Japanese warrior-gentry. After 1192 the Kamakura elaborated a military feudal system: knights (samurai) held land from lords (daimyo) for military service. Educated in Chinese Confucian ethics, they were expected to display such virtues as frugality, incorruptibility, loyalty, self-sacrifice, and valour, and to avoid dishonour by ritual suicide. They became involved in administration under the Tokugawas (17th19th-c), and began to move from the land into castle-towns. Shinto bushido developed from samurai ethics under the later Tokugawas, influencing the Japanese army's officer class pre-1945. Samurai legends were popular in Kabuki theatre, and are enjoyed in Japanese films today.
Samurai (侍, Samurai or, more rarely, 士) was a term for the military nobility in pre-industrial Japan. a samurai is the servant of a lord.
History
It is believed that mounted warriors, archers, and foot-soldiers in the sixth century may have formed a proto-samurai.
In the early Heian period, the late 8th and early 9th centuries, Emperor Kammu (桓武天皇) sought to consolidate and expand his rule in northern Honshū, but the armies he sent to conquer the rebellious Emishi lacked motivation and discipline, and were unable to prevail.
Ultimately, Emperor Kammu disbanded his army,and from this time the emperor's power gradually declined .
Some clans were originally formed by farmers who had taken up arms to protect themselves from the imperial magistrates sent to govern their lands and collect taxes.
After the 11th century, samurai were expected to be cultured and literate, and they lived up to the ancient saying "Bun Bu Ryo Do" (lit.
Kamakura Bakufu and the rise of samurai
Originally these warriors were merely mercenaries in the employ of the emperor and noble clans (kuge, 公家), but slowly they gathered enough power to usurp the aristocracy and establish the first samurai-dominated government.
Because of their rising military and economic power, the clans ultimately became a new force in the politics of the court.
The Taira and the Minamoto clashed again in 1180, beginning the Genpei War which ended in 1185. The victorious Minamoto no Yoritomo established the superiority of the samurai over the aristocracy.
Over time, powerful samurai clans became warrior nobility (buke), who were only nominally under the court aristocracy. When the samurai began to adopt aristocratic pastimes like calligraphy, poetry and music, some court aristocrats in turn began to adopt samurai customs. In spite of various machinations and brief periods of rule by various emperors, real power was now in the hands of the shogun and the samurai.
Ashikaga Shogunate and the Feudal Period
Various samurai clans struggled for power over the Kamakura and Ashikaga Shogunates.
Zen Buddhism spread among samurai in the 13th century and helped to shape their standards of conduct, particularly overcoming fear of death and killing, but among the general populace Pure Land Buddhism was favored.
In 1274, the Yuan Dynasty (Mongol Empire) sent a force of some 40,000 men and 900 ships to invade Japan in northern Kyūshū. Japan mustered a mere 10,000 Samurai to meet this threat.
The Japanese defenders recognized the possibility of a renewed invasion, and began construction of a great, stone barrier around Hakata Bay in 1276.
In 1281, a Yuan army of 140,000 men with 4,400 ships was mustered for a renewed invasion of Japan.
The thunderstorms of 1274 and the typhoon of 1281 helped the Samurai defenders of Japan repel the Mongol invaders despite being vastly outnumbered.
In the 14th century, a blacksmith called Masamune developed a two-layer structure of soft and hard steel for use in swords.
Issues of inheritance caused family infighting as primogeniture became common, in contrast to the division of succession designated by law before the 14th century. To avoid infighting, invasion of neighboring samurai's territories was common and bickering among samurai was a constant problem for the Kamakura and Ashikaga Shogunates.
The Sengoku jidai ("warring-states period") was marked by the loosening of samurai culture with people born into other social strata sometimes making names for themselves as warriors and thus becoming de facto samurai.
Japanese war tactics and technologies improved rapidly in the 15th and 16th century.
The arquebus, a matchlock gun, was introduced by Portuguese via a Chinese pirate ship in 1543 and the Japanese succeeded in naturalizing it within a decade.
By the end of feudal period, several hundred thousand firearms existed in Japan and massive armies numbering over 100,000 clashed in battles.
In 1592, and again in 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi decided to invade China （唐入り） and sent to Korea an army of 160,000 samurai (Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea, 朝鮮征伐）, taking great advantage of its mastery of the arquebus and Korea's poorly organized army. The most famous samurai in this war are Kato Kiyomasa and Shimazu Yoshihiro.
The social mobility of human resources was flexible, as the ancient regime collapsed and emerging samurai needed to maintain large military and administrative organizations in their areas of influence. Most of the samurai families that survived to the 19th century originated in this era declaring themselves to be the blood of one of the four ancient noble clans, Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara and Tachibana.
