European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 03, 1967, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Hal Drake Pacific is writer the Stout hard muscled Little Man plunged a foot and a half of red hot steel into a flaring forge. Kneeling on a dirt floor vigorously pumping a Bellows with his free hand he thrust the glowing Blade into the pulsing flames again and again As if cauterizing some terrible wound. The curved Shaft was now almost Golden hot. As his awed apprentices watched in total silence the Small sword maker Rose and padded on Sandaler feet to a Long Canoe like tub a few feet  silence was something alive and solid. It was born of worshipful respect for a master craftsman and of a Ter Rible fear. Would there be a Sharp Little crack like a breaking wine Goblet would steel Loo finely tempered Shat Ter like Glass his face clinically Calm Shohei Miya Iri thrust the sword into the tub. A Hiss of steam was like a Small  held it there for three seconds precisely marked off in his brain although by a clicking metronome. He lifted the Blade dropped it into the steaming bubbly water again. He did it eight times and each plunging stroke was like a surgical incision. The dreaded snap did not  had won what he Calls my daily struggle with fire water  fifteen Days of hard work and delicate craftsmanship had been Justi fied. A sword had been born a weapon As Beautiful and deadly As the Blade Sof Toledo and Damascus. The Man who fashioned it looks like something Between a Road worker and a Blacksmith. His round face is dour and Lank his squat body is Laden with muscle that bulges even under the Bagg Hakama he wears As be works. His pow Erful forearms Are covered by a Hardshell of Burn scars and he has gnarled stubby fingered hands one would not associate with an artist. He walks with a round shouldered Slouch. He has Wispy Spade like Goatee and tiny spectacles which glow red and give him satanic appearance when he sits before the  could be the Farmer the charcoal maker the woodsman seen in profusion at the japanese Village of Sakaki a fleeting speck of Rural life seen from the train that speeds through the Japan Alps 110 Miles Northwest of Tokyo. One would top to speak to this countryman and expect nothing but a Gruff reply in the Rural dialect that strikes big City sophisticates As harsh and comical. What you get is an astonishing and Beautiful Elo  great things Are declining he says softly and precisely the human heart and the japanese  this Small Man who looks As Plain Asa statistic and Speaks in lyrical phrases is a living National treasure in Japan. His country s ministry of Educa Tion has declared his sword making skill invaluable and his very existence Price less. He became a life valued like a rare Pearl for doing something which in the Western world might make him a subject for clinical psychology. Miya Iri lives in the past. His body an being Are in the 20th Century his mind and body Are in the Kamakura Era the 141 years Between 1192 and 1333. It was a time of violent history and Beautiful Art and the Renaissance As far As japanese swords were concerned. There were no less than five great schools of word making the Yamato Yamashiro Miya Iri a living treasure critically examines a sword Blade for tiny flaws. Biden Mino and Sagami. Each had it sown distinctive specialities in fashioning the Katana the Tanto the Wakiza Shi each had its own method for making hard and perfect steel. Then came the Tough and  steel. First made in China it was next manufactured in the Chugo Juarea of Southern Japan and then moved by boat and train to Points All Over the Island country. A kind of 12th Century Industrial revolution banished the More slowly mad and finely wrought steel. Sword making itself went into the doldrums because the Kamakura period was followed by a Long and rare interlude of  great secrets of the sword makers were irretrievably lost because the were never written Down. They had been passed generation into Century fro master to apprentice. They were not even spoken of away from the  old wordsmiths died As their Craft declined. What they knew and aught vanished. And yet More than six centuries later a Swordmaker can forge their closest equals in Beauty Quality an style. Miya Iri looks on a sword As an  great things Are declining he says softly and precisely., the human heart and the japanese sivord.9 " object of Art rather than an instrument of death. He has spent As much time in the Kamakura period As any historian and has become by study and per Severance the greatest living maker of the rare and matchless Blades first fashioned 643 years  has studied the Kamakura period Blades. He has pored Over the few and rare documents of the period. Like a medieval alchemist seeking away to manufacture Gold he is trying to rediscover and perfect the great steels of the old masters. Miya