Seppuku: The act of ritual suicide by cutting open one’s own belly (and then being swiftly beheaded by a friend to shorten the pain) was first recorded in 1180. It was used by warriors, male and female, to avoid falling into enemy hands, to mitigate shame or as the basis of a peace agreement. It was usually performed before spectators. If the initial cut to the gut is performed deeply enough, it can sever the descending aorta and bring death even before the beheading. An expert beheading (done by a second) includes dakikubi (the embraced head), in which a strip of flesh is left attaching the head to the body. Seppuku was forbidden as judicial punishment in 1873. Voluntary seppuku has continued, although it is extremely rare. The most famous example in the twentieth century was that of Nogi Maresuke, who performed seppuku with his wife on the day of the Emperor Meiji’s funeral in 1912, to follow his liege lord in death. Due to his victories in the Russo-Japanese War, Nogi was a well known military figure around the world and his loyalty was widely praised on newspaper front pages globally including The New York Times. In 1970, famous author Mishima Yukio performed seppuku in protest during a failed coup to bring the emperor back to power.
Honnō-ji Temple: Honnō-ji Temple was originally founded in 1415 but moved several times due to destruction by fire. In 1582, it was situated to the south of what is now Nijō Castle and was again destroyed by fire during the battle that claimed Nobunaga’s life and ensured Yasuke’s place in history. It was rebuilt in 1592 in its current location near Kyoto City Hall and has managed to survive there to this day. It is a significant pilgrimage site for Nobunaga fans and houses a small museum with artifacts related to Nobunaga including Mori Ranmaru’s sword. The temple has been the subject of numerous movies, manga and novels due to the cult of Nobunaga that lives to this day in Japan and around the world.
Selected Bibliography
Caraman, Philip. The Lost Empire: The Story of the Jesuits in Ethiopia. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985.
Christensen, J. A. Nichiren: Leader of Buddhist Reformation in Japan. Fremont, CA: Jain Publishing Company, 1981.
Cieslik, Hubert. Soldo Organtino: The Architect of the Japanese Mission. Tokyo: Sophia University, 2005.
Fujii, Manabu. Hokeshudaihonzanhonnouji (The Honnō Temple of the Lotus Sect). Kyoto: Honnō Temple, 2002.
Lorimer, Michael. Sengokujidai: Autonomy, Division and Unity in Later Medieval Japan. London: Olympia Publishers, 2008.
Ōta, Gyūichi (J. S. A. Elisonas & J. P. Lamers, Trs. and Eds.). The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2011.
Salvadore, Matteo. “The Jesuit Mission to Ethiopia (1555–1634) and the Death of Prester John.” In World-Building and the Early Modern Imagination edited by Allison B. Kavey, 141–172, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Society of Jesus. Cartas que os padres e irmãos da Companhia de Jesus escreverão dos reynos de Japão e China II (Letters written by the fathers and brothers of the Society of Jesus from the kingdoms of Japan and China—Volume II). Evora, Portugal: Manoel de Lyra, 1598.
Turnbull, Stephen. The Samurai: A Military History. London: Routledge, 1977.
Chapter 10
The height of Japanese doors: The standard height of a Japanese door, and length of tatami mat, even today, is six shaku, about six feet. Yasuke was described as 6 shaku 2 sun, and may have been taller. One sun is approximately equivalent to an inch.
Bowing in Japan: Bowing probably arrived in Japan with prehistorical immigrants from China and Korea, and has remained a crucial part of culture and etiquette ever since. Today, it is second nature to Japanese people, and done virtually unconsciously in any number of situations, both formal and informal. Bowing, especially formal bowing, is governed by a myriad of rules. The bows that Yasuke and other supplicants to Nobunaga, including Valignano and Nobunaga’s other senior vassals perform in this book were predominantly from a kneeling position on the floor. The bower would have knelt, placed both hands in front of themselves and lowered their head to the floor. Depending on the situation and the bowing person’s rank, they might remain in that position, or return to an upright kneeling posture.
Massed musket volley fire: This deadly modern tactic became one of the most potent tools of armies throughout the world over the next centuries until machine guns were invented in the late nineteenth century. The contemporary popular imagination probably associates the technique most with the massed squares of infantry musketeers in the Napoleonic Wars more than two hundred years after Yasuke and Nobunaga lived. It was probably invented independently by the Chinese, Nobunaga and the Dutch, who are first recorded as using the tactic in Europe in the early seventeenth century.
