The Wagtails Sing - when nature meets a sword school

 

Seen in a shop window - Wagtail on a Lotus Leaf
attributed to Sesshu

The traditional Japanese calendar was a complicated thing. In addition to the 12 months, auspicious and inauspicious days (still consulted, especially for weddings) there were also 24 months or mini seasons and also 72 micro seasons. I don’t know how widespread the observance of these micro seasons was – I imagine more so in literary circles…or perhaps only there, and knowledge of them is certainly not part of everyday life nowadays, but occasionally something happens to remind you of them.

Passing by an antique shop last month, I caught sight of an unusual painting – a work in ink depicting a wagtail on a dead lotus leaf. There is something about good sumi-e that draws you in, a living quality in the surface of the paper, the subtleties of the ink, the effect of age and decay as well. And it was clear that this was an old piece from the color and quality of the paper. The signature declared it to be by Sesshu, the doyen of Japanese painters, regarded as both the root and the highest exemplar of the style – I could not say if it was genuine, but it certainly looked to be at least 400 years old to my eyes.

Sesshu's signature...it must be genuine!!?

The age itself gives a work a certain frisson, and the subject was of interest, too, wagtails being an almost daily sight on the edges of the city. While not common (I don’t remember having seen an example before) the theme is not without precedent. In particular, there is a work by Muqi (J. Mokkei) of this subject, which I suspect became the model for this motif. Of course, unlike several other works of his that served as models for themes in Japanese paintings (his dragon and tiger, long-armed monkey (gibbon)), artists could see the subject for themselves and, perhaps, felt no need to copy his composition.

Muqi's verson of the wagtail on 
a withered lotus leaf (Courtesy of
the MOA, Tokyo)

The wagtail and the dead lotus are both symbols of the turn of the seasons as summer gives way to the early days of autumn, but the display of the painting was more deliberate than that. Sekirei Naku (wagtails call) is the name of one of the micro seasons (September 13-17), and wouldn't you know it, that was exactly the time the painting was on display. Those more attuned to the lore of Japanese poetics would, no doubt, have realised this straight away.

The wagtail itself is a common bird throughout Japan – certainly in Kansai. Their distinctive movement not only earned them their name in English, but lent its name to a sword technique that is particularly associated with the Hokushin Ittō-ryū and from there it came into kendo. There it seems to have become a descriptive term for an up-and-down movement of the tip of the sword (kissaki), with no clear consensus on the precise usage. However, it is still preserved in the Hokushin Ittō-ryū.

Sekirei no ken, as the technique is known, relies on the sensitivity of the kissaki and the ability to threaten an attack that cannot be accurately predicted. This may involve subtle movement of the tip of the sword, directing the i of the wielder, thus giving it its name. In kendo, this has become an up and down motion with the general aim of confusing the opponent.

The Hokushin Ittō-ryū is not the only school to make use of this kind of movement of the kissaki - an up-and-down movement was also used by the Kage-ryū, for example. In fact, it would probably be safe to say that every well-developed school of swordsmanship had teachings on the use of the tip of the sword, and there are probably more similarities than differences between the different schools. But the Hokushin Ittō-ryū is the only traditional school I know that uses the imagery of the wagtail for their technique. 

(Written on the last day of 'The ground starts to freeze').

This is the mokuroku (transmission document)
 awarded to Sakamoto Ryoma, a famous practitioner
of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū