Kuya
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Posts: 1,396
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Post by Kuya on Aug 19, 2012 8:02:23 GMT
Many tsuba have these two holes on each side of the hole where the blade goes inside. One usually has an extra "leaf/bump" on the "outside" area of the hole. What are they, and why are they there? They ruin the picture/design a lot. For example:
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Aug 19, 2012 8:45:59 GMT
Those holes are for the kozuka/kogatana (by knife) and kogai (skewer), whether they're actually present on the sword in question or not. Now, the following is just conjecture, but it makes sense to me: basically, the holes are there so you can remove the kozuka & kogai without having to actually draw the sword, something that is seen as a rather aggressive move regardless of culture. If you look, by-knives fairly common around the world, but the only culture I know to have holes in their guard to facilitate their removal is the Japanese, on account of how the shape of the tsuba prevents that.
That said, I rather agree with you in this instance. They do rather disrupt the flow of the tsuba; on the other hand, they can actually be fairly useful even if the sword doesn't have a kogai/kozuka on it since you can lace the sageo through it to peace-tie the sword quite easily.
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Post by ineffableone on Aug 19, 2012 10:27:23 GMT
Yep what he siad. In adition, the reason many tsuba have these but no kozuka/kogatana and kogai is they are often copies of actual historical antique tsuba. Also along with that, tsuba makers often do not know if the sword will have these tools or not they just make tuba usually, so might make them just in case. You often will see these holes filled in with lead, or copper, or brass by people who don't use them. If it bothers you, there are plenty of tsuba designs without, or with only one hole. There are also other functional holes in tsuba that are often not used. Many tsuba have one or two holes made for a lanyard to attach to the user's wrist. These lanyard holes are something you still will see in modern tsuba but serve little real function as they are meant to keep the sword in the users hand during long battles through a lot of impacts with other weapons and armor and of course through the wet of blood and rain and sweat. These days people don't fight wars with swords, so our swords tend not to need lanyard holes.
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Post by MOK on Aug 19, 2012 12:12:59 GMT
Could still be a nice safety feature...
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