I would more describe this as a natural extension of a large artisanal tradition of sword-makers—swords at one point being as common in Japan as guns are in America today, unlike most of Europe where the average personal-carry weapon was a knife. There were tons of swordsmiths around to fill all that demand (and no automation to let just a few swordsmiths fill it); and the descendants of all those sword-makers still have some of that knowledge, and nothing useful to do with it (there being only so much demand for decorative and ceremonial swords today to sustain a few swordsmiths.) So what do they turn their knowledge of swordsmithing to? Making tinier pieces of metal sharp using the same techniques. Like scissors. Or fountain-pen nibs.
The legend of Japanese swordmaking is much overplayed. Swords were common, but swordmaking wasn't. Swords were far more valuable in japan due to the lack of some basic resources (metals). Japanese swords were therefore passed down rather than destroyed, as opposed to viking culture where swords were often buried. So a smaller pool of Japanese sword makers making a relatively small number of swords could supply a larger population.
Japanese swords are also much softer than enthusiasts like to admit. They are very pure carbon+iron steel but that is limiting. Again, due to nature of the available resources, Japanese sword makers did not utilize other elements, impurities, that strengthen steel beyond what can be done with iron+carbon. And all that famous folding was not unique to Japan. The average viking sword demonstrates much the same level of craftsmanship, at least in terms of the actual steel. Japanese swords are certainly better looking but they were never the magical objects often portrayed.
"For reasons that are not entirely clear, but possibly because sources of ores containing trace amounts of tungsten and/or vanadium needed for its production were depleted, the process was lost to the middle-eastern metalsmiths around 1750. It has been eagerly sought by many since that time."
> Japanese swords were therefore passed down rather than destroyed, as opposed to viking culture where swords were often buried
It should be noted that viking swords were often also passed down even after being buried, due to the lovely part of the viking wedding ceremony where the groom presents an ancestral sword from his family to the bride, to keep in trust until they have a son to take it [1].
That sword was often obtained by making the groom take it from the grave of an ancestor it was buried with.
That makes me wonder why the sword was buried in the first place. Most cultures that bury a person with their possessions seem to do so because they believe that the items will be needed by the person in the afterlife.
But if vikings buried your grandfather with his sword because they believed he needs it in the afterlife, it seems odd that they would later make you take it for your wedding and leave the old man defenseless against his afterlife foes.
>> That makes me wonder why the sword was buried in the first place.
That makes me wonder if the sword was ever really buried. It is a valuable object. If you think it is going to be brought out again, you don't bury it like you would body, certainly nowhere near decaying flesh. I would put it in some chamber near or above the body, more like in a safe than in a grave.
That “smaller pool” is still somewhere in the range of 100+ traditional sword-making families. (One per major clan in the feudal era, basically.)
How many of those families are active making swords today? Probably six.
That’s 96+ people inheriting the legacy (knowledge, tools, masterworks, etc.) of a swordsmith, maybe feeling inspired by them, but not having any direct application for that inspiration.
Because there now exists automation, you only need a few of those descendants-of-smiths to put their inspiration into a non-traditional application, to see a boom in “every-day products crafted using swordsmithing knowledge.” Each one of those descendants-of-smiths can serve as a consultant for an entire kitchenware or stationery manufacturer.
——
And, mind you, I never said that the Japanese tradition of swordsmithing was good or advanced. You’re right about these being misconceptions.
Instead, the important part is that the tradition was more prolific, compared to other countries active in swordsmithing in a near-enough-to-modern period that the descendants are still around and the legacies of their sword-smith ancestors haven’t been lost to time. This means there are more Japanese people than people of any other country who essentially “grew up in a sword-smithy” (whether it was an active one or not) and so likely became inspired to study sword-smithing, even if just as a hobby.
Mind you, the modern smiths who feel inspired by their ancestors’ works aren’t using their ancestors’ techniques to make all these fancy modern scissor/kitchen knife/etc. blades. They’re using modern knowledge learned from global sources. They didn’t study Japanese swordsmithing; they studied all swordsmithing.
But, because the interest in swordsmithing is uniquely concentrated in modern Japan compared to other countries, there’s a critical mass of people with that interest—enough to fuel a community. And that community is responsible for the flourishing and progression of technique in modern Japan.
Yes and no. It depends on who you're talking about and at what point in time. Swords were much more expensive than other weapons because they require more metal and are more time-consuming and labor-intensive to make, so your average viking couldn't necessarily afford to buy one. That's also why you tend to see swords buried with vikings: those who could afford or who warranted a fancy burial tended to be those who could afford to buy swords.
The prevalence of swords increased throughout the viking age (which ended roughly some time in the mid to late 1100's). That happened mainly for two reasons: One was that the Vikings were engaging in a lot more pitched battles against Anglo-Saxon and Frankish armies, who tended to carry swords. Of course they'd steal swords off dead soldiers, so the number of swords in circulation among vikings increased. Second, as viking power grew they were able to broker arms deals (occasionally as part of "tribute" payment) with Frankish rulers and with vikings who'd been gifted land in Normandy in exchange for warding off other vikings at the mouth of the Seine.
