Hojo Masako: The Nun Shogun
One of the unexpectedly side effects of writing this book on women warriors* is that I’m accumulating stories of amazing women who don’t fit in the book. Some of them don’t fit the definition I’ve struggled to craft. In some cases, there isn’t enough information available–or at least not enough information available in a language I read.** Or I simply have too many examples of a certain type of warrior to use them all.***
The good news? Lots of blog post material. Which brings us to Hojo Masako, known as the nun shogun. (Sometimes translated as the “nun general”–which is how she landed on my list.)
By Kikuchi Yosai (1781-1878), a Japanese painter known for his monochromatic portraits of historical figures
As the widow of the first Japanese shogun, the mother of two shoguns, and the power behind the “Hojo regency,” Hojo Masako (1157- 1225) shaped the political institutions that would define Japan for seven centuries.
At the end of the Genpei War (1180-85) Minamoto Yoritomo, seized power in Japan. Instead of toppling the ruling emperor from his throne, Yoritomo proclaimed himself the first shogun and created a new institution, the shogunate. Under the rule of the shogunate, the emperor was relegated to a secondary position and Japan was controlled by the military dictator known as the shogun.
Hojo Masako was Yoritomo’s wife. The two met when the thirteen-year-old Yoritomo was exiled to the Izu Peninsula, after his father’s defeat and death in a civil war between rival military clans.**** Masako’s father, who was the head of an unimportant warrior family on the peninsual, became Yoritomo’s guardian, or perhaps more accurately his keeper. There are numerous stories regarding the relationship between Yoritomo and Masako–including sibling rivalry, a runaway marriage, and violent jealousy.***** Many scholars believe that she played an important role in his success. It’s hard to know.
What is clear is that Masako was a powerful figure in Japanese politics after Yoritomo died in a riding accident in 1199.
His eldest son, Yoriie, succeeded him as shogun. Masako took vows as a Buddhist nun–not an unusual step for a widow at the time. But she didn’t remain secluded from the seat of power for long. She became involved in a power struggle between the new shogun’s in-laws and her own family over who would control the young shogun–a struggle that resulted in Yoriie being deposed as shogun, forced to take the tonsure of a Buddhist monk, and murdered about a year later by his own grandfather, Hojo Tokimasa. He was replaced as shogun by his eleven-year-old brother, Sanetomo. Tokimasa was now the real power in Jaapan–the shadow ruler behind a puppet shogun, who ruled behind a puppet emperor.
Two years later, Tokimasa proposed a new candidate for shogun. (Perhaps a pre-teen boy was too hard to manage?) Together Masako and her brother deposed their father and packed him off to a monastery. (They also had the pretender shogun murdered. This should not come as a surprise.) Her brother took over the official position of regent for Sanetomo and the siblings began to systematically destroy every warrior house in Japan that could be a serious competitor for power.
In 1219, Sanetomo was assassinated by his nephew. (In case you’re losing track, his father was the ill-fated Yoriie.) Masako and her brother used it as an excuse to declare martial law. They then arranged for the first of six infant puppet shoguns for whom her brother served as regent–a period known as the Hojo regency. Not surprisingly, none of them survived to take over the reins of power.
Not a role model perhaps, but undoubtedly important.
*I have mentioned that I’m writing a book on women warriors, right? (Cue the manic laughter here)
**When you’re writing a global history of anything you are inevitably dependent on the kindness of strangers secondary sources and the translations of others.
***This is a good problem to have.
****An example of a good act coming back to bite you. Most of the Minamoto allies and their children were executed, as was typical at the time. (Things weren’t much better in Europe. Execution of a defeated opponent and his sons was common. The alternate punishment was blinding and/or castration–making it impossible for said opponent to return to the battlefield or to sire sons who would want revenge. Daughters were often mutilated to take out of the marriage market and thus remove them from the gene pool as well. Nothing like the romantic Middle Ages, eh?) The head of the rival Taira clan chose instead to exile Yoritomo and his brothers. Twenty years later, the Minamoto brothers pulled together an army and kicked Taira butt.
*****Literal violence. In one story, Masako was so jealous of her husband’s interest in another woman that she sent an army to destroy his lover’s house.
