow ko-notare, ashi entering, the nioi deep with ko-nie well adhered and at times somewhat coarse, and sunagashi and fine kinsuji running through. The bōshi runs straight into a ko-maru, often pointed in tendency with a deep turnback and hakikake. At the base he carves a devotional program of kurikara, su-ken, gomabashi and paired grooves, the kurikara on one tantō noted as unusual for the school. The published sources read these calmer signed pieces as his typical work, Ōei-dated or judged together with dated examples, sound in both ji and ha.
The jihada is the constant beneath both manners. Itame mixed with mokume and a flowing grain that tends to stand carries a well-adhering ji-nie, with chikei entering, and where the forging tightens into ko-itame a shirake-utsuri stands clearly. That tightness is in fact his personal tell within the school. Discussing the difference between the two principal Uda names, the published commentary observes that 「国宗がやや肌立ったものが多いのに対し国房には地がねのつんだものが多い」[[c:1]], that Kunimune is more often seen with a standing grain, whereas Kunifusa is frequently seen in a tightly forged jigane. On one mumei tachi judged to him, the commentary names the excellence of that forging as the deciding point, 「地がねの鍛錬がすぐれているところに国房と鑑すべき」[[c:2]], the quality of the steel itself returning the verdict to his hand.
The second register is the Sōshū-leaning manner, which the sources trace to his study under Norishige, and which shows in his bold Nanbokuchō tachi. These are wide in body with a thick kasane and a chū- or ō-kissaki, several keeping a high koshizori and funbari even where shortened, an imposing Nanbokuchō shape. Over a flowing itame with conspicuous chikei and ji-nie he tempers a notare or suguha base mixed with gunome, the nioi deep, the nie well adhered and at times coarse, with sunagashi running conspicuously and kinsuji entering, the bōshi midare-komi and turning back with hakikake. The published sources grant that such blades call the Sōshū tradition to mind through their prominent chikei and abundant nie, modeled on the earlier Etchū masters Norishige and Gō; the same entries caution that there are no purely Sōshū-construction works among them, and the verdict is held to Uda. The school's manner spans these poles, and the dating of any single Kunifusa blade is given as a span, late Nanbokuchō to early Muromachi, rather than to one hand, because the name continued through several generations.
What returns even his most Sōshū-looking blade to the northern provinces is the jigane, the feature the appraisal turns on. The steel tends to a dark, kanairo tone and grows kasu-datsu, hazy and standing, in places, a texture the published sources name as 「北国物特有の肌合」[[c:3]], the character distinctive to works of the north; the nioiguchi tends to sink rather than to glow, and the ha-nie carries rounded, compact nie that the same commentary calls 「つぶらな沸を交えている点などには宇多派の特徴」[[c:4]], a mark of the Uda school. His shirake-utsuri and the Yamato character of his calmer blades set him apart from the plainer northern smiths, while this darkened, dry-standing steel and the rounded ha-nie set him apart from the bright clear steel of true Sōshū. He stands beside Kunimune as a representative hand of the school, the tighter-forging brother by the appraisers' own account, the shodai whose lattice-broken kuni character secures the attributions.
For the collector Kunifusa is a rare early northern name rather than a market presence. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through fourteen Jūyō blades and three prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, seventeen designated works in all, with the shodai represented by the two Important Art Object tachi held at Hie Shrine and at the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures. Of recorded whereabouts, a Jūyō tachi passed through the Kajimura collection of Osaka and another Important Art Object descends from Kurokawa Fukusaburō into the Kurokawa Institute. The published commentary calls one shodai tantō 「数少ない初代国房の作として資料的にも貴重」[[c:5]], valuable as documentary material, being among the few first-generation works. Most designated Uda, in public and long-private hands alike, is held rather than traded; a signed Kunifusa of the early dated period reaches the market only seldom, and a shodai example with the lattice-broken kuni character is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a document of how a Yamato craft took root in the north.
Kunifusa (國房) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Jūbi. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1317-1319. Tokujū, Jūyō. Uda Kunimitsu (宇多国光), known as Ko-nyudo Kunimitsu (古入道国光), is traditionally regarded as the founder of the Uda school. According to accepted tradition, around the Bunpo era (1317–1319) he relocated from Uda District in Yamato Province to Utsu in Etchu Province, establishing a lineage that would flourish through subsequent generations. He is said to have had sons named Kunifusa and Kunimune, and subsequent smiths bearing the name Kunimitsu appear to span several generations from the late Kamakura into the Nanbokucho period. No definitively signed works by Ko-nyudo Kunimitsu himself are confirmed; however, extant tachi bearing the signature "Uda Kunimitsu" and datable to the late Kamakura period are reasonably attributed to his hand.
