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Hmm. Word Salad, and what feels like an attempt to avoid answering the question.

Do you, or do you not, have a relevant qualification in ancient Japanese language? It’s a yes or no question.

Whilst no qualification doesn’t mean no knowledge, it must necessarily inform us over which source (you, or seemingly everyone else in academia) is the more reliable. And when it comes to flying in the face of the academic consensus, “trust me bro, syncretic” just isn’t gonna cut the mustard.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Was Yasuke a samurai?

In the same sense that Kevin Spacey is a knight, perhaps.

Has Kevin Spacey ever fought in battle? As riding a horse in heavy armor and killing people?

Because while Yasuke might not have the social status that came with the title, he did fulfill the martial role expected from it.

that's the important thing. crackpot etymology aside, Yasuke was a warrior who filled a role that was filled by samurai. the way that fiction portrays him can be exaggerated, but that's true of everything from that time in Japanese history. the question at the top of the thread has a swift and objective answer: yes

Amazing how you reach that conclusion despite all the references and quotations I have provided illustrating the massive difference between the status of a Samuraj and that of Yasuke's grants.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Was Yasuke a samurai?

In the same sense that Kevin Spacey is a knight, perhaps.

Has Kevin Spacey ever fought in battle? As riding a horse in heavy armor and killing people?

Because while Yasuke might not have the social status that came with the title, he did fulfill the martial role expected from it.

that's the important thing. crackpot etymology aside, Yasuke was a warrior who filled a role that was filled by samurai. the way that fiction portrays him can be exaggerated, but that's true of everything from that time in Japanese history. the question at the top of the thread has a swift and objective answer: yes

Amazing how you reach that conclusion despite all the references and quotations I have provided illustrating the massive difference between the status of a Samuraj and that of Yasuke's grants.

amazing how you claim to be presenting sources, and yet have only given one link, to a non-academic article

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Was Yasuke a samurai?

In the same sense that Kevin Spacey is a knight, perhaps.

Has Kevin Spacey ever fought in battle? As riding a horse in heavy armor and killing people?

Because while Yasuke might not have the social status that came with the title, he did fulfill the martial role expected from it.

He only fought during the honnoji betrayal (by Akechi Mitsuhide) which is logical considering his side was being attacked, he fulfilled no martial roles in any other Oda battle ever, even though it is stated he "fought at" the Oda-Takeda war, he didn't actually partake in any military action, he was just there at Nobunaga's side (which is not part of the battle, as commanders didn't join battles themselves, instead staying at a command post shielded from all sides) and is accounted to have inspected the terrain after the Oda victory.

He was captured and deemed unworthy of being executed so returned to the Jesuits. Equating to him not having any status as executing him would dishoner a Samuraj.

That's a lot of words for what basically is "yes he fought in battle and fulfiled his role as bodyguard of a military leader, which btw is a martial role.

 Haighus wrote:
Would you like to elaborate on that? I'm struggling to see how a modern actor is relevant to a historical soldier.

Spacey was granted knighthood, ergo he is a knight, because he was granted it

Nobunaga may or may not have granted Yasuke any number of titles for any reason. What that title means is subjective - depending on your sources and views Yasuke may have been cutting a swathe through his enemies like Afro Samurai, or his role in life may have been 'stand here, hold this, be silent while Nobunagas guests gawk at you'.

 Tyran wrote:
Has Kevin Spacey ever fought in battle? As riding a horse in heavy armor and killing people?

Well he can ride a horse. Did Yasuke know how to ride a horse? Do you have to be able to ride a horse to be a knight? What about all the historic knights who could not ride a horse?

That's kind of the point though. 'Knight' and 'Samurai' are just titles. I could buy myself a puddle of mud in Scotland and call myself a 'Lord' but it doesn't really say anything about what I can or did do.

And then of course there were samurai and Samurai and Samurai. The term ranged everywhere from warrior to pencil pusher to ashigaru (aka worthless meatshield - during certain time periods. After all Toyotomi Hideyoshis rise to power came immediately after Nobunagas fall and what would be considered a 'samurai' did change somewhat during that period).

