Ningen Mukotsu

人間無骨

Also known as: Ningen Mukotsu; the cross-bladed spear of Mori Nagayoshi

Smith

Izumi no Kami Kanesada (second generation, Nosada)

Era

Muromachi period

Type

Jumonji yari (cross-bladed spear)

Designation

Undesignated

Location

Private collection

Description

The Spear of the Demon Musashi

Ningen Mukotsu is a cross-bladed spear made in the Muromachi period, known as the favoured weapon of Mori Nagayoshi, a commander who served Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Nagayoshi was the elder brother of Mori Ranmaru and was feared under the sobriquet "Oni Musashi," the Demon Musashi, for the ferocity of his fighting. The spear is today in a private collection.

Signature and Carving

The characters for "ningen" are carved on the front of the blade and "mukotsu" on the reverse, and it is from these that the spear takes its name. The meaning of the name is not certain, but one view holds that it is a figure of speech for a spear that pierces a person as easily as if the body had no bones. The maker is held to be the second-generation Kanesada, commonly called Nosada, regarded as the finest master among the successive Kanesada smiths.

Construction

The blade is about 3.6 cm wide and about 0.9 cm thick at the base; the head forms a cross, and every blade of it is double-edged.

Mori Nagayoshi and the Spear

In 1574 (Tenshō 2), during the campaign against the Ikkō-ikki of Nagashima, Nagayoshi, then seventeen, is said to have taken twenty-seven heads with this spear. He wielded Ningen Mukotsu on many battlefields thereafter, and his valour and ferocity were recounted together with the name Demon Musashi. Nagayoshi fell in battle at Komaki and Nagakute in 1584.

Legends & Stories

The name Ningen Mukotsu comes from the characters carved on the two faces of the blade, meaning that against this spear a human body might as well have no bones. Mori Nagayoshi is said to have wielded it at seventeen and taken twenty-seven heads. Ever after it has been spoken of as the weapon that symbolised the ferocity of the man feared as the Demon Musashi.