Iri s swords Are not regarded As imitations or duplicates just a rarely talented Man s preservation of the  collectors All Over the world proudly and carefully remove cloth and tissue paper wrapping from their curved Silvery prize to Tell Visi tors this is a  one of them Miles Laboratory presi Dent Walter a. Compton is the first foreign customer to directly commission sword from Miya Iri and he will have to be one of the most  s order came in three years ago. More preoccupied with his Craft than figures and records Miya Iri put it on a pile with Many others and pus edit aside much in the same Way Thomas Edison used to stack and forget his ills. I think there Are about 20 or 30now," he shrugs. I Don t  sooner or later Compton s order willbe unearthed and he will get his sword meticulously fashioned and carefully inspected by Miya Iri s toughest critic himself. Next to his forge is a  of rejected swords cast aside for some microscopic  of ownership could Cost comp Lon up to �2,000, the asking Price for a Iff 1lordmakj Miya Iri sword patrons buy so pies and Shrin fanciers who w they get it. Pm Izairi sword r Ner Core of Iro flexibility and be fashioned fro impurities by delicately scrolled will be the Toug degree heat with Lay Between glow and pure steel. There will be steel that was ago. Miya Iri haunt Izairi s Rich Nate to Tern just sword  curve on a Tfelt. The in and pure for Uter Shell will Sard layers of Hammer. The cutting Edge mered by so of a thin layer of leaping flame Al Kura steel in it made centuries antique stores inthe old City of Nara and larger ones like Osaka and Nagoya looking for Fine old pieces pots figurines and the like that have timelessly kept their temper. Som rare curios must be preserved. Others less valuable but just As sturdy Are broken up and melted Down and their steel is in the Blade that is slowly shaped and curved by a Hammer in a master s hand. Miya Iri recently got two tons of nails from the education minis try when an old Castle was partially turndown and destroyed. Another source of Ore is the Sand along the dry part of the tone River Many Miles Distant in Gumma prefecture. Mhairi selected it because in ancient times the toughest Armor in Japan was made in forges near the River and the Ore had been finely sifted from  s apprentices must use mag nets to get the Fine grains he wants. Along Day s work May yield 40 or 50 Small cans. Ture ingredients craftsman ship gleaming perfection at a single glance or slight touch All of these must be in a Miya Iri sword made by a Man who was almost the obscure country Blacksmith he so closely  goes Back to his grand father who came from the nearby Vil Lage of Sogura and at first made Only scythes and the Iron frames for two wheeled wagons Farmers used to carry incredible heavy loads. But he was Sucha proficient hand at the forge that he wound up a Swordmaker for the local Daimyo Feudal lord. Miya Iri s own father went Back to making farm tools and saw his own son at the age of 10, turning out Well made scythes and knives. He wanted to be a Swordmaker which pleased the elder the steel Blank is first coated with Clay. Then plunged into glowing charcoal. And finally slowly shaped on the Anvil. But compelled him to warn his son that it was now a prestigious but not Well paying  1937, at the age of 22, Miya Iri went to the shop of the great Hikosaburo Kur Ihara in Tokyo. As an apprentice he watched and listened to the master an was occasionally allowed to make Small swords something Kurihara will no permit his own apprentices to do today. In a few years he and Kurihara move to Zama on the outskirts of Tokyo to make swords for officers of the nearby japanese Imperial army Academy. A Harj blow Fen in 1943, Miya Iri was drafted sadly wrapping his tools in Oil paper he spent most of a Long War inthe engineers among Stone masons House wreckers plasterers and boat men. He considered himself an artist  labourers having been totally absorbed in his own Craft for so Long that he found it hard to talk of other things one sword was Worth More than  they could do he says. Would Tell them the names of famous ? words. They would get curious and ant to know if it was the Brand name of a  lonely for the forge and the Anvil As other men might have been for the Laboratory and the easel Miya Iri had one Solace. No matter which Way the War might go it could t last forever. He would one Day Wear the Hakama an Wield the Wordsmith s Hammer again. This was still a Long time in  was banned by the Post War occupation authorities until 1953.miyairi got by As a maker of Kitchen utensils and farm tools abandoning his father s Trade when it was again Safe and Legal to make swords. In the succeeding years he became known As the Kamakura Swordmaker the practitioner of a lost Art and a dying Craft the Man whose skills were so rare and precious that in 1963, he