The emperor declared the cowboys of the wild west period of the USA were Samurai.

The code of honour is what makes a samurai, not your stipend.
That code says that if your lord is ordered to commit harikiri, their lead samurai can (must) take their place and regain their lords honour in their stead.

So the way Tokugawa was randomly giving stipends to curious individuals was frivolous.

I disagree with the term 'pet' because a pet is an animal without agency.
Yasuke had the capability to forfeit his stipend at any point, so i view his posting as a 'curiosity' - the Tokugawa house was drawing curious and powerful individuals into his circle which sends a message to the whole community that would reflect on his standing and authority.
Hence the stipend for the wrestler and the dark skinned foreghner - the winningest unarmed combatant and a tall, strong fighter who hails from another land - this says "all the best and most powerful people pay homage to me and do my bidding"

Holding your masters sword is a great honour but holding their sword doesnt make you their bodyguard, it makes you their companion. Trusted for sure, because dying with your sword in its sheath is disgraceful; as is dying without your sword in your hand. Other lords have been willing to commit harikiri rather than risk dying without their sword in their hand.

Intresting to note Yasuke was given a short sword (wakizashi) and clothes which would have practical purpose when he was going about his private business - no civilian would question him if he was wearing the garments of the Tokugawa house and no Samurai of that house would question him if he bore a blade given by their lord even if it wasnt a 'full size' Katana.

The other example given by the Japanese scholar is also curious - the message to the other lord over unpaid stipends.
This may have been a passive-agressive to-and-fro between them with the other lord not paying stipends to prove a point.
Possibly as a burn against Tokugawa himself for his overt bestowing of stipends.

I mean, the example of giving cloth to a beggar smacks of propaganda - how does the local Lord end up talking to a beggar? In the street? And then increasing the stipends of all his companions on a whim?
Which begs the question "can you really buy loyalty in the Japanese hounour system?" and the additional question "when it comes to harikiri, does bought honour commit to its end?"

The Hagakure by Tsunetomo is a good read, i recommend it and the book of five scrolls by Musashi.

Edited for grammatical errors

Was pointed to this topic because it is getting spicy. Not at dangerous levels yet, but some of these replies..

Rest of you, excellent discourse and info dumps given, as someone who loves history, some lovely food for thought. 😘

 SirDonlad wrote:
The emperor declared the cowboys of the wild west period of the USA were Samurai.

The code of honour is what makes a samurai, not your stipend.
That code says that if your lord is ordered to commit harikiri, their lead samurai can (must) take their place and regain their lords honour in their stead.

So the way Tokugawa was randomly giving stipends to curious individuals was frivolous.

I disagree with the term 'pet' because a pet is an animal without agency.
Yasuke had the capability to forfeit his stipend at any point, so i view his posting as a 'curiosity' - the Tokugawa house was drawing curious and powerful individuals into his circle which sends a message to the whole community that would reflect on his standing and authority.
Hence the stipend for the wrestler and the dark skinned foreghner - the winningest unarmed combatant and a tall, strong fighter who hails from another land - this says "all the best and most powerful people pay homage to me and do my bidding"

Holding your masters sword is a great honour but holding their sword doesnt make you their bodyguard, it makes you their companion. Trusted for sure, because dying with your sword in its sheath is disgraceful; as is dying without your sword in your hand. Other lords have been willing to commit harikiri rather than risk dying without their sword in their hand.

Intresting to note Yasuke was given a short sword (wakizashi) and clothes which would have practical purpose when he was going about his private business - no civilian would question him if he was wearing the garments of the Tokugawa house and no Samurai of that house would question him if he bore a blade given by their lord even if it wasnt a 'full size' Katana.

The other example given by the Japanese scholar is also curious - the message to the other lord over unpaid stipends.
This may have been a passive-agressive to-and-fro between them with the other lord not paying stipends to prove a point.
Possibly as a burn against Tokugawa himself for his overt bestowing of stipends.