Blades attributed to Ko-nyudo Kunimitsu strongly display a Yamato-like character in both *jihada* and *hamon*[[c:1]]. The forging typically shows tightly worked *ko-itame-hada*, at times with *masame-hada* mixed in toward the edge, well covered with *ji-nie* and intermingled with *chikei*. A whitish *utsuri* reminiscent of *shirake* may stand out in the *ji*. The *hamon* is characteristically *suguha*-based, occasionally exhibiting shallow *notare* with a slight admixture of small *gunome*; *ko-nie* adheres well, and *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* appear along the temper line. The *boshi* returns in *ko-maru* with *hakikake* at the tip. *Bo-hi* carved on both sides with *maru-dome* is a recurring feature.
Ko-nyudo Kunimitsu occupies a position of considerable importance as the progenitor of the Uda school, one of the principal forging traditions of Etchu Province. His work demonstrates the direct transmission of Yamato-den characteristics into a provincial setting during the late Kamakura period. Blades attributed to his hand that survive in *kenzen* condition constitute valuable reference material for understanding the formative period of the Uda tradition and the broader dissemination of Yamato forging methods into the northern provinces.
Kunimitsu (國光) — Mainline · 1362-1368. Jūyō. The published sources record that around the Bunpō era, at the end of the Kamakura period, a monk-smith known as Ko-Nyūdō Kunimitsu came from Uda District in Yamato and settled at Utsu in Etchū, where he became the founder of the Uda school. No signed work securely by the founder is known. His earliest attributions are mumei katana judged to him for their strong Yamato character, and a small tantō dated Gen'ō 3 (1321) carries a red-lacquer attribution to Ko-Nyūdō. The name did not end with him. His sons Kunifusa and Kunimune carried the line into the Nanbokuchō period, and several later smiths took up the name Kunimitsu itself, the signature compendia recording it down through the Ōei, Kyōtoku and Meiō eras. The published sources therefore place each signed Kunimitsu with its generation by the jigane, the temper and the hand of the signature.
The Yamato root is the first thing the published record names. Because the school came from Uda District, its works naturally carry a strong Yamato temperament, and Kunimitsu's show it plainly. On one signed katana an itame turns flowing toward the edge, and a suguha frays into fine *hotsure* along the *habuchi* with touches of *kuichigai-ba*, while the *bōshi* runs straight with *hakikake* and barely turns back. On the attributed katana the temper is a suguha or a *chū-suguha*, now and then with *uchinoke*, and the bōshi ends in a small *ko-maru* or sweeps off in hakikake. Of the Gen'ō tantō, the NBTHK writes that its large round, burned-off bōshi tells of a Yamato origin[[c:1]].
What sets these blades apart from Yamato work proper is the steel. On the finest attributed katana the published sources find a Yamato blade at first sight, but one whose jigane carries a somewhat blackish tone that conveys a northern-province feeling[[c:2]]. They add that the Uda character shows in the way the nie forms along the habuchi, and they call the piece an excellent work of restrained, subdued taste. A signed tachi of the late Nanbokuchō or Ōei years is read the same way: its high shinogi reflects the home province of Yamato, while its darkened jigane shows the flavour particular to the northern provinces. On a slender Ōei-era tantō the steel is blackish within its golden tone and whitens where the grain stands, and the commentary names that dark cast, together with the rounded nie in the temper, as the clear mark of the Uda school. Sunagashi runs through more than half of his designated blades and kinsuji through a third of them.
Beside the Yamato manner the published sources recognise a second range. The Uda smiths, they write, also worked in a Sōshū-like manner, privately emulating Norishige and Gō, the earlier masters of Etchū[[c:3]]. A tachi signed Uda Kunimitsu in four characters, probably of the later Nanbokuchō period and placed roughly with the second generation, is forged in a fine, tight ko-itame with fine chikei. Its temper is a *ko-gunome* mixed with *ko-midare*, with sunagashi, and the bōshi enters in midare and turns back with a pointed tendency. Its explanation distinguishes two kinds of Ko-Uda work: one with fine forging, fine chikei and a bright steel colour, the other with a standing grain, large chikei and a blackish steel. The NBTHK holds that the former carries the current of Yoshihiro and the latter that of Norishige[[c:4]]. A long tachi with a large two-character signature, judged not later than the Nanbokuchō period, has a strong *koshizori* and *funbari*, with ko-gunome, *togariba* and ko-midare and *yubashiri* here and there, yet the published sources still find its Yamato temperament prominent.
