山鳥毛

Kenshin's dying testament reportedly included the words: 'Yamatorige is the supreme treasure of Echigo Province. It must not pass outside the family.' He died in the spring of 1578, at forty-nine, in the middle of planning another military campaign — sudden, unexpected, leaving the Uesugi domain in chaos. His sword outlasted the civil war that followed, outlasted the reduction of the domain after Sekigahara, and outlasted the Uesugi clan's diminishment from a great power to a minor domain. Then, in 2019, it came up for auction. The city of Setouchi in Okayama — the birthplace of the Bizen tradition — launched a crowdfunding campaign to bring the sword home. Six hundred and seventy million yen flowed in from Japanese people across the country who had never met each other but shared a conviction that this particular object mattered. The sword returned to Bizen. Kenshin's testament said never to let it leave Echigo; instead it returned to the forge that made it. Perhaps that, too, is a form of homecoming.