Event Details History of Samurai
An event held at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University detailed the facts, myths, and history of the samurai – the storied warriors of feudal Japan.
“Real Samurai: The True Story Behind the Masks” was held at the Pardee School on Jan. 26. Its speaker was Stephen Turnbull, Professor of Japanese Studies at Leeds, SOAS, and Akita International University.
Samurai armor and swords are among the best known and most spectacular items of military equipment in world history. Their uses appear on numerous painted scrolls, screens and prints, but what was the reality that lay behind this lavish artistic interpretation? In this talk, Turnbull removed the grinning face mask from the armored warrior to expose an unknown world of samurai warfare where loyalty seemed not to exist, where badly made swords broke in battle and where victories were determined not by individual combat between honorable opponents but by volleys of bullets from simple farmers.
Turnbull told many stories to the standing-room only audience, including debunking the other group of supposed contemporary Japanese warriors, the ninja.
“The character in Japanese usually pointed to as the earliest written reference to ninja was in fact an adverb,” Turnbull said. “It referred to moving secretly. The image of the ninja we have in our minds is an invention and a great story.”
The lively and wide-ranging talk touched on the archaeological evidence from Japanese battle sites, the culture of samurai historical reenactment, and discoveries made in ancient maps and woodblock prints.
The talk was sponsored by the Center for the Study of Asia, an affiliated regional studies center of the Pardee School, and the Boston University International History Institute.