Within his school Kunimitsu is the origin rather than one name among many. The published record defines Ko-Uda as the work of the late Kamakura and Nanbokuchō smiths of the line, Kunifusa, Kunimune and Kunitsugu among them, and every account of the school begins with his move from Yamato. Even his later namesakes keep his manner. The Ōei-era tantō is a small *uchizori* piece in a refined narrow suguha, and its 光 character is cut in a distinctive hand also recorded in the Kōzan Oshigata.
Nine blades under his name stand in the Juyo tier, and he has no Tokubetsu Juyo, no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties. Six are signed or inscribed: the dated tantō with its red-lacquer attribution and five blades signed Kunimitsu, among them the tachi and tantō of the later generations. The other three are ō-suriage mumei katana attributed to Ko-Nyūdō Kunimitsu. The published record preserves no daimyō provenance or museum holding for these blades, so his standing rests on the Juyo work itself. A Kunimitsu blade at this level comes to market only from time to time, as a signed later-generation tachi or an attributed founder's katana, and most of what survives is held rather than traded. The founder's own work remains among the rarer things a collector of the northern schools may encounter.
Tomonori (友則) — Mainline · 1390-1394. Jūyō. Four signed blades carry the name Tomonori (友則) into the present, each cut with a thick two-character mei toward the mune of an ubu or modestly shortened tang, and on the earliest the published sources remark that a signed, ubu-nakago tachi of this kind is a rare survival for the school. Tomonori is a smith of the Etchu Uda school, working from the late Nanbokucho into the early Muromachi. His line began when the monk-smith Ko-Nyudo Kunimitsu came north from Uda District in Yamato Province and settled in Etchu in the late Kamakura, carrying a Yamato-derived manner into the northern provinces; through the Nanbokucho the school sent out smiths such as Kunifusa, Kunimune and Kunitsugu, who re-used its names down the generations, and it flourished into the late Muromachi. The term Ko-Uda is reserved, within that descent, for the work of the late Kamakura through the Nanbokucho, and it is among the Ko-Uda smiths that the published record places these tachi. The reference works list five Uda smiths who used the name Tomonori, the oldest active around Meitoku and the line continuing to the Eisho, and the surviving signed blades are appraised as the earliest, the Tomonori of around Meitoku.
The published record reads his hand two ways, and the two manners are the heart of recognizing him. One is quiet. Over a tight itame that flows a little and stands with a whitish cast he tempers a narrow or medium suguha, mixing in ko-gunome and kuichigai-ba, ashi and yo entering and the nioiguchi drawn tight and bright, nioi predominating and the habuchi frayed into hotsure formed in fine nie. The disorder is kept small, the boshi runs straight and rounds into ko-maru with a slight turn-back, and on the late-Nanbokucho tachi the published sources judge that this register 'displays one characteristic style of this smith, is of good workmanship, and both ji and ha are sound.' The other manner is loud. The same itame, mixed now with mokume, stands more openly and takes a darkish tone, ji-nie adhering well and fine chikei entering, with yubashiri and tobiyaki breaking into the ji; over it a wider suguha or a shallow notare breaks into gunome and togariba, the tempered width widening in the upper half, coarse nie spilling into the ji and uneven nie in patches, until abundant tobiyaki and muneyaki rise to a hitatsura and the boshi is tempered deep into a flame.
The jigane is the constant beneath both hands. It is itame throughout, on the quieter tachi tight and flowing with a slight admixture of mokume and a whitish surface, on the nie-laden blades more open and standing, mixed with mokume, set with ji-nie and threaded with fine chikei, and darkish in tone. That dark steel is the feature the published sources lean on to fix his province, the kodachi read as associated with the smiths of the northern provinces by its dark color. The activity in the hamon tells the older half of the same story. The plentiful nie, the sunagashi running through the temper, the kinsuji and the brushed hakikake at the tip are read as a Yamato character carried down from Kunimitsu's migration: 'in both ji and ha the nie is plentiful, and from the frequent sunagashi and the abundant hakikake a Yamato disposition is evident,' the published sources say of the kodachi, before turning to the dark steel that ties the same blade to the north. The two readings, Yamato in the activity and Etchu in the color, sit together in a single piece and are the kantei the institution draws.