I mean, the example of giving cloth to a beggar smacks of propaganda - how does the local Lord end up talking to a beggar? In the street? And then increasing the stipends of all his companions on a whim?
Which begs the question "can you really buy loyalty in the Japanese hounour system?" and the additional question "when it comes to harikiri, does bought honour commit to its end?"

The Hagakure by Tsunetomo is a good read, i recommend it and the book of five scrolls by Musashi.

Edited for grammatical errors

I think you are confusing the Sengoku Jidai and the Edo period. The Hagakure was written in the latter at the beginning of the 18th century, a hundred years after the former ended. Yasuke was a retainer to Oda Nobunaga in the 16th century, Tokugawa was one of Oda's underlings at this point and the Tokugawa shogunate was decades away.

The samurai honour code was much more of a big deal in the peacetime of the Edo period, where it became officially codified (prior to that there were a multitude of regional and clan variations). Loyalty could definitely be bought in the Sengoku Jidai and betrayals, ambushes, and assassinations were commonplace. Oda himself died due to an ambush by one of his underlings betraying him.

Yes, i know it was written between 1709 and 1716.
Everything in there takes from much older writings (poetry etc) that his master Mitsushige had collected up to that point.

Edit: yeah you could convince yourself youd bought someones loyalty with money but, as you almost immediately go on to state, Nobunagas own long term loyal retainer betrayed him.
Which was the point Tokugawas rival was probably making by not paying his retainers even when Tokugawa sent his message.

They literally went to another lord for help.
The lord which is known for generous stipend awards.
Showing they werent as loyal as was assumed.
The other lord likely wanted them to bugger off and join Tokugawa.

The recent uproar regarding assassins creed showcased that even Japanese historians are divided on the matter. There doesn't seem to be a clear-cut answer to this question.

If you go by "Japanese historians are divided" as evidence for no clear cut answer, then you end up in a situation where there's no clear-cut answer to the question of "Did Imperial Japan commit war crimes and crimes against humanity in World War 2?"

Every society has its historians trying to deny certain things in its history.

You get the same thing with holocaust denial, denial or downplay of atrocities committed by colonial powers, denial of the primary cause of the american civil war etc.

As many others said, yes... but not in the way that most folks in the west today interpret it. He was a paid attendant/retainer that was bestowed various honors and priveleges, including a sword. However the samurai of that area were not the noble philosopher-knights that they are portrayed to be and were more glorified bodyguards and senior street gang pitbosses/majordomos. His recognition as a samurai also basically did not extend beyond his own lord, and he was more or less stripped of recognition after Nobunagas death and sent back into what I presume was slavery under a Jesuit missionary within about a year of "becoming a samurai".

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

"Ashigaru (足軽, "light of foot") were infantry employed by the samurai class of feudal Japan"
"by the 10th century Japan instead relied on individual landowners to provide men for conflicts and wars. These horse-owning landowners were the beginnings of the samurai class and the men who worked the land for the landowners became the common foot soldiers during times of war. These foot soldiers could have long ties and loyalty to the landowners which went back many generations.[3]"

The 10th century is 600 years before the relevant period.

I'd also challenge this definition is very plainly wrong for the 10th century and even a cursory reading of contemporary Japanese histories would confirm that. Land ownership functionally had very little to do with the samurai at this time. It's more of a coincidence than a requisite owing to the samurai being the ones conquering the frontier and operating as frontier warlords and warbands. Their social and political status at this time is absolutely not analogous to what it was in the 16th century.

Many landowners were not samurai. Many samurai were not landowners. Especially in this period when there was a significant amount of land consolidation being executed by Daimyo across Japan. And even if that were significant; Yasuke's retainer included a house since a lord was expected to house those he retained.

Just borrowing the section of the relevant primary source from Wikipedia because I know it's there;

It was ordered that the young black man be given a stipend (扶持, fuchi), named Yasuke, and provided with a sword (さや巻, sayamaki), and a private residence. At times, he was also entrusted with carrying the master's weapons. ~ sourced to Shinchō Kōki

I'd note this is the exact same position that had previously been filled by Mori Ranmaru. If I recall right, he got promoted and was no longer at this rank at the end of his life.