Kiyomizu Temple: Entering the famous Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto today, one of the first statues you see is a larger-than-life image of Daikokuten, the Japanese incarnation of the Indian god Shiva. He is the color of black ink, the same color as Yasuke is described as being.
Dinka cattle rearing culture: Dinka customs of dying hair with cow urine and stimulating the cows to produce more milk are well documented and can be seen on YouTube as well as read about in books.
Yasuke gifted: An episode from a decade later may also give a clue to Valignano’s feelings toward the situation he found himself in when Nobunaga expressed an interest in Yasuke. Nobunaga’s successor, Hideyoshi, had been mostly generous with the Jesuits, partly because he hoped for their help with obtaining two Portuguese warships. One day, he paid them a visit, a singular honor, on the huge galley that the Jesuits had built to defend Nagasaki and to transport themselves in style around the country. Hideyoshi “expressed great interest” in the galley, the implication being that he wanted it for himself, but the Jesuits declined to simply give it to him, and foolishly tried to bargain some extra land for it. Hideyoshi did not react with any outward rage; he appeared to simply forget about the galley. However, mere days later, he banned the Jesuits from propagating and forbade lords to force their vassals to convert, naming Christianity “a great evil for Japan.” This was the first step on the path to eventual Jesuit expulsion and wider Catholic persecution. Had Nobunaga expressed a desire to take Yasuke into his service at Valignano’s audience, as Hideyoshi did the galley, the Jesuit would have found it hard to decline the request. In fact, he may have even offered Yasuke’s services before they were requested as he could see how taken Nobunaga was with the warrior. This was the diplomatic thing to do and Valignano was a highly seasoned diplomat. Had later Jesuits followed his example, the future of Japanese Christianity may have turned out very differently.
Selected Bibliography
Cardim, Antonio Francisco. Elogios, e ramalhete de flores borrifado com o sangue dos religiosos da Companhia de Iesu, a quem os tyrannos do imperio do Iappão tiraraõ as vidas por odio da fé catholica (Praises, and Bouquets of Flowers Sprinkled with Jesuit Blood, to Those Whom the Japanese Tyrants Kill Through Hatred of the Catholic Faith). Lisbon: Manoel da Sylua, 1650.
Cieslik, Hubert. Soldo Organtino: The Architect of the Japanese Mission. Tokyo: Sophia University, 2005.
Cooper, Michael. They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543–1640. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1965.
Crasset, Jean. Historie de l’eglise du Japon (History of the Japanese Church). Paris: Francois Montalent, 1669.
Elison, George & Smith, Bardwell (Eds.). Warlords, Artists and Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1981.
Madut-Kuendit, Lewis Anei. The Dinka History: the Ancients of Sudan. Perth, Australia: Africa World Books, 2015.
Ōta, Gyūichi (J. S. A. Elisonas & J. P. Lamers, Trs. and Eds.). The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2011.
Otsuki, Fumihiko. Daigenkai. Tokyo: Fusanbou, 1935.
Society of Jesus. Cartas que os padres e irmãos da Companhia de Jesus escreverão dos reynos de Japão e China II (Letters written by the fathers and brothers of the So
ciety of Jesus from the kingdoms of Japan and China—Volume II). Evora, Portugal: Manoel de Lyra, 1598.
Solier, François. Histoire ecclésiastique des îles et royaume du Japon (The Ecclesiastical History of the Islands and Kingdoms of Japan). Paris: Sebastian Cramoisy, 1627.
PART 2
Chapter 11
The Emperor Ōgimachi: Ōgimachi reigned from October 27, 1557, to his abdication on December 17, 1586, His personal name was Michihito. His reign saw a modest revival of imperial fortunes as Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were happy to exchange funds for imperial recognition and political legitimacy.
The ancient nobility of Kyoto: The imperial nobility of Kyoto, known as kuge, were the ancient aristocracy of the imperial court dating back to the eighth century, and sometimes longer. When the emperor actually ruled, they held power, but with the coming of the first military government, shogunate, in the twelfth century, their power-wielding days were over, as were the emperor’s. In Yasuke’s time, they were mostly powerless figureheads, puppets in the hands of the warlords who fed them crumbs. Their only political function was to give legitimacy to the warlord governments by bestowing meaningless but prestigious “imperial” rank upon men like Nobunaga.
