The Art of Killing

SWORDSMANSHIP IN MEDIEVAL JAPAN

WHENCE THEY CAME

To the samurai, martial ability was an expression of individual strength and valor, symbolizing their distinctive subculture as specialist men-at-arms. Starting in the ninth century (or arguably even earlier), Japanese warriors developed and cultivated an idiosyncratic culture based largely on their ability to utilize violence. Warrior ideals evolved over many centuries and were imbued with idioms of honor, such as the bonds of loyalty forged between retainer and lord, for whom — as the classic war tales frequently inform us — the warrior would gladly forfeit his life.

But how accurate is our understanding of the origin of samurai culture? It seems that Japanese and Westerners alike maintain a distorted, often-romanticized view of the samurai. For example, the long-held interpretation in the West of the so-called emergence of the samurai was largely based on an economic thesis put forth by Asakawa Kan'ichi, whose ideas were subsequently propagated by early generations of highly influential Western scholars of Japanese history and culture such as George Sansom and E. O. Reischauer.

In simple terms, the traditional view presents an unambiguous interpretation of the events that led to the appearance of powerful provincial warrior families in the late Heian period (794–1185). In Sansom's classic three-volume treatise of Japanese history, The History of Japan to 1334, he states that "the gradual collapse of the civil power aft er the decline of the Fujiwara dictators was accompanied by a rise in the influence of warrior clans."

Oppressed by high taxes, many peasants deserted their fields for other occupations, adversely impacting the Heian government's income and influence. This caused instability and tension throughout the land, and landowners in the provinces were compelled to fortify their holdings to protect them from marauding bands of belligerents who had become disconnected from their familial connections in the capital and engaged in acts of brigandry to expand their own estates.

Even the court found itself unable to protect its assets in the provinces, and its economic base was significantly weakened as a result. Newly formed alliances of provincial warriors were able to gather political momentum and assert their power through the use of military force. Eventually, these provincial warriors became economically dominant as well. After the Genpei Disturbance (1180–85) and the abdication of the ineffectual nobles (kuge), the samurai were able to elevate themselves to powerful positions in society simply by filling the political holes that appeared. Their influence burgeoned with the formation of the Kamakura shogunate in 1189 by Minamoto Yoritomo (1147–99).

More recently, however, this interpretation of the rise of warriors to political dominance has been substantively amended. Among Western scholars, prominent theorists include J. W. Hall, Jeffrey Mass, and Marius B. Jansen. They refute the simplistic idea of kuge powerlessness in the face of warrior ascension. The contemporary consensus is that kuge actually maintained a significant degree of control and certainly did not hand political power over to the provincial samurai; by the time of the establishment of the first warrior government at the end of the twelfth century, the samurai remained relatively politically immature.

New theories of how the samurai rose to prominence have been postulated in Japan and the West from many different angles, especially in the last two decades. Some of the representative works in English include William Wayne Farris's Heavenly Warriors, Karl Friday's Hired Swords, and Eiko Ikegami's The Taming of the Samurai.

Farris's book avoids the term "emergence" and instead promotes the idea that the warriors "evolved" in an ongoing process spanning many centuries, before the eventual consolidation of a unified warrior power structure with the formation of the Kamakura shogunate. Farris also contests the "Western analogue theorists" who forcibly apply a Western model of feudalism to the samurai experience. He divides his analysis of samurai evolution into sections extending back to approximately 500 AD. He draws our attention to the culture of mounted archers — not uncommon throughout Asia — who were organized into an imperial army by Emperor Tenmu (?–686), whose name means "heavenly warrior," hence the title of Farris's book.

He conjectures that the aristocratic warriors of the Heian period did not suddenly appear and fill a political vacuum but rather inherited a much older culture that continued to develop over time. He argues that mounted warriors had become the main strike force on battlefields by the ninth century and that "many soldiers organized themselves into houses with the exclusive right to practice the martial arts, either as local aristocrats or local strongmen." During the period extending from 500 to 1300, warriors were not pitted against the courtiers but instead acted as shields for them until the samurai asserted their political independence over the court starting in the thirteenth century.

Karl Friday also questions the perceived impotence of the court. Through a detailed analysis of the military technology and motivations of the imperial army and conscripts, he contends that the warriors at court and those stationed in the provinces were in fact allied. Furthermore, the court actively made use of provincial warriors to upgrade its military and policing system.

There were instances in which certain warriors exerted palpable influence, such as Taira Kiyomori (1118–81), who rose to dominate court politics and even enthroned his infant grandson Antoku (1178–85) as emperor. Nevertheless, Friday argues that for the most part the evolution of military institutions between the seventh and twelfth centuries followed a consistent pattern that relied on the military abilities of the provincial elites and lower members of the aristocracy.

Eiko Ikegami's The Taming of the Samurai focuses on violence as the decisive factor in the rise of the samurai. She highlights this as a distinguishing raison d'être among the Japanese warrior subculture and also mentions the clashes between violent groups of eastern warriors and the indigenous Emishi people of northeastern Honshu. Central to her argument is the concept of honor (na), and the bonds of loyalty that were formed between the warrior and his lord through combat experience.

Ikegami contends that the gradual rise of the samurai to political prominence on a national scale...