NOBUNAGA BIRTHDAY PROJECT ④ The Symbols of Nobunaga

Inspired by the online event of Nagoya Omotenashi Bushotai dedicated to the birthday of Nobunaga past year, I decided to join the celebrations this year too, providing a new post dedicated to Nobu every week, until June 23 😄 Inspired by the book Shinchou Meikan, I took one of its article as the foundation for a few personal considerations concerning the "famous symbols" that make us think immediately of Nobunaga. Well, besides killing a cuckoo and pounding the mochi, of course 😁

Flames

^{"Oda Nobunaga and Yasuda Sakubei" by Chikanobu Yoshu, detail.}
When one thinks of Nobunaga, the first image that comes to their mind is seeing him wrapped in flames. Maybe because of the Honnoji Incident, where his whole body disappeared in the fire of the temple, maybe because of that "demonic aura" inspired by that "Demon Lord of the Sixth Heaven" signature, maybe because of the infamous Siege of Mount Hiei (1571)--
Another reason why he's associated with flames may be because he was born and dead in June, around the period identified as the "Summer Solstice" (夏至, xià zhì) in the Chinese Solar Terms, when "the daytime is the longest and the nighttime is the shortest of the year".
Also, the psychopatologist Miyamoto Tadao classified Nobunaga's personality as "Fire" based on Kretschmer's temperament classifications: he's someone who used fire to attack many of his enemies, which denotes a brutal and explosive personality, as he was used to rage outbursts.

Guns

^{"The Battle of Nagashino" by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, detail.}
Even if that's pretty much inexistent in modern and less modern ukiyo-e depictions, in contemporary portraits of Nobunaga the guns are a must.
How guns became so strictly associated to Nobunaga, even if he wasn't the first Japanese warrior to use them and definitely he didn't use them himself in battle, was because of the Battle of Nagashino (1575), when the Oda army gave a decisive blow to the Takeda's thanks to the use of guns, that, for the first time, where proficently used by a dedicated portion of an army.
Also, guns refer to fire and explosions, which are tied to Nobunaga's temperament.

Western Goods

^{"Portrait of Oda Nobunaga in the Church of Kyoto", detail.}
The start of Nobunaga's career as a "collector" is set around his stay in Kyoto, where he got to know, besides the traditional cerimonies and rituals of the court and main temples (think about tea ceremony), the precious imports from the West: this was due to the bustling activities of cities like Sakai and its fierce merchant class, but also due to the influence of Portuguese missionaries like Luis Frois, who were recurring guests in Azuchi castle.
Among the many foreign things associated to Nobunaga was the first globe, the first glass of wine, the castella (I'm a bit horrified by the fact that Wikipedia translates "Pan de España" as "Sponge Cake" but whatever) and of course Western armours and guns.
There's no drama nowadays where Nobunaga is portrayed as a fan of everything Western and even sports Western furnitures in his castle-- That's definitely an exageration and most of this is for the sake of fiction whenever there's the need to condamn Nobunaga's frivolous ways or to praise his farsightness... But probably his indulgence with missionaries and his honest curiousity about them contributed to this misconception.

Gilded Skulls

^{"Edo Prided Skull" by Hiroshi Hirakawa, detail.}
Another weird misconception of Nobunaga but also a strong feature, is his ownership of gilded skulls of his enemies, even better, the imagery of Nobunaga drinking wine or sake out of them.
The fact that the gilded skulls of his arch-enemies Azai Nagamasa, Azai Hisamasa and Asakura Yoshikage were presented during the New Year banquet at Gifu after the victory in the Siege of Odani Castle (1573) is well-documented in the Chronicles of Lord Nobunaga (信長公記, Shinchō Kōki), but besides being "assertive" decorations that stressed Nobunaga's volition (and maybe a "warning" to his closer subordinates) there was nothing else that involved their use as "cups".
This imagery of Nobunaga though, is quite vivid and strongly impressed in popular belief.

And that's it, this is a shorter list with other personal additions than the one offered by Himekawa-sensei, but I think this was comprehensive enough to cover the most of curiousities about Nobunaga! I hope you enjoyed this∼