Stephen Turnbull - The Samurai Swordsman: Master of War

Taira Shigehira, the classic samurai mounted archer.

The most enduring traditional image of the samurai is that of the lone wanderer, owing allegiance to none but himself, and relying for his continued survival on his skills with the sword. This is a powerful picture, and one that has tended to dominate the perception of the archetypal Japanese warrior. However, as the following pages will show, this image owes as much to the peaceful years of the Tokugawa period (16031867) as it does to the preceding years of war. It is also a far cry from the reality of the earliest samurai warriors, who were aristocratic mounted archers rather than swordsmen. These men relied far less on the sword than on the bow. Nor did they hold allegiance only to themselves. Instead, they were part of a vast web of dependent feudal links, with their ultimate loyalty being to the lords who led them into battle. Their fierce sense of pride and personal honor, and their individual prowess at the martial arts, were the only features they had in common with their later popular image. Yet their exploits with horse, bow, and sword set the standard by which future generations of samurai would be judged.

The first use of the word samurai dates back to the eighth century AD, but this was preceded by many centuries of myth, legend, and history. Japans long military tradition, in fact, goes back over two millennia, and at the very beginning of timeaccording to the creation myths that explain the origins of the Japanese islandswe find the image of a weapon. This is the Jewel-spear of Heaven that Izanagi, the father of the kami (deities), plunges into the ocean, and from whose point drips water that coalesces into the land of Japan. Later in the same work (the Kojiki, c. AD 712) we see a reference to the most enduring Japanese martial image of all, when Izanagi uses a sword to kill the fire god, whose birth has led to the death of his wife, Izanami.

Swords also played a part in the stories about the two surviving children of Izanagi: Susano-, the thunder god, and Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun. The Kojiki tells us how Susano- destroyed a monstrous serpent that was terrorizing the people. He began by getting it drunk on sake (rice wine) and then hewed off its heads and tail. But when he reached the tail, his blade struck something it could not penetrate, and Susano- discovered a sword hidden therein. As it was a very fine sword, he presented it to his sister, Amaterasu, and because the serpents tail had been covered in black clouds, the sword was named