In the 16th century, the primary distinction between Samurai and other kinds of soldiers was being paid on retainer. Foot soldiers would only be paid in times of war and otherwise went about their day jobs, but Samurai were retained at all times. Like lawyers. But with swords and gak. We explicitly know Yasuke was paid a retainer because we're told such.

I still don't think etymology remotely matters for the actually thread topic. The origins of the word samurai would be more than a 1000 years before the Sengoku era + a bunch of complicated etymology that would be beside the point in that era when samurai was one of several words used fairly interchangeably. There's basically nothing useful that'll be gleamed from searching the word's long distant origins which I'm sure is interesting but is functionally a derail.

chaos0xomega wrote:
As many others said, yes... but not in the way that most folks in the west today interpret it. He was a paid attendant/retainer that was bestowed various honors and priveleges, including a sword. However the samurai of that area were not the noble philosopher-knights that they are portrayed to be and were more glorified bodyguards and senior street gang pitbosses/majordomos. His recognition as a samurai also basically did not extend beyond his own lord, and he was more or less stripped of recognition after Nobunagas death and sent back into what I presume was slavery under a Jesuit missionary within about a year of "becoming a samurai".

It gets little attention, but Japan still had slavery at this time (it wouldn't be banned until Hideyoshi's rule).

It's possible a big reason he was spared was simply because he was still seen as basically being Jesuit property, and it would have been illegal to kill someone else's slave but this is speculatory. Whatever technical rank Yasuke occupied in the Japanese social system, he definitely wasn't respected that way by the other samurai.

Because I was already on Wikipedia this is the relevant section concerning his surrender;

A black man whom the visitor [Valignano] sent to Nobunaga went to the house of Nobunaga's son after his death and was fighting for quite a long time, when a vassal of Akechi approached him and said, "Do not be afraid, give me that sword", so he gave him the sword. The vassal asked Akechi what should be done with the black man, and he said, "A black slave is an animal (bestial) and knows nothing, nor is he Japanese, so do not kill him, and place him in the custody at the cathedral of Padre in India.

The quote sections I think are pretty clear. While sparing Yasuke's life, they definitely did not respect him as a person, let alone as a peer. The mercy they showed was something akin to not killing some poor guy who just happened to walk into the wrong neighborhood so they sent him home. The last line I'm pretty sure just refers to returning him to Alessandro Valignano, the Jesuit priest who originally brought Yasuke to Japan.

The crushing thing is that if he'd "died with his lord" then his status would be indisputable.

Eh. I doubt it.

Like, would it be 100% more epic? For us, totally. For Yasuke... I guess it depends on if he valued living, even as a slave, more than dying for a lost cause. Nobunaga and Nobutada were pretty fethed when Mitsuhide betrayed them. The nearest help was days away and they were far too outnumbered to hold out that long.

Dying for his lord would certainly be more romantic, and maybe have carried to him more respect by latter generations, but I doubt it would resolve this particular whatever it is no politics won't go there.

Because I assume this came up because of the new Assassin's Creed game, imo, Yasuke is an interesting choice for a main character. There is a not particularly convincing hypothesis that the Jesuits enticed Mitsuhide's betrayal to get rid of Nobunaga. That hypothesis functionally makes no sense at all, but I am very curious if the game will play with it a bit. Whole Templar thing being what it is, you know? If the game did play with it, Yasuke would be a very interesting main character in my book. Would he be a spanner in the works? An assassin plant? An unwitting templar pawn who turns on his masters?

Lots of possibility in game terms and at least for my own historical interest I'm curious what the game wants to do with him and the story of Nobunaga's downfall. We will likely never have a firm idea why Mitsuhide did it, and it's one of the most enduring mysteries of Japanese history. He died something like ten days after Nobunaga so he didn't really get time or opportunity to explain himself beyond Ieyasu and Toyotomi took revenge.

