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"feather of a copper pheasant", equally known as Sanchōmō by its Sino-Japanese reading, is a tachi (Japanese sword) forged during the middle Kamakura period (13th century). The set of the blade and its koshirae (mountings) is a National Treasure of Japan. It was wielded by Uesugi Kagekatsu (1556–1623), a powerful warlord in the Sengoku period, and had been inherited by his clan.
According to Kanzan Sato, a nihontō (Japanese sword) appraiser and researcher, it was named so in order to honor the beauty of the tachi by likening it to the feather of a copper pheasant or the landscape of sunset mountains. In addition, Suiken Fukunaga, another nihontō appraiser/researcher, cites a theory written in 『双林寺伝記』 that the name came from the landscape of a wildfire. Fukunaga himself, however, remarks the wildfire theory is utterly dubious.
The tachi is one of the 35 swords favored by the warlord Uesugi Kagekatsu (1556–1623), an adopted son and the successor of the "God of War" Uesugi Kenshin. Later it had been inherited as one of the greatest heirlooms of the Yonezawa-Uesugi clan, the head of the Uesugi clans.
On March 29, 1952, the tachi was designated a National Treasure of Japan.日本国、昭和27年10月16日文化財保護委員会告示第21号。Date accepted is March 29. Its koshirae (mountings) are a part of the designation as accessories to the blade.
In 2020, Setouchi City purchased yamatorige from an individual, which was then housed in the Bizen Osafune Japanese Sword Museum. The purchase cost was about 500 million yen (About $5 million).
Markus Sesko, a researcher on Japanese swords, calls the sword 山鳥毛一文字.
Due to both its ambiguous origin and the highly complex reading system for kanji characters, the sword has a wide variety of associated names.
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