Miniature Samurai figurines,
all displayed in various styles and poses with various weapons, represent part
of Japan’s wonderful history. When you collect these Japanese warrior figurines
don’t you want to know the values and background stories each one possesses?
Let’s plunge into a fascinating time when Samurais helped control Japan and
learn about these almost mythical figures.
The samurais, members of a powerful military caste in feudal Japan, began as provincial warriors before rising to power in the 12th century.
Samurai Warrior in Armor
During the Heian period from 794 to 1192, the members of the military gradually became more powerful than the court officials, and eventually they took control of the whole government. In 1192, a military leader named Minamoto Yoritomo had the Emperor appointed him shogun. The word “shogun” is the title that was granted by the Emperor to the country’s top military commander. For 700 years after that, Japan was ruled mainly by successions of shoguns, whose titles were usually passed on from father to son. The final shoguns were those of the Tokugawa clan, who came to power in 1603 and ruled until 1868.
Japanese Pagodar
The shoguns imposed a strict class system where the samurai, the warriors, were at the top, followed by farmers, then artisans and finally merchants. Under the shoguns there were lords with the title of “daimyo”, each of who ruled a part of Japan. In 1868 the fifteenth Tokugawa shogun, Yoshinobu, was forced to give up his position and return his power to the Emperor’s court. The Emperor moved to what would later become Tokyo and swept away most of the system established by the shogunate.
Samurais were not only men, but also women. An “Onna-bugeisha” was a type of female warrior belonging to the Japanese nobility. Many women engaged in battle, commonly alongside samurai men. They were members of the samurai class in feudal Japan and were trained in the use of weapons to protect their household, family, and honor in times of war.
Japan isolationism let to creations of a lot of unique weapons used by Samurais. We will look into some of these weapons in next blog. If interested in seeing samurai’s figurines, look at our collection http://ow.ly/DjTX301vqeD at Lavky.com.
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