 LordofHats wrote:
Because I assume this came up because of the new Assassin's Creed game

It came up because I talked about fake history showing up on Facebook with the specific example being fake photographs of African samurai families (from a time when photography hadn't been invented yet) and how many of the response were about how they knew that African samurais were common in the 14th century Japan. I specifically avoided bringing Yasuke up because 1) we know he existed and thus doesn't fall into fake history as well as b) it leads to things like this.

I may not be up on the etymological nuance. My Japanese is preindustrial, and mostly religious, but Yasuke was granted a private residence. Does that not satisfy the holding land requirement of a samurai?

What else disqualified him from the title?

I have faith that if he had upheld the tradition of the bushi, many hardened perspectives would have made a begrudging concession.
The "blood geneology" thing comes to mind.

But i get what you're going with - times have changed and i wont pretend it was all sunshine and rainbows; attitudes outside of the clan lands were likely dismissive at best.

 Ahtman wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Because I assume this came up because of the new Assassin's Creed game

It came up because I talked about fake history showing up on Facebook with the specific example being fake photographs of African samurai families (from a time when photography hadn't been invented yet) and how many of the response were about how they knew that African samurais were common in the 14th century Japan. I specifically avoided bringing Yasuke up because 1) we know he existed and thus doesn't fall into fake history as well as b) it leads to things like this.

Ah!

I've seen those. Afrocentrism stuff usually. Pretty nonsense. I recall sometime last year there was some nutter doing the rounds about a black shogun, because if a guy was a minority in Japan and was described as 'dark skinned' he must be black even though nowhere is it suggested that the Emishi people were black XD

The origins of the samurai among Emishi working with the Yamato are a pretty neat hypothesis too. Not sure what the latest on it is, but it's like people who want to see Atlantis is everything. Nothing to be done about it.

Yeah a lot of it is pretty old but AI generated images have given new life to old rubbish.

 SirDonlad wrote:
Yes, i know it was written between 1709 and 1716.
Everything in there takes from much older writings (poetry etc) that his master Mitsushige had collected up to that point.

Eh, it was written through the lense of two people who had lived their entire life in the Edo period. It reflects that era more than the previous one, in the same way something like Shakespeare's historical plays often tell us more about the late 16th/early 17th century than they do about the source material over a century prior.

Edit: yeah you could convince yourself youd bought someones loyalty with money but, as you almost immediately go on to state, Nobunagas own long term loyal retainer betrayed him.
Which was the point Tokugawas rival was probably making by not paying his retainers even when Tokugawa sent his message.

They literally went to another lord for help.
The lord which is known for generous stipend awards.
Showing they werent as loyal as was assumed.
The other lord likely wanted them to bugger off and join Tokugawa.

I was reflecting on my wording above, and I think it was probably better to say that I don't think paying for loyalty was any worse of a method given the frequency of betrayals.

I remain confused by your insistence on talking about Tokugawa. The Tokugawa clan has only tangential relevance to this topic. Yasuke was retained by Nobunaga of the Oda clan, no Tokugawas were involved in this and the Tokugawa clan was a vassal of the Oda clan.

It was Oda Nobunaga calling the other lord stingy, for example.

 BrookM wrote:
Was pointed to this topic because it is getting spicy. Not at dangerous levels yet, but some of these replies..

Rest of you, excellent discourse and info dumps given, as someone who loves history, some lovely food for thought. 😘

Yes well I'm out of the discussion, there's no convincing anyone who have their minds set and I don't enjoy being called a cook when I actually go through some effort to compile a proper argument.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
It's very possible to be granted a title, and serve in the role, without being granted the social status aspect of it, or respected by your adopted culture.

I like that explanation, and it probably sums it up as well as it can be summed up.

As a curiosity and asset (since he was "strong as 10 men") Nobunaga essentially made and treated him as a samurai, but as an outsider he wasn't respected or regarded as one by most others. After Nobunagas death he was essentially demoted again and returned to the Jesuit as a slave rather than killed as a samurai.


I wonder at what point the word for foreigner became synonymous with barbarian (current day Gaijin) - has that always been the case? I know they are still reluctant to give Gaijin any real kind of Japanese status.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

I do insist using Samuraj but everyone is free to use Samurai, I am a scholar of Etymology and prefer to use root meanings of whichever adress, admittedly rebeliously.

