Attributed to Sadatsuna, Nanbokucho period (14th century)

During the Nanbokucho period the style of warfare changed from essentially individual combat between well armed groups of mounted samurai, to include conscripts from the farming communities, or ‘kachi-musha’. These soldiers would attack the mounted samurai in groups with arrows from a distance and cutting at the horse’s legs with agricultural instruments to bring their enemy down. Long naginata, swords called ‘o-dachi’, and yari (stabbing and cutting spears) became popular among the samurai. Although naginata were used by samurai in the Heian and Kamakura periods, the use of long bladed swords, naginata, and nagamaki became prevalent during the Nanbokucho and Muromachi periods.

The word naginata can be translated as ‘long cutter’ and applies to curved glaive-like blades mounted on long wooden poles. Nagamaki, or ‘long bound’, applies to long blades mounted on long poles bound with braid like the hilts of normal-length swords. Most existing blades were shortened during the Muromachi period, and the present example attributed to Sadatsuna of Sekishu is one such. The high shinogi, the slight broadening of the blade around the mono-uchi, and the fact that the boshi is yakitsume style owing to the re-shaping of the original deeply-curved kissaki all show that the blade was once of naginata or nagamaki type. Naotsuna, the father of the first generation Sadatsuna, is said to have been one of the ten disciples of the great smith Masamune of Soshu province working in the first half of the 14th century. The line continued during the Nanbokucho period with two or possibly three generations of Sadatsuna.