Sakanoue no Tamuramaro

Sakanoue no Tamuramaro

Sakanoue no Tamuramaro (坂上 田村麻呂, 758 – June 17, 811) was a general and shogun of the early Heian Period of Japan. He was the son of Sakanoue no Karitamaro.^[1]

Military career

Serving Emperor Kammu, he was appointed shogun and given the task of conquering the Emishi (蝦夷征伐 Emishi Seibatsu), a people native to the north of Honshū, which he subjugated. Recent evidence suggests that a migration of Emishi from northern Honshū to Hokkaidō took place sometime between the seventh and eighth centuries, perhaps as a direct result of this policy that pre-dated Tamuramaro's appointment. However, many Emishi remained in the Tōhoku region as subjects of the expanding Japanese Empire, and later established independent Fushu domains. After Emperor Kammu's death, the general continued to serve Emperor Heizei and Emperor Saga as Major Counselor (大納言 dainagon) and Minister of War (兵部卿 Hyōbu-kyō).^[2] He was the second man to given the title of shogun. The first to receive this title was Ōtomo no Otomaro.

It is said that the famous Tanabata festivals and parades of Aomori prefecture (also celebrated in the city of Sendai in Miyagi prefecture), which draw over 3 million people to the prefecture a year, were popularized in remembrance of Sakanoue no Tamuramaro's campaign to subdue the tribal societies then living in Tōhoku. These annual matsuri are called the Nebuta festival in Aomori City and Neputa festival (ねぷた祭り) in Hirosaki City.

Tamuramaro's military successes are commemorated today in autumn matsuri which feature a number of gigantic, specially-constructed, illuminated paper floats. These huge festival structures are colorfully painted with mythical figures; and teams of men carry them through the streets as crowds shout encouragement. Aomori's great nebuta lanterns are said to hark back to Tamuramaro's innovative strategy in that early ninth century campaign. According to legend, the taishogun is remembered for having ordered huge illuminated lanterns to be placed at the top of hills; and when the curious Emishi approached these bright lights to investigate, they were captured and subdued.^[3] Until the mid-1990s the prize awarded for the best float of the parades was called the Tamuramaro Prize. However, there is no historical record that he went farther north than Iwate prefecture.

Tamuramaro's name is linked with payments for construction projects at Kiyomizu Temple (Kiyomizu-dera) in the late 8th century.^[4]

• 811 (Kōnin 2, 3rd month): Tamuramaro died at age 54, to the great regret of Emperor Saga, who expressed his sense of loss by distributing large quantities of silk cloth, cotton cloth and rice in honor of his dead counselor. His bow, arrows, quiver and sword were placed in his coffin by order of the Emperor.^[5]

Tamuramaro is reputedly buried at Shōgun-zuka, and his spirit is said to be guarding Kyoto still; but even if part of that tale is only myth, the recorded final resting place of the old warrior was near the village of Kurusu (Kurusu-mura 栗栖村) in Yamashiro's Uji district.^[5]

Ancestry

According to the Shoku Nihongi, an official historical record, The Sakanoue clan is descended from Emperor Ling of Han China.^[6][7] And Sakaue clan's family tree shows that Tamuramaro is a 14th-generation descendent of Ling.^[8] Other research traces the origins of the Sakanoue clan from the Asian mainland, possibly through Baekje ^[9]

An alternative claim, widely popular among Afrocentrists, comes from an April 1911 issue of Journal of Race Development, in an essay entitled "The Contribution of the Negro to Human Civilization", in which anthropologist Alexander Francis Chamberlain makes a statement (not sourced in the document) that: "And we can cross the whole of Asia and find the Negro again, for when, in far-off Japan, the ancestors of the modern Japanese were making their way northward against the Ainu, the aborigines of that country, the leader of their armies was Sakanouye Tamuramaro, a famous general and a Negro."^[10]

See also

• Tamura clan

Notes

1. Iwao, Seiichi. (2002). Dictionnaire historique du Japon, p. 2329.
2. Varley, H. Paul. (1980). Jinnō Shōtōki, p. 272.
3. Boroff, Nicholas. National Geographic Traveler Japan, p. 156.
4. Kyoto University of Foreign Studies: Japan 101
5. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Annales des empereurs du japon, p. 99.
6. Shoku Nihongi　延暦四年六月の条:右衛士督従三位兼下総守坂上大忌寸苅田麿ら表を上りて言さく、「臣らは、本是れ後漢霊帝の曾孫阿智王の後なり。漢の祚、魏に遷れるとき、阿智王、神牛の教に因りて、出でて帯方に行きて忽ち宝帯の瑞を得たり。
7. "Sakanoue no Karitamaro Drawing His Bow". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
8. 塙 保己一 [Hanawa hokii] 続群書類従 [Zoku Gunsho Ruiju Series] 従十八巻坂上系図 [Volum 18 Sakagami Clan's family tree]
9. http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/yosha/yr/nationalism/Reports_from_early_records.html
10. https://archive.org/details/jstor-29737886

References

• Bornoff, Nicholas. (2005). National Geographic Traveler Japan. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society. ISBN 0-7922-3894-X
• Iwao, Seiichi. (2002). Dictionnaire historique du Japon (with Teizō Iyanaga, Susumu Ishii, Shōichirō Yoshida et al.). Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose. ISBN 978-2-7068-1632-1; OCLC 51096469
• Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō (1652)], Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.
• Varley, H. Paul, ed. (1980). [ Kitabatake Chikafusa (1359)], Jinnō Shōtōki ("A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa" translated by H. Paul Varley). New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-04940-4
• Kameda Takashi 亀田隆之 (1967). Sakanoue no Tamuramaro. Tokyo: Jinbutsu Oraisha 人物往来社.

External links

• Shogun-zuka – Tamuramaro's reputed grave site overlooking Kyoto is at coordinates 35°00′01″N 135°47′16″E / 35.000261°N 135.787655°E