Japanese Armor Society Forum

Thanks Uwe !!
I will try to translate N ° 101 that you communicated to me, indeed it is the same as on my armor, the information that I had found on the ko ji ho ten concerns a "kamon" without the circle. ...
I'm going to look for a book on the subject ....

About learning to understand katchū.
I walk this road for 30 years of so now. Confusian way.
Motivation is the best teacher.
And the books off course, It never stops.
In French: Torii links (JC Charbonnier, un membre du JAS). a publié plusieurs livres très educatif. Robert Burawoy, un de nos membres apprécié à publié sa étude du Meiko Zukan.
If you want links, you can have a look in the book section.

Hi Michel,

here my try:

The mon is described as "Maru ni yotsu tsunagi kuginuki"
The family is named "Kashima shi" but can also been read as "Katô shi"
The part in brackets describes what is derived from the inscription of the tombstone, namely a connection to the "Taira clan" of Hitachi province...(if I got it right?!)
After the brackets, it is mentioned, were the tombstone was found. In this case "Toei Aoyama" cemetry.

I neither can read nor speak Japanese. So take it with a grain of salt....

Piers, now it's your turn to rip it apart

Üwé I sense that Michel likes to hear it from you.

Hello UWE

Thank you, for my part I contacted "Japan" the translation is the same as you, on the other hand, frankly I would like to know how you did to translate? I have just received a French Japanese distionnaire, interesting because of 1908 but there are 2320 kanji .....
Maru-ni-Yotsu-Tsunagi-Kuginuki
Kashima-shi
“Kashima” is a person's name.
“Shi” means family or family line. And there is also JO:
丸 に 四 つ 繋 ぎ 釘 抜 = maru ni yottsu tsunagi kuginuki (this is the description of my)
= Connect four to a circle and remove a nail (?)

加 島 氏 = Kashima clan
(墓碑 に 常 陸 国 の 桓 武平氏 族 と あ り) 都 営 青山 霊 園
(On the gravestone it says he is a member of the Heike kammu clan in Hitachi province) Toei Aoyama Cemetery ????
gold (Hitachi Province on the gravestone There is a Takehei Osamu clan)

Hello Piers, smile, this is the first time for me on a forum, I am a little lost, but 30 years on this path is undoubtedly a heavy baggage of knowledge to carry, you can unload yourself on me ... .. "everything that is not given is lost" is what a Cossack "dzhigit" rider used to say. However, what should I think of my armor for the kyogoku clan? because the tombstone seems to "go back" to the 11/12 ° century

Quite right Michel!

“加島” (Kashima or Katō) is the family name and “氏” means clan, family, surname...
The mon depicted 4 connected kuginuki in a circle. Kuginuki means nail puller! The way they are connected is not taken into account in the description.

“平” has a lot of translations. What it made it more complicated is that the book doesn’t provide a reading (usually done in hiragana).

Send me a pm regarding the “translation procedure”...

Uwe, thanks, I just searched for “平” in my dictionary, I can't find it ..... then I don't understand your sentence: Send me a pm regarding the “translation procedure” what is "PM "? sorry for my ignorance

Piers !!!

I just saw that by trying a little humor I attributed to you Luc's 30 years of passion ..... I'm really not good at browsing the forums, sorry, I hope you don't don't want any ... more as I use machine translation, I don't know if the "machine" is faithful to my writings ...
My previous message was therefore addressed to Luc and not to Piers ...... "I bury myself" ...

Haha Michel, modern technology and a lot of new names, not easy.
I can’t help you with the kashima clan. But as it is with European nobility, the same goes for Japan. It is prestigious to be a member of an old family. Hideyoshi was so happy to hear he was a descendant of the famous Fujiwara han. (Dare who would have said something different..)
What I can say is that you own a fine late edo armor, made by one of the best katchushi of its time.