[HN Gopher] Who Was Yasuke, Japan's First Black Samurai?
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Who Was Yasuke, Japan's First Black Samurai?
Author : lermontov
Score : 23 points
Date : 2023-01-13 17:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| notart666 wrote:
| Ah, I clicked on this article hoping for information but it felt
| more like an ad for the Netflix series and at times goes in
| detail to describe fan fiction from historians only to go on
| record to state there is no evidence behind said claims. At that
| point why even bother to include it in the article as many reader
| might not even notice this. This article feels more low effort
| than most articles from the Smithsonian and I hope it's not a
| sign of lower quality works to come.
| [deleted]
| landemva wrote:
| I gave up on Smithsonian magazine a decade ago when they
| started going woke. The article topics and writing fulfill
| their agenda, and I choose not to pay for that.
| notart666 wrote:
| Eh. Not sure about that. Yasuke is a real person or we think
| he is. But this feels more like speculative fiction with an
| advertisment rather than anything else.
| steponlego wrote:
| As powerful as the story is, he wasn't a samurai. More like a
| bodyguard or retainer.
| Communitivity wrote:
| He was given his own house to run and a katana directly by
| daimyo Nobunaga. That would indicate he was a samurai.
|
| Remember that at that time being a Samurai was a flexible
| thing. You could become a Samurai even if you were a peasant if
| you took arms for your lord, survived, and impressed them
| sufficiently. It was about service and utmost commitment to
| your lord. There also were women Samurai, including the famed
| Tomoe Gozen - known as the white tiger with the strength of ten
| men.
| true_religion wrote:
| Are you saying that because of his social class?
|
| Because as far as Edo society would be concerned, anyone who
| holds weapons would default to being a samurai if doing so
| legitimately or a peasant bandit if doing so illegitimately. So
| essentially he should be one, and seemingly was treated as one
| from reports of his fine clothing, social standing amongst
| other bodyguards, and land holding.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| Not just any weapon. The samurai were synonymous with the
| daishou, the paired small and large swords which it was their
| unique privilege and obligation to wear in public. This is
| the element that appears to be missing for Yasuke; at least
| there isn't any record that he wore them.
| dymk wrote:
| Really? My understanding was that the Samurai were a distinct
| warrior class with a specific social standing either earned
| or inherited, not just anyone who could buy a sword.
|
| I'm not saying he's not a samurai, just that "holds a sword"
| does not a samurai make.
| true_religion wrote:
| Outside of pitched battles, non samurai weren't allowed to
| hold weapons much less swords. Peasant levies could be
| called on for the defense of a land, but they were just
| temporary troops.
|
| Retainers and bodyguards defend the title of their lord,
| and were essentially always of the samurai class. If you
| were recruited as a peasant for the job, then you became
| the class.
|
| It's not like medieval Europe where you have to be
| officially knighted to join the class. The equivalents of
| man at arms and mercenaries were also of the samurai class.
|
| So as a cross poster said: the man was officially taken as
| a bodyguard to the daimyo, received a household, and was
| presented with a katana. Thus for all intents and purposes
| he's a samurai. There's just no other class permitted to do
| that job.
|
| Edit: It would also be a grave insult for a samurai to be
| protected by a non samurai. To claim the lord, a noble
| warrior, requires a mere peasant to protect him... well
| that's not permissible. So the daimyos bodyguard will be
| recognized as a samurai at least within his own lands.
| s-xyz wrote:
| Expecting a Netflix serie/movie to come up.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| There already is a Netflix anime loosely-based on the
| historical events, although it wasn't a very good adaptation in
| my opinion.
|
| https://myanimelist.net/anime/43697/Yasuke
|
| Another anime, Afro Samurai, which is even more loosely-based,
| is a lot more interesting, albeit quite over-the-top.
|
| https://myanimelist.net/anime/1292/Afro_Samurai
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Yasuke was an African warrior in the employ of Nobunaga, a
| powerful feudal lord known as the "Great Unifier," during Japan's
| Sengoku period. The first Black samurai, he was at Nobunaga's
| side when the daimyo died; according to popular lore, Nobunaga
| tasked Yasuke with returning his head to his son.
|
| > Beyond his relationship with the famous warlord, Yasuke was a
| barrier-breaking figure in his own right. Though his life is
| poorly documented, his story speaks to the surprising cultural
| connections that existed in 16th-century Japan.
|
| Whenever I see anything like this, I'm immediately skeptical and
| consider the possibility that some modern is anachronistically
| and inaccurately interpreting some ancient text through the lens
| of modern racial categories and descriptions.
|
| Was this guy "Black" in the modern sense (as in a very dark-
| skinned person of African descent) or "black" in some other
| sense? I'm reminded of some British scientist or scholar from
| hundreds of years ago who was described as "black" in some
| contemporary document, which a lot of people took to mean black-
| as-African, except that description in that time period probably
| actually meant something more like white person with black hair
| and eyes.
|
| Later on, it says the daimyo thought Yasuke's skin looked like it
| was covered in black paint, which makes it more likely he was
| actually African, but I'm still not totally convinced.
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(page generated 2023-01-14 23:01 UTC)