Saiga Shokunin Burui

A page from the 1784 reprint of the 1770 two-volume woodblock printed book Saiga Shokunin Burui (‘Polychrome pictures of craftsmen’) by Tachibana Minko. These volumes are a useful document showing contemporary Edo period craftsmen at work. We see here a swordsmith forging a blade in his smithy.

Traditionally the forging of a Japanese sword took place in near-religious conditions. The smithy would be purified by a Shinto priest and would have a sacred rice-straw rope (shimenawa), with sacred paper (gohei) attached as symbols of purity, erected to surround the smithy. Under no circumstances were women allowed to enter the smithy. The work of the smith could be seen as almost magical as his sword-making techniques involved mastery over fire and metal. The smith himself (together with his assistants) would purify himself in mind and body through abstaining from eating meat, through sexual abstinence and through prayer. For the actual forging of the blade he would wear court robes or those of a Shinto priest. He may also continue to purify himself throughout the forging process by way of the customary Shinto purification ritual of cold water ablutions. Japanese blades are thought to be imbued with a spirit that reflects the manner in which they have been forged, and can also be regarded as the physical manifestation of one of the Shinto deities, the kami.