Secret Weapons of Jujutsu. Don Cunningham

jutte-jutsu (truncheon art) to the Shinto Muso-ryu curriculum.

      In more recent years, the Japanese police modified many of the Ikkaku-ryu jutte-jutsu techniques for their keibo-jutsu (police baton art) training. Although the basic techniques are similar, the targets and applications of keibo-jutsu techniques have been modified slightly to enable police officers to more effectively control a suspect with minimum injury, rather than to put the individual down at any cost.

      Japanese feudal social structure

      Feudal Japan was theoretically ruled by the emperor, considered a direct descendant of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Ornikami. An extensive hereditary aristocracy of nobles formed the Imperial Court, although the emperor and his nobles have held no real governing power for many centuries. Their position was more symbolic. Their principal function was to conduct and take part in various religious rituals.

      The real rulers were the military class, sometimes referred to as bushi. The various clans were led by daimyo and ruled by the shogun. The daimyo held total power over their individual domains, answering only to the shogunate. Among the daimyo, there were various ranks, mostly related to whether their clan had directly supported Tokugawa Ieyasu and his forces during his struggle to unite Japan. Within each domain, the individual daimyo ruled over a varying number of direct retainers, which often included a very complicated hierarchy within their own samurai ranks resulting in various status levels. The Tokugawa clan’s own direct retainers, called hatamoto or literally “banner men,” also held many significant positions within the shogunate, many equal in rank to the daimyo.

      Below the warrior or bushi class, were the farmers. The largest group in Japan, the peasants were considered second in class only to the samurai because they provided the crops and livestock necessary to feed the country’s population.

      Following the farmers, craftsmen and artisans formed the third tier of the feudal Japanese caste system. They were held in nominal favor since they produced the tools and utensils needed by the farmers and the weapons and associated decorations required by the bushi.

      The fourth tier consisted of merchants, who were looked down upon because they essentially created nothing while basically living off the produce of others. Although they were considered fairly low on the social structure, the merchant class owned most of the actual property by the nineteenth century. Many became bankers, financing not only other merchant ventures, but also lending money to the members of the samurai class. As the richest members of the society, they frequently bought titles or married into samurai families to improve their status.

      Members of the samurai class had for many years considered financial issues as beneath their dignity and even disdained the handling of money. This extended to having their servants actually pay for all necessities to avoid contact with coins. Physically touching money was considered unclean, and most samurai would wrap their coins in paper before presenting them for payment to another.

      As a result, many samurai were not very adept at dealing with fiscal issues and often found themselves in serious financial straits. Ironically, many of their rights and power, including the carrying of weapons, were often circumscribed by the bankers and money lenders from the merchant class.

      The lowest class consisted of the eta, or “outcasts” which were basically considered non-humans. Even within this group existed a varied ranking system, from those who were temporarily classed as outcasts due to their circumstances, such as convicted petty criminals, to those who were hereditary and permanent pariahs in the rigid feudal Japanese social order.

      Vendettas and reprisals

      Due to their relatively high status within the complicated caste system, the samurai held nearly total power over those below them. According to Japanese law during the feudal period, members of the samurai class generally had the right to cut down anyone of lower station if offended in any manner. While they may not have faced legal entanglements, the reality was that this extreme act could cause serious repercussions if their right was used indiscriminately.

      Killing another samurai, even a much lower ranking bushi, could easily spark a clan war, resulting in many members of both houses being killed. Such action would endanger any other members of the samurai’s clan. No self-respecting samurai would dare put his fellow clan members in such a dangerous position without considering the possible consequences. Slaying any individual, regardless of class, might also initiate a vendetta by other members of the victim’s family, many of which were known to last centuries, being passed from generation to generation. Japanese during this period considered revenge a very important legal right.

      Forty-seven ronin

      It was such an impetuous and foolhardy act that resulted in one of the most famous of Japanese legends. The true story of the forty-seven ronin is probably the best-known story of the valor and ideals of Japan’s samurai. In 1701, Lord Asano Nagamori, a brash young daimyo from Ako, was ordered to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) and his clan abolished, thus setting the stage for the bloodiest vendetta in Japan’s history known as the forty-seven ronin incident. Asano’s offense was drawing his short sword and attacking the shogun’s chief of protocol, Kira Yoshinaka, during preparations for an official reception of an imperial envoy from Kyoto.

      Various reasons are given for the shogun’s harsh sentencing of Lord Asano. Most historians agree that it was for drawing his short sword and wounding Yoshinaka. In one account, though, after the initial attack failed, Lord Asano threw his wakazashi at the chief of protocol, damaging a lacquered screen. Ultimately, though, it was Lord Asano’s obvious disregard for prohibitions against drawing one’s sword within the palace grounds that sealed his fate.