Surrender Tag

[Bruce Pennington]

Got the guys name from NMB, but no one knows what that top character is. One guy speculated he actually attempted to draw his house. Any chance it is a rank or a civilian employee rank?

[ghp95134]

�早島 喜代�

[can’t read] Hayashima Kiyo[can’t read].

So his family name is Hayashima.

— Guy

[Kiipu]

Maybe the first character is 属? Hopefully Akira will swing by and confirm or deny.
属

Actually, someone over at NMB suggested the same character.
Kiyo-something?

[Bruce Pennington]

That really does look like it, Thomas. So "Belongs to"?

[ghp95134]

Yes, Kiipu, I got the "Kiyo-something" .... it's that "something" that puzzles me.

I tried 属 but was on an iPhone and had to toggle back and forth; and since 属 means genus, I didn't see how it fit.

Thanks!
-- Guy

[ghp95134]

That really does look like it, Thomas. So "Belongs to"?

Aha, that's it. I found that on Wiktionary, Japanese definition #2 link. Didn't know that!!!

Thanks,
-- Guy

[edit] Now ... if only a native-speaker (or near enough) can puzzle out the third kanji of "Early Island's" given name.

[Akira Komiya]

I believe the knot obliterates the first character which should be "軍" which makes the full word "軍属", gunzoku, civilian employee of the army.
Such is backed by the all brown sword knot attached to the sword.
I will paste a link to the thread written by my late brother on the subject: What were the regulations for the Army civilian employees to carry swords?

[Kiipu]

Hi Guy, I used the Handwritten Kanji Recognition feature over at sci.lang.japan. I have found it to be the best of all that I have tried. That is how I identified the character above.

A native Japanese speaker over at NMB said the first name was Kiyoshige 喜代重.

[ghp95134]

Hi Guy, I used the Handwritten Kanji Recognition feature over at sci.lang.japan.

Hi Kiipu,

Thanks for that! I've bookmarked the site.

-- Guy

[Akira Komiya]

I agree that the owner's name is Kiyoshige Hayashima, although strictly speaking, the last character is not"重" but the attached character which is an alternative form of "重" which is apparently still allowed for persons' names.
Intuition told me that the name must be Kiyoshige but I was puzzled because the last character lacked the diagonal stroke at its top and instead had a "nabebuta", literally "pot's lid", something like an upside down T.
One difficulty in persons' names in Japan is that there are certain characters which are not part of the ordinarily recognized set of kanji but are allowed only in names as in the case here.

Regards,

Akira Komiya