See also: Nanban trade period
Oda, Toyotomi and Tokugawa
Oda Nobunaga was the well-known lord of the Nagoya area (once called Owari Province) and an exceptional example of samurai of the Sengoku Period.
Oda Nobunaga made innovations in the fields of organizations and war tactics, heavily used arquebuses, developed commerce and industry and treasured innovations.
Importantly, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (see below) and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who founded the Tokugawa Shogunate, were loyal followers of Nobunaga.
These two were gifted with Nobunaga's previous achievements on which build a unified Japan and there was a saying: "The reunification is a rice cake; (Hashiba is the family name that Toyotomi Hideyoshi used while he was a follower of Nobunaga.)
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who became a grand minister in 1586, himself the son of a poor peasant family, created a law that the samurai caste became codified as permanent and heritable, and that non-samurai were forbidden to carry weapons, thereby ending the social mobility of Japan up until that point, which lasted until the dissolution of the Edo Shogunate by the Meiji revolutionaries.
It is important to note that the distinction between samurai and non-samurai was so obscure that during the 16th century, most male adults in any social class (even small farmers) belonged to at least one military organization of their own and served in wars before and during Hideyoshi's rule.
The authorized samurai families after the 17th century were those that chose to follow Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu. Large battles occurred during the change between regimes, and a number of defeated samurai were destroyed, went ronin or were absorbed into the general populace.
Tokugawa Shogunate
During the Tokugawa era, samurai increasingly became courtiers, bureaucrats, and administrators rather than warriors. With no warfare since the early 17th century, samurai gradually lost their military function during the Tokugawa era (also called the Edo period).
By the end of the Tokugawa era, samurai were aristocratic bureaucrats for the daimyo, with their daisho, the paired long and short swords of the samurai (cf.
Theoretical obligations between a samurai and his lord (usually a daimyo) increased from the Genpei era to the Edo era. They were strongly emphasized by the teachings of Confucius and Mencius (ca 550 B.C.) which were required reading for the educated samurai class.
Bushido was formalized by many samurai in this time of peace in much the same fashion as chivalry was formalized after knights as a warrior class became obsolete in Europe. The conduct of samurai became a favorable model of a citizen in Edo, with formalities being emphasized. With time on their hands, samurai spent more time in pursuit of other interests such as becoming scholars.
Bushido still survives in present-day Japanese society, as do many other aspects of the samurai's way of life.
Decline during the Meiji Restoration
By this time, the Way of Death and Desperateness had been eclipsed by a rude awakening in 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry's massive steamships from the US Navy first imposed broader commerce on the once-dominant national policy of isolationism. Prior to that only a few harbor towns, under strict control from the Shogunate, were able to participate in Western trade, and even then, it was based largely on the idea of playing the Franciscans and Dominicans off against one another (in exchange for the crucial arquebus technology, which in turn was a major contributor to the downfall of the classical samurai).
The last showing of the original samurai was in 1867 when samurai from Chōshū and Satsuma provinces defeated the Shogunate forces in favor of the rule of the emperor.
Other sources claim that the last samurai conflict was in 1877, during the Satsuma Rebellion in the Battle of Shiroyama. The newly formed government instituted radical changes, aimed at reducing the power of the feudal domains, including Satsuma, and the dissolution of samurai status.
Emperor Meiji abolished the samurai's right to be the only armed force in favor of a more modern, western-style, conscripted army. Samurai became Shizoku (士族) who retained some of their salaries, but the right to wear a katana in public was eventually abolished along with the right to cut down commoners who paid them disrespect. The samurai finally came to an end after hundreds of years of enjoyment of their status, their powers, and their ability to shape the government of Japan.
Post Meiji restoration
In defining how a modern Japan should be, members of the Meiji government decided to follow the footsteps of United Kingdom and Germany, basing the country on the concept of "noblesse oblige" and samurai would not be a political force much like that of Prussia.
With the Meiji reforms in the late 19th century, the samurai class was abolished, and a western-style national army was established. The Imperial Japanese Armies were conscripted, but many samurai volunteered to be soldiers and many advanced to be trained as officers. Much of the Imperial Army officer class was of samurai origin and they were highly motivated, disciplined and exceptionally trained.
Many early exchange students were samurai, not directly because they were samurai, but because many samurai were literate and well-educated scholars. Some of these exchange students started private schools for higher educations, while many samurai took pens instead of guns and became reporters and writers, setting up newspaper companies. Other samurai entered governmental services as they were literate and well educated.