His four blades fall cleanly into those two registers, and the split runs partly with form and date. The quiet suguha hand carries the two tachi the records read as the earlier work, one a slender blade with deep koshizori and a small kissaki in the old fashion, the other appraised as the Meitoku-era smith, both tight in the ji and restrained in the ha. The nie-laden hand carries the kodachi and the latest, widest tachi, where the temper departs the quiet base for gunome, togariba and a hitatsura; on that broadest tachi the mihaba is wide with a pronounced taper, the kasane thick and the curvature high, and the published sources find in the deep flame boshi taken with the dark standing ji and the all-over temper that 'the characteristics of northern-province work are markedly manifest.' The dating is argued against the old directories rather than assumed: an entry grouping Tomonori with the Etchu Norishige line around the Kenmu era is held not to accord with the earliest tachi, and another placing him in a Kaga-resident second-generation Uda line is judged too late, so that each blade is fixed instead by its own ji and ha to the Nanbokucho and early Muromachi.
Within the school he is a known quantity rather than a founder or a head, and the published record is careful about how much can be built on him. His own traits lead the appraisal: the standing dark itame, the coarse nie spilling into the ji, the tobiyaki and muneyaki rising to a hitatsura and the flame boshi mark his nie-laden work, while the tight whitish suguha with ko-gunome and a bright nioiguchi marks the quiet half, and it is the presence or absence of the streaming nie that sorts one of his blades into one register or the other. No successor line is drawn through him; with only four signed blades the corpus is too thin to extend the school forward in his name. What the sources do say is that other works of his have likewise reached Important Sword rank, and that among the Uda group, whose extant works are not numerous, 'he was a smith of high technical ability,' a judgment placing him above the run of the school without making him its head.
His whole designated record is four Juyo tachi and kodachi, with no National Treasure or Important Cultural Property among them and no piece carrying a recorded daimyo provenance, so the connoisseurship rests on the blades themselves rather than on a roll of famous holders. That four signed pieces survive at all is the point the school's students return to, signed Uda work being uncommon, and the latest tachi is valued expressly as documentary material, the published sources calling it 'a fine resource for the study of this smith' and noting that it appears in the Kozan oshigata before a fourth mekugi-ana was bored, with the tang annotated 'Etchu work'[[c:1]]. For a collector this is a name met through the Juyo tier, not held in a museum: the blades are kept, not traded, and one reaches the market only from time to time and with patience, but a signed Tomonori (友則) when it appears carries the rarer of the two things the school offers, a name surviving in the smith's own hand and a workmanship the institution ranks among the most able in the Uda line.
Tomotsugu (友次) — Mainline · 1381-1384. Jūyō. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Other smiths
Kunitsugu (國次) — Mainline · 1356-1361. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Tomoshige (友重) — Mainline · 1390-1394. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Hisaie (久家) — Mainline · 1384-1387. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Yasuhisa (安久) — Mainline · 1368-1375. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Yorikuni (頼國) — Mainline · 1390-1394. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Phase 2 · Uda (宇多) · 1390 – 1596
Where Ko-Uda closes with the Nanbokuchō generations, the chapter that follows opens in early Muromachi and runs to the end of the period. The setsumei draw the boundary plainly: works that descend no later than Nanbokuchō are called Ko-Uda, while everything thereafter is referred to simply as Uda. This later phase is the long Muromachi continuation in Etchū, where the Kuni-named line that began with Ko-Nyūdō Kunimitsu of Uda District in Yamato extends across successive generations sharing single names. Kunihisa, read by the *meikan* as son of Kunifusa and active from the Ōei era, runs through several generations down to the close of Muromachi; Kunimune carries from Nanbokuchō into Muromachi with dated pieces around Bunmei; and the later registers add Kuninaga, Kuniyoshi, Hirakuni, Sanekuni, Kunikiyo, Tomohisa, and Kunitsugu, names the sources place from Eikyō through Tenshō. Because individuals individuate little, a signed blade of this phase is appraised as the manner of its dated moment rather than the hand of one smith.
