Talk:Yasuke

Requested removal of possible misattributed quote claiming to be from the Shinchō Kōki

For the past two to three weeks, @Eirikr and I have been working hard to verify the origin of a quote mentioned to be from the Shinchō Kōki[1] (transcription by editor Kondō Heijō, Editor's notes here talking about Oze Hoan as mentioned below[2]) on the Yasuke article, as it had been noticeably missing from the J.S.A Eliasonas and J.P Lamers Academic Translation of the Shinchō Kōki.[3] The missing quote is as follows:

然に彼黒坊被成御扶持、名をハ号弥助と、さや巻之のし付幷私宅等迄被仰付、依時御道具なともたさせられ候、

A black man was taken on as a vassal by Nobunaga-sama and received a stipend. His name was decided to be Yasuke. He was also given a short sword and a house. He was sometimes made to carry Nobunaga-sama's tools.

This omission had caught my interest, so I decided to work with Eirikr for possible leads on where this quote came from. From what we could discern, the source of the claimed quote originates from Hiraku Kaneko's book, "The History of Oda Nobunaga: Beyond the Shinchoki" (織田信長という歴史　『信長記』の彼方へ』、勉誠出版、2009年、311-312頁). Unfortunately, we are unable to gain access to this book, so if any editors here have access to it to verify the origin of this quote, please contribute as necessary.

That being said, we made sure to check other avenues such as the Shincho-ki, which is NOT the Shinchō Kōki. The Shincho-ki (or commonly known as Nobunaga-ki) was written by Oze Hoan, a Confucian scholar who was notably plagiarizing Ota Gyuichi's Shinchō Kōki by romanticizing the events or even making entire fabrications (J.S.A Eliasonas and J.P Lamers talks about this in their introductory page). So when we checked Hoan's Shincho-ki,[4][5] the quote was also missing. We had also checked for the Azuchi Nikki, which was in possession of the Maeda clan (we could not find a Maeda version of Shinchō Kōki). @Eirikr states his findings as follows:

I did find mention online that the Maeda manuscript is also called the 安土日記 / Azuchi Nikki, which is indeed listed on the JA WP page for the Shinchō Kōki, at w:ja:信長公記#信長公記#諸本と刊本. While the name 前田 / Maeda doesn't appear anywhere on that page, nor are there any links for the Azuchi Nikki entry there, there is a JA WP page for the w:ja:尊経閣文庫 / Sonkeikaku Bunko, the library that has the manuscript — and if this other page is correct, that library belongs to the Maeda family. So this Azuchi Nikki is very likely the one that ParallelPain mentions and (presumably for that first excerpt) quotes from.

The description of the Azuchi Nikki in the listing at w:ja:信長公記#信長公記#諸本と刊本 says:

巻11・12のみの残闕本であるが、信長を「上様」とし、後の刊本には存在しない記述もあるなど原初の信長公記であると見られている

This is an incomplete work [bits are missing] of only 11-12 volumes, but it calls Nobunaga 上様 (ue-sama [literally "honorable superior", like "lord" in imperial, shogun, or other nobility contexts]), and it includes episodes that don't exist in later printed editions, among other things, and this is viewed as being the original version of the Shinchō Kōki.

That description is sourced to page 4 of the 2018 Japanese book 『信長公記 ―戦国覇者の一級史料』 ("Shinchō Kōki — Primary Historical Sources on the Supreme Ruler of the Sengoku Period"), written by 和田裕弘 / Yasuhiro Wada, published by w:ja:中央公論新社 (Chūō Kōron Shinsha, literally "Central Public-Opinion New-Company"), ISBN 9784121025036. Google Books has it here (https://www.google.com/books/edition/%E4%BF%A1%E9%95%B7%E5%85%AC%E8%A8%98/pQ3MugEACAAJ?hl=en), but without any preview, so we cannot easily confirm the quote from page 4. That said, this seems to be roughly corroborated by other things I'm finding online, such as this page that talks about the Azuchi Nikki (https://www1.asitaka.com/nikki/index.htm). However, that page also describes this as a record of Nobunaga's doings during the span of 天正６年１月１日～天正７年８月６日, or Jan 1, 1578 through Aug 6, 1579 — too early for any mention of Yasuke... ??? That also seems far too short for the description in Kondō's comments below, of a work of some 16 volumes.

He also added this:

One problem with the Azuchi Nikki is that there is also an Azuchi Ki (same titling confusion as we have with Shinchō Kōki and Shinchō Ki). Another problem is that there seem to be multiple different documents / sets of documents called the Azuchi Nikki, as that one website describes "an incomplete work of only 11-12 volumes"; meanwhile, Kondō's colophon describes his source as 16-some volumes. Quite what this Azuchi Nikki is, and getting access to that (or those) text(s), would help immensely.

If anyone had access to these documents as well, it would help immensely as we could not find them. But if what is said true about Azuchi Nikki, it would not cover the period where Yasuke was involved. Accessing the Azuchi Ki would also help too.

So far, we're turning up empty handed, as we are unable to find the quote anywhere. The only lead we have is from Hiraku Kaneko, which his book is currently unavailable to us. What we can say for sure is that the quote is not in the Shinchō Kōki that we have access to, nor any mention of his name (tagging 弥助 in the following sources turned up names of unrelated individuals, way before Yasuke arrived). As far as we are concerned, the quote is currently unverifiable.

