Among the workshops of the northern provinces, the Kanewaka line of (Kashū) traces its root to . The record that the first-generation smith was a son of Shihōsuke Kanewaka of Seki and that, though he stood in the lineage of the Seki smiths, he forged his blades in . He styled himself Tsujimura Jinroku, and later Shirōemon-no-jō; his earliest dated work begins in the Keichō era (a Kashū-uchi blade of the second month of Keichō 12, 1607, with further examples from Keichō 14), and around Genna 5 (1619) he received the court title no Kami and changed his name to Takahira, thereafter signing " no Kami Fujiwara Takahira." The second generation, Matasuke, was the third son of the first, born in Keichō 17 (1612), active from 'ei through Enpō, and dead in Enpō 5 (1677) at sixty-six. The third, his legitimate heir, took the name Shirōemon and worked from through Shōtoku, with dated pieces from Enpō 5 to Hōei 4 (1677 to 1707); a fourth, the Tsujiura Shirōemon of the name, assisted his father as a substitute smith and inherited the name after Matasuke's death. The cutting-test signed Tsujimura no Kami Fujiwara Takahira ties the workshop to the Maeda domain's swords, its blade tested five times and the result inlaid in .
The shared hand is grounded in forging carried north. The across these blades is mixed with and , often with standing grain (), abundant , fine , and a steel of slightly blackish yet clear tone, a cast the call a trait of the northern provinces (Hokukoku-mono). The temper is built on mixed with and pointed , frequently assuming a boxed (-ba) character, with deep , well-adhering , conspicuous , , and at times ; the runs with or enters , often with and a -leaning point, a Yamato-tradition close noted on the -forged third-generation work. To read the hand, the point to and Naoe affinity, the -based mixture of and , and the box-shaped temper. Generations are told apart by that box: in the first generation it tends toward , flavorful and not sharply drawn, and a defined -ba is comparatively uncommon; from the second and third it grows more crisply outlined. The third generation also worked saka-chōji-midare (reverse ), and in such pieces the fourth produced effects that could be taken for the Ishidō school.
The points the fix upon are the standing, blackish - ground, the boxed with and , and the -derived leaning. Signatures cluster on the six characters "Kashū-jū Kanewaka ," with the five-character "Kashū-jū Kanewaka" and the two-character "Kanewaka" also seen, and the first generation's post-title pieces cut " no Kami Fujiwara Takahira." Named works carry the lineage: a Genna 5 , whose date proves the title came later; the Kashū Fujiwara Yukimitsu dated Bunmei 17 (1485) marks the older Kashū ground from which such northern work descends; and a with in ashide shows the dress that accompanied the line. The place one blade in the Imperial Collection, attributed to the fourth-generation Tsujiura Shirōemon, and record provenance in and Ishikawa hands. Across the generations the verdict is consistent: each smith was skilled in his own right, the forging at times exceeding ordinary Kashū work, and the dated inscriptions stand as documentary anchors for early .