The steel of the later phase keeps the school's northern foundation while standardizing its expression. The setsumei describe *itame* mixed with *mokume*, the grain overall standing (*hada-dachi*) and tending to flow (*nagare*), with *ji-nie* adhering and *chikei* entering; the *jigane* leans blackish, and a *shirake-utsuri* stands distinctly in the *ji*, sometimes with *ji-madara* mottling. Over this the temper most often opens as a *suguha*-based or *chū-suguha* line into which *ko-gunome* runs continuously from base to point, *ashi* and *yō* entering, *ko-nie* adhering along a bright *nioiguchi*, with *sunagashi* and occasional *kinsuji*. A second, more agitated face mixes *gunome*, *ko-notare* and pointed *togariba* with thick *nie*, *yubashiri* and *tobiyaki* that on a Kuninaga *wakizashi* tend toward *hitatsura*. Against the earlier Ko-Uda this reads more regularized: where the early generations stayed close to their Yamato and Sōshū models with archaic *ji-ha*, the later hands settle into the elongated Ōei *tantō* form (broad for its width, with *uchizori*) and, in the *katana*, the wide *sun-nobi* sugata of advancing Muromachi. The Kunitsugu *katana* shows this drift toward coarseness directly, its *itame* standing and rough, the *nie* uneven and the temper darkening at the edge.
To separate later Uda from Ko-Uda is to read the steel before the temper. The whitish, standing *jigane* with its blackish cast and *shirake-utsuri* returns a blade to this phase even when a *nie*-laden *midare* recalls Sōshū at first glance, and a tightly forged *ko-itame* may, as with the better Kunihisa pieces, approach Rai Kunimitsu or Rai Kunitsugu before the dark northern grain brings it home. Distinctive markers recur across the named smiths: the *bōshi* that becomes pointed and is tempered down with a long *kaeri*, the flaring (*susodoshii*) *nakago-jiri*, somewhat coarse rounded *nie* mixed within the *ha*, and the particular shaping of the character *kuni* in the signature. Dated and signed pieces anchor the chronology, from a Kunihisa *tantō* of Ōei 7 to a Kunimune *wakizashi* placed around Bunmei and Hirakuni and Sanekuni works set near Tenbun. Provenance for the phase tends toward settled holding, with examples recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection rather than circulating.
Kunimune (國宗) — Mainline · 1429-1479. Jūyō. A signed Uda Kunimune katana carries the date Bunmei 11 (1479) on the reverse of a tang that has only very slightly been moved up at the machi, and the published sources call it valuable material for research into the smith and his school, sound in both ji and ha[[c:1]]. Kunimune is one of the core names of the Etchū Uda school. That school, the published sources record, was founded around the Bunpō era at the end of the Kamakura period, when Ko-Nyūdō Kunimitsu moved north from Uda District in Yamato to Etchū, and it flourished thereafter through the Muromachi period. The first-generation Kunimune is held to be Kunimitsu's son and the younger brother of Kunifusa. The name then continued through several generations, from the Nanbokuchō period through the late Muromachi and into the shintō era. A signed Uda Kunimune is therefore appraised on shape and the character of ji and ha, and the published sources read each blade as the school manner of a period rather than as one man's hand.
Under every blade lies the jigane on which the appraisal turns. It is an itame that flows and tends to stand, at times with mokume, masame mixing in toward the edge, ji-nie adhering and chikei intermingling. This Yamato-derived steel is what returns an Uda blade to its school. Through the temper, sunagashi run on four of his five signed blades. The more active blades carry a gunome mixed with ko-notare, ko-gunome and a pointed tendency, ashi entering and ko-nie well adhered.
The earliest of the signed blades is an ubu tachi with a fine-chiselled four-character mei, which the published sources read as the work of the Ko-Uda Kunimune and "a work of Yamato temperament"[[c:2]]. Its itame flows into masame with ji-nie and chikei, the gunome runs in a connected line with pointed elements, sunagashi enter frequently, and the bōshi is swept, closing in a ko-maru and tempered down long. The record values it as a rare survival, observing that "ubu, signed tachi of this period are few, and it is good reference material"[[c:3]].
