The Culture of Samurai Warriors - Research Paper Example

The Culture of Samurai Warriors A thesis statement of this study would be the following: Samurai warriors did not play an important role in the ancient Japanese society, other than that of serving the interests of the few wealthy and powerful landowners, who were benefitting at the expense of the majority of peasants and tenant farmers, from whom they obtained land. The research question that arises for this study includes the following: was the institution of Samurai warrior of any benefit to the ancient Japanese society? Did the Samurai warriors play any role in enhancing social and economic equality of the Japanese society? In addition, how did the institution of Samurai warriors affect the political system of the Japanese society? The military nobles of ancient Japan are referred to as Samurai. The term was associated with the top and the middle ranks of the Japanese society, a warrior class.1 This class of skilled warriors developed after the Taika reforms which introduced heavy taxes and the redistribution of land. This, in turn, resulted in many small farmers selling their lands and engaging in tenant farmers, since the reforms favored the owners of large tracts of land1. This system served to create a social system where there were a few wealthy farmers wielding immense power and a large population of those who had low income, namely, peasants and tenant farmers who barely had enough for themselves. Consequently, wealthy and powerful landowners and farmers required to protect their interests against the large groups of Japan citizenry who had fewer resources. This saw the birth of the Samurai warriors tasked to protect the interest of the mighty, wealthy and powerful landowners1. While some of these Samurai warriors were hired individuals, others were the relatives of the wealthy farmers. There was a fundamental principle that guided the institution of Samurai warrior, loyalty to the master. The Samurai warriors were required to be more loyal to their masters than they were even to their own families. While the relatives of the wealthy and powerful landowners who were Samurai warriors were easily loyal to them, the landowners had to ensure that the rest of the warriors, who were not relatives to them, were maintained in a financial dependence to their masters, to cement their loyalty towards them4. The wealthy landowners were organized themselves in clans that amassed wealth by influencing the laws of the land to impose higher taxes to the peasants and the tenant farmers, to make them lose more lands to them. These organized clans eventually established protective agreements that, in turn, allowed them to wield more powers than the traditional ruling aristocracy2. These clans, some of which were made by a formation of alliances of landowners to guard themselves against the collection of taxes by the authorities, established armies to fight for them against the authorities. Such alliances and eventual establishments of armies and weaponry by the farmers’ clans finally created a tradition of Japanese armor that was the basis of the foundation of the Samurai warrior institution. The Samurai grew stronger and started to collect certain taxes but eventually emerged as the political ruling power in Japan1. By 1100, the Samurai had already moved in to fill the vacant position that was left by the loss of control of the traditional Japanese aristocracy. Consequently, they wielded both political and military power over Japan6. Further factor that promoted the rise of the Samurai to power was the death of emperor Toba in 1156 without appointing an heir. His two sons struggled to rise to emperorship and ended up in a civil war in which both lost. The civil war led to the fight between two Samurai clans, the Minamoto and Taira Samurai clans, for power in which the Taira clan won. Consequently, Taira clan established the first Samurai government, and the Minamoto clan was expelled from Kyoto3. The decline of the Samurai came in 1868, when the Meiji system of constitution of monarchy was established. The system introduced balloting as a way of establishing leadership and limited the terms of public office holders. This system introduced some form of democracy and gained the support of the people, giving rise to Meiji emperor. The emperor abolished the Samurai and established a new capital moving it from Kyoto to Tokyo. From the above discussion, it is evident that the Samurai enjoyed a political rule for quite long, which ended with the establishment of the Meiji monarchy. Worth noting is the fact that the rise and rule of the Samurai was in the best interest of the few clans of wealthy farmers who levied taxes on the majority of peasants and tenant farmers. Therefore, the institution of Samurai played a great role in enhancing social inequality in the Japanese society1. During the era in which the Samurai wielded political and military power, the peasants and tenant farmers were oppressed economically through taxation and enactment of protective agreements that gave the wealthy farmers’ clans an opportunity to take more land from peasants and leaving them landless. The political exploitation was also rife, in that there was no limited period in which the holder of public and ruling offices would take. The Samurai era was characterized by dictatorships and wars against those who seemed to resist this rule. With the inception of the new government a new military was established, against which the ex-Samurai rebelled but lost. However, the new government borrowed its military organization from the former Samurai military institute, with some military leaders being adopted from the former Samurai ranks. The difference though is that the military did not wield sovereign powers against the public, as did in the time of Samurai rule. Thus, the Samurai institution enhanced the inequality of the social stratification of the ancient Japanese society, with the wealthy farmers at the top, followed by the Samurai warriors, then the peasants and, lastly, the tenant farmers who did not own any land for themselves. Therefore, the institution of Samurai was not beneficial to the Japanese society; rather it was detrimental to the establishment of an equal society5. The culture of the Samurai was based on the premise that a warrior need to have freedom from fear of death that allows him to gain honor. Thus, if any common person failed to respect a Samurai warrior, the Samurai warrior was supposed to cut them down. Therefore, the noblest thing for a Samurai warrior to do was to fight fearlessly for their master. As a rule and requirement of Samurai warrior institution, it was better for a warrior to die when defending his master other than surrender to defeat in case of war2. All the above meant to ensure that the masters were always safe and that the Samurai warriors were ready to fight for them at any particular time and in any given situation. Such a culture served to create inequality in the Japanese society by making the master who was the landowner; and great farmers appeared more important than any other person did in the Japanese society. The requirement that the Samurai warriors should cut down any commoner who failed to obey their orders was an indication that the life of a commoner in the ancient Japanese society was irrelevant. The fact that it was noble for a Samurai to die while protecting his master, other than surrender to defeat, serves to show that the life of a wealthy and powerful landowner was more important than that of a Samurai warrior. This, therefore, serves to support the thesis statement that the role of the institution of Samurai warrior was to advance social inequality in the ancient Japanese society. The culture of the Samurai entailed use of specific weaponry in the time of war. The culture of a Samurai warrior also represented itself in terms of clothing, which required the warriors to have full body armor that included a horned helmet while in war5. The Samurai warriors were also supposed to put on two swords, a short one used for stabbing and a long one was used for slashing. It was prohibited for any other person who was not a Samurai warrior to put on these swords. The Samurai culture of weaponry meant to advance social inequality in that the warriors were at liberty to put on armor and swords that the commoner was barred from having. All this meant to ensure that the landowners were well protected against any threat that would arise from either the commoner or the authorities3. Therefore, the weaponry culture of the Samurai warrior served to create more social and economic inequality in the ancient Japanese society. By having the Samurai warriors well-armored and protected, while the same was prohibited for the commoner, meant that the wealthy landowners were well protected from any threat and, thus, they could afford to continue their oppressive ambition towards peasants and the tenants. This they did by establishing protective agreements that would help them allow to confiscate more land from them. Thus, the institution of a Samurai warrior was not beneficial to the Japanese society, since it served to advance more social and economic inequality. Monochrome ink painting, rock garden, and poetry are some of the components of the Samurai culture that lives to date. The Samurai myth, the myth of bravely and tolerance, is still rife in the modern Japanese society. The stories of Samurai warrior battles and the act of no surrender have emerged to be the social honors of the modern Japan, with most of the stories and myths transformed into films and plays6. The influence of these Samurai culture components, as felt in the modern day Japan, serves to indicate the role and significance of the institution of a Samurai warrior to influence the society, be it in the political, economic or social fronts. Although most of the culture of a Samurai warrior had a negative effect on the Japanese society, their maxim of bravery and the spirit of no surrender has been adopted by the modern day Japanese, though not on the war front but in boardrooms. The modern Japanese addresses their issue without any fear, in the best interest of securing and winning a motive that is thought to be beneficial to them4. Therefore, much as the culture of a Samurai warrior can be considered to have impact on the ancient Japanese society negatively, it can be seen to have a positive impact on the modern society though. However, the positive impact is only within a posterity issue, with artwork, painting, and poetry being the main beneficiary of the culture. Education, naming, and marriage were important things in a Samurai warrior’s culture. The warriors had a general high level of literacy, which was comparable to that of the priests and the aristocrats. This happened because Samurai warriors enjoyed more advantages than other members of the ancient Japanese society were. This is yet another indicator of how the institute of Samurai warriors served to create social inequality in the Japanese society. Passing names in the Samurai culture was done in a way, specific to them only. The Samurai warriors inherited the names of their fathers and added one more name1. This meant to preserve the institution of Samurai warriors without losing their sense of importance. Marriage is yet another of their cultural aspects, which was done with particular people of the same rank. This meant to prevent the intermarriages of the Samurai warriors with other members of the Japanese society, mostly the commoners. Most Samurai warriors married women from a Samurai family3. However, the lowly ranked Samurai warriors were allowed to marry the commoners, but with certain formalities. In the marriages involving the Samurai warriors, the bride was the one who paid up the dowry. Therefore, the Samurai culture of naming and marriage meant to preserve the social cadre as exclusive and to prevent it from intermixing with the commoners. This once again indicates that the cultural practices of Samurai warriors served to advance inequality in the ancient Japanese society. That inequality advanced in the social, political and the economic aspects of the society. Works Cited 1Ansart, Olivier, Loyalty in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Samurai Discourse, Japanese Studies, 2007. 2Collcutt, Martin, The 'Emergence of the Samurai' and The Military History of Early Japan, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 1996. 3Christopher, Coke, Waging war without warriors?: The changing culture of military conflict, Lynne Reinner Publisher, Inc., London, 2003. 4 Hall, Eleanor, Life among the Samurai, Lucent Books, San Diego, Calif, 1999. 5Karl F. Friday, Fumitake Seki, Legacies of the sword: the Kashima-Shinryū and Samurai martial culture, University of Hawaii Press, 1997. 6Wilson, Scott, Ideals of the Samurai: Writings of Japanese Warriors. Kodansha, 1982. Read More