尻懸派
Shikkake School
One of the Yamato Five Schools, centered near Kasuga Grand Shrine in Nara. The Shikkake school maintained the Yamato tradition's masame-hada and suguha aesthetics while developing a distinctive character. Surviving works are rare but are valued as important documents of the Yamato tradition.
Description
Origins Near Kasuga Grand Shrine
The Shikkake school takes its name from a district near Kasuga Grand Shrine in Nara, the great shrine of the warrior deity Takemikazuchi. The smiths of the Shikkake lineage served the armed religious complexes of Yamato Province from the mid-Kamakura period, producing swords for sōhei (warrior monks) and shrine ritual use within the broad Yamato tradition framework.
Character Within the Yamato Five Schools
Among the five Yamato schools, Shikkake is generally characterized as more practical and unpretentious than the aristocratic Tegai school, less organizationally structured than the large Senjuin school, more faithful to straight-hamon Yamato ideals than the Bizen-influenced Taima school, and more locally rooted than the externally influenced Hōshō school. The hamon tends toward suguha with slight undulation. Jigane is standard Yamato masame with occasional mokume admixture.
Principal Smiths
Norinaga (active mid-to-late Kamakura) is the school's best-known representative, embodying classical Yamato masame and suguha. Noriyoshi (Nanbokuchō period) adapted to the era's demand for powerful large blades. The naming convention of sharing the character "nori/則" identifies the lineage.
Decline
The Ōnin War (1467) devastated Nara's religious institutions and ended the organizational basis of all five Yamato schools. Shikkake, possibly the smallest of the five, has the fewest confirmed surviving works. New attributions and discoveries continue to attract scholarly attention.
Caracteristiques de cette epoque
- Standard Yamato masame-hada with occasional mokume — characteristic of the school; used as a connoisseurship marker in combination with other features
- Suguha with slight undulation (notare-gakari) — the school's characteristic hamon expression; unpretentious, practical aesthetic
- Thick kasane and robust construction — warrior monk and shrine military demand; practical Yamato construction as the common thread
- Naming convention with 'nori/則' character — Norinaga, Noriyoshi, Norikuni, Norishige; kanji calligraphy changes aid generational dating