Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
approach to life, which took account of the fact that a victory today might be followed by
a defeat tomorrow, and that the more heads one took on the battlefield, the greater the re-
ward from one's general, provided one was on the winning side and survived. Their des-
cendants in the Tokugawa period knew that their status would not change, but were ever
obliged to underline their position by the different attitudes they adopted to superiors and
inferiors, demonstrated by the intricate linguistic system by which respect or lack of it was
expressed. Even today in Japanese one can use different styles of language for the respect-
worthy persons one talks about or addresses, and for the humbler persons that the speaker
andhisgrouprepresent.The
samurai
hadawiderrange,forheusedtoinferiorsalanguage
that underlined his superiority and their low station.
Itwasaconstantfearofallgrades
of samurai
thatcommonerswouldseektoriseabove
their allotted place in the scheme of things, and towards them they showed a particularly
unbending attitude, typified by the strutting walk and haughty glare that swept all from
their path as they went by. Their arrogance was backed by their swords, less used, perhaps,
than modern films would have one believe, but all the same some of the most formidable
cuttingweaponseverdevised:theyhadrazor-sharpbladesandaweightofmetalthatfound
little to resist them in a human body, and a commoner knew better than to offer an imper-
tinence to a
samurai,
for he risked his life in doing so. If the
samurai
were the only class
that had the right to wear two swords, equally they were the only ones with two names,
being the possessors of an honored family name as well as their personal ones. Everything
possible emphasized their privileged position in a society designed to maintain it, and in
which the cleavage was between the
samurai
on the one hand, and all the rest—farmers,
merchants and skilled workers—on the other.
Two examples of
mon,
Japanese family crests. On the left is a mandarin orange and on the
right a three-leaf hollyhock