Can you explain the etymology here and why you think Samuraj is the correct term?

All I can see from a quick search is that Samuraj is essentially just the Slavic translation of Samurai - they are the same thing. But your profile has you as being in the Netherlands rather than a Slavic country so I'm curious as to where it came up.

I'll concede I'm definitely not an expert on etymology though it's definitely an interesting subject.

Gaijin way back when had the connotation of 'enemy' along with foreigner or outsider. So the word has always had an inherently hostile element to it. Barbarian entering the mis? I don't know, but Gaijin has historically carried heavily negative presumptions that someone isn't just an outsider but is a hostile element.

Japanese can be wacky because it's an agglutinating language. That is, a language where words get jammed together, which is why long words in Japanese can sometimes carry so much meaning you'd need a whole paragraph in English to explain them.

Gaijin is a two part word that's oddly easier to break down than others because 'ijin' is the root in Japanese for basically any non-Japanese person. 'Ga' or 'Gai' (or whatever the other word is) adds an air of hostility or danger to the word. So TLDR in this sloppy explanation is that Gaijin is a word Japan used for hostile outsiders, not just outsiders in general.

I forget what it was but the Japanese word for barbarian is a different word. The Portuguese weren't even called gaijin early on. They were Nanbanjin. See the end of the word there still has 'jin'? Remember that word 'ijin'? Welcome to agglutination.

Gaijin becoming a word for all foreigners in general is more modern. If I recall right there's debate about how that came about and whether or not the modern word still carries the connotation of 'hostile' (I'd argue it does a lot of the time) but that's going into an area where I only know gak by virtue of osmosis. It's not my area.

 LordofHats wrote:

Gaijin is a two part word that's oddly easier to break down than others because 'ijin' is the root in Japanese for basically any non-Japanese person. 'Ga' or 'Gai' (or whatever the other word is) adds an air of hostility or danger to the word. So TLDR in this sloppy explanation is that Gaijin is a word Japan used for hostile outsiders, not just outsiders in general.

this is incorrect. "gaijin", or "外人" is broken up into "gai, 外" and "jin, 人". 外 means outside and 人 means person. very literally, outsider, or how it's actually used, foreigner. there's nothing about hostility in either of these kanji

That's the issue about the modern word versus the historical one.

There's something about the modern word being a contraction of a different longer word that isn't even related. Gaikukujin or something like that, which is something or other like 'person from another country' which then got contracted down into gaijin and despite looking the same when you spell it out in English, isn't the same word you'd find in a 16th century Japanese text.

Go through old Japanese texts and you find lots of different words for foreigners and barbarians and gaijin was not a catchall term for them. Like, you won't find instances of the Portuguese being called gaijin.

 LordofHats wrote:
Japanese can be wacky because it's an agglutinating language. That is, a language where words get jammed together, which is why long words in Japanese can sometimes carry so much meaning you'd need a whole paragraph in English to explain them.

German takes a similar approach to gluing words together to make longer ones, doesn't it?

The difference is that agglutinating language start cutting off syllables.

So like, armored car in German is just the word for armor and car slapped together. You can figure the word out because they're just the words armor and car.

In an agglutinating language, they build entirely new words out of other words, and it's not always obvious what the building blocks of the new word are by the time it's done.

 Haighus wrote:

Eh, it was written through the lense of two people who had lived their entire life in the Edo period. It reflects that era more than the previous one, in the same way something like Shakespeare's historical plays often tell us more about the late 16th/early 17th century than they do about the source material over a century prior.

Thats just wrong.
The Hagakure was written to remind the samurai of the code of honour which their peacetime roles had denied them an understanding of.
It was a cultural rescue of the spirit of the bushi, not a peacetime re-imagining of the code of honour.

