Nankaitarō Tomotaka
南海太郎朝尊 (Nankaitarō Tomotaka)
Lineage: the signature does not state the generation
A Tosa smith and theorist (1805-1865) who worked in Kyoto and Edo, championed a return to the forging of the old schools and founded a line of smiths, the Morioka.
Profile
Nankaitarō Tomotaka was born in Kuroiwa, in Tosa, in 1805 or 1806. He began by forging saws, like his father, and in the Bunsei era he went to Kyoto to become a swordsmith; there he worked as an assistant to Iga no Kami Kinmichi, and in the Tenpō era he also forged next to the Yushima Tenjin shrine in Edo. He was above all a theorist: he wrote treatises such as the Tōken gogyōron and the Shintō meishūroku, championed with Suishinshi Masahide the return to the old methods and taught them all over the country, so much so that the two were called the pillars of east and west. In 1858 he returned to Tosa and taught his nephew Tomokuni there; he spent his last years in Hataeda, north of Kyoto, where he founded his own school of swordsmanship, and he died in 1865. Takechi Hanpeita owned a sword of his. His son Tomoyoshi, his grandson Morioka Shōkichi and his great-grandson, who signed Nankaitarō Masataka, carried on the craft.
Monograph
Nankaitarō Tomotaka (南海太郎朝尊)
A swordsmith from Tosa who mattered more for his ideas than for his blades: his quick profile and the essentials.
Read the monograph