The Japanese war fan, or ''tessen'' (), is a Japanese

hand fan A handheld fan, or simply hand fan, is a broad, flat surface that is waved back and forth to create an airflow. Generally, purpose-made handheld fans are folding fans, which are shaped like a Circular sector, sector of a circle and made of a thi ...

used as a weapon or for signalling. Several types of war fans were used by the

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

class of

feudal Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Paleolithic, around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC whe ...

and each had a different look and purpose.

Description

War fans varied in size, materials, shape, and use. One of the most significant uses was as a signalling device. Signalling fans came in two varieties: * a folding fan that has wood or metal ribs with lacquered paper attached to the ribs and a metal outer cover * a solid open fan made from metal and/or wood, similar to the ''

gunbai The is a type of Baton (symbol), signal baton and Japanese war fan. Once held by military leaders (such as ) and priests in the past, it is used in the modern day by gyōji, umpires in sumo wrestling. Description , from the Sino-Japanese vocabu ...

'' used today by sumo referees. The commander would raise or lower his fan and point in different ways to issue commands to the soldiers, which would then be passed on by other forms of visible and audible signalling.Oscar Ratti, Adele Westbrook, ''Secrets of the Samurai: A Survey of the Martial Arts of Feudal Japan'', p.296-304 War fans were also made as weapons. The art of fighting with war fans is

tessenjutsu Tessenjutsu () is the martial art of the Japanese war fan (tessen). It is based on the use of the solid iron fan or the folding iron fan, which usually had eight or ten wood or iron ribs. The use of the war fan in combat is mentioned in early Ja ...

Types

* ''commons:Gunsen fan, '' were folding fans used by the average warriors to cool themselves off. They were made of wood, bronze, brass or a similar metal for the inner spokes, and often used thin iron or other metals for the outer spokes or cover, making them lightweight but strong. Warriors would hang their fans from a variety of places, most typically from the belt or the breastplate, though the latter often impeded the use of a sword or a bow. *''Tessenjutsu, Tessen'' were folding fans with outer spokes made of heavy plates of iron which were designed to look like normal, harmless folding fans or solid clubs shaped to look like a closed fan. Samurai could take these to places where swords or other overt weapons were not allowed, and some swordsmanship schools included training in the use of the tessen as a weapon. The tessen was also used for fending off knives and darts, as a throwing weapon, and as an aid in swimming. * ''

Gunbai The is a type of Baton (symbol), signal baton and Japanese war fan. Once held by military leaders (such as ) and priests in the past, it is used in the modern day by gyōji, umpires in sumo wrestling. Description , from the Sino-Japanese vocabu ...

'' were large solid open fans that could be solid iron, metal with wooden core, or solid wood, which were carried by high-ranking officers. They were used to ward off arrows and used as a sunshade or to signal to troops.''A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor: In All Countries and in All Times''
George Cameron Stone, Courier Dover Publications, 1999, p. 256

War fans in history and folklore

One particularly famous legend involving war fans concerns a direct confrontation between

Takeda Shingen was daimyō, daimyo of Kai Province during the Sengoku period of Japan. Known as "the Tiger of Kai", he was one of the most powerful daimyo of the late Sengoku period, and credited with exceptional military prestige. Shingen was based in a p ...

and

Uesugi Kenshin , later known as , was a Japanese ''daimyō'' (magnate). He was born in Nagao clan, and after adoption into the Uesugi clan, ruled Echigo Province in the Sengoku period of Japan. He was one of the most powerful ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period ...

at the fourth battle of Kawanakajima. Kenshin burst into Shingen's command tent on horseback, having broken through his entire army, and attacked; his sword was deflected by Shingen's war fan. It is not clear whether Shingen parried with a tessen, a dansen uchiwa, or some other form of fan. Nevertheless, it was quite rare for commanders to fight directly, and especially for a general to defend himself so effectively when taken so off-guard.

Minamoto no Yoshitsune was a commander of the Minamoto clan of Japan in the late Heian period, Heian and early Kamakura period, Kamakura periods. During the Genpei War, he led a series of battles that toppled the Ise-Heishi branch of the Taira clan, helping his half-br ...

is said to have defeated the great warrior monk

Saitō Musashibō Benkei , popularly known by the mononym Benkei (), was a Japanese warrior monk (''sōhei'') who lived in the latter years of the Heian Period (794–1185). Benkei led a varied life, first becoming a monk, then a mountain ascetic, and then a rogue warr ...

with a tessen.

Araki Murashige was a retainer of Ikeda Katsumasa, head of the powerful "Setssu-Ikeda clan" of Settsu Province. Under Katsumasa, Murashige sided with Oda Nobunaga following Nobunaga's successful campaign to establish power in Kyoto. Military life Murashige b ...

is said to have used a tessen to save his life when the great warlord

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...

sought to assassinate him. Araki was invited before Nobunaga, and was stripped of his swords at the entrance to the mansion, as was customary. When he performed the customary bowing at the threshold, Nobunaga intended to have the room's sliding doors slammed shut onto Araki's neck, killing him. However, Araki supposedly placed his tessen in the grooves in the floor, blocking the doors from closing. His tessen saved his life that day. The

Yagyū clan The were a family of ''daimyōs'' (feudal lords) with lands just outside Nara, Nara, Nara, who became the heads of one of Japan's greatest schools of swordsmanship, Yagyū Shinkage-ryū. The Yagyū were also Kenjutsu teachers to the Tokugawa sh ...

, sword instructors to the

Tokugawa shōguns Tokugawa ( , ) may refer to: *Tokugawa era, an alternative term for the Edo period, 1603 to 1868 *Tokugawa shogunate, a feudal regime of Japan during the Edo period ** Tokugawa clan, a powerful family of Japan ***Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), mos ...

, included tessenjutsu in their martial arts school, the

Yagyū Shinkage-ryū is one of the oldest Japanese schools of swordsmanship (''kenjutsu''). Its primary founder was Kamiizumi Nobutsuna, who called the school Shinkage-ryū. In 1565, Nobutsuna bequeathed the school to his greatest student, Yagyū Munetoshi, who ...

Gallery

File:Tessen fan.JPG,

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japanese (samurai) solid iron tessen fan File:Tessen 1.JPG, An iron Japanese tessen fan with wood ribs File:Gunsen fan.JPG, Edo period Japanese (samurai) gunsen fan with wood ribs and an iron outer cover File:Gunbai.JPG, Antique Japanese (samurai) gunbai war fan. Wood and lacquer with shell inlay. File:Minamoto-no-Tametomo-by-Kuniyoshi-Utagawa.png,

Minamoto no Tametomo , also known as , was a samurai who fought in the Hōgen Rebellion of 1156. He was the son of Minamoto no Tameyoshi, and brother to Yukiie and Yoshitomo. Tametomo is known in the epic chronicles as a powerful archer and it is said that he onc ...

with a gunsen fan

References

Sources