Yamada Asaemon

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Yamada Asaemon ( Japanese 山田 浅 右衛門 ) was the name of the heads of the Japanese Yamada family, who were in the service of the central government ( Shogunate ) as sword inspectors and executioners during the Edo period .

prehistory

As early as the 16th century there were several people known for their testing technology such as the general Tani Moriyoshi ( 谷 衛 好 ) and his son Moritomo ( 衛 友 ). As the Jesuit Luís Fróis explained a treatise on the differences between Japan and Europe in 1585, checking swords for their sharpness did not take place on animals, but on people. Sometimes a certification was engraved on the tang (Japanese Nakago ). In the early 17th century, Nakagawa Saheita Shigeyoshi ( 中 川 左 平 太重 良 , died 1653), a follower of the Tokugawa with the rank of Hatamoto, a name with his skills.

However, the history of sword testing ( tameshigiri様 斬 , literally experimental cut) as a profession does not begin until Yamano Eikyū ( 山野 永久 , d. 1667), a student of Nakagawa. He was also involved in executions and is said to have beheaded over 6000 convicts as an executioner in Edo (now Tokyo) . His son Kanjūrō ​​( 勘 十郎 ) became in 1685 "governmental cut tester " ( o-tameshi-goyō 御 様 御用 ) and as such was also responsible for beheading ( kubikiri 首 斬 り ). After Kanjūrō's death, the office went to his son. After a while, because of an eye problem, he proposed that his younger brother be made an adoptive son and successor, but his request was rejected, so that the family resigned from the government.

As a result, students of the Yamano took over their work. One of them was the abandoned samurai Yamada Aseomon Sadatake ( 山田 浅 右衛門 貞 武 , 1657-1716). Since his competitors were gradually eliminated due to illness etc., he asked in 1736 for permission to pass on his skills to his son as a prospective successor. The request was granted and from now on only the Yamada family held this office in Edo. For an abandoned samurai ( rōnin ) this was an extraordinary career leap . However, he received no fief.

In government service

The Yamada family trained a considerable number of students to act in place of their master if necessary. Often no suitable successor could be found among the sons of the family, so one of these students was adopted. There were not a few of them from high-ranking samurai families. Since the Yamadas had no fiefs and thus no income from travel , they were dependent on other sources of livelihood. The direct remuneration by the government and by sovereigns, for whom they occasionally worked, remained modest. The main source of income was the bodies of the executed, which were officially given to them. These were used to check the sharpness of new swords. Sometimes there were samurai who wanted to try out their swords themselves and had to buy the corpse for this purpose. The removal of liver, brain and bile, which were incorporated into pills, also proved to be profitable. These "Yamada pills" ( Yamada-gan 山田 丸 ), "Asaemon pills" ( Asaemon-gan 浅 右衛門 丸 ), "Human gall pills" ( Jintan-gan 人 胆 丸 ), etc., have been valued nationwide.

After the fall of the Tokugawa in 1868, Yamada Asaemon (8th generation) and his brother joined the new Meiji government as executioners . But as early as 1870, sword testing on corpses and the removal of organs were banned. In 1880 execution by hanging was introduced . Two years later, beheading was abolished. In 1882 the last Yamada resigned from government service.

reception

The eerily fascinating figure of Yamada Asaemon appears again and again in films, television dramas, novels and manga . A ten-volume manga published by Koike Kazuo even appeared in an English edition (Samurai Executioner. Dark Horse Comics).

Fonts

  • Yamada, Asaemon: Tōken oshikata ( 刀 剣 押 形 sword engravings). Manuscript, 19th century ( DOI = 10.11501 / 2590576 )
  • Yamada, Asaemon: Tōken oshikata zokätze ( 刀 剣 押 形 続 編 sword engravings continued). Manuscript, 19th century ( DOI = 10.11501 / 2553023 )
  • Yamada, Asaemon Yoshimutsu: Kokin kaji bikō - Inukai mokudō chūkibon . Tōkyō: Yūzankaku Shuppan, 1975 ( 浅 右衛門 吉 睦 著 、 福永 酔 剣 解説 『古今 鍛冶 備考 ー 犬 犬 養 木 ​​堂 注 記 本』 雄 山 閣 出版 )

literature

  • Ujiie, Mikito: Ō-Edo shitaikō - Hitokiri Asaemon no jidai . Tōkyō: Heibonsha Shinsho, 2009 (8th edition) ( 氏 家 幹 人 『大江 戸 死 体 考 - 人 斬 り 浅 右衛門 の 時代』 平凡 社 新書 ) ISBN 978-4582850161
  • Yokokura, Shinji: Edo machibugyō . Tokyo: Yūzankaku Shuppan ( 横 倉 辰 次 『江 戸 町 奉行』 雄 山 閣 出版 ) ISBN 4-639-01805-3

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Luís Fróis: Tratado em que se contêm muito sucinta e abreviadamente algumas contradições e diferenças de costumes entre a gente de Europa e esta província de Japão (Printed: Kulturgegensätze Europa-Japan (1585) First, critical edition of the handwritten-text in the Biblioteca de la Académia de la História in Madrid with German translation, introduction and comments by Josef Franz Schütte. Tokyo, 1955.)
  2. ↑ For the tameshigiri s. Ujiie, pp. 49-91
  3. ↑ To comfort the souls of the executed, he founded the Eikyū Temple (Eikyū-ji), which still exists today.
  4. ↑ Ujiie, pp. 96-99
  5. ↑ Ujiie, pp. 100-106
  6. ↑ Ujiie, pp. 170-211
  7. ↑ Ujiie, pp. 130-168
  8. ↑ This refers to the engravings made on the tang of the swords after cutting tests.
Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Yamada is the family name, Asaemon the first name.