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There’s a review in the NYTimes about an exhibit at the Met: arms and armor of the samurai. For some commentary and criticism of a similar exhibit from San Francisco, see here
One of the beautiful things about the internet is that if you ask for help, often you can get it. I posed the question about the mysterious circular gear on the medieval samurai to my blog audience, and got an answer very quickly: they are spare bow string spools. The best picture I’ve been able to find of a “tsurumaki” online is this ebay auction, where you can clearly see the groove around the edge which holds the string.
The final exam is now available. Not to muck up your Thanksgiving vacations too much, but you should look at it sooner rather than later: there’s a lot of work there.
We had a small group today, but I can’t push the readings back too much at this point in the semester, so we went ahead and had the Chushingura discussion. As noted on the schedule, the discussion Thursday will focus on Ikegami chapters 14 and 15. If you have any questions about Chushingura or Ikegami 10-12, feel free to bring them up.
Here are the topics for the third set of essays
I’m told that you didn’t quite finish Harakiri: obviously, that’ll be the first thing we do. Then we’ll talk about Conlan’s first chapter, and set the stage for the rest of the reading.
A brief guide to Japanese arrowheads
A news item on troubles facing Sumo in Japan
In response to the question about Oda Nobunaga’s descendants, you can see the family history in some detail here and in great detail here. (I’m not vouching for the accuracy of these sites in detail, but they seem to be reasonably well-done.) According to my Japanese historical dictionary, Nobunaga was succeeded as Daimyo of Owari by his nephew and his younger brother, and the family did take a role on the field at Sekigahara. They remained minor daimyo in central Japan through the Tokugawa period.
- 1180-1185: Gempei War
- 1185-1199: Minamoto Yoritomo in control of Kamakura government
- 1199: Minamoto Yoritomo dies, leaving child heir. Hojo family establishes regency
- 1221: Jokyu disturbance
- 1230s: Goseibai shikimoku promulgated
- 1274, 1281: Mongol invasions at Hakata
- 1333: Kemmu Restoration
Here’s a few things that we discussed in the first class:
- My review of Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai
- My comments on Stephen Turnbull’s Ninja and a comment on ninja from an eminent historian