Ill pull some refrences..
Mindfulness must be visible after death: a lesson from a battlefield loss by Lord Ieyasu (1543 - 1616)
Lord Naoshige encounters a storm in the inland sea: a story about a fraught voyage by Naoshige (1596 - 1614) where he tries to commit harikiri
As numerous as the hairs on an ox: details the attitude of the japanese forces observing the ming army in 1598
The persuasion of master Choon: Lord Nabeshima Tsunashige (1538 - 1618) before inheriting his house and had turned to zen buddhism
The mountain ascetic demonstrtes his gratitude: a story about a mountain sect in the tensho period (1573 - 1579)
Have your whole heart bent on a single purpose: refrences the death of Nitta Yoshisada (1301 - 1338)
Etc, etc...

The book basicly got ignored after it was written until the 1900s when war was back on the menu.

 Haighus wrote:

I was reflecting on my wording above, and I think it was probably better to say that I don't think paying for loyalty was any worse of a method given the frequency of betrayals.

I remain confused by your insistence on talking about Tokugawa. The Tokugawa clan has only tangential relevance to this topic. Yasuke was retained by Nobunaga of the Oda clan, no Tokugawas were involved in this and the Tokugawa clan was a vassal of the Oda clan.

It was Oda Nobunaga calling the other lord stingy, for example.

Yes, i got Tokugawa and Nobunaga mixed up.
I know why that happened but i dont do excuses.
Torn whether to edit that post for accuracy or wear my mistakes with dignity though.

 SirDonlad wrote:

The Hagakure was written to remind the samurai of the code of honour which their peacetime roles had denied them an understanding of.
It was a cultural rescue of the spirit of the bushi, not a peacetime re-imagining of the code of honour.

The book basicly got ignored after it was written until the 1900s when war was back on the menu.

If the book was so authentic, why was it ignored for so long until the Imperial Japanese Army started the propaganda train in full? (this is an aggressive open but stick with me)

Like, to use a literal example from Hagakure; Tsunetomo criticizes the 47 Ronin and says they should have moved to take immediate revenge. Let's set aside whether or not he's right or wrong. That he even makes the argument, is your first sign that Tsunetomo is not speaking from the perspective of some pan-Samurai understanding of honor. If there ever was such a thing, why is Tsunetomo's ideas of it automatically more valid than anyone else's? No one particularly read Tsunetomo's work until the Imperial Army adopted it in the 1930s and what the Imperial Army liked about it was all the death stuff.

That this book made zero splash, and goes out of its way to contradict and try to correct thinking the author considered wrong, is your first clue that you should not blindly accept its contents as reflective of anyone but the author. Like I do think the author was trying to write something of a rescue attempt. He was born in the mid-1700 century and Tsunetomo spent his entire life as a paper pusher. And I think he struggled to try and figure out what to do with that. He was a member of a warrior class that no longer had any business as warriors.

To which I'd further argue to you that the Imperial Army fundamentally missed most of the point of Hagakure (or just didn't care, really), which is not that 'death is amazing, go die now, that's the right way for Samurai to do things' but rather that it was possible for samurai to remain samurai in his age without war and no need for warriors. While he would phrase it as a rescue, I think a better word for it is reorientation. He wanted to take what he saw as old samurai philosophy and expectations of conduct and apply it to the new reality. So long as the samurai conducted themselves as samurai, then they were still samurai regardless of what they were actually doing in their day jobs.

In either case, it would be erroneous to confuse Tsunetomo's recollections published in the early 18th century with the opinions of a samurai living in the 16th. Especially when Tsunetomo was clearly not representative. At the same time, I think the debate in public channels has become too much about whether or not 'Bushido' existed. That Tsunetomo even felt a need to disagree with the 47 Ronin's conduct is a good indicator that the samurai had notions of honor and proper conduct, but they didn't all agree on what those were. There was no 'grand code' that every samurai adhered to, but they didn't exist in a cultural void where their actions had no sort of context of ethics or philosophy.

Hagakure is a good example of this, as it's very clear in both the text and how the text came to be regarded across time that there was an entire milieu of thought within the samurai about being samurai, and this milieu was not something that happened all at once and never changed. Like any other group of people, the samurai adapted to time and circumstance and sought rationales to justify and explain their actions that made sense to them.