JAPAN
compiled in the seventeenth century to show the forgers classed as experts, contained 3,269 names. To distinguish between the products of such a multitude of masters must have required natural gifts of a high order, and though throughout the Military epoch,—that is to say, from the twelfth century to the end of the sixteenth,—the sword and everything pertaining to it were held in signal honour, the first expert whose judgment men accepted as infallible was Honami Kōsetsu, who flourished in the time of the Taikō. Scores had toiled along the same path before his day, but he first reached the goal, and his family's claim to have inherited his skill and the arcana of his science being conceded, the house of Honami with its twelve branches became from that time Japan's classical judges of sword-blades. Inasmuch as his sword ranked far above all his possessions in a samurai's esteem, there was a constant demand for keen eyes to sift the fine from the false. But even more important than the connoisseur was the sharpener. In other countries the wielder of a sword has always been expected to sharpen it himself. In Japan the sharpener was a special expert. In this art also the Honami family and its branches excelled.
The three processes of producing a blade were almost equally important,—the forging, the tempering, and the sharpening. The forging was of course the most arduous. Various ceremonies attended it. The smith had to be a man of pure
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