I'm not aware of anyone actually fighting with a hammer. Axes were very common because they were so cheap that virtually everyone had one- even farmers. Pikes were definitely used on occasion but were more special purpose tools for pitched battles. Bear in mind that vikings didn't really want to fight pitched battles at all if they could help it. They were raiders. The word viking ("wicing") is the Anglo-Saxon word for "pirate." The Codex Regius, which is the written source of most Norse mythology and thought to be written around the mid 1200's, is replete with references to both swords and axes. Otherwise, most of what we know about vikings and their weapons comes either from what the Anglo-Saxons wrote about them or archaeological studies.
It's too early in my morning to provide a source for him, but I can at least concur. My wife studied East Asian culture extensively and I'm a WWII buff and so we could each tell the other, for example, about the change in policy under MacArthur on destroying swords during the US occupation (in particular, destroying the cheap stamped swords issued post-1930 vs 'preserving' i.e. letting US soldiers loot and take home the historial ones).
As far as either of us know, it's common knowledge among anyone other than the 'katanas can cut steel beams' crowd that Japan was very very iron-poor, was alloying-elements-poor, that their folding technique was not unique by any means, and that noone including Japan sharpened swords to a single molecule's thickness on the cutting edge for good reasons relating to durability. (You could, if you wanted to, fairly trivially sharpen your kitchen knives at least near that degree. You wouldn't want to, for the same durability reason.)
My wife is now professionally a neuroscientist, and they do use scalpels that precisely sharp, or even sharpened tungsten wire 'grown' chemically into that configuration for precision work like cutting into a single cell of your choice under high power microscopy. But all of those are nearly single-use-only instruments. To the extent they can be reused, it's because they only touched very soft cellular material and never contacted something anywhere as hard as a cutting board, much less a bone -- as both kitchen knives and combat swords would do routinely in use. You really don't want the tip of your blade folding over upon itself, which happens almost immediately with a blade that thin. If curious on this topic, investigate the advantages of a beveled (multi-angle) grind, common on a chef's knife, vs a hollow ground edge like you might find on a santoku kitchen knife -- particularly pay attention to the difference in maintenance required of each.
I expect googling for 'japan iron-poor' and 'sword folding technique' would immediately shed light on either of those areas, if you're still in search of a citation.
I did quite a bit of research before buying a handmade gyuto (a Japanese reinterpretation of the French chef's knife). One thing I found is that it's recommended not to cut anything with bones in it using such a knife. Because the steel is hardened more than is typical of a French or German chef's knife, it's likely to chip rather than roll over. It's also ground and sharpened at a narrower angle, which tends to be impossible with a softer steel because it will roll over during sharpening, producing a foil burr instead of a sharp edge.
I haven't heard of anybody who knows much about the subject intentionally limiting how small they make the edge radius of a knife to preserve the durability of the edge. It's nearly always desirable to get the edge radius of a knife blade as small as possible, because it will take more wear or deformation before it's too thick to cut effectively. There is some subtlety though: a wider bevel angle is more stable and obviously adds resistance when cutting, though it can actually result in a smaller edge radius. A convex grind improves both stability and edge radius, but is more difficult to produce. My gyuto has a convex primary grind, but the edge bevel was straight, as a flat stone would produce.
A santoku doesn't typically have a hollow grind, though some specialty knives like the yanagiba are typically concave on one side and flat or convex or the other.
You can search woodworking saws and come to the same conclusions: Japanese developed pull saws because they couldn't create (for lack of raw materials) the high quality steel required to make a western style push saw.
I was skeptical before I tried one, but now I prefer pull saws for most fine woodworking tasks. Pulling tensions the blade, which allows it to be much thinner. If a push saw was that thin, it would take more skill not to bend it in use.
There are advantages to the pull saw, that is why people use them. However there are advantages to the push saw as well. For fine woodworking pull has the advantages you state, for course woodworking push uses more powerful muscles. Today we mostly use power tools for most cases where it powerful muscles matter.
Japanese manufacturing industry is a really interesting blend of manual artisanship combined with cutting edge technology. One of my favorite shows is "Supreme Skills!" - a 'reality competition' produced by NHK where teams of engineers/fabricators compete making "impossible" objects.
I've had the experience with pens. We see some of the innovations here -- gel, smaller ball points, etc., but we see them years later and in less variety.
And while I understand that it makes sense that rice is so much more important in Japan, I was blown away at the options on a rice cooker. In particular I like the feature where I tell it what time I want something to be done as opposed to when it should start. Waking up to warm oatmeal is incredible.
Lots of consumer stuff in Japan is way ahead of the US, and for good reason: American consumers simply won't buy it. They'd rather spend all their money on McMansions (with huge power bills) and giant SUVs.
I cannot recall a succinct term, but certainly people come to accept certain limits and price points.
It is possible to live in the United States and limit time spent in automobiles, size of houses, but sure can be difficult to get friends and family to understand such unorthodox priorities.
It is possible, sure, but most Americans don't do it willingly. Usually they do it because they're poor, in which case they don't have much money for Japanese consumer goods. The ones who do just aren't very numerous, so it doesn't make business sense to try to sell many things in the American market because too few people will buy them.
Or just using those skills to entertain, like this guy: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nek3wk/rice-kitchen-knife...