Japanese Matchlock Myths

[RAEDWALD]

Apologies of this has been posted before but I could find no trace. It gives a view that popular ideas about the matchlock in Japan are mythological and suggest alternatives in context of Japanese history. I do like, in the first comment, the reference to Japanese pirates. Contrary to laws about cutting off contact with the outside world Japanese pirates travelled freely abroad in south east Asia.Even being employed on occasion by the Honourable East India Company as guards on their trading trips.

I have nothing to offer to back up the ‘myths’ nor the debunking but it makes sense to me.

https://rekishinihon.com/2021/02/01/japanese-matchlock-myths-debunked/

 

[springfield art]

That site is amazing! I was always fascinated by the dichotomy, of the fine manners and arts of the Japanese and their brutality during WW2. e.g.; the Rape of Nanking and treatment of prisoners, etc. If they believed in omens, the Fat Man and Little Boy were ones they should have seen coming. BTW; be sure to see the film "Oppenheimer".

 

[Codger Craig Wilcox]

I thank you for the link to that very interesting website.
I've visited Japan several times, and thoroughly enjoyed each visit. I was quite surprised on my first visit, in September of 1958.
We had lived in the Philippines 1956-58 - Dad was a Naval officer, so we kind of toured the world a time or three.
In the Philippines, scarce 10 years post-WW II, there was "considerable" (!!!) animosity toward the Japanese. Theirs had been a very violent occupation.
Dad and I had once spent some time in northern Luzon with a stone-age tribe. The fellow we stayed with had a shelf of skulls, all of Japanese officers, complete with rank badge by each skull - he had slain each with his trusty spear, and kept the skulls as trophies.
As a result, when we went to spend about a month in Japan, I was expecting, well, a very cruel and mean-spirited populace.
It was a pleasant surprise to find how warm and welcoming the actual Japanese were, what a long history they had, and what good food they prepared.
One museum, close to Kyoto, I think, did have a display of early firearms, including a large variety of matchlock guns, which were very new to me.

 

[82ndPA]

Apologies of this has been posted before but I could find no trace. It gives a view that popular ideas about the matchlock in Japan are mythological and suggest alternatives in context of Japanese history. I do like, in the first comment, the reference to Japanese pirates. Contrary to laws about cutting off contact with the outside world Japanese pirates travelled freely abroad in south east Asia.Even being employed on occasion by the Honourable East India Company as guards on their trading trips.

I have nothing to offer to back up the ‘myths’ nor the debunking but it makes sense to me.

https://rekishinihon.com/2021/02/01/japanese-matchlock-myths-debunked/

As it happens, there's a new Forgotten Weapons video up today on Japanese matchlocks;

 

[BillinOregon]

Thank you for that link Raedwald. Wonderful stuff. I have even asked to to join the Japanese Matchlock Facebook study group.

 

[Sam squanch]

My friends wife is South Korean. They still hate the Japanese to this day…..