ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IN RESEARCHING, selecting, and organizing the material for the original manuscript of Secrets of the Samurai, the authors have availed themselves of, and wish to express their indebtedness to, the works of all those scholars and authors whose painstaking research over the past one hundred years has produced the rich body of information which has made this study possible. The names of these men will appear again and again within the text of the book; they are also listed alphabetically in the Bibliography, together with the titles of those works considered by the authors to be indispensable to any study of bujutsu.
In particular, the authors would like to express special thanks to Sophia University in Tokyo (since 1938 sponsor of the periodical Monumenta Nipponica) and to the Japan Society of London (since 1892 the publisher of Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society). These institutions were particularly gracious in granting permission to use freely and liberally much of the material relevant to bujutsu contained in their collections of essays. Material from back numbers of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan also proved to be quite valuable. Unfortunately, the authors have not been able to locate any offices or officers of this society, which appears to have become inactive during recent years. In any case, the authors wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to the work of this society. Readers who live in or near New York City may avail themselves of the collections of these three major sources of information (and countless others) at the New York Public Library’s Fifth Avenue main branch in room 219 of the Oriental division. We extend our sincere thanks to the staff of this division—Dr. John L. Mish and the indefatigable Mr. Francis W. Paar and Miss H.K. Kim—who guided us through many research reefs and shoals with unflappable good humor and enthusiastic professionalism.
Publishing houses which gave us their permission to quote freely from their editorial material on bujutsu include Brussel & Brussel, publisher of the monumental A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor by George Cameron Stone, and W. Foulsham & Company, publishers of E. J. Harrison’s invaluable book The Fighting Spirit of Japan, a pioneer work on bujutsu which can be obtained in the United States from Sterling Publishing Company, 419 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y., 10016. Our special thanks go to Mr. H. Russell Robinson, assistant to the master of the armories in Her Majesty’s Tower of London, for his generous permission to quote from The Armour Book in Honcho Gunkiko, published by the Charles E. Tuttle Company.
Our analysis of the great variety of Japanese weapons used throughout the feudal age of Japan was greatly facilitated by the opportunity to observe at close range the collections in the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Museo Orientale of Venice, as well as in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. By far the most extensive and diversified of these collections is contained within the Museo Orientale, presently housed in the Palazzo Pesaro, where it occupies a substantial portion of the third floor in this ancient Venetian palace. We were graciously given permission to examine the exhibits there closely and to use them as the basis for many sketches, ranging from those of intricate suits of armor to an entire spectrum of bows and arrows, spears, swords, daggers, and even the elaborate standards used by different clans and families of feudal Japan. Acquired in 1888 (twenty years after the Restoration) by Enrico di Borbone, Count of Bardi, during his extensive travels in Japan, the collection was sold in 1906 to a Viennese art dealer, who, in turn, sold many valuable pieces to foreign museums and private collectors. The objects which were presented to the Italian government after World War I still constitute a substantial and detailed representation of arms, armors, and accoutrements which any serious student of bujutsu might profitably explore. Photographs of many of these pieces, in fact, comprise the major portion of H. R. Robinson’s book Japanese Arms and Armour, listed in the Bibliography.
We are also obliged to Routledge & Kegan Paul of London and Princeton University Press for permission to use material from Daisetsu T. Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture; to Random House and Alfred A. Knopf for their permission to use direct quotations from Edwin O. Reischauer’s Japan: Past and Present; to Jay Gluck for the use of direct references drawn from his Zen Combat.
The authors wish to warmly thank all those students and instructors of bujutsu in the Eastern and Western hemispheres who so generously illustrated and explained, either in person or in lengthy correspondence, techniques and strategies of bujutsu which have contributed to the substance of many illustrated sequences in this book. Illustrations can often provide a more dynamic and vivid idea of the practical aspects of the many specializations of bujutsu than lengthy, abstruse descriptions, and we have relied heavily upon such illustrated material.
A special thank-you is extended to Mrs. Anneliese Aspell for her assistance in the translation of difficult German passages illustrating the educational system developed for the warriors of the Tokugawa period.
Finally, we feel ourselves at a loss in attempting to express our thanks to our friend and mentor Edvi Illes Gedeon, who, acting as a veritable one-man foundation, tracked down and provided many valuable texts on bujutsu. Last but not least on our list are the editors of the Charles E. Tuttle Company for their active interest in this as well as other works by the same authors, and for their efforts in handling a difficult editorial format in a manner always consistent with the traditions of their house.
PREFACE
THE JAPANESE experience in, and contribution to, the theory and practice of individual combat, armed and unarmed, is certainly among the most ancient, sophisticated, and enduring ever recorded. One need only consider the present worldwide popularity of jujutsu, judo, karate, aikido, kendo, kyudo, and so forth, which are essentially modern adaptations or derivations, to appreciate the continuing influence of ancient Japanese methods of combat. The ancient martial arts were developed and refined during an extended period of direct experimentation on the battlefields of pre-Tokugawa Japan; later, during the centuries of absolute isolation which generated the proper conditions, they were thoroughly revised and ultimately ritualized into transmissible patterns of exercise and technique. The effectiveness of the modern adaptations is attested to by the fact that they have deeply influenced and, in many instances, almost completely replaced other national methods of combat practiced for sporting purposes and as part of the utilitarian and practical training programs of military and police forces.
The present work is a survey of the major specializations of the martial