If we are unable to verify the origin of this quote, I request that it be removed from the article as it is a misattribution of its cited source. Hexenakte (talk) 01:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

So, you can't find anything and don't have the book, so you're claiming it needs to be removed and is misattributed just because you personally can't find anything? How many times does it need to be brought up that what you, an editor of Wikipedia, thinks is irrelevant? Hiraku Kaneko is the source. Hiraku Kaneko is actually relevant and an academic scholar on literally this exact period of history. Your opinion on Hiraku Kaneko's book, that you admit to not even being able to look at, is similarly irrelevant. You are not a source. Silverseren^C 01:53, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Please read what I posted, this is not a personal opinion, do not accuse me of doing as such. We have looked for the listed sources and practiced due diligence in being as thorough as possible with our search, and could not find them, and no one else has been able to provide the sources, so they currently stand as unverifiable. We looked at the Shinchō Kōki itself (both source text and J.S.A Eliasonas and J.P Lamers Academic Translation), the Hoan Shincho-ki (Nobunaga-ki), and mentions of both the Azuchi Nikki and Azuchi Ki, which do not appear to be accessible at the moment (according to ParallelPain's claims and source on the quote, it was missing there as well). If you have Kaneko's book on hand, by all means I ask for you to post it so we can verify it's origin.

The only reason for the request is because the quote is misattributed and unverifiable on where it originated from, we could get a better idea where by getting Kaneko's book. But the quote is not from the Shinchō Kōki. It is possible it is from another manuscript, and Kaneko specifies it as the Shinchoki, and we could not find the quote in Hoan's Shincho-ki, so please provide other leads if you have them. Accusing me of conducting OR is not productive to the matter at hand, I ask that you practice due diligence as Eirikr and I have.

To reiterate, I am asking for help from other editors here to see if they could find access to these sources. If we can't get the sources, we can't verify the quote's existence. Hexenakte (talk) 02:05, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

According to this tweet from Japanese user @laymans8 (who made this highly-viewed thread debunking claims about Yasuke), he has not been able to confirm the existence or non-existence of this quote because: "There are several different versions of the Shinchō Koki but these accounts are housed in the Sonkeikaku Bunko collection, which is not open to the public, so it is necessary to check the secondary historical sources that introduce them."

While I understand the need to check by ourselves, I think we'll have to trust secondary sources for this one.

Remember: "Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth".

I ordered the two books mentioned, might take some time to get to Europe. Thibaut (talk) 06:43, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time and resources to solve this problem with us. It is important to know a few key factors to keep in mind: What Kaneko claims, the source text, and where does he claim it is from, since there seems to be a bit of confusion on whether it's referred to as the Shinchō Kōki or the Shincho-ki, which the title of his book and according to this[6] (which also talks about Kaneko's review of Lockley's work, however I could not find his actual review, if anyone has a link to it it would be greatly appreciated) it's reaffirmed to be referring to the Shincho-ki, so it is important to know what document he is specifically referring to.

But yes, we are here to verify the quote, right now that isn't possible at the moment but hopefully it can be once we get our hands on his book. Hexenakte (talk) 14:49, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

@Thibaut — Chiming in to say thank you for ordering the books. Also to ask, which books? I believe one of them might be Kaneko Hiraku's 「織田信長という歴史　『信長記』の彼方へ」, but I'm not sure what the other one would be? (I've been considering getting one or two titles here myself, but it might be best if I don't duplicate others' efforts.) Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 16:56, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

The only other book I mentioned was the J.S.A Eliasonas and J.P Lamers book, which I assume is what he meant. I have the book myself so if needed I can provide quotes from it. Hexenakte (talk) 16:58, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

No problem. Second one is "信長公記 ―戦国覇者の一級史料". Thibaut (talk) 17:04, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh that's perfect, thanks again. Hexenakte (talk) 17:08, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Here are the requested pages.

I also included the table of contents and the first page of the first chapter called "序章 『信長記』とは何か" where Hiraku Kaneko explains/define what 『信長記』 and 『信長公記』 are.

If you need the full chapter, please email me. Thibaut (talk) 12:39, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the pages Thibaut, I'm gonna to take a look at them and see what I can get out of it, but I feel like it could be of greater use to @Eirikr since he is more familiar with the language than I am. Appreciate the help you've been giving us. Hexenakte (talk) 00:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Here's the transcript of the relevant quote in Hiraku Kaneko's book, p. 311:

「◎巻十四

二月三日、きりしたん国より黒坊[主]まいり[参]候、[年之]齢廿六七と相見へ[え]、惣之身之黒キ事牛之こと[如]く、彼男器量すく[如]やかにて[器量也]、しかも強力十[之]人に勝れ/たる由候、伴天連召列参、御礼申上候、誠以御威光古今不及承、三国之名物又かやう[様]に珍寄[奇]之者[共余多]拝見仕候[也]、然に彼黒坊被成御扶持、名をハ号弥助と、さや巻之のし付幷私宅等迄被仰
付、依時道具なともたさせられ候、(二月二十三日条)扶持」

I hope Eirkir or someone else can translate this excerpt accurately. I see that the words "扶持" and "私宅" are present.

In page 312-313, Kaneko states something that might be of interest here:

「信長と南蛮文化との接触 という場面でよく取りあげられる、有名な黒人の挿話について、宣教師 (ヴァリニャーノ)から信長に進上された黒人の名前を弥助とし、屋敷などもあたえられたと書くのは尊経閣本のみで 興味深い (図版8)。 ただこれにしても、 黒人の名前を弥介とする一次史料「家忠日記』天正十年四月十九日条(「上様御ふち之大うす進上申候くろ男、御つれ候、身ハミノコトク、タケハ六尺二分、名ハ弥介と云」)に依拠した創作という見方も不可能ではない。しかしながら、右に掲げたすべての増補記事を書写過程でつけ加えられた創作 として無視 してしまうこともむずかしいに違いない。 とりわけ巻五冒頭の記事のうち二月十三日条の鹿狩記事など、表向きというよりむしろプライベートな信長の行動を記述 した記録という意味で、逆に真実味を帯びているといえないだろうか。」

Thibaut (talk) 17:22, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

From a quick analysis from the excerpt you gave out, a few key points I want to point out:

There might be a misunderstanding from the word Kaneko uses (屋敷) could be misinterpreted to mean "mansion" and this was evident when I put it through a machine translation, but the word also refers to residence, estate, etc., and when checking kotobank,[7] it seems to refer to a main residence, as a proper house. However, it doesn't match the same kanji used in the transcript above (私宅), Eirikr might provide context on this matter.

