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, supervise the management of their properties, and collect the taxes due them. Within the boundaries of both nearby estates and others in provinces far from the capitals, new and vigorous clans began to coalesce.
Provincial territories had customarily been assigned by imperial decree to large landowners who acted, in Nitobe’s estimation, as had the Latin tenantes pro capite or as representatives of the emperor. In addition, other territories, reclaimed from wilderness or taken from enemies, were transformed into productive provinces whose occupants, along with their cohorts, were eventually confirmed in their positions as landowners by imperial decree. These landowners were called daimyo (“great names”) and they also used to sublet their fiefs to particularly favored retainers or vassals (kerai).
These provincial magnates gradually developed into great military chiefs, with large forces of well armed and carefully disciplined retainers under their command. They were called bu-ke, or military houses, to distinguish them from the ku-ge, or Court-houses, whose heads lived in Kyoto, monopolizing the administrative positions, but seeing their emoluments and their influence steadily circumscribed as the provinces passed beyond their sway. (Brinkley1, 47)
The daimyo gradually became more independent and removed from the sway of the emperor, who, as Nitobe expressed it, “lived in the invisible seclusion at the capital, Kyoto.” The contrast between the life of the retainers of the court nobles in Kyoto and that of the provincial lords had always been quite marked. As early as the eighth century, when conscripts “selected by lot” were sent either to serve in the distant provinces or to serve in the “six corps of guards” at the capital, “the provincial troops, constantly exercised in the use of the sword, the spear, and equestrian archery, attained and maintained a high degree of efficiency” (Brinkley 2, 50). On the other hand, “the metropolitan guards soon yielded to the enervating influences that surrounded them, and ceased to be useful except as factors in the pageant of pomp and parade affected by the great nobles, or as instruments in furthering their intrigues” (Brinkley1, 50).
To be sure, there was at least an indirect relationship between the feudal barons of the provinces and the court with its nobles, that is, between the buke and the kuge. Often this relationship was closer than that presupposed by legalistic and traditional bonds of loyalty based on the formal appointment of a feudal baron to rule a province or a district; it was also one of blood ties or affiliation through marriage or adoption.
The most important families among the feudal barons, who were instrumental in raising their class to a position of prominence and in establishing