The former shoguns, the Ashikaga Dynasty: The Ashikaga shogunate governed Japan from 1338 to 1573 when Oda Nobunaga deposed the last member of the dynasty, Ashikaga Yoshiaki. Each shogun was a member of the Ashikaga clan who’d originally come from northern Japan, what is today Tochigi. This period is also known as the Muromachi period and gets its name from the Muromachi district of Kyoto, where the government was based.
Selected Bibliography
Berry, Mary Elizabeth. The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Farris, William Wayne. Japan to 1600: A Social and Economic History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2009.
Fujii, Manabu. Hokeshudaihonzanhonnouji (The Honno¯ Temple of the Lotus Sect). Kyoto: Honnō Temple, 2002.
Kure, Mitsuo. Samurai Arms, Armor, Costume. Edison, NJ: Chartwell Books, 2007.
Ōta, Gyūichi (J. S. A. Elisonas & J. P. Lamers, Trs. and Eds.). The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2011.
Society of Jesus. Cartas que os padres e irmãos da Companhia de Jesus escreverão dos reynos de Japão e China II (Letters written by the fathers and brothers of the Society of Jesus from the kingdoms of Japan and China—Volume II). Evora, Portugal: Manoel de Lyra, 1598.
Turnbull, Stephen. The Samurai: A Military History. London: Routledge, 1977.
Chapter 12
Akbar the Great: Akbar the Great was the third Mughal emperor of India, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. During his rule, the Mughal Empire tripled in size and wealth, due mainly to his unstoppable conquests, but also connected to a centralized system of administration he established. Although a Muslim himself, he was careful to respect the different faiths of his subjects and it’s believed he had a Catholic wife. Although dyslexic and illiterate, he was fond of literature, and created a library of more than twenty-four thousand volumes written in multiple languages from around the world. His reign significantly influenced the course of Indian history.
Habshi: Habshi slave soldiers essentially became members of mercenary bands—the commanders were senior African generals, who’d risen through the ranks to become men of wealth and power. It was they who bought the slave boys in the market and schooled their new “recruits” in the deadly arts. The training endured by the newly bought Habshi slave soldiers was brutal, the young men, as with child soldiers today, forced to kill and maim to become inured to the deeds they had to soon carry out. This inculcated a fierce loyalty to their generals, their employers and to each other. As outsiders in a foreign land, they had few other ties, and perhaps for Yasuke, becoming Habshi would have given him a sense of brotherhood and belonging. After the long and probably terrifying period of his life post-capture, he would finally have felt secure again, with comrades, friends and a family of sorts. Military slaves were normally paid a salary, fed and clothed. They also enjoyed spoils of war and generous bonuses, which boosted their loyalty further. Slaves were freed on their master’s death, following Islamic tradition, so many did not feel that slavery was a life sentence—they had a future beyond servitude. If they survived. Many Habshi mercenaries are recorded as having been in Portuguese service (for example, six hundred formed a defensive force in the constantly beleaguered Portuguese fort of Diu, one hundred eighty miles north of Mumbai), and many others worked as sailors on Portuguese ships.
The Goa-Africa slave trade: Goa was renowned as a beautiful city of Muslim, Hindu, European, Persian and Turkish influences. And it was based, as all Portuguese outposts were, on easily defendable islands. As well as Habshis, many of the African slaves in Portuguese India came on Portuguese ships from the regions with maximum Portuguese contact in Africa, the area of the southeastern seaboard that now comprises Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya. Some slaves, however, were brought from the deep interior in caravans that also transported ivory and gold for external markets. Portuguese slaving from southeast Africa to India comprised around 200–250 people a year in the late sixteenth century; in later centuries it would increase exponentially when demand from other Europeans, particularly the French, increased. Between 1500 and 1850, the Portuguese transported around forty to eighty thousand of an estimated five to six hundred thousand African people enslaved by Europeans in areas around the Indian Ocean. Northeast Africans also ended up with the Portuguese, especially in Yasuke’s time, when the Portuguese did not have the capacity to directly traffic as many slaves as the conditions and booming economies of their Indian territories required. For many Africans, the Indian subcontinent proved not to be the final destination; their odysseys—like Yasuke’s—continued farther to China and even Japan. The Dutch seafarer Linschoten noted that “these Abexiins (Africans) such as are free do serve in all India for sailors and seafaring men with such merchants as sail from Goa to China, Japan, Bengala, Mallaca, Ormus and all the Oriental coast.”