On another note, he does point out Ietada's diary, which does mention a stipend (and I agree with this point), but he also states that this manuscript may have been an interpretation on Ietada's diary that gave the additional information such as items such as the sayamaki (wakizashi without a tsuba) and private residence as well as his role as carrying Nobunaga's tools (whatever that could mean), so it is difficult to tell whether this is reliable if this is the case. If there is additional context from Kaneko about this it would be appreciated if it were provided.

That being said, while he does say we shouldn't dismiss it outright, he does frame it as a problematic entry (from what I could tell). Eirikr might provide some more insight.

Edit: Kaneko also mentions a deer hunt that Nobunaga participated in that selected excerpt, if we could see that excerpt that might be relevant to the discussion at hand. Hexenakte (talk) 18:48, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

@Thibaut, @Hexenakte, thank you both for your contributions here today. I have read them with interest.

I would love to reply more fully, including a rendering into English of both the quoted primary source text and the Professor's commentary, but I am under the gun on a couple projects in real life and have already overextended my time budget for Wikipedia. ご了承ください / thank you for your understanding. 😄 I will get back to this thread some time in the next few days. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:06, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I didn't understand if you managed to verify the quotation. If you did, please add the correct reference. In the meantime, I'm tagging the quotation with "failed verification" because the cited source does not support it (as far as I can undestand from the google translation). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:55, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, has the quote been verified or not? Could you please provide a reference? Otherwise, if it has never been published before, either in Japanese or in English, we'll have to remove it and use Lockley's article in Britannica to support that Ōta states that Nobunaga made Yasuke a vassal, giving him a house, servants, a sword, and a stipend [8]. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 19:56, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

pinging @Eirikr Thibaut (talk) 20:07, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Eirikr still has to go through Kaneko's book, remember WP:DEADLINE, the issue has not been forgotten. Hexenakte (talk) 20:12, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you all for the recent pings.

@Gitz6666, while I hadn't planned on diving into Kaneko right away, I do have the page number thanks to @Thibaut's earlier postings, so I'd be happy to see what that section of the book has to say.

That said, I'm not at my desk and don't have the book to hand at the moment. I should probably be able to read the relevant pages and post on the details tomorrow or Friday. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Another source not yet mentioned

This is another source that does not seem to be mentioned in the archives or RfC: "Christian–Muslim Relations in China and Japan in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries" by James Harry Morris

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2017.1401797

The author's page: https://w-rdb.waseda.jp/html/100003282_en.html You can see he mainly deals in Japanese history and has written for multiple journals.

The journal is called Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations and appears to be affiliated with University of Birmingham: https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/en/activities/islam-and-christian-muslim-relations-journal (the page seemingly incorrectly states that the journal began publishing in 2018 when seems to go back to 1990.)

Here is the relevant quote on page 40:

Despite this, there is one potential Muslim who came to prominence during the period, Yasuke 弥助, the servant of the Visitor to Japan, Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606), and later retainer of Oda Nobunaga 織田信長 (1534–1582). Jesuit historian François Solier (1558–1638) describes Yasuke in his Histoire ecclésiastique des isles et royaumes du Japon (1627) as the Moorish servant of Valignano, who had come with him from India but originally hailed from Mozambique, whose people are properly described as kuffār (plural of Ar. kāfir, unbeliever). 

The author does not go into detail about the Samurai issue but I think it is clear that he believes that Yasuke was only a retainer as he goes into detail about the origins of Yasuke and quotes Lockley later in the page. Being that the article is about the status of Muslims in Japan it would be strange to leave out the fact that a potential Muslim was a Samurai if he believed that was the case while also mis-attributing his title as simply "retainer," which, although true of Samurai, is misleading. And being that he quotes from primary and secondary sources, including Lockley, it seems unlikely that he would have not seen the claim that he was a Samurai (based on his publication history I wouldn't be surprised if he had heard of Yasuke before writing this paper). Then as for why he still does not mention it to reject it, that may be because the article does not go into too much detail about him. This does not seem to be an issue though being that he still says more about Yasuke than Atkins, and we use him as a source currently. Quantitatively there are 550 words from Morris about Yasuke vs. 258 from Atkins and qualitatively Morris cites multiple primary sources including Histoire ecclésiastique des isles et royaumes du Japon from Solier, Lourenço Mexia, and the diary of Matsudaira Ietada, as well a secondaries like Lockley. Atkins groups Yasuke together with Will Adams while Morris treats Yasuke individually. Additionally, Atkins' book appears to be written for laymen and Morris' work is published in a journal. Morris' work appears to be the only one that has inline citations between Atkins, Lockley and Morris (correct me if I am wrong here). Being that the main reasoning being the RfC was that "since there have been no reliable sources furnished which contest the status of Yasuke as a samurai, it would be a violation of NPOV to depict it as contested," I feel it makes sense to mention this source here as the way I read it it does contest that claim.

