A humble request

[leanne]

May I enquire of those dear to me, particularly kaifu and jenett if they might be willing to use their powers and knowledge for my purposes?

I am pretty well settled on an idea for a new SCA persona; I am thinking about a 1200s-1210s (Kamakura period) Japanese persona, theoretically from what is now (and was then, more or less, but called Hizen), Saga Prefecture. The interwebs is not being helpful with regards to finding any significant history of Saga in the 1200s; it's all later than that. The random reference to the Matsuratou clan in Wikipedia's Saga Prefecture entry turns up next to nothing on searches except that they might have been pirates; no other clans are listed by name.

I would be very grateful for any help -- not sure where to get started looking, and my inability to read Japanese is something I really, really need to fix one of these days.

Arigatou gozaimasu -- thank you so much. (:

And as a random piece of fun: bits of modern Saga dialect. (:

Comments

[kaifu]

Hmm. Kamakura period Kyushu's most significant place was the port city of Hakata (modern day Fukuoka). Most passing references to the history of Hakata, unfortunately for your case, focus on the late 13th century Mongol invasions, so your best bet is probabaly Bruce Batten's book "Gateway to Japan: Hakata in war and peace, 500-1300" (overview of book on Google books). Reviews seem good, but I haven't read it myself.

Jeffrey Mass is the historian best known for Kamakura-period histories, so you might try looking into his works for general flavoring, but I don't think he has anything specifically on Hizen except as minor mentions in things mostly about the relations between Kyoto and Kamakura.

As for the Matsurato/Matsuura-to, this brief paragraph in the Cambridge History of Japan confirms they were definitely well-known as part of the wako (pirates/traders in the E China Sea).

Other major clans in Kyushu during the Kamakura period included the Kikuchi in Kumamoto Prefecture (formerly Higo), just south of where you're looking; the Shôni who had something to do with commanding the defense against the Mongols and thus appear to have been in that general area a half-century later; the Ôtomo who were in Bungo/Buzen (today's Ôita prefecture on the E side of Kyushu) also defending against Mongols; and the Shimazu in Satsuma (today's Kagoshima prefecture on the S tip of Kyushu).

I hope that helps to start off, at least!

[leanne]

AWESOME. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. Thank you so much!! *hugs* I can definitely use all of that as a starting point. I'm not totally fixated on Saga itself so much as that general area, and am willing to adapt. I'll be looking at Hakata as well.

The general concept behind the character is twofold: I've been told that early Kamakura is the best time period for an onna-bugeisha, which I would prefer to be, and I am totally making up an excuse for my persona to be in "Europe" -- i.e., the Barony of Calafia (yes, we know there was no contact between Japan and Europe at this period; SCA rules require Eastern personae to be visiting European holdings).

At the moment, I'm claiming that my daimyo is concerned about the developing Mongol threat and has sent me to do a preliminary scout of their land holdings. My goodness, do they have land holdings. O_O I am finally out the other side. (;

Thought I suppose if I wanted to be a pirate, I could just have gotten blown *seriously* off-course. (;

I am totally going to go look all of this up. *very happy muppet dance* (: I will be delighted to take more suggestions if you have them, or suggestions/corrections to the persona concept if you've got ideas. If I'm going to do something this far out of SCA-norm, I want to do it *right*, you know? Thanks again! <3

[leanne]

Still poking through stuff. I'm thinking the Shōni family is probably the right choice. The more I look through stuff about Hakata, the more I think it's exactly where my persona should be from. (: Fukuoka and Hakata are COOL, and there's a *ton* of stuff they've found there. (:

[leanne]

Oh! It looks like the Sō clan would be an option too. They mostly had holdings on Tsushima, but they worked for and with the Shōni in the Kamakura period.