Japan (Lonely Planet, 11th Edition) - Chris Rowthorn [17]
It is questionable how much longer the Tokugawa shōgunate and its secluded world could have continued, but as it happened, external forces were to bring about its demise.
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The Japanese religion of Shintō is one of the few religions in the world to have a female sun deity, or a female supreme deity.
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MODERNISATION THROUGH WESTERNISATION
Since the start of the 19th century a number of Western vessels had appeared in Japanese waters. Any Westerners who dared to land, even through shipwreck, were almost always met with expulsion or even execution.
This was not acceptable to the Western powers, especially the USA, which was keen to expand its interests across the Pacific and had numerous whaling vessels in the northwest that needed regular reprovisioning. In 1853, and again the following year, US Commodore Matthew Perry steamed into Edo Bay with a show of gunships and demanded the opening of Japan for trade and reprovisioning. The shōgunate had little option but to accede to his demands, for it was no match for Perry’s firepower. Presently an American consul arrived, and other Western powers followed suit. In a series of humiliating ‘unequal treaties’ Japan was obliged to give ‘most favoured nation’ rights to all the powers, and lost control over its own tariffs.
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SAMURAI
The prime duty of a samurai, a member of the warrior class from around the 12th century onwards, was to give faithful service to his lord. In fact, the term ‘samurai’ is derived from a word meaning ‘to serve’. Ideally, ‘service’ meant being prepared to give up one’s life for one’s lord, though there were many ranks of samurai and, at least in the early days, it was typically only the hereditary retainers who felt such commitment. At the other end of the ranks, samurai were in effect professional mercenaries who were by no means reliable and often defected if it was to their advantage.
The renowned samurai code, bushidō (way of the warrior), developed over the centuries but was not formally codified till the 17th century, by which stage there were no real battles to fight. Ironically, the intention of the code appears to have been to show samurai as moral exemplars in order to counter criticism that they were parasitic. It was thus greatly idealised.
Core samurai ideals included gaman (endurance), isshin (whole-hearted commitment) and makoto (sincerity). Samurai were supposed to be men of Zen-like austerity who endured hardship without complaint. Chivalry among samurai was not so dominant as in Europe, and certainly not towards women, even though samurai were often highly educated and sometimes paralleled with European knights. Far from romancing women, most samurai shunned them on the grounds that sexual relations with women (who were Yin/in) weakened their maleness (Yang/yō). Most samurai were homosexual or, in many cases, bisexual. There were actually a small number of female samurai, such as Tomoe Gozen (12th century), but they were not given formal recognition.
Warriors who for one reason or another became lordless were known as rōnin (wanderers or masterless samurai), acted more like brigands and were a serious social problem.
Samurai who fell from grace were generally required to commit ritual disembowelment, meant to show the purity of the soul, which was believed to reside in the stomach.