Ping @Eirikr as you may find this interesting. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 05:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The core notion of the RfC was that there would need to exist a secondary source which specifically makes a point of saying Yasuke was not a samurai. Being a retainer in my understanding is separate from being or not being a samurai. However, the book is a really good find and could be used with attribution to write about Yasuke's role in respect to Nobunaga. SmallMender (talk) 08:08, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

You are right. While the resolution of the RfC itself does not state that other sources would have to explicitly state that Yasuke was not a Samurai, the point of other sources only describing Yasuke as a retainer seems to already have been brought up in the RfC, and it seems like that was not an accepted point being that the RfC does not mention it. It was a shame I was not researching this topic when the RfC was still active, as I don't agree with that assessment. Saying Yasuke was a retainer seems to me to be saying he was not a Samurai. Otherwise why not say that? I think that does contest that notion. As Lockley himself said, there is debate about whether Yasuke was a Samurai or not, and we know at least that he was a retainer. If a source only says he was a retainer that would appear to me as taking the latter side of the argument. Or taking the side that there is not enough information. I think the RfC is also disadvantaged in that at the time the commenters did not have the quote from Lockley that there is debate about whether Yasuke was a Samurai, with some saying he was and some saying he was only a retainer. To me that recontextualizes those that simply state he was retainer, especially sources like Morris that had access to and read Lockley's view. Being that that is one of the two sides of the debate, it seems reasonable that a source that 1. discusses Yasuke at some detail 2. quotes Lockley, and 3. describes Yasuke as only a retainer can be said to be contesting Lockley's view. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 08:45, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

On a personal ground, I also do not think the RfC was phrased and handled correctly as expecting sources to provide confirmation of a negative claim is a logical fallacy, on top of an over-reliance on tertiary sources which show signs of Circular reporting - traced to a single secondary source or its author. However, that ship has sailed.

Regarding Lockley, I think his claims across multiple items of academic and semi-academic work, including interviews, are logically in conflict. This is not to undermine his competency, but it makes it problematic for stating these claims in the article. For instance, in one of his written works (in Japanese) he firmly dismisses the notion that Yasuke could have carried Nobunaga's head away from Honnou-ji, even mentioning the source of the original claim is not reliable, however in the interview for TIME he affirms that notion and uses tradition of the Oda family as reference. It is not clear what brought upon the change in opinion, for instance.

What I think would help the Yasuke discussion:

- Have a separate section in the Yasuke article documenting with attribution the various roles Yasuke could have played in relation to Nobunaga

- Tidy up the Samurai article and hopefully split it into a general samurai article and one dedicated to the samurai nobility, considering there are multiple threads in the Talk section which discuss the bushi vs samurai dichotomy SmallMender (talk) 09:55, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Regarding The core notion of the RfC was that there would need to exist a secondary source which specifically makes a point of saying Yasuke was not a samurai, this view aligns poorly with WP:NPOV, which requires that articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources (emphasis added). If a view point does not appear in the predominance of sources, it should not be given disproportionate prominence; whether it is directly contradicted or not.

For comparison, the view that Yasuke was originally a Sudanese Dinka cattle man is a minority view which appears in Lockley (& Girard)'s works. That view should not be given undue prominence; despite an absence of sources which explicitly describe Yasuke as "not Dinka". Rotary Engine ^talk 10:32, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Re: Tidy up the Samurai article and hopefully split it into ...; wikt:samurai is an English loanword borrowed from Japanese "侍", and has a plain English meaning separate and distinct from the Japanese. Our en.Wikipedia article on that topic, and use of that loanword, should reflect the English meaning. Rotary Engine ^talk 10:43, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the second point - the reason I suggested tidying up the Samurai article and splitting it into two is because multiple historical sources use the word "samurai" to mean 2 different things, even within the same source. The Japanese Wikipedia uses a similar distinction for bushi and samurai. The issue was raised over the years by several editors already, but so far the suggestion was only to disambiguate within a single article or without specific suggestions from what I have read so far. SmallMender (talk) 10:59, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Appreciate the reply, and the intent. I will have a look at Talk:Samurai and may comment or respond there. Rotary Engine ^talk 13:27, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately Saying Yasuke was a retainer seems to me to be saying he was not a Samurai. Otherwise why not say that? I think that does contest that notion is original research. Per WP:NOR, we can't really represent Morris as refuting Yasuke as a samurai when he doesn't explicitly do so. Choosing to use retainer while citing a source that refers to him as a samurai does not mean that we can infer that Morris is rejecting the idea of Yasuke being a samurai. See This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources.} Emphasis my own. You are analyzing the choice to use retainer versus samurai and are implying a conclusion which is not stated by the source. All samurai were retainers, but not all retainers were samurai. Saying that Yasuke was a retainer does not actually imply anything one way or the other about whether or not Yasuke could be considered a samurai without guessing at the intention of the author's wordchoice, which we are not allowed to do. Brocade River Poems 18:45, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

That isn't original research. It's how we reject WP:FRINGE theories. Analysing sources to decide what not to include is acceptable. Traumnovelle (talk) 18:56, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

It is WP:OR to draw a conclusion from a source which the source does not state based upon your personal feelings of the choice of words used by the source. Per identifying fringe theories We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field. Using "retainer' and using "samurai" are not significant departures. Samurai were, in fact, retainers. The process of evaluating whether something is WP:FRINGE does not in any way suggest that we should infer the intentions of a source's author for their wordchoice. Analyzing a source to make it say something it does not say is, quite literally, the definition of WP:OR. Even with well-sourced material, if you use it out of context, or to state or imply a conclusion not directly and explicitly supported by the source, you are engaging in original research. Emphasis my own. Saying that a source citing Lockley using "retainer" instead of "samurai" means that the author refutes the idea of Yasuke being a samurai is an insinuation of the author's intention based entirely on the reading of the wikipedia editor, it is not directly and explicitly supported by the source. Statements like Then as for why he still does not mention it to reject it, that may be because the article does not go into too much detail about him and the way I read it it does contest that claim. Saying Yasuke was a retainer seems to me to be saying he was not a Samurai (emphasis mine) are perfect examples of why this line of thinking is WP:OR. Speculating it MAY be because the article doesn't do this, and saying "the way I read it", "seems to me to be saying", if the source was directly and explicitly saying that, the editor in question would not need to couch the statement in conditional statements like "the way I read it" or "seems to me". Brocade River Poems 19:55, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, I never said we should say "Morris contests Lockley's claim that Yasuke was a samurai." J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 19:58, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

What? I've not been following this much but that is absolutely absurd. If the vast majority of sources do not mention him as a samurai but only one or two do then we do not need a source that explicitly says he isn't one. See WP:FRINGE. Omittin him as a samurai in detailed coverage of him is akin to not supporting/contradicting the claim from the author. Traumnovelle (talk) 22:03, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I find it fascinating the number of sources coming up with the thought that Yasuke was Muslim. The Morris piece here is possibly the third such one I've become aware of.

