Secrets of the Samurai - Oscar Ratti

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with tribes of aborigines who were retreating reluctantly before the steady advance of the new empire throughout the archipelago. Conscription on a massive basis could hardly have been a permanent system at this time, however, since the clan subjects who were asked to fight were also (for the most part) the clan farmers who produced the only means of subsistence the new nation possessed. Sustenance through conquest, after all, had been possible only where the conquered peoples had riches to surrender or advanced systems of production that could be made to operate for the conqueror. There is little evidence to prove that, in archaic Japan, the local aborigines were such a people. The Japanese clansmen were confronted, generally, with nomadic tribes whose agriculture was quite primitive and who relied heavily upon their rude farming and hunting methods for fulfillment of their daily needs—as did most nomadic tribes of northern Asia. The only riches available, then, must have been the land itself. Thus, it seems, the massive military organizations which emerged from the records of this age were intrinsic parts of a massive colonizing effort which maintained a strong identification between the Japanese soldier and the Japanese farmer—both often being (as was true of the Roman legionnaires) one and the same. If such an assumption appears reasonable enough in relation to large numbers of clansmen bearing arms, it also appears reasonable to infer from the records the existence of a smaller but more stable line of military succession based on heredity. At the frontiers, for example, a military organization of officers and veterans was maintained to insure the conditions essential to expansion in a militarily administered territory: continuity and professionalism. The origins of the feudal warriors who imploded from the provinces back into the center of political power in the sixteenth century are considered by most historians to have been in these military organizations. Tightly knit groups, they were led by officers whose entire lives were devoted to arms and arts of combat such as kyujutsu, yarijutsu, kenjutsu (using the long tachi), and jobajutsu—arts which were ancient even in the tenth century, when the rise of the military class clearly began.

      It would appear, then, that bujutsu actually began to take shape with the early Japanese clansman and has followed him in one form or another ever since. Any attempt to further probe the origins of bujutsu would encounter the infinitely more difficult question of the origins of that fighting biped—man himself. That which appears incontrovertible, even in times as ancient as those of the original uji, is the clannish nature of bujutsu—the feeling of total commitment to the theories and practices of combat adopted by a specific social unit, to the exclusion (often violently expressed) of those adopted by other social units. This was a pronounced characteristic during the feudal ages of Japan, not only within the military class, which, after all, was intrinsically clannish, but also in all those other classes whose members organized themselves in guilds or corporations according to the vertical hierarchy and structure of the archaic clan. Even religious orders in Japan, although supposedly removed from the harsh competition and the exclusivism of mundane affairs and inspired by the universal simplicity of Buddhist brotherhood, generally repeated the clan pattern in their religious or para-religious organizations. This pattern is still very much in evidence in almost all modern clubs and organizations where ancient as well as modern forms of bujutsu are practiced in Japan. And, perhaps due to Japanese domination of these arts (at least at the highest levels), this clannish tendency is often found even in Western clubs where these arts are taught.

      If we are to arrive at a correct and comprehensive understanding of all the major and minor specializations of the martial arts, we must examine in somewhat greater detail the nature, history, and role of the various classes of subjects who appear inextricably linked to bujutsu after its emergence during the age of the clans, and who contributed to its development and evolution throughout the ages that ensued. Such a study follows in Part 1.

      PART I

       EXPONENTS OF BUJUTSU

       The Bujin

      1

       THE BUSHI

      The Rise of the Military Class

      The military class (buke) began to play a determinant role in the history of Japan during the tenth and eleventh centuries (the late Heian period) as the power of the emperor, the nominal head of the Yamato clan, slowly but irresistibly began to disintegrate in the wake of the nobility’s constant internecine struggles. During this period, the aristocratic clans (kuge) battled one another unendingly—when, that is, they were not warring against the powerful organizations of militant priests and monks near Nara. This phenomenon can be seen as early as the middle of the sixth century, when a comparatively new clan, the Soga, challenged the power of the five original clans: the Otomo, Kume (Kumebe), Imibe, Mononobe, and Nakatomi. The members of the dynamic and extremely capable Soga family, in fact, eventually managed to insinuate themselves into the imperial line of inheritance, using every conceivable means to attain their ends. Two imperial princes were murdered as a result of their “intrigues, which culminated in the assassination of the Emperor Sosun (591 A.D.)—the only crime of its kind openly admitted by Japanese historians” (Brinkley1, 42-43).

      At the time, the country was also in the throes of a spiritual upheaval precipitated by the clash between monotheistic Buddhism and the pantheistic animism of the indigenous religion (Shinto). The spreading of the former doctrine and its mystical polarization of images further emphasized the supreme authority of the emperor-priest, thus making him an even more particular target of those powerful and ambitious noblemen who were determined to wield that power themselves. The clan struggles were not always expressed in terms of bloodshed, however. The members of the Soga clan also became famous in Japanese history for their skill as diplomats—managing the kingdom either directly, as regents (sessho) and civil dictators (kampaku), or indirectly, as befitted an emperor’s maternal or paternal relatives and mentors. Their hold was finally broken by Kamatari, head of the ancient Nakatomi clan. As a consequence of his efforts, “the Soga family became extinct—a euphemism signifying that every male bearing the name of Soga, greybeard, youth, or child, was put to the sword. That was the method of dealing with such cases in ancient times, and it continued to be the method throughout medieval and even up to comparatively modern times” (Brinkley1, 43).

      In accordance with what had, by that time, become the political custom of the land, Kamatari restored power nominally to the emperor, but reserved those offices through which that power was exercised for himself and the members of his clan (upon which the emperor bestowed the name “wisteria plain,” or Fujiwara). In time, this clan became supreme among all those descended from the ancient kuge.

      As a result of the decimation which characterized the Heian period beneath its exterior splendor, a power vacuum was created in the political center of the nation, and a new class of men was drawn into that vortex by the irresistible forces of history. These men formed a military aristocracy of sorts which, at least initially, seemed to have been excluded from the political process of decision making. The function of this class was primarily that of enlarging and protecting the boundaries of the nation. Thus its members inherited the ancient martial tradition which had once been the prerogative of the ancient and expanding noble clans before they had become centralized—first in Nara and then in the permanent capital of Kyoto. Slowly but surely, this centralization had separated the kuge from the real basis of power at that time: land ownership. As Grinnan pointed out, “the history of the land tenure of a country is always closely connected with its political development. This is especially true of ancient times, for then land was the sole or principal source of wealth and power” (Grinnan, 228).

      The almost complete concentration of the ancient clans in the capitals and their continual absenteeism from even their nearest estates had considerably weakened their capacity to develop their lands,

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