The quiet face of the name is the Yamato root, seen most plainly on a signed ubu hira-zukuri tantō with customary uchizori and a gomabashi carving. Its kitae is a ko-itame with masame-hada toward the edge, ji-nie adhering and chikei entering. The temper is a chū-suguha with a somewhat tight nioiguchi and ko-nie, hardened down toward the machi, and the bōshi runs straight to a ko-maru. The published sources find that the forging in which flowing masame mingles "well expresses the Yamato tradition"[[c:4]], and that the blade "on the whole shows the characteristics of Uda work well"[[c:5]].
The active face belongs to the Muromachi generations. On the Bunmei-dated katana the yakihaba is wide and, from the middle upward, reaches the shinogi; around the monouchi the temper becomes hitatsura-like, and the bōshi is a midare-komi strong in nie with tobiyaki, tempered down long. A wakizashi judged from its shape and workmanship to date from about the Bunmei era mixes gunome, ko-notare, ko-gunome and pointed elements, with slight yubashiri and nijūba. Its carving is fine: long bonji above a suken on the omote, and bonji above a koshihi on the ura. The published sources call it a fine piece "with a bright nioiguchi and ko-nie well adhered, showing well the character not only of the smith but of the whole school"[[c:6]]. A small signed tantō recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection carries the line later still. With its takenoko-zori, thick kasane and long tang it is "almost like Sue-Bizen"[[c:7]]. It is placed around Eishō to Tenbun, and its notare mixes gunome under a jizō-like bōshi with muneyaki. The same entry adds that the older generations sign with a small mei[[c:8]], which matches the fine chisel of the Ko-Uda tachi against the larger signatures of the Muromachi blades.
Kunimune's official record is small and wholly signed: four Jūyō blades, a tachi, a katana, a wakizashi and a tantō, and the tantō in Honma's inventory, five designated works on record. Fujishiro rates him Jō-saku, and the Tōkō Taikan places him at 300. He has no National Treasure, no Important Cultural Property and no Tokubetsu Jūyō, so his standing rests on Jūyō-ranked work and on its value as research material: a dated katana, an ubu signed tachi of the Ko-Uda generation and a late tantō together mark the span of the name. No provenance or present holder is recorded for his Jūyō blades. For a private collector a signed Uda Kunimune in the Jūyō tier appears only from time to time and with patience. His blades reward the student of how the Yamato tradition was carried into the northern provinces.
Kunihisa (國久) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Jūyō. Uda Kunihisa is the Ōei-era hand of the Etchū Uda school, the line the reference registers carry from Ko-Nyūdō Kunimitsu, the monk-smith who migrated from Uda District in Yamato to Etchū at the close of the Kamakura period and whose name flourished into the late Muromachi. The *Meikan* records Kunihisa as the son of Kunifusa, in another reading the son of Kunimune, gives him the studio name Uemon Saburō, and dates the first generation to Ōei, the same name then continuing for several generations through the Hōtoku and Bunmei eras toward the end of Muromachi. Of that long line he is the one hand the published sources treat as typical of the school and read against its founder. His work survives signed, a thing rare among Uda smiths, and the body of it is the long early-Muromachi *tantō*, broad for its length and with little or no curvature, that the school favored over the *tachi* and *uchigatana* it seldom made, joined by a few *wakizashi*, a *tachi*, and even a great spear. One of his blades carries a date of Ōei 7, which the judges hold to predate even the recorded examples of the line, calling it the earliest of all and "a valuable document, and besides of fine make"[[c:1]].
Kunihisa is read first off the steel, for his temper is the school idiom and it is the *jigane* that carries him. On the calmer blades he forges an *itame* that runs and stands, flowing slightly toward *masame*, the steel turning whitish so that a *shirake-utsuri* or a faint *bō-utsuri* stands in the *ji*, with *ji-nie* throughout. Over it he tempers a *chū-suguha* or a *suguha*-toned line, opening shallowly into *notare* with pointed *gunome* and *ko-gunome* mixed in, *ashi* entering, the *nioiguchi* drawn tight, *ko-nie* well adhered, and along the *habuchi* the Yamato activity of *kuichigai-ba* and *hotsure* that names the school's old province. The published sources call exactly this combination, a whitish standing *itame* under a tight *chū-suguha*, the very type of the Uda hand, and on one signed *tantō* of just this make they write that "this is precisely that type, and the make is good"[[c:2]]. Through the *ha* run *sunagashi*, which lie on nearly every surviving blade, and *kinsuji* through most, the *nie-deki* activity that holds steady whether the temper is calm or roused.