• The Portuguese word cafre used in the Portuguese letters of the time to describe Yasuke specifically referred to people from southeast Africa who were not Muslim.
• The Arabic word كَافِر (kāfir) from which the Portuguese is derived specifically refers to "infidel, unbeliever, non-Muslim".
• Morris even acknowledges the Arabic term, and its meaning, and somehow still concludes that Yasuke was Muslim...??? I find that baffling.

→ Setting aside the Muslim confusion, this is a useful find, as an additional secondary source who has done further research, and is aware of Lockley, and appears to intentionally not describe Yasuke as a samurai. If Yasuke had indeed been a samurai, that would be an important aspect of his life, so not including any such description stands out as significant. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:25, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Might it be the case that cafre is also a Portuguese loanword from Arabic meaning then "non-Christian" instead of non-Muslim? After all, it is Solier using the word, and he is Christian. See eg. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cafre#Portuguese and this note from Kafir:

>In modern Spanish, the word cafre, derived from the Arabic word kafir by way of the Portuguese language, also means 'uncouth' or 'savage'. See also https://pt.wiktionary.org/wiki/cafre, although that entry doesn't have the usage suggested by Morris, assuming he meant what I proposed.Then again it is a modern dictionary. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 17:35, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Actually, looking into this some more, it doesn't seem common at all for Portuguese to use cafre to mean non-Christian in the 1500s. There is a review of the word during that time period here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2018.1403212 J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 18:27, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the link! I'd done some looking into the term cafre earlier in composing responses in the thread at Talk:Yasuke/Archive_2#Yasuke_mentioned_by_Portuguese; the sources I was finding stated that the term showed up in Portuguese only in the later 1500s, so a 1505 date (noted in the paper you linked) is substantially earlier.

I'll read that with some interest (albeit later 😄). ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:49, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

There is a short paragraph in this article discussing the terminology in 3.1 Terminology in Portuguese documents

doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.25.1.04car

it is also available in this book https://books.google.com/books?id=7kEdgCHCtrQC&lpg=PA91&ots=yiy8WdemvG&lr&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q=cafre&f=false

but it is not limited to the 16th century

Interestingly, the example given in that article of cafre appears to be Mozambican Muslim, which kind of fits with what Morris might have been saying. Although I think you raise a good point about the issues with Morris' reasoning.

>Jorge, Hiamata in gentile, cafre born at the rivers of Cuama, and dwelling in this city [Goa] for denying our holy faith and saying blasphemy against the purity of our lady, adopting the sect of Calvin and that of Mohammed in a moorish land.

Although I'm not sure what "adopting the sect of Calvin and that of Mohammed" could refer to here.

J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 01:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@J2UDY7r00CRjH The "sect of Calvin" is Calvinism/Protestantism; "that of Mohammed" is Islam. The Inquisition records are accusing him of being a heretic or infidel of one kind or another. Rotary Engine ^talk 09:30, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

I think you must be right that it must refer to only one or another. Still reads a bit strange to me like he joined both sects which is what was confusing me. In any case its just a translation and maybe it makes more sense in the original or maybe that was a common phrase during the Inquisition. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 18:29, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

I added this source to the article back in May (it's still in there cited in the "birth and early life" section) regarding the possibility of Yasuke being Muslim, but I didn't feel that the source added anything beyond that. The source in my opinion doesn't have any bearing on the samurai dispute, which is largely semantic and based on the participants in these talkpage discussions having differing interpretations of what the word "samurai" means, due to the varying meaning of the word throughout Japanese history and in modern english. The central focus of this dispute seems to be whether or not the fact that primary sources do not describe Yasuke as "侍" means that he should not be described as a "samurai" (in the modern english definition of the term) in this article. This is obviously subjective and at this point neither side seems likely to convice the other. If there's approval I might reopen the second RfC, but even then I'm not sure that will settle the issue either. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:14, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

A new RFC is probably a good idea, considering as the original one seems to be contested, new information has been made available, and the original RFC seems to have been formatted very poorly to begin with. Having read all the various argumentation, the good faith attempt at the first RFC used a format that was very inadequate for the complexity of the subject being discussed and encouraged a simple yes/no voting format. Quick Edit: Actually, I think maybe we should just take this to Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard Brocade River Poems 18:50, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley's article on Yasuke in Britannica

Britannica has just published a new article about Yasuke, written by Lockley [9]. Leaving aside the samurai issue (Lockley basically restates his view: since Nobunaga made Yasuke a vassal, giving him a house, servants, a sword, and a stipend [...] historians think that this would contemporaneously have been seen as the bestowing of warrior or “samurai” rank), editors interested in Yasuke should check our article to see if it corresponds to Lockley's account. In fact, Lockley's article seems to be the best (more comprehensive, if not accurate) source we have on the subject. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up.

That seems to match his latest peer-reviewed work about Yasuke (full article). Thibaut (talk) 22:51, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

"Comprehensive, but not accurate" doesn't sound very good to me. 😄

Separately, I keep seeing Lockley mention that Yasuke had servants. Are there any other secondary sources that also make this claim? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I think they meant more comprehensive and also potentially more accurate, not that it wasn't accurate CambrianCrab (talk) 23:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Is this claim supported by any of the primary sources? Within the primary sources I only saw the following privileges granted to Yasuke:

- house/residence (私宅; secondary source interpretation required to understand usage in context - was it a residence? a regular house? any private quarters?)

