Awataguchi Hisakuni
粟田口久国 (Awataguchi Hisakuni)
The second of Kyoto's six Awataguchi brothers, of the early Kamakura period; forging instructor to the retired emperor Go-Toba and, for almost all experts, the best smith of the school.
Profile
According to tradition, Hisakuni was the second son of Kuniie, the founder of Awataguchi. The retired emperor Go-Toba summoned him among his rotating smiths and took him as his forging instructor; he received the title Ōsumi Gon no Kami and is held to be the first smith with a provincial title. A book of 1792 has him die in 1216 at the age of 67. His tachi are slender and elegant, with a deep koshizori, funbari and a ko-kissaki; his steel is a ko-itame so tight that old texts compare it to a stamped-down clay floor, and his temper a ko-nie suguha with ko-midare and ko-chōji. He has one national treasure and, in the national database, two important cultural properties (three according to the Japanese Wikipedia). The Hisakuni shrine in Roppongi owes its name to a tachi of his donated by Ōta Dōkan.
Monograph
Awataguchi Hisakuni (粟田口久国)
A smith of around 1200 of whom few blades and a great deal of tradition survive, told with the level of evidence of each fact.
Read the monograph
Notable works
- Tachi signed Hisakuni, from the Matsudaira of Saijō: national treasure, owned by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.