OY VEY!! What have we here? Little did I know that one of my ancestors was the one and only Jewish Samurai. Apparently he liked to cover all his bases as he also displayed the Buddhist Manji on his fuchi and kashira. And to those who may be a bit confused,“ No,this is not a swastika”. It is the Buddhist symbol called a Manji and it is written in the opposite direction from the way the swastika is written.
This fuchi and kashira is signed, Mitsuyoshi (no) Deshi Tô Masutsune kore (o) Hori. This means, “This was craved by Tô Masutsune who was the student of Gotô Mitsuyoshi”.
Gotô Mitsuyoshi (also known as Gotô Shinjô) was the 15th master of the mainline Gotô family. His student, Masutsune, who made this fuchi and kashira worked around 1850. His family name of Tô can also be read Hisashi, Azuma, or Yamato.
All in all, a very interesting set of fittings.