- sword (sayamaki; secondary source interpretation required)

- stipend (扶持; was it a one-time payment or an ongoing stipend? again, secondary source interpretation required) SmallMender (talk) 07:03, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley in this article claims that Japanese historians agree Yasuke was a "samurai," yet he does not give any specific names. In fact, one well-known Japanese historian Daimon Watanabe, who is also the director of publishing company 株式会社歴史と文化の研究所 which publishes many peer-reviewed historical books, has written his own comprehensive factual report on Yasuke in response to popular media depictions and did NOT claim once Yasuke to be a samurai to which 侍 is ascribed. The closest he gets to attributing Yasuke a warrior status is when he writes "it is said that Nobunaga wanted to keep Yasuke as a 武士 [warrior] and bring him up to become a castle owner sometime in the future." (I see Google translate translates 武士 to samurai which may lead to confusion)

Lockley's claims about what these "Japanese historians think" needs to be scrutinized and validated with actual credible names. 天罰れい子 (talk) 04:42, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

From what I am aware of, Yahoo Japan articles are normally not accessible outside of Japan. In such cases is an Archive mirror of the article acceptable?

Regarding the use of 武士 by Daimon Watanabe and the use of quotation marks by Lockley himself, I think in the near future it may help to better disambiguate 武士 and 侍 also on the English Wikipedia. Here is the suggestion I posted in Samurai: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Samurai&diff=prev&oldid=1234038781 SmallMender (talk) 07:43, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

You make a good point, thank you for that suggestion. I believe an Archive mirror should be generally okay but this Yahoo JP article should also be accessible to overseas given it is also cited by the main page. I also agree that the distinction between 侍 and 武士 is highly important and we should always make sure to check the original source in that regard.

With regards to your suggestion, I think that is a good starting point to make the distinction between Samurai and Warrior, though as far as common Japanese usage is concerned, I do not believe the two are used interchangeably nowadays if there is uncertainty, e.g. the distinction is clearly laid out in some popular museum web articles. As many Japanese people both in articles and social media (X) point out, it generally refers to a combatant servant that is higher social class/caste and fulfilled specific requirements, such as having surname, given a a fiaf of certain value, their own land, treated as a 侍 on field, etc. This was especially true in the Sengoku period as many were under the employment of a 大名. A 侍 is a 武士 but the reverse is not always true. 天罰れい子 (talk) 16:54, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that the latest writing on the samurai matter from its scholarly originator should be followed by our article—that is, the controversy about Yasuke's samurai status should be reflected in our lead, just as Lockley reflects it in the lead of his new Britannica article. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 06:24, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Said “scholarly originator” precedes the dispute statement with yet another unverified and baseless consensus “commonly held by Japanese historians,” as a way to strengthen the position on one side without direct proof. It is clear throughout the article that Lockley also opts out terms normally ascribed to Yasuke like 黒奴 (black slave or servant), which is what is explicitly written in the official translations of the Annual Jesuit reports by the National Diet of Japan (Japan legislature), instead opting for “attendant bodyguard” which is his own personal interpretation and fails to state that. 天罰れい子 (talk) 07:32, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Interestingly, the subtitle of the article has changed from "Black samurai" to "African-born Japanese warrior", although this doesn't directly prove anything one way or another. Also, the line "Yasuke is commonly held by Japanese historians to be the first recorded “samurai” of foreign birth, although this has been disputed by some people" is a bit strange, as most historians have not said one way or another whether Yasuke is a samurai, and I think Lockley is the only one to say he is the first foreign one to my knowledge. That said, perhaps the "foreign born" part is obvious as there is no other evidence for other foreign born samurai? Although perhaps maybe some Toraijin might have become samurai, although these people seem to have come to Japan from before samurai was a thing? Not fully sure what he means with this line. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 18:55, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley is someone who added themselves as a source to this very Wikipedia page, which I consider to be sketchy so we should see this person's writings as someone who is aware of what is on Wikipedia and may want to influence it and the viewpoint of English speakers on the topic. Is it possible this person has a quirky eccentric theory and they're trying to push it? We should treat this source with skepticism. Ultimately we cite sources based on their fact-checking and quality control of the publishers. Is it possible that Britannica is only relying upon him on this issue, and would have no one else on hand to fact-check this very niche issue? Why are we relying upon this one English speaker, when it should be an issue of consensus for Japanese historians? I consider this mostly a moutain in a mole-hill: It seems to be mostly Lockley who is really pushing the samurai status issue, and other sources are mostly pop-history pages talking about this. Harizotoh9 (talk) 22:24, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Care should be taken here in how Lockley is treated as a source. His statements are more tempered in Japanese texts, where he is writing in a more academic context. For example, here he is writing in the Japanese social studies textbook.

"Tsunagu Sekaishi" (translation not mine):

"During this time, the boundaries between samurai and other social classes were unclear. And although there is debate about whether Yasuke truly became a samurai, it is believed that he was undoubtedly viewed as a vassal of Nobunaga, at least during his life."

So, here "there is debate".

Can we even believe Lockley that Yasuke was "undoubtedly viewed as a vassal"? Is that based off of the primary sources? What if he was just gifted a sword after winning some sumo matches?

I wonder, is there any academic source from before 2010 or so that describes Yasuke as a "samurai", or is all of this just elaborate circular Wikipedia conjecture planted by Lockley to sell his books?

BassHistory (talk) 02:50, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think we have to choose between completely disregarding Lockley or embracing everything. We should treat every work and statement individually. His previous self-promotion is irrelevant, and mentioning it is just poisoning the well. Newer works should be prioritized over older, more academic (but not necessarily peer-reviewed) should be preferred to less formal works and published works are better than interviews. So, we know that Lockley has some theories and personal beliefs from recent interviews, but his article in Encyclopedia Brittanica is his most recent published work and most cautious and should be seen as reliable. His novel should be treated as a novel, with some historical notes attached. Tinynanorobots (talk) 08:45, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Not only is Thomas Lockley not the best source but he actually made up most of the things he wrote in the English version of his books and articles and falsely claimed to have been fact checked. If you do a modicum of research on him you will find that the English and Japanese versions of his book are not only diametrically opposed in tonality but they also actively contradict each other. Trusting him as a source is no better than trusting Alex Jones.

Yasuke's status as a samurai should be presented as uncertain

There is evidently deep debate about whether Yasuke was or was not a samurai. The sources quoted to suggest that he was a samurai are thin and relatively few, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are invalid. The mountain of evidence against the possibility that he was a samurai MUST be taken into account.

That the article presents Yasuke's samurai status as a fact and not as a possibility is highly alarming, and suggests deep cracks in Wikipedia's objective of neutrally presenting unbiased facts. The credibility of Wikipedia itself is increasingly suffering because of apparent agenda-laden "fact" imposition on at-best-uncertain matters like this one.

I hereby propose that (at least until some consensus is reached) the article be edited to indicate that all points about Yasuke's possible samurai status are framed as possible, not as certain, as is the case in many other articles about disputed matters. Gr33nshorts (talk) 00:50, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

In the last RFC on the topic, nobody was able to find even a single high-quality source overtly casting doubt on the idea that he was a samurai or casting it as controversial. I wouldn't be surprised if now there were some recent sources discussing the hubbub, but nobody actually managed to turn any up, and there's a fairly large number of academic sources overtly describing him that way. If you think there's uncertainty then you'll need to actually produce the sources you believe document that uncertainty, not just claim that they exist; without at least that much, there's nothing to discuss. The sources that call him a samurai can be found in the RFC (and, I believe, they've also been added to the article), so you'll want to find sources at least as good as those disputing them before calling for another RFC. --Aquillion (talk) 02:11, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

We literally just had an RfC about this and the consensus was overwhelmingly that Yasuke should be represented as a samurai as the majority view presented in all the available sources. Silverseren^C 03:20, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

@Silver seren A post on Twitter with 3300 likes and 143 comments has disputed the RfC you were involved in. I believe it is good to have open communication so I am just pointing out the discussion. Maybe you can take a look?

https://x.com/iinchou125/status/1806581266390651324

Regards, NamelessLameless (talk) 04:26, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't really care what random Twitter users think? Also, we follow what the sources say. The fact that those claiming Yasuke wasn't a samurai couldn't (and still can't) present even a single reliable source making such a claim is something that's been brought up time and time again in these discussions. Furthermore, the closer of that RfC was quite clear on Lockley being far from the only source supporting the statement. Silverseren^C 04:32, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

• Twitter posts aren't reliable sources. Here's some sources that are, from the RFC: Also, given the numerous discussions of Lockley above, see Again, if you want to re-open discussions you need to find at least some WP:RSes of comparable quality, which nobody was able to do during the RFC itself. "Someone on Twitter is mad" doesn't mean anything. --Aquillion (talk) 09:40, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, and if someone is arguing that Twitter posts should be used then they would have to accept recent Twitter posts from actual Japanese historians like Yu Hirayama have weighed in on whether Yasuke should be considered a samurai based on the available and known information about him (and Hirayama also aligns with the majority consensus that Yasuke should be considered a samurai) https://x.com/mrjeffu/status/1814609906391200058 Theozilla (talk) 20:38, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'm adding to this thread but also replying to @Traumnovelle's comment.

  From what I have gathered, the scholarly literature on Yasuke changed significantly with the dissemination in 2009 of a quote from the (still unpublished) Shincho-ki manuscript of the Sonkeikaku Bunko collection, which states that Nobunaga gave Yasuke a house, a servant, a sword, and a stipend. Hexenakte mentioned that the quote came from Hiraku Kaneko, "The History of Oda Nobunaga: Beyond the Shinchoki" (織田信長という歴史　『信長記』の彼方へ、勉誠出版、2009年、311-312頁) and, if I'm not mistaken, Eirikr and Thibaut120094 were able to verify this. If this is confirmed, I'll remove the template:failed verification from this important quote.

  Anyway, on the basis of this recently rediscovered primary source (as well as other sources showing that Yasueke was in Nobunaga's retinue, had a direct relationship with him, served him as a warrior, and was speculated to become a "tono", or lord), historians have revised their assessment of Yasuke's social status in Japan, which was probably higher than originally thought: apparently he was not just a servant, but a retainer (vassal) of Nobunaga and a high-ranking bushi (warrior).

  Does this mean that he was also a "samurai"? Some subject-matter experts believe so, and Lockley has explained their reasoning (Japan Times, Britannica). To date, no Japanese or non-Japanese historian has challenged their interpretation, which has been widely reported in the press (BBC, CNN, TIMES, etc.) so until new research emerges (excluding tweets, blogs, etc.), we have no reason to deviate from their account (as per RfC consensus). Note, by the way, that in Yasuke's time the Japanese word "samurai" was usually applied to the lowest-ranking bushi, so that a warrior of elite stature in pre-seventeenth-century Japan would have been insulted to be called a 'samurai' [10]. This means that in 16th-century terms, Yasuke's status in Nobunaga's service may have been higher than what his contemporaries called a "samurai" - but admittedly, this is my personal OR and SYNTH and, mind you, I'm no expert on the subject. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:40, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

  [...] if I'm not mistaken, Eirikr and Thibaut120094 were able to verify this.

