Samurai Cuirass

A two-section, or clam-shell, style samurai cuirass (nuinobe ni-mai-do). The front of the cuirass is constructed of eight horizontal lames and the back is constructed of nine. Each lame is wrapped with leather and then coated with black lacquer formed over a strip of wide, humped, "false scales" (kiritsuke yahazu gashira iyozane) to give the appearance of individual scales. Lames are connected to one another with blue silk cords in the sugake-odoshi style. This combination of wide iyozane style scales and sugake-odoshi lacing are the key characteristics of the nuinobe cuirass form. The upper lames are attached to solid metal plates around the neck and arm openings which are used to attach other fixtures securely to the cuirass. Each of these plates has a gold-painted decorative rim (fukurin). The cuirass opens on the right side and is secured with a silk cord closure.

The upper-most back plate (boko-no-ita) supports the shoulder straps (watagami) which reach over the shoulders to the front of the cuirass. This back plate connects to the top lame of the back of the cuirass with a single row of cross knot lacing. The upper-most front plate (muna-ita) supports toggles made of ivory which would secure the shoulder straps. This front plate attaches to the top lame with blue silk lacing in the kebiki-odoshi style. The shoulder straps have thick, blue cords designed to hold the many movable parts together. A wide, stylized bracket (gattari) is attached to the back plate and serves to support a wooden rod which would hold a battle standard on the wearer's back. The wooden rod would extend down to the lower back where a small cup (machi-uke) would receive it. Seven, five lame, pendant-like tassets (gessan) hang from the bottom of the cuirass, three from the front and four from the back. Lames get progressively wider as they advance down the gessan. The silk cords and the lacquered scales mirror the rest of the cuirass.