Secrets of the Samurai - Oscar Ratti

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tends to foment uprisings.” Thus did Hideyoshi move to deprive all other classes of those martial options his own class had found so effective. Throughout the centuries which led to the absolute predominance of the military class, in fact, its right to rule was often hotly contested, particularly by the militant orders of Buddhist priests and monks, who finally had to be slaughtered en masse during the Ashikaga (Muromachi) and Momoyama periods before they could be discounted as effective opponents.

      The assumption that the members of the military class were the sole practitioners and interpreters of bujutsu is even less valid in relation to those minor methods of combat which involved the use of wooden instruments such as the staff (or even the human body itself) as primary weapons of combat. Numerous methods of using these weapons flourished during Japan’s feudal era, particularly after the establishment of the Tokugawa military dictatorship. Schools of martial arts frequented by the samurai often included a number of these arts in their training programs, but there is also ample evidence in the doctrine of bujutsu that they were practiced with equal fervor and dedication by members of other classes as well. Even a poet, the famous Basho, is said to have been skilled in the handling of the staff (bo), and countless hermits, abbots, and philosophers, as well as commoners of every class, could use their fans or pipes with flair and deadly accuracy—even against swords. In certain cases, these people were recognized as being the originators of particular specializations of the art of combat which even the warrior found impressive enough to include in his own program of military preparation. The skill of certain religious sects in the use of fists and feet is amply recorded not only in Chinese chronicles but also in manuscripts written by Japanese masters who claimed to have studied their methods of unarmed combat in China.

      Actually, even in relation to those martial arts which, by law, warriors alone could practice—such as swordsmanship (kenjutsu) and spearfighting (yarijutsu)—we find evidence that members of other classes practiced and applied them against the warrior himself, although he alone had a legal right to possess and use such weapons. Many of these illegal users were obviously outcasts from the military class. But many were not, and these often formed the backbone of such groups as the famous bands of professional fighters hired by merchants to protect shipments in transit from attack by bandits or to guard warehouses, or the groups of professional bodyguards hired by patrons who needed and could afford the cost of protection, or the leagues of guardians hired by farmers to safeguard crops at harvest time. These fighters were not recruited only from among the rejects of the military class (although, quite naturally, these men were a primary source of material for mercenary fighting). During the decline of the Tokugawa, for example, “The Tokaido’s Number-One Boss,” Jirocho of Shimizu (1820-93), who controlled the gambling underworld there, belonged to the merchant class. The origins of the jovial Ishimatsu, however, one of his lieutenants, whose violent death at the hands of assassins after a prolonged sword fight in the forest cost the latter dearly, were so obscure that they were not even recorded. Going back even further in time to the more rigidly controlled period of the early Tokugawa era, the famous Chobei of Banzuiin, chief of the Otokodate in Edo, was a chonin (townsman), not a military retainer.

      The Qualification “Martial” (Bu) and the Art of War

      As indicated in the previous paragraphs, the adjective “martial” is semantically linked to military endeavors and, therefore, to the primary function of the military as a class: the waging of war. In this sense, could we say that all the specializations of the art of combat qualified is arts of war? It is obvious, from even a cursory glance at the various specializations and subspecializations listed in our introductory chart, that not all of these methods could be used effectively on the battlefield; consequently, the all-inclusive qualification “martial” is either inaccurate or else rests upon foundations not directly related to practical effectiveness solely within the broad dimensions of general warfare. Early chroniclers of bujutsu, after all, had made a distinction of sorts when they listed the following specializations of the art of combat as the exclusive arts of the warrior, hence as arts of war: archery, spearmanship, swordsmanship, horsemanship, fortifications, and use of firearms and military seamanship (which included swimming). Among the methods of unarmed combat used by the warrior in a subsidiary manner, the same chroniclers mention the art of suppleness, or jujutsu. A substantial number of specializations are omitted from these military records—a fact that should not surprise us, since from the standpoint of a warrior, the art of the war fan could hardly be compared to archery, nor the art of the wooden staff to the science of firearms. Why, then, this determination so apparent in the general doctrine of bujutsu, and so widely displayed by almost all masters of arts and disciplines of combat, to use the adjective “martial” (bu) to qualify all these methods?

      At least a partial answer, we feel, may be provided by an examination of the importance assigned by the Japanese to the military tradition in the history of their country. Before we proceed to discuss these traditions in the following paragraphs, however, we must briefly reiterate that the art of war as strategies involving large numbers of men in massive confrontations on the battlefield is not a part of this study. Our primary concern here is individual combat—the art of direct and personal confrontation between two (or a few) men and the weapons, the techniques, and the attitudes used therein. We shall not plunge into the doctrinary debates concerning the degree of sophistication of the Japanese art of war, which, in the opinion of certain authors, was rather rudimentary. Brinkley, for example, while describing the individual warriors of Japan as composing “the best fighting unit in the Orient, probably one of the best fighting units the world ever produced,” added in the same paragraph that “it was, perhaps, because of that excellence that his captains remained mediocre tacticians” (Brinkley1, 172). Repeated references may be found in ancient treatises on warfare to the high level of development of the art of war in China and to its major theorists, such as General Sun-tzu, who repeatedly emphasized the social, massive character of combat in war and the absolute predominance of masses and logistics in defeating an enemy. But in the centuries preceding the Momoyama period (1568-1600), Japanese armies were still “made up of small, independent bands of soldiers who fought more as individuals than as units of a tactical formation” (Wittfogel, 199). This was the way the Japanese warrior of one clan fought against the warriors of another clan; this was the way he fought against the Koreans during the first, legendary invasion of the Asiatic mainland; and this was the way he faced the invading Mongolian hordes in 1274 and 1281. The individual character of the art of war was still very much in evidence in the colossal confrontations at Sekigahara, witnessed by William Adams (1564-1620), and at Osaka Castle in 1615. “Feudal Japan,” Wittfogel concludes, perhaps a trifle sweepingly, “like feudal Europe, failed to develop the art of war” (Wittfogel, 199).

      The individual character of the art of war in feudal Japan, so romantically emphasized in national sagas and by chroniclers of the age, actually facilitates our study of the particular specializations of bujutsu, for it allows us to adopt the individuality of direct, personal confrontation as our primary term of reference. In turn, the matrix of our study of all the possible applications of bujutsu will be the man-to-man encounter—whether on the battlefield or in the streets of a teeming city, whether on a lonely mountain road or in a temple, or even within the confines of a man’s home. And this will also facilitate our inclusion of all the weapons, techniques, and attitudes devised to resolve the problems of individual confrontation.

      The Military Tradition in the History of Japan

      The extensive use of the qualification “martial” in the doctrine is explained by the extraordinary, some authors would say excessive, importance assigned by the Japanese even today to their military tradition, to the function of the military class in shaping the destiny of the nation, and to the ethics adopted by this class to justify its existence and policies. This importance is based upon the fact that, when we refer generically to the martial experience of Japan, we refer to one of the longest and most ancient involvements of a nation in such a dimension. As Lafcadio Hearn aptly pointed out, “About the whole of authentic Japanese history is comprised in one vast episode: the rise and fall of the military power” (Hearn, 259).

      A panoramic survey of the events through which that power expressed itself with varying degrees of subtlety for almost nine centuries is found in chart 2 (p. 33) and in greater detail in Part 1. Down through the centuries, then, the innermost fiber of the Japanese nation was

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