Osprey - Weapon 79 - Weapons of the Samurai.pdf

(23906 KB) Pobierz
WEAPONS OF THE
SAMURAI
STEPHEN TURNBULL
WEAPONS OF THE
SAMURAI
STEPHEN TURNBULL
Series Editor Martin Pegler
Illustrated by Johnny Shumate & Alan Gilliland
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
DEVELOPMENT
Arming the samurai
4
7
28
62
73
76
77
80
USE
Samurai weapons in combat
IMPACT
Evolution and influence
CONCLUSION
GLOSSARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
An incident of single combat
using a mixture of edged
weapons is shown in this detail
from the Gosannen War Scroll.
The man on the ground has been
felled from his wounded horse
and tries to defend himself using
his sword. An arrow protrudes
from the horse’s belly. One arrow
remains in the quiver of the
assailant, who thrusts at the
samurai on the ground using his
naginata.
4
In the year 1609 a veteran samurai called Ono Shigeyuki died
peacefully of old age. Shigeyuki’s record of service as a retainer of the
Tachibana family in battles that included Ulsan and Sekigahara notes
that he fought in 22 major encounters and over 40 minor skirmishes.
During these actions he both used and suffered from the entire range
of weapons available to the samurai, sustaining wounds in 67 places
on his body. Five of the wounds were from bullets, seven were from
arrows and no fewer than 55 were inflicted by edged weapons, one of
which had come very near to removing his right arm (Miike Historical
Society 2017: 1).
We may assume that throughout his long career Ono Shigeyuki made
extensive use of his
katana,
the legendary sword of Japan once described
by
shōgun
Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) as ‘the soul of the samurai’.
That statement may have been true as far as the
katana’s
symbolism was
concerned, but the sword was never the samurai’s weapon of first choice
in the grim reality of the Japanese battlefield. His primary armaments
– bows, spears, other edged weapons and (to a lesser extent) firearms –
may never have acquired the legendary status of the
katana,
yet it was
through their use that battles were largely won. In other words, the
samurai carried a complex ‘toolkit’ of weapons to use when the occasion
was appropriate.
The typology and design of the weapons of the samurai changed
considerably as the centuries went by, as is attested by numerous written
sources, which range from personal diaries written by eyewitnesses to the
heroic
gunkimono
(war tales) compiled for participating samurai leaders
long after the events they describe had taken place. It is important, however,
to note that the names used to identify the weapons in these sources are
sometimes confusing. To give but one example: the combination of the
characters for ‘long’ and ‘sword’ sometimes means not a long-bladed sword
but a weapon on a long shaft such as a
naginata
(glaive).
A useful correction to this ambiguity is provided by contemporary
illustrations, in which both the weapons themselves and the wounds they
inflicted are shown in remarkable detail. Most of these works of art were
produced some time after the events they represent, so conclusions must
only be drawn about the weapons as they existed at the time of each
work’s creation, not the date of the event depicted. If this is allowed for,
the painted scrolls produced from the 13th century onwards and the
decorative screens that became fashionable during the early 17th century
are among the best guides to what samurai weapons really looked like and
how they were used. Interpretations from artwork only become
problematic with certain 19th-century prints in which the depiction of
weapons and armour can be very stylized. Otherwise, the combination of
surviving specimens and the written and pictorial sources allow us to
recreate a reasonable record of the evolution of the weapons of
the samurai.
Identification of the users of these weapons can be almost as
problematic as the weapons’ typology. This book’s title may imply
that it is only concerned with the armaments of aristocratic warriors,
as the samurai are commonly understood, but this is not so, because
the period the book covers spans seven centuries (AD 900 to 1600),
during which time the definition of the word ‘samurai’ changed
considerably.
As a warrior who live during the Sengoku Period (the ‘Age of
Warring States’ that is roughly coterminous with the 16th century)
Katagiri Katsumoto (1556–1615),
who became one of the ‘Seven
Spears’ of Shizugatake at the
famous battle in 1583, is shown
here using his
yari
from a horse
as a stabbing weapon like a lance
against a dismounted enemy
samurai. During the Sengoku
Period the
yari
was the samurai’s
preferred weapon.
5

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin