Now that
we have started the study of Japanese History, what if we learn some curious
facts?
For
example, did you know that there was a samurai
woman? Her name was Tomoe Gozen (1157-1247) and she participated into several
feudal wars, such as the famous Battle of Kurikara. She also appears in one of
the most well-knows japanese epic books: the Keiki Monogatari. You can learn
more about her HERE.
Anyway, she was NOT the first case of female warriors... as we have learnt, Amazones
were terrible enemies of ancient greeks, there were many brave viking
women (origin of the valkyries myth) or, also in Asia, we have the example of a
chinese militar commander, Fu
Hao. Who said women are not strong enough?
And what
about Yasuke,
the African-samurai? Sent to Japan
as a slave in 1579 as a part of a diplomatic gift, he was released and trained
as samurai by his Shogun.
Japan’s
emperor finally sent several diplomatic
delegations to Europe, such as the Tensho
embassy (1582) and the Keicho
embassy (1613). Both of them included Spain in their official routes. There
are plenty of documents, letters and official recordings about them, if you
want to know the details.
Finally,
if you want to learn many more things about Japan’s
History or its influence on the cinema (do you know that “7
samurais”, filmed in 1954 by Akira Kurosawa, was adapted several times into western and even animation movies?), remember that you can visit previous links
in this same blog.
Enjoy!
