From Samurai

From Samurai

June 15, 2014

The Tokuno family is descended from samurai. As many readers might not know a lot about the samurai, here is a brief background. The samurai were the warrior class of Japan dating back over 1000 years. They were much like the knights in armor who rode around Europe in the Middle Ages. The Samurai were skilled in the use of weapons such as the bow and arrow, swords, and spears. Most of them owned property. In fact, the class started out as farmers who worked under a lord and fought on his side to protect common interests. Eventually, most lords were also included in the samurai class and the top generals became the “Shogun” who effectively ruled Japan until 1868. They were able to push the Emperor of Japan into a merely ceremonial role with no real authority.

The samurai were distinguished by their code of honor and sense of duty. Failure was not permitted and if they did anything to disgrace themselves, their lord or their family, they were expected to commit seppuku, a ritual suicide more generally known as hara-kiri. On the battlefield, they were expected to be courageous and ruthless, showing no mercy and expecting none. It was not just the men who were samurai. Any member of the family was obligated to act with the same code of honor as the warriors themselves. If the samurai brought dishonor upon himself and he had a wife and children, it was not unusual for him to kill his children and for the wife to kill herself as well. At the same time, the samurai were patrons of the arts who developed a sense of the finer things in life, such as music, calligraphy, the proper conduct of the tea ceremony, and “Haiku” and other forms of Japanese poetry.

Not all samurai were the same. There were different classes or levels of samurai. Some were fairly poor and had no lord to serve. These samurai were called “ronin” and they would wander around the country offering their services for pay to whomever could use them. On the other end of Japanese society, as already mentioned, were some of the most powerful men in Japan, the Shogun and those who wanted to be Shogun. Between these extremes were samurai who were lords of various ranks and power, those who were officers under these lords, and finally the majority of the samurai who were the “foot soldiers” of the lords’ armies.

It was the struggle to gain control of the Japanese empire that made for some of the most colorful history of Japan from the 1100’s up until 1600 or so. Among the most powerful clans during this period were the Fujiwara, who were able to marry into the emperor’s family and gain power that way. The Minamoto and Taira were also powerful families, arch rivals who by custom were the only ones who had any right to the title of Shogun. These families waged war on each other, combining the other samurai families in various alliances to fight civil wars through much of the ancient times. Many legends, stories, and plays in Japanese arts and literature are based on the exploits of heroic samurai doing battle for their lords.

One of the great leaders of Japan was Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1600, at the battle of Sekigahara, he gained control of the country and named himself Shogun in 1603, beginning a period of relative peace and prosperity that lasted 250 years. His grandson was the one who imposed the policy of isolation, prohibiting foreigners from visiting Japan or the Japanese from leaving the country. This was due to a concern for the islands being contaminated by outside influences, such as Christianity. The rule of the samurai came to an end in the middle of the 19th century. In 1853, the United States sent a fleet to Japan to “open” it to the rest of the world. Up to that point, Japan’s isolationist policy had been rigidly held. Now the Japanese quickly realized the superiority of the American weaponry and machinery in comparison to their medieval swords and arrows. After signing a trade treaty with United States in 1854, Japan began a rapid absorption of ideas about industrialization and other aspects of modern Western culture.

These changes helped create an end to the power of the samurai in Japan. A new young Emperor, Meiji, had ascended to the Chrysanthemum throne and the last strong Tokugawa leader, Ii Naosuke, was assassinated in 1860. After a short struggle, the shogunate was dissolved, a “peasant army” of conscripted non-samurai was created, and the samurai lost their position of privilege in Japan forever. By March of 1876, the samurai lost their right to bear swords, a last symbol of their status, but a small group of them did not go without a fight. The Satsuma Rebellion was led by a samurai named Takamori Saigo from the island of Kyushu. The rebellion had its turning point in the city of Kumamoto, the Tokuno home city, when Saigo’s forces were delayed by their siege of Kumamoto castle. It would be interesting to find out whether any of our relatives were involved and on which side. The brave defense of the castle resulted in the last stand of the samurai in the city of Kagoshima. There a force of the government’s army defeated Saigo’s forces in September of 1877. The Emperor was now in full control of Japan and began the modernization of that country that was to make it a world power in the 20th century. The samurai were to become a part of history and Japanese movies.