Western samurai
The English sailor and adventurer William Adams (1564-1620) seems to have been the first foreigner to receive the dignity of samurai. The Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu presented him with two swords representing the authority of a samurai, and decreed that William Adams the pilot was dead and that Miura Anjin (三浦按針), a samurai, was born.
Also, during the Boshin War (1868-1869), French soldiers joined the forces of the Shogun against the Southern Daimyos favorable to the restoration of the Meiji emperor. It is recorded that the French Navy officer Eugène Collache fought in samurai attire with his Japanese brother-in-arms.
Culture
As de facto aristocrats for centuries, samurai developed their own cultures that influenced Japanese culture as a whole.
Education
A samurai was expected to read and write, as well as to know some mathematics. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a great samurai yet originally a peasant, could only read and write in hiragana and this was a significant drawback for him. Samurai were expected, though not required, to have interests in other arts such as dancing, Go, literature, poetry, and tea.
Shudō
Shudō (衆道), the tradition of love bonds between a seasoned and a novice samurai was held to be "the flower of the samurai spirit" and formed the real basis of the samurai esthetic. It was analogous to the educational Greek pederasty and an honored and important practice in samurai society. It was one of the main ways in which the ethos and the skills of the samurai tradition were passed down from one generation to another. The devotion that two samurai would have for each other would be almost as great as that which they had for their daimyo. Indeed, according to contemporary accounts, the choice between his lover and his master could become a philosophical problem for samurai. Hagakure and other samurai manuals gave specific instructions in the way that this tradition was to be carried out and respected. (Watanabe and Iwata, 1989)
Names
A samurai was usually named by combining one kanji from his father or grandfather and one new kanji. Samurai normally used only a small part of their total name.
For example, the full name of Oda Nobunaga would be called "Oda Kazusanosuke Saburo Nobunaga" (織田上総介三郎信長), in which "Oda" is a clan or family name, "Kazusanosuke" is a title of vice-governor of Kazusa province, "Saburo" is a name before genpuku, a coming of age ceremony, and "Nobunaga" is an adult name. Samurai got to pick their own last names.
Marriage
The marriage of samurai was done by having a marriage arranged by someone with the same or higher rank than those being married. While for those samurai in the upper ranks this was a necessity (as most had few opportunities to meet a female), this was a formality for lower ranked samurai. Most samurai married women from a samurai family, but for a lower ranked samurai marriages with commoners were permitted.
A samurai could have a mistress but her background was strictly checked by higher ranked samurai. If a samurai's wife gave birth to a son he could be a samurai.
A samurai could divorce his wife for a variety of reasons with approval from a superior, but divorce was, while not entirely nonexistent, a rare event. A samurai could divorce for personal reasons, even if he simply did not like his wife, but this was generally avoided as it would embarrass the samurai who had arranged the marriage. A woman could also arrange a divorce, although it would generally take the form of the samurai divorcing her. After a divorce samurai had to return the betrothal money, which often prevented divorces. Some rich merchants had their daughters marry samurai to erase a samurai's debt and advance their positions.
A samurai's wife would be dishonored and allowed to commit jigai (a female's seppuku) if she were cast off.
Philosophy
The philosophies of Buddhism and Zen, and to a lesser extent Confucianism, influenced the samurai culture as well as Shinto. The Buddhist concept of reincarnation and rebirth led samurai to abandon torture and needless killing, while some samurai even gave up violence altogether and became Buddhist monks after realizing how fruitless their killings were. The most defining role that Confucianism played in samurai philosophy was to stress the importance of the lord-retainer relationship; this is, the loyalty that a samurai was required to show his lord.
Bushido was a term attached to a samurai "code of conduct" enforced during Edo period by the Tokugawa Shogunate, so that they could control the samurai more easily. Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo is a manual of instruction into the way of the samurai.
The incident of 47 Ronin caused debates about the righteousness of the samurai's actions and how bushido should be applied.
Women
Maintaining the household, or ie, was the main duty of samurai women. For this reason, many women of the samurai class were trained in wielding a polearm called a naginata, which they could use to protect their household, family, and honor if the need arose.
Traits valued in women of the samurai class were humility, obedience, self-control, strength, and loyalty. Ideally, a samurai wife would be skilled at managing property, keeping records, dealing with financial matters, educating the children (and perhaps servants, too), and caring for elderly parents or in-laws that may be living under her roof.
Though women of wealthier samurai families enjoyed perks of their elevated position in society, such as avoiding the physical labor that those of lower classes often engaged in, they were still viewed as far beneath men.
As the Tokugawa period progressed more value became placed on education, and the education of females beginning at a young age became important to families and society as a whole. Nearly all female samurai were literate by the end of the Tokugawa period.
