Functionality of tassels on WW2 Samurai Swords

Linno Llenos · (#1)

Hello,

I was working on my "homemade" tsuka (handle) for my Practical Katana, but my mind was actually somewhere else. Earlier I had been swinging around a WW2 shingunto in my basement, and that sword's tassel kept getting in my way. Sometimes at the end of a swing the tassel would fly onto the blade itself! I'm afraid that if I keep playing with this sword the tassel would eventually get destroyed.

So anyway, I was wondering, other than signifying rank (through tassel colors, etc.), was there any other purpose for the tassel? And, is there a certain way to position or carry the sword during battle so that the tassel wouldn't get in the way? I've seen some of these swords carry extremely long tassels, and I don't know how in the world the officer or whatever, would deal with it while charging at the enemy, etc.

Dean Rector · (#2)

I have no real answer.
But......
To the best of my little knowledge.

In at least one, completely different, swordsmanship style (Chinese jian/gim straight sword)
there is a history of training to use the tassel as a weapon and/or distractor.
It would seem to require just as much training as the actual sword form.
And to use both together............
Otherwise, in the Chinese swords it is decoration or a flash of color that
stays out of the swordsman's way and serves to distract the opponent.

I know less than nothing about Japanese swords,
so I am happy to see your post; to learn that tassels were sometimes placed on Japanese swords.

------------

A quick web search for "shingunto" turned up this paragraph:
"Shin-gunto swords are sometimes found with a colored tassel (left) attached to the kabuto-gane (hilt buttcap). The officer's rank that carried the sword can be determined from the color of the tassel. Blue/brown tassels were used by company grade officers, red/brown by field grade officers, red/gold tassels for general grade officers. Tassels can be easily switched from sword to sword and reproduction tassels can also be added to WW II vintage swords. A new general grade tassel on a poor quality sword is indicative of a "made-up" story. NCO swords had a leather sword knot (right). Kyu-gunto swords had a ball type corded knot."
from: http://www.geocities.com/alchemyst/military.htm

CiaranF · (#3)

Originally posted by Dean Rector
[B]

I know less than nothing about Japanese swords,
so I am happy to see your post; to learn that tassels were sometimes placed on Japanese swords.

Ditto on that, never seen it on a jap sword before, anybody able to enlighten us to this thing??

C

Kevin Inouye · (#4)

As for Japanese swordsmanship, I know of no such thing. I'm no expert though.

I have heard of similar things for the jitte, though, where the handle wrap/tassle was unwound, and the whole thing was used like one of the various chain weapons bujinkan and others train with. This makes sense for jitte, since it was basically a police truncheon, so being able to block, entangle, and tie up your opponents was a good thing.

I've also seen some fun Chinese wushu and Taiji sword techniques which had the tassles flying around in fun ways, but I think that's more for show (and being able to control where the energy is) than as any real martial technique. If anyone knows otherwise, please correct me- I've just dabbled and watched, and don't really know anything about the Chinese arts.

Linno Llenos · (#5)

<< I know less than nothing about Japanese swords,
so I am happy to see your post; to learn that tassels were sometimes placed on Japanese swords. >>

My limited knowledge about WW2 samurai swords pretty much came from that web site that you cited.
I haven't seen older samurai swords with tassels that's why this seems strange to me. Maybe it was just during WW2 that they did that.

It seems to make sense, since swords were not the primary weapons of that war (guns were around after all), that these tassels were primarily for designating rank and for MAXIMUM VISIBILITY when rallying the troops (charge, withdraw, etc). Once the troops were rallied, the swords went back into the scabbard and were not used, or were just secondary to pistols, etc.

It would be fascinating if there was more to it than that.