Africans in Japan: That Japanese people were fascinated by and hospitable to Africans is noted multiple times. The Spaniard Sebastian Vizcaino considered offering public concerts when he saw how much excitement an African drummer among his attendants caused. Toyotomi Hideyoshi specifically asked Africans to entertain him on at least two occasions in the 1590s. On the first occasion, a single man, a sailor on a Portuguese ship, attended court to dance and sing; on the second occasion, a group of African guards dressed in red and armed with golden spears danced “a wild dance of fife and drum.” They were gifted white robes for the performance.
Selected Bibliography
Azzam, Abdul Rahman. The Other Exile: The Story of Fernão Lopes, St Helena and a Paradise Lost. London: Icon Books, 2017.
Berry, Mary Elizabeth. The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Cardim, Antonio Francisco. Elogios, e ramalhete de flores borrifado com o sangue dos religiosos da Companhia de Iesu, a quem os tyrannos do imperio do Iappão tiraraõ as vidas por odio da fé catholica (Praises, and Bouquets of Flowers Sprinkled with Jesuit Blood, to Those Whom the Japanese Tyrants Kill Through Hatred of the Catholic Faith). Lisbon: Manoel da Sylua, 1650.
Cieslik, Hubert. Soldo Organtino: The Architect of the Japanese Mission. Tokyo: Sophia University, 2005.
Cooper, Michael. They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543–1640. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1965.
Crasset, Jean. Historie de l’eglise du Japon (History of the Japanese Church). Paris: Francois Montalent, 1669.
Edalji, Dosabhai. History of Gujarat from the Earliest Period to the Present Day. Ahmadabad: The United Printing and General Agency Company’s Press, 1894.
Edward James Rapson, Sir Wolseley Haig, Sir Richard Burn (Eds.), 1922. The Cambridge History of India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pre
ss.
Elison, George & Smith, Bardwell (Eds.). Warlords, Artists and Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1981.
Gill, Robin. Topsy-Turvey 1585. Key Biscayne, FL: Paraverse Press, 2005.
Ōta, Gyūichi (J. S. A. Elisonas & J. P. Lamers, Trs. and Eds.). The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2011.
Otsuki, Fumihiko. Daigenkai. Tokyo: Fusanbou, 1935.
Society of Jesus. Cartas que os padres e irmãos da Companhia de Jesus escreverão dos reynos de Japão e China II (Letters written by the fathers and brothers of the Society of Jesus from the kingdoms of Japan and China—Volume II). Evora, Portugal: Manoel de Lyra, 1598.
Solier, François. Histoire ecclésiastique des îles et royaume du Japon (The Ecclesiastical History of the Islands and Kingdoms of Japan). Paris: Sebastian Cramoisy, 1627.
Chapter 13
The Samurai as caste: In Yasuke’s time, the word samurai simply described a profession: warrior (albeit a very specialized one). Shortly afterward, it became a caste name. At the end of The Age of the Country at War, around the end of the sixteenth century, most of those who’d fought on the samurai side in the civil wars, even some of the peasants, pirates and ninja, were classified as “samurai” in a formalized caste structure with the samurai at the top—a hereditary warrior/administrator/ruling class. The caste ranking continued with peasants, artisans and merchants, who took the lowest status (because they lived off everybody else’s hard work). Outside of the scope of the caste system were eta, impure people who dealt with death, and hinin, nonpersons such as ex-convicts and vagrants who worked as town guards, street cleaners or entertainers. Legally speaking, an eta was worth one-seventh of a human being. The Age of the Country at War had been probably the most socially fluid period since the eighth century. Able men and women, like Yasuke, were able to rise through the ranks due to the chaos. No more. From this time until their caste was abolished by law in 1873, the samurai were forbidden (in most of the country) to farm or engage in mercantile activity and had to live in castle towns rather than country villages. This was the time when the word samurai takes on its modern meaning of a warrior caste rather than actual warrior role. In the virtual absence of war or any challenge from below between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the samurai caste had little warring to do and the martial arts we now associate with this class were codified and formed the roots of modern sports like kendo, judo and aikido. Samurai were still furnished with a stipend by their lord, determined by rank, although over time, the value of the stipend was devalued so much by inflation that many samurai families were forced to find other ways to make ends meet. A few, such as the Mitsui family, founders of the modern-day multinational conglomerate, gave up their samurai swords and lowered themselves to merchant status. For the overwhelming majority, this was a step too far, and they starved or lived in abject poverty rather than “lower” themselves.
Yasuke: In Search of the African Samurai Page 39