The incredible sharpness of Japanese samurai swords using the Tameshigiri technique

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The samurai treated their blades with great awe. Great attention was paid to checking the fighting qualities of katanas, and gradually this process grew into a real art. In peacetime, such tests were carried out in the most sophisticated ways - they chopped bamboo, straw and even the bodies of dead people.

As a rule, a samurai had one katana for life. According to the will of the Japanese warrior Tokugawa Ieshau in 1615, everyone who had the right to wear a long sword could part with it only after death. Even the technology of making samurai katanas, perfected over the centuries, did not save the master from a possible mistake, which could turn out to be fatal when meeting a real enemy. That is why, when buying a new sword, the owner was first convinced of its fighting qualities and reliability.

These circumstances prompted the invention of a special sword testing technique called Tameshigiri. Typically, the two main characteristics of the katana were tested - sharpness and strength. Due to the fact that this process required high skill, and also there was a risk of damage to the weapon, testing was carried out by specially trained people - shitoku.

The art of tameshigiri is very extensive, but several main methods can be distinguished. Straw sheaves, bamboo shoots, iron armor, and even human corpses could act as targets. In total, there were several dozen types of felling, each of which had its own technology. Initially, the Shitoku evaluated the balance and quality of the blade, conducted lengthy tests, and only then set the price. His verdict could both glorify the blacksmith who made the katana and shame him.

Testing on metal objects such as helmets or armor was rarely practiced. A wrong blow could easily deform the sword, making it unusable. And the main task of the blade was not chopping logs, but lightning-fast killing of the enemy. The only way to test how a katana will behave on a living person is to test on the deceased. Often, unscrupulous samurai tested their swords on living people - beggars or homeless people. But even in the harsh Japanese realities of the past, this was considered an unforgivable act, which was punishable to the fullest extent of the law.

Subjects were usually taken from local prisons. The corpses of recently deceased prisoners were ideal for this task. Sometimes the tameshigiri rite was performed during the execution, but this was rather an exception to the rule. According to Novate.ru, either a separate blade or a sword in a frame was tested. In the first case, the katana was mounted on a special test handle - kirizuku.

As a rule, the testing of the sword took place right in the prison yard. For this, a separate commission was assembled as part of the prison administration, the test master and his assistants. The presence of the future owner of the katana was not required - the sitoku enjoyed great prestige and everyone trusted their opinion. The corpse (sometimes several) was tied to four pegs driven into a special sand hill. After that, the tester inflicted several precise blows on different parts of the body. Usually, there were eighteen of them - it was in these areas that strikes most often fell in a real battle.

The ideal katana would leave deep, even cuts. If the cutting of the bones left jagged edges on the blade, this meant that the sword was not of the highest quality. Handle comfort and ergonomics played an important role. You can still find old samurai swords engraved with "Tameshi mei" or "Saidan mei", indicating that the sword cut five bodies at a time.