The second manner the sources draw from him is the Sōshū-leaning one, which they trace to Kunifusa's study under Etchū Norishige, granting that much Uda work of this period calls the Sōshū tradition to mind while holding that none is of pure Sōshū construction. On the dated Ōei 7 *tantō* the *jigane* is an *itame* with *moku* and *chikei* entering, the temper a shallow *notare* mixed with *gunome*, *ko-nie* applied and *kinsuji* running, and the judges read it plainly as Sōshū-leaning. In this register the body broadens, the *nie* thickens and grows at times coarse, *yubashiri*, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run more freely, and on the finest blades a round, luminous *nie* scatters through the *yakiba*. The *bōshi* turns *midare-komi*, the tip pointed or pushed up, the turnback long and at times deep. A nie-laden Kunihisa blade reads as Sōshū at first glance, and the published sources return it to Uda by the steel, the dark, whitish *jigane* and the *nioiguchi* that holds rather than glows.
Beyond the school formulas the sources name what is Kunihisa's own, and it is a quality of *jigane* rather than a new shape. His finest *tantō* and *wakizashi* are a *ko-itame* so well forged and compacted that the steel turns refined and bright, *ji-nie* laid on densely and at times dust-fine as *ji-nie mijin*, a *jigane* darkish and whitish with a faint *utsuri*. Through the *yakiba* runs the round, luminous *nie* the school calls its own, the *ha* and *ji* alike clear, and on one such blade the judges find "in the well-forged, refined surface, Kunihisa's individuality can be seen"[[c:3]], naming the same piece "an outstanding work among the finest"[[c:4]]. The Uda *jigane*, they note in passing, runs to two kinds, one that stands and one that compacts and gathers abundant *ji-nie*; Kunihisa is read on the side that gathers and refines. His blades are otherwise plain in their fittings, a *bō-hi* or *koshi-hi* run out on the spear and the *tantō*, *gomabashi* and a *suken* carved on others, the carving kept simple beneath the working of the steel.
What distinguishes Kunihisa within the late Uda line is the brightness of that refined steel, which the sources read toward Yamashiro rather than toward his own school's duller hands. On a *tachi* whose construction stands high in the *shinogi* and runs to a *ko-gunome midare* with *hotsure* and *sunagashi* and a *yakizume bōshi*, they call the manner Yamato in temperament and "a work showing the characteristics of Uda"[[c:5]]. On his best *wakizashi* and *tantō*, where the *ko-itame* tightens and the bright round *nie* gathers, they go further, writing that the blade "calls Rai Kunimitsu and Kunitsugu to mind at a glance, a fine work of Kunihisa"[[c:6]], and of another that it is "of a make all but mistakable for Rai Kunimitsu or Kunitsugu"[[c:7]]. His own *shirake-utsuri* and standing *itame* set him apart from the Yamashiro hands he approaches, and his refinement sets him apart from the plainer Uda smiths around him; the verdict in every case rests on the steel, not on the temper.
For the collector Kunihisa is a soundly recorded provincial name rather than a famous one. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs entirely through the Juyo rank, where ten of his blades are held, the *Tōkō Taikan* rating him at four hundred and the *Fujishiro* registers placing him at *chū-jō saku*, a competent middle-upper hand. Of his blades whose present whereabouts are recorded, several rest with shrines and a museum, among them Yasukuni Jinja, the Kunōzan Tōshōgū and the Suiboku Museum, the kind of long, settled holding that keeps most designated work off the market. With ten Juyo blades on record and most of them held rather than traded, a signed Uda Kunihisa comes to a private collector only from time to time, and with patience; when one does, it is a clear window onto how the northern Uda forged at its Ōei height, the moment the school's steel ran bright enough to be taken, for an instant, for Rai.
Kunifusa (國房) — Mainline · 1455-1457. Jūyō. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kunimune (國宗) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Jūyō. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kunitsugu (國次) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Jūyō. Kunitsugu of the Uda school in Etchu is fixed in time by a signed yari dated the twelfth month of Bunmei 17 (1485), designated Juyo Token at the fourteenth session together with a two-character signed katana; a second katana followed at the twenty-eighth session. The published sources introduce the school in the same words on both of the earlier papers: 「宇多派は文保の頃、大和国宇多郡から移住し、古入道国光を祖としたと伝え、越中国宇多郡で栄えた一派である」 (the Uda school is said to have moved from Uda district in Yamato around the Bunpo era, to have taken Ko-Nyudo Kunimitsu as its founder, and to have flourished in Uda district of Etchu). The later paper adds that the school continued into the *shinto* era and that the Muromachi period, when many smiths appeared and left a large body of work, was its most prosperous time.