Weapons
The samurai used various weapons, but the katana is the weapon that is synonymous with samurai. Bushido taught that a samurai's soul is their katana and sometimes a samurai is pictured as entirely dependent on the katana for fighting.
After a male child of the bushi was born, he would receive his first sword in a ceremony called mamori-gatana at. Upon reaching the age of thirteen, in a ceremony called Genbuku (元服), a male child was given his first real swords and armour, an adult name, and became a samurai.
The wakizashi itself was a samurai's "honour blade" and purportedly never left the samurai's side.
The samurai stressed skill with the yumi (longbow), reflected in the art of kyudo(lit.
In the 15th century, the yari (spear) also became a popular weapon, displacing along with the naginata from the battlefield as personal bravery became less of a factor and battles became more organized around massed, inexpensive foot troops ashigaru. A charge, mounted or dismounted, was more effective when using a spear than a katana and it offered better than even odds against a samurai using a katana.
The latter half of the 16th Century saw the introduction of the teppo or arquebus in Japan through Portuguese trade, enabling warlords to raise effective armies from masses of peasants. Teppo, employed en masse largely by ashigaru peasant foot troops were in many ways the antithesis of samurai valor. By the Tokugawa Shogunate most spear-based weapons had been phased out partly because they were suboptimal for the close-quarter combat common in the Edo period, this combined with the aforementioned restrictions on fire-arms resulted in the Daisho being the only weapons typically carried by samurai. In the 1570s cannon became a common part of the samurai's armory.
Some other weapons used by samurai were jo, bo, grenade, Chinese trebuchets (more as an anti-personnel weapon than a siege engine) and cannon (infrequently and at great expense).
Etymology of samurai and related words
The term Samurai originally meant "those who serve in close attendance to nobility", and was written in the Chinese character (or kanji) that had the same meaning. In Japanese literature, there is an early reference to samurai in the Kokinshu (古今集, early 10th century):
Attendant to your nobility Ask for your master's umbrella The dews 'neath the trees of Miyagino Are thicker than rain (poem 1091)The word bushi (武士, lit.
It was not until the early modern period, namely the Azuchi-Momoyama period and early Edo period of the late 16th and early 17th centuries that the word saburai was replaced with samurai.
During the era of the rule of the samurai, the term yumitori (弓取, "bowman") was also used as an honorary title of an accomplished warrior even though swordsmanship had become more important. (Japanese archery (kyujutsu) is still strongly associated with the war god Hachiman.)
A samurai with no attachment to a clan or daimyo (大名) was called a ronin (浪人). The word came to mean a samurai who was no longer in the service of a lord because his lord had died, because the samurai had been banished or simply because the samurai chose to become a ronin.
The pay of Samurai was measured in koku of rice (180 liters; Samurai in the service of the han are called hanshi.
The following terms are related to samurai or the samurai tradition:
Uruwashiia cultured warrior symbolized by the kanji for "bun" (literary study) and "bu" (military study or arts) Buke (武家)
A martial house or a member of such a house Mononofu (もののふ)
An ancient term meaning a warrior. Shi (士)
A word roughly meaning "gentleman," it is sometimes used for samurai, in particular in words such as bushi (武士, meaning warrior or samurai).
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natsukusa ya tsuwamono domo ga yume no ato Matsuo Basho |
Summer grasses, All that remains Of soldiers’ dreams (trans. Lucien Stryk) |
Myth and reality
Most samurai (during the Edo period) were bound by a strict code of honor called Bushido (武士道, Bushidō), and were expected to set an example for those below them. A notable part of the Bushido code is seppuku (切腹, seppuku), which allowed a disgraced samurai to regain his honor by passing into death, where samurai were still beholden to the rules of Bushido. However, the Bushido code was written in peace-time and it may not truly reflect the samurai's character as a warrior. Whilst there are many romanticised characterisations of samurai behaviour, studies of Kobudo and traditional Budo indicate that the samurai were as practical on the battlefield as any other warrior.
Despite the Bushido, in practice, samurai could be disloyal and treacherous (e.g., Akechi Mitsuhide), cowardly, brave, or overly loyal (e.g., Kusunoki Masashige). Samurai were usually loyal to their immediate superiors, who in turn allied themselves with higher lords. for example, the high lords allied under Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉) were served by loyal samurai, but the feudal lords under them could shift their support to Tokugawa, taking their samurai with them. There were, however, also notable instances where samurai would be disloyal to their lord or daimyo, when loyalty to the emperor was seen to have supremacy. Both combatants (who must be, as samurai, of equal status) lock eyes and remain staring at each other in silence and without moving a muscle, until one of the opponents yields (though there are stories of - rare - instances in which both opponents relent simultaneously).
