Yuki Kurabikan

Yuki Kurabikan is an exhibition facility housed in storehouses (kura) in the central urban area of Yuki, Ibaraki Prefecture, opened on 24 May 2014. It consists of two buildings: the main storehouse (honkura), which functions as a venue for transmitting new culture, and the side storehouse (sodekura), which functions as a place for collecting and displaying historical and cultural materials of Yuki. In the field of swords and arms and armor, the museum is known for permanently displaying a reconstruction of Otegine, one of the Three Great Spears of Japan.

Otegine, One of the Three Great Spears

Otegine is a large-bladed spear that, together with Nihongō and Tonbokiri, is counted among the Three Great Spears of Japan (Tenka Sanmeisō). It is said to have been used by Yuki Haruyoshi, head of the Yuki house, and was afterward passed down through the lineage that inherited the Yuki family into the modern era. It is known for its exceptionally long blade, which measures 4 shaku 6 sun (about 138 centimeters). The pestle-shaped sheath, covered in bear fur and used as a battle standard (umajirushi), is also enormous; the sheath alone is said to have weighed about 22.5 kilograms.

The original was lost in the modern era, so what can be seen today is a precise reconstruction. Precisely because it is a reconstruction, however, the display allows visitors to grasp the physical scale of a long spear, including its weight and dimensions, as a tangible experience. This is valuable for understanding the bodily demands that the spear, as a weapon, placed on warriors within warrior society. Alongside the sword, the spear was a principal weapon of the samurai, yet opportunities to experience actual examples are rare. The museum's significance for the history of swords lies in its direct confrontation with the spear as a subject.

The Yuki House and the Town of Yuki

Yuki developed as the castle town of the Yuki clan, which had its base here from the Kamakura period onward. Yuki Haruyoshi had no natural heir and, at the wish of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, adopted Tokugawa Ieyasu's second son, Yūki Hideyasu, as his adopted heir. Hideyasu later moved to Echizen and became the founder of the Echizen Matsudaira house. The town of Yuki is a place where the reorganization of a medieval warrior band of the Kantō into an early modern daimyo can be traced through both place names and family lineage.

The museum's exhibits are built around the history of the Yuki clan and around the region's industry and culture, represented by Yuki tsumugi silk. Misegura (merchant storehouses) and dozō (earthen storehouses) still dot the streets of the city, and the storehouse townscape itself can be walked as an extension of the exhibition. Admission is free, and the museum is operated as an open gateway to local history.