From the Archives: The Arabia Steamboat Museum
Yesterday I spent several hours working on a new blog post for today. Quite frankly, I got tangled in the details. By the time I got myself untangled enough to know what I needed to say, I really needed to move on. Because I have a book to finish.
Instead of going dark, I offer you this post from the archives. Enjoy!
The Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City is a private museum. Like all private museums, it’s the result of personal passion. Unlike many private museums, it’s big, professionally designed, and stunning.*
The museum weaves together three separate stories into an exciting whole: life in frontier America, the steamboats that served as the semi-trailers of the nineteenth century, and five friends who banded together to excavate one sunken steamboat.
In the nineteenth century, before the Army Corps of Engineers worked its magic, the Missouri River was as treacherous as a navigable river could be. Civil War journalist** Albert Deane Richardson described the river as “a stream of flowing mud studded with dead tree trunks and broken bars.” Nonetheless, the Missouri was a major trade route for frontier America and a profitable one. A steamboat could pay for itself with a single successful voyage. Just as well, since the average steamboat only lasted five years on “old Misery”. ***
On September 5, 1856, near what is now Kansas City, the steamship Arabia hit a walnut snag that stove in her hull. The ship was lost within minutes. The human passengers all escaped,**** but more than 200 tons of cargo intended for settlements along the river was lost.
Over time, the river shifted, leaving the ship buried forty-five feet deep in what became a farmer’s field. The Arabia was buried but not forgotten. Rumors that the ship held treasure (described as everything from gold coins to good Kentucky bourbon) meant there were numerous attempts to excavate it. For 150 years treaasure seekeers failed because the ship was about 100 feet from the river. Everyone who tried to dig was flooded out. In 1988, five families funded a professional excavation, using pumps to keep the site from flooding and the techniques developed during the Mary Rose excavation to preserve the finds.
Today, the artifacts from their excavation are only one part of the exhibit at the Arabia Steamboat museum. The museum also includes explanations of how steamboats worked, part of the Arabia’s hull, and a fascinating description of the excavation itself If you’re interested in daily life on the frontier, steamboats, or just a good adventure story,***** the Arabia Steamboat Museum is worth a visit.
* Not that I have anything against little museums created with love and imagination on a tight budgett. I’ve spend many happy hours in quirky storefront museums.
** And Union spy.
*** The Corps of Engineers identified 289 steamboat wrecks in the Missouri when they mapped the river in 1897.
**** One poor mule did not.
***** In my case, that would be yes, yes, and yes.
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A traveler’s tip for anyone inclined to come on board the Arabia:
We didn’t know until we got there, but the museum is located in a re-built warehouse near the river. City Market is home to a year-round farmer’s market on the weekends and year-round food-related tenants. If you have foodie inclinations, leave yourself time to shop and eat.
And speaking of camels….
A few weeks ago, or perhaps a few months ago, or at least recently enough that it has stayed in my head, one of the Marginalia asked me about camels.
The short answer is simple: read Richard W. Bulliet’s The Camel and the Wheel. It’s a charming and well-illustrated book that explores the question of why the wheel virtually disappeared in the Middle East sometime between ancient Assyria, when chariots were the hottest military technology around, and the rise of Islam in the seventh century CE. He attributes it to the domestication of the camel, which he argues was a superior mode of transport in desert conditions.
Written long before micro-history became trendy, The Camel and the Wheel is an example of micro-history at its best: using a specific object to illuminate a broad swathe of the human past. Bulliet considers not only the relationship (rivalry?) between pack camels and wheeled vehicles drawn by oxen or horses, but also the complex relationships between the nomadic tribes that historically bred camels and the sedentary peoples with whom they interacted. He discusses the history of camel domestication, the broader question of the process of domesticating a species, the nature of roads and the cultures who build them, trade routes and import duties, the use of camels as draft animals, and the technology of saddles and harnesses. Perhaps my favorite chapter is that one that deals with European and American attempts to use camels in other parts of the world.*
Bulliet sums up the camel as “900 pounds of muscle, hauteur, and, for those who can appreciate it, grace.” He leaves out the nasty habit of spitting.
*As I’ve said many times, I’m interested in the times and places where two cultures meet and change each other.