Tsugijiri

[BIG]

Hi, found this about edo samurai manners/ethics, http://edoflourishing.blogspot.de/2016/01/tsujigiri-killings.html

do we have sources about the " Trying One's sword ...".

 

Best Regards

[Shogun8]

Fascinating stuff, Peter! Thanks for sharing.

[Gasam]

Heyas,

 

This practise was described I believe over several pages in Markus Seskos Tameshigiri book. Its on loan now so cannot check but there should be further references there.

[BIG]

Hi, any thoughts about...

 

Int. discusion https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/pmjs/Eqxth8THp7w

 

Best Regards

[Randy McCall]

In Markus Sesko's "Encyclopedia of Japanese Swords", there's a detailed entry on tsujigiri on page 488 which includes historic references (legal and narrative):
 

 

tsujigiri (辻斬り) – Lit. “crossroads killing.” The gruesome practice of bushi testing their swords or fighting skills by attacking random defenceless passers-by, often during night-time. Even men of high rank performed tsujigiri, as we know from the Edo-period Taion Ki (戴恩記) which states that the 13th Ashikaga-shōgun Yoshiteru (足利義輝, 1536-1565) often left his Kyōto residence at night to kill passers-by and that he wrapped his drawn blade in black paper to avoid a glint and reveal him. Although the new Tokugawa-bakufu prohibited tsujigiri in Keichō seven (慶長, 1602), it took a while until this “problem” was under control. For example, the mid-Edo period publication Hachijūō Mukashi Monogatari (八十翁疇昔物語) narrates that in the early days of the new capital Edo there were tsujigiri every night along the road between the residences of Nagasaka Chiyarikurō (長坂血鑓九郎) and Suda Kyū´emon (須田久右衛門) in Banchō (番町, present-day Chiyoda Ward) and the residences of Oguri Han´emon (小栗半右衛門), Mamiya Shichirōbei (間宮 七郎兵衛), and Tsuzuki Mata´emon (都築又右衛門) in Ushigome (牛込, present-day east Shinjuku Ward), which was then 100 ken (~ 181 m) wide and thickly overgrown with grass. By the way, there was also the rumor going around that the young third Tokugawa-shōgun Iemitsu (徳川家光, 1604-1651) secretly sneaked out at night from Edo Castle to perform tsujigiri in the streets of Edo.

 

While I've found  numerous academic references to the 1602 law / edict banning tsujigiri, I've been unable to locate the source document they are drawing from (or at least an English translation thereof).  I'm sure it's out there, but it might take one of our Japanese fluent members to locate it.  As an actual law on the books, it shouldn't be too difficult to locate the edict... the existence of which would definitively prove it was enough of a problem to warrant the creation of such a law.

[BIG]

Read above that the banning was in 1741. Major groups A) ronin B) high class bushi, is an int. thought.

 

Best Regards

[BIG]

Pardon me, the smiley should be a B

 

Best Regards