The yari is *hira-sankaku-zukuri* with a *sanko-ken* carved within a *hitsu* on the flat face. Its jigane is *itame* standing somewhat, with a blackish tone, and the temper is *ko-notare* mixed with *gunome-midare*, with clustered *nie* and frequent *sunagashi*; the *boshi* runs *midare-komi* and turns back with a pointed tendency. The tang is *ubu*, with the maker's signature on the *omote* and the date on the *ura*. The sources write that 「この派の槍は現存するものが少く、姿も出来も優れ」 (few spears of this school survive, and this one excels in both form and workmanship), and value the Bunmei date both for the study of the Uda school and because signed spears from before the Muromachi period are not seen.
The two katana show the school's Muromachi *uchigatana*. The first, with an *ubu* tang and a large two-character signature straddling the single peg hole, has a shallow curvature and a *chu-kissaki*, *itame* with well-attached *nie*, and a large *midare* mixed with *gunome* and *tobiyaki*, *ko-ashi* and *yo*, frequent *sunagashi* and *ko-nie*, with *muneyaki* appearing often; the *boshi* runs *midare-komi*, turns back somewhat long and is swept with *hakikake*. Of it the sources say 「この国次は二字銘ながら室町時代のこの派の作として出来がよく、同時代の打刀姿であり、同派の特色が見られる」 (though signed with two characters, this Kunitsugu is a well-made Muromachi work of the school, in the *uchigatana* shape of its day, showing the features of the group). The second is wide, with a somewhat heavy *kasane*, a shallow curvature and an *o-kissaki*, carved with *bo-hi* on both sides. Its *itame* stands somewhat with a coarse, *zanguri* surface, *ji-nie* and a touch of *jifu*; the *hamon* is *gunome* with *togariba* and *koshi-biraki* *gunome*, *ashi* and *yo*, and uneven *nie* that gathers densely, while the *boshi* is slightly irregular with a *ko-maru* tip and *kuichigai-ba* on both faces. The sources single out its tang as well: 「茎尻が張るのも室町時代の宇多派の特色」 (the flaring tang tip is also a feature of the Muromachi Uda school).
Across the three works Kunitsugu appears as a late fifteenth-century Uda smith of standing *itame* and *nie*-laden *gunome* tempers with active *sunagashi*, signing in two characters on his katana and in full with the school name on his dated spear.
Kuninaga (國長) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Jūyō. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Other smiths
Hirakuni (平國) — Mainline · 1492-1501. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Hirakuni (平國) — Mainline · 1532-1555. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kunikiyo (國清) — Mainline · 1429-1441. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kunitsugu (國次) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kuniyoshi (國吉) — Mainline · 1429-1441. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Sanekuni (眞國) — Mainline · 1492-1501. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Sanekuni (眞國) — Mainline · 1492-1501. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Tomohiro (友弘) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Tomohisa (友久) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Tomohisa (友久) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Hirakuni (平國) — Mainline · 1429-1441. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Hisakuni (久國) — Mainline · 1504-1521. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kunifusa (國房) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kunihiro (國弘) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kunihisa (國久) — Mainline · 1449-1452. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kunihisa (國久) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kuninari (國成) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Kunitsugu (國次) — Mainline · 1521-1528. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Mitsuyo (光世) — Mainline · 1429-1441. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Morikuni (守國) — Mainline · 1573-1592. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Moriyoshi (守吉) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Munekuni (宗國) — Mainline · 1504-1521. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Munetomo (宗友) — Mainline · 1532-1555. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Muneyoshi (宗吉) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Tomoie (友家) — Mainline · 1492-1501. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Tomotsugu (友次) — Mainline · 1467-1469. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Tomotsugu (友次) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Tomotsugu (友次) — Mainline · 1532-1555. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Yasuhisa (安久) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.
Yoshikuni (吉國) — Mainline · 1469-1487. Smith of the Etchū Uda School.