was named a living walking breathing treasure. Only one other Swordmaker and 58 other people whose rare skills Are dying because of time or automation share this distinction in  is distinguished Only by accomplish ment not in appearance. He disdain ceremonial showmanship stoutly Refus ing to Wear the ornate traditional Robe that were Given sword makers by their patrons in times past and still worn by some As a Symbol of respect and status. I would rather let my work speak for me than Wear impressive finery. You May look Fine and people May Admir Eyou As a special Man and say there Pacific is photos by Masahiko Nakamura who Ivill Merit the skills of the Kamakura Siv Rodmaker. Could it be that the skills of Miya Iri will be taken. To a faraway place called Vermont  is the  then you go out get drunk and Chase women and you Are seen As Only a Man. It is your finished work that matters. You must never forget the spirit of responsibility the old wordsmiths had. Their Blades had to be Fine because Many lives depended on them. If they failed in a Battle or a Duel the blame came Back to the Man who made them. You must make Blades today with the same spirit the same conscience and the same  so Miya Iri does As he pulls the curtains on the windows around his Small forge to shut out the fading after noon sunlight of the outside world. Ablaze is to be tempered and finished to be like the 12 he passed to custom ers last year or the twice As Many he declared imperfect and junked. Miya Iri is 54. He vows to live in the past and work at his forge until i  what then Miya Iri does t know an cares very much. He can Only look Hope fully at his six apprentices the Youngmen who make and Cut the master s charcoal sweep his Yard Stoke his fur Nace and watch with an intent and respectful silence As he turns a shapeless wad of Ore into a master s Blade. This is All Miya Iri lets them do watch. It is too fearfully easy for amateurish fingers to ruin a Good  must stand Back and absorb All they can for five years until it is Tim for them to Hammer hot steel and be come licensed. Who will inherit the skills of the Kamakura Swordmaker which will it be he could come from this very Vil Lage because one 36-year-old apprentice comes from a nearby farm Home everyday to study and learn. Or he could be the 24-year-old youth who comes from Sado Shima the Distant Island where criminals were once condemned to work out their lives in Japan s Only known Gold mine. I Ould it be that the skills of Miya Iri imparted to another will retaken to a Wood in a faraway place called Vermont one year ago a husky red bearded youth from the american Midwest Drew stares from astonished townspeople As he approached Miya Iri s workshop. Henry e. Austin a 33-year-Oldformer Oriental studies student at the new school in new York approached Izairi with a typically american Busi Ness Deal. He wanted to learn sword making and would pay. Austin s japanese was fluent and his credentials were Good he had lived a year on Shikoku Island to study with63-year-old Sada Tsugu Takahashi the Only other Swordmaker named a treasured  Miya Iri intractable refused the american s Deal How Ever and set his own terms. Was Austin willing to become an apprentice would lie share a Large room and menial duties with three others would he get Pat 6 . To clean the forge and Wash himself in cold Mountain water would he live on Rice and bean curd would he stain himself with charcoal dust would he. Marry the Craft he wanted to practice if so he could stay. It not trains Back to Tokyo left every hour. Austin stayed on and it was the Fol lowing january six months before an american journalist came and he spoke English again. Four More elapsed before a Pacific stars and stripes reporter came to the forge. Austin 185 pounds when he started living off Bland Japan Ese food Hail shrivelled to 155. Lie too wore a Hakama. His flamboyant Bear was streaked with a Rey and this paired with the sweat absorbent kerchief he wore around his head gave him the appearance of a character in a pirate movie. He told of his dreams and plans in his native , i want to make swords. I Hope to be licensed next year practice i Japan for two More then go Back to America. I thought perhaps Vermont some wooded part where land is cheap and there would be a place to make charcoal  could it be that the next master sword Smith will Admire a great Blade in the waning Light of a new England Sunset will he stand outside his forge in the Golden flame of a Vermont autumn to stroke curved flawless steel and repeat the words of the great master who taught him when i hold a Fine sword i cannot think of it As a weapon to draw blood and take life Only As a thing of Beauty and a work of  180 12 the stars and stripes tuesday october 3, 1967 the stars and strikes american apprentice Henry Austin cuts charcoal into cubes for forge. Pago 13