Recreational research into Feudal Japan
Link: Historical Artwork of Samurai Banners
I’ve been busy with many things (including crunch time for a LARP set as Commodore Perry and the Black Ships arrive in Japan) and haven’t been able to do as much research as I’d like. However, I’d like to pass on a great gallery of Sengoku samurai banners from historical sources. Thanks to Tomoyuki of the SCA Japanese Mailing List for the link.Watch movie online A Cure for Wellness (2017)
Tags: Sengoku period, links
This entry was posted by Kihō on November 10, 2010 (a Tomobiki (友引)) at 10:53 am, and is filled under Mon, Meta. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.
No comments yet.
No trackbacks yet.
Resource: Electronic Kuzushiji Dictionary Database
June 8, 2014 - 2:44 pm
Tags: hiragana, kanji, kuzushiji, links
Posted in Classical Japanese, Literature | No comments
Translating historical Japanese manuscripts can be challenging for a variety of reasons. One is that, despite the thousands of characters Japanese has to start with, historical writers weren’t content to just write them clearly. Japanese cursive uses “kuzushiji” (崩し字), or broken characters, hiragana or kanji that have been heavily stylized in any number of different […]
Primary Source: Kenmon Shokamon
June 5, 2014 - 12:29 am
Tags: Azuchi-Momoyama period, Edo period, Kenmon Shokamon, Muromachi period, Sengoku period, plover, provincial
Posted in Mon | No comments
O-umajirushi is great for an idea of what mon were like in the Momoyama period, but what were they like before that? There are few earlier sources for mon other than depictions of battle scenes and similar. One that I have found, however, is Kenmon Shokamon (見聞諸家紋), which translates to “Various Observed Family Crests”. It’ss […]
Link: O-umajirushi
July 19, 2013 - 10:40 am
Tags: O-umajirushi, Sengoku period
Posted in Mon | No comments
Preparing for teaching a class at Pennsic (my first!) on Japanese heraldry, I’ve been gathering some good sources for figures. One of the best primary sources for Sengoku-era heraldry is O-umajirushi, a collection of heraldic displays printed somewhere in 1624–1644. Contrary to some sources, all six scrolls still exist, and I just discovered they can […]
Link: Samurai Heraldry: Flags and Standards of Samurai Armies
December 27, 2010 - 12:31 am
Tags: links, samurai
Posted in Mon | No comments
It’s still a while before the lunar New Year, but I hope those of you with modern holidays are enjoying them. Perhaps one of these winters I’ll actually girl up to building a Sei Shonagon-style snow mountain. I just wanted to follow up my recent link post on samurai banners: some more banner depictions by […]
Auspicious Days, a dissenting view
August 4, 2010 - 11:08 pm
Tags: Asakura Toshikage, SCA, Sengoku period, daimyō, rokuyō
Posted in Beliefs | No comments
A while back I talked about auspicious days and directions. I recently came upon a counterpoint reflecting the practical aspects of military thought. This is one of the seventeen testaments of Asakura Toshikage, one of the first Sengoku daimyō, the great lords of the Warring States period.(SoJT:429) It is extremely regrettable if a commander, when […]
Element of the Week: Swastika
July 19, 2010 - 1:09 am
Tags: Hachisuka Iemasa, Nara period, Sengoku period, Shimabara Rebellion, Tsugaru Nobuhira, swastika
Posted in Mon | No comments
Today we discuss a controversial mon element (and one you definitely cannot use in the SCA): the swastika. The swastika (卍 or 万字/manji), among many other symbolic uses, has always represented Buddhism in Japan, a use that dates back to the 5th century BCE in India. In Buddhism, the swastika represents dharma, harmony, and the […]
Mon of the Week: Natagama
July 4, 2010 - 9:54 pm
Tags: Edo period, Sengoku period, nata, natagama, Ōno Harufusa, Ōsaka
Posted in Mon | No comments
Here we have an interesting mon. Unlike many of the mon we’ve discussed recently, this mon has died out, and is no longer in use. In fact, finding information about this mon at all is quite challenging! It was used by Ōno Harufusa in the Battle of Ōsaka.(SH:62) What do you think it is? My […]
Mon of the Week: Ladder
June 7, 2010 - 12:52 am
Tags: Edo period, Sengoku period, ladder, samurai
Posted in Mon | No comments
As time progressed, the daimyō gained power, and the samurai class came into its own in the Sengoku Period, mon became more universally used for identification among samurai, and the variety of mon used increased. While other forms of identification heraldry were used, including a wide variety of giant objects on poles, mon had the […]
