The technique is to pull out the sheath rather than drawing the blade. The Kōden Enshin-ryū taught by Fumon Tanaka use a special drawing technique for "short" ōdachi allowing it to be carried on the waist. The trend during the Muromachi era was for the samurai carrying the ōdachi to have a follower to help draw it. The other method was simply to carry the sheathed ōdachi by hand. One was to carry it on one's back however, this was seen as impractical as it was impossible for the wielder to draw it quickly. There were two main methods in which they could be carried. Because of their size, ōdachi are usually hung from the ceiling or placed in a stationary position to be polished, unlike normal swords which are moved over polishing stones.Īs battlefield weapons, ōdachi were too long for samurai to carry on their waists like normal swords. The method of polishing is also different.
The quenching process then needs a bigger quenching medium because uneven quenching might lead to warping the blade. Ōdachi are difficult to produce because their length makes traditional heat treatment more complicated: The longer a blade is, the more difficult (and expensive) it is to heat the whole blade to a homogeneous temperature, both for annealing and to reach the hardening temperature. In the peaceful Edo period, ōdachi was no longer regarded as a practical weapon and came to be recognized only as an offering to the kami of Shinto shrines. For example, Ōyamazumi Shrine, which is said to be a treasure house of Japanese swords and armor, is dedicated to the national treasure Ōdachi, which was dedicated by Emperor Go-Murakami, and ōdachi, which was dedicated by Ōmori Naoharu and killed Kusunoki Masashige. Ōdachi was used as a weapon, but because of its magnificent appearance, it was often used as an offering to kami, a Shinto shrine. As ōdachi became useless, it was often replaced with a tachi and katana. Furthermore, from the Sengoku period in the latter part of the Muromachi period to the Azuchi-Momoyama period, as tactics shifted to fighting with yari and guns by a large group of infantry, ōdachi became even more obsolete. However, as infantry were equipped with yari and naginata, this fashion died out in a short period of time. Large naginata and kanabō were also popular in this period. In the case of ōdachi whose blade was 150 cm long, it was impossible to draw a sword from the scabbard on the waist, so people carried it on their back or had their servants carry it. The reason for this is thought to be that the conditions for making a practical large-sized sword were established due to the nationwide spread of strong and sharp swords of the Sōshū school. In the Nanboku-chō period in the 14th century, huge Japanese swords such as ōdachi became popular. However, as with most terms in Japanese sword arts, there is no exact definition of the size of an ōdachi.Ī wood block print of a samurai carrying a nodachi/ōdachi on his back To qualify as an ōdachi, the sword in question would have a blade length of around 3 shaku (90.9 centimetres (35.8 in)). The second character in tachi, ( 刀), is also the same used to spell katana (刀) and the tō in nihontō (日本刀 "Japanese sword"), originally from the Chinese character for a blade, dāo. The dachi here ( 太刀) is the same as tachi ( 太刀, great sword), the older style of sword/mounts that predate the katana. The character for ō (大) means "big" or "great". The Chinese equivalent of this type of sword in terms of weight and length is the miao dao, and the Western battlefield equivalent (though less similar) is the longsword or claymore. The ōdachi ( 大太刀) (large/great sword) or nodachi (野太刀, field sword) is a type of traditionally made Japanese sword (日本刀, nihontō) used by the samurai class of feudal Japan. The blade length is 225.43 cm and the tang is 92.41 cm. The Odachi Masayoshi forged by bladesmith Sanke Masayoshi, dated 1844.