Popular culture
Jidaigeki (lit. The programs typically feature a samurai with a kenjutsu who stood up against evil samurai and merchants. Mito Komon (水戸黄門), a fictitious series of stories about Tokugawa Mitsukuni's travel is a popular TV drama in which Mitsukuni travels disguised as a retired rich merchant with two unarmed samurai disguised as his companions. He finds trouble wherever he goes, and after gathering evidence, he has his samurai knock around unrepentantly evil samurai and merchants, before revealing his identity. Notable works of his include The Seven Samurai, in which a besieged farming village hires a collection of wandering samurai to defend them from bandits, Yojimbo, where a former samurai involves himself in a town's gang war by working for both sides, and The Hidden Fortress, in which two foolish peasants find themselves helping a legendary general escort a princess to safety. The latter was one of the primary inspirations for George Lucas's Star Wars, which also borrows a number of aspects from the samurai, for example the Jedi Knights of the series.
Samurai films and westerns share a number of similarities and the two have influenced each other over the years. There is also an anime adaptation (Samurai 7) of "The Seven Samurai" which spans many episodes.
Another fictitious television series, Abarembo Shogun, featured Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa shogun. Samurai at all levels from the shogun down to the lowest rank, as well as ronin, featured prominently in this show. The life-style and the war tactics shown in the movie The Last Samurai are those of out-country samurai of the Sengoku jidai, precisely of the era before 1543; It is primarily inspired by anime and relates little to the samurai. This same distortion of samurai culture continues onto the low-budget world of the cult film, where in films such as Samurai Vampire Bikers From Hell, the primary characters attempt to portray a lineage to the samurai but are more closely link to the anime or comic book culture of the late twentieth century.
The samurai have also appeared frequently in Japanese comics (manga) and animation (anime). Most common are historical works where the protagonist is either a samurai or former samurai (or another rank/position) who possesses considerable martial skill. Two of the most famous examples are Lone Wolf and Cub, where the former proxy executioner for the Shogun and his toddler son become hired killers after being betrayed by other samurai and nobles, and Rurouni Kenshin, where a former assassin, after helping end the Bakumatsu era and bringing about the Meiji era, finds himself protecting newfound friends and fighting off old enemies while upholding his oath to never kill again through the use of a reverse-bladed sword.
Samurai-like characters are not just restricted to historical settings and a number of works set in the modern age, and even the future, include characters who live, train and fight like samurai. Some relevance to the samurai can even be seen in the show Beyblade, which is set in the present. One character, Jin of the Gale, seems to be a mix of samurai and ninja traits. Another anime, which is intended for adult audiences involving samurai is 2004's Samurai Champloo, which portrays Edo-period Japan combined with modern street-culture and hip-hop. One of the show's main characters is Jin, once an accomplished samurai who became a wondering ronin after killing his master. For instance, the Marvel Universe superhero Wolverine during the 1980s attempted to use the ideals and concept of the samurai as a means to control his violent urges in a constructive manner.
The concept of a samurai, as opposed to that of a knight, has led to a major gap in how a warrior or a hero is characterised in Japan and the rest of the world. A samurai does not have to be tall and heavily muscled to be strong - he can be barely five feet tall, seemingly weak and even handicapped. Females can also be samurai.
Samurai in computer games
Samurai are also heroes and enemies in many computer games, and can be found especially in RPG, strategy, action, adventure, and fighting game genres.
For example, samurai can be seen in the American strategy game series Age of Empires and in the Ultima Online: Samurai Empire MMORPG. Samurai battles also provide the theme for the British strategy simulation Shogun Total War which portrays Sun-Tzu war philosophy and realistic battle physics.
Some popular Japanese titles featuring samurai include Shingen the Ruler, Samurai Warriors, Brave Fencer Musashi, Seven Samurai 20XX, and there is a lead character portraying a samurai in the Sci-Fi thriller game Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse named Jin Uzuki. Jin Uzuki, Shion Uzuki's brother, is a Samurai wannabe who fights only with a sword and wears a traditional kimono. Other popular Japanese games featuring samurai as main characters are the Onimusha, Genji and Way of the Samurai series.
Certain fighting game titles hold a vast amount of samurai fighters, a couple being Bishamon from Darkstalkers, and Sodom from Street Fighter Alpha. But the more popular title, Samurai Showdown have samurai warriors that consume much of its roster in each of their games. Haohmaru and Genjuro are the most well-known and traditional samurai warriors in this fighting game.
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