  They were not, but only because Eirikr still needs time to look through Kaneko's book, WP:NORUSH. Hexenakte (talk) 01:51, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  I should point out that per WP:EXPERTSPS, the professional opinion of Professor Hirayama actually is a reliable source, even if it's on Twitter. Loki (talk) 03:04, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Oh that is a helpful clarification then. Theozilla (talk) 19:53, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

There's a logical fallacy here. Is the expectation that a primary source will turn up that says "Yasuke was not a samurai?" Why would they say this? The point hasn't been debated until very recently. It would be, if you'll allow a significant exaggeration, like finding a similar text saying "Yasuke was not a geisha." Unless it was pertinent, nobody wrote (or writes) what people are/were not, because what sort of an odd exercise would it be disprove a random thing that a person is not? Something claimed about history is not a fact merely because nobody specifically states the opposite.Gr33nshorts (talk) 05:51, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

The main point being made here is that no academic secondary source explicitly states that "Yasuke was not a samurai", although I would agree that the same logical fallacy applies here as this is a recent matter. I don't think it is reasonable to assume there would already be academic sources contending this idea when the idea was never conceived before the last decade, much less within the last 5 years, or even within this year as it became mainstream. Which is why it is most appropriate to have Lockley and related academic works to be attributed as a theory due to the problems with their academic work as far as citations go, because there are no citations made to support these claims, they are often stated as unattributed or misattributed. I think it is extremely irresponsible for Wikipedia editors - especially when such work is now under government investigation for cultural appropriation/theft and more works are slowly coming out against the idea - to enshrine this in wikivoice as an unattributed fact, over a (temporary) technicality. Hexenakte (talk) 15:38, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I think there is a major misunderstanding of how history works here as well as Thomas Lockley´s posititon. The first problem is forgeting, that "we don´t know" is an option. Another is misunderstanding how academic consensus is reached. Or more to the fact, in most cases it isn´t reached. Academic debates don´t function like internet "debates". It isn´t about winning so much as discussing interesting ideas. The differences of opinion are often nuanced, academics are also less likely to say a colleauge is wrong. Also, a lot of time academics don´t take a position and use neutral language. A scholar might prefer to avoid the word samurai or use quote marks if they were uncertain. Which is important, there is an argument that there isn´t enough evidence either way. That´s not worth writing a peer reviewed article for.

To claim that the historical consensus exists because every secondary source one could find says that, is original research. Especially, because in this case there are so few secondary sources. Lockley is the only Yasuke scholar. Others have mentioned Yasuke, but have not researched him in depth. Therefore, scholars often on rely on his research. Which is why it is important that Lockley´s postion is understood, and this article doesn´t reflect it. Lockley has referred to Yasuke as a samurai, but when talking about his status, he has at times acknowledged a lack of certainty. Most recently in his article for Encyclopedia Brittanica, where he states that samurai status is disputed. Tinynanorobots (talk) 15:37, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I also found this interesting, where he states there is clearly a dispute when others are saying there is no dispute, so should this not be reflected in the article by Lockley's own admission? Why is wikivoice even being considered? Hexenakte (talk) 15:44, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

in his article for Encyclopedia Brittanica, where he states that samurai status is disputed. In fact, Lockley says that Yasuke's status is disputed "by some people", while Yasuke "is commonly held by Japanese historians to be the first recorded “samurai” of foreign birth". No one has disputed Lockley's claim, and indeed some Japanese historians (Hirayama Yu [11] and Yūichi Goza [12] have commented confirming that, if the primary sources are reliable and Yasuke received a stipend, a house and a sword from Nobunaga, then there is no doubt that he was a samurai. So far, no historian has denied that Yasuke was a samurai, or stated that we do not have enough information to conclude that he was. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:45, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

@Gitz6666, please review the quote (written by Lockley) from the Japanese language social studies textbook "Tsunagu Sekaishi". I posted it here, as did another editor before me. Lockley clearly states that the claim is contested.

Also, as has been stated by other editors, let's please put to rest the notion that we should require some source to explicitly state that "Yasuke was not a samurai", otherwise we have to say that he was.

I am of the opinion (again, just an opinion), that considering Lockley's very public record of somewhat zealous claims in English language interviews and the like, which clearly deviate from how historians typically deal with such heterodox claims, that the prudent thing to do is to err on the side of cation in the lede of this article. In other words, if we think there is any possibility that "maybe we don't have rock solid proof that he had the title of samurai", that this is reflected in the lede. I don't think this should be a particularly controversial take, since a) there are only a few paragraphs ever written about him in primary sources and b) apparently nobody ever claimed he was a samurai before 2010 or so.

BassHistory (talk) 00:39, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

The quote you are referencing was discussed at length during the RSN on Lockley by many of the people involved throughout this process. My response to this is the same. The reliable secondary sources we have refer to Yasuke as a Samurai. Lockley's quote is all that has been brought to show that there is 'some' contention, but to quote my linked comment:

"Is 'some' Academic peers in the field?

Are 'some' the general consensus of Japanese historians?

Are 'some' the general populace of Japan?

Are 'some' a fringe subsect of Japan or Japanese Nationalist groups of some kind who may be biased on this issue?

What is this disagreement based in?

Is it based in strict adherence to the primary source text above any interpretation?

Is it based in some retroactive application of the current Japanese populace's understanding of what a Samurai is?

etc etc etc"

I have no idea who specifically Lockley is referring to, and whether those dissenting are worthy of DUE or if they would classify as fringe. What we know is:

1. there is currently a frenzy around Lockley, but none of his work has been retracted or a source published calling it into question. (Reviews of a pop history book calling it pop history is not discrediting the author as an academic ftr)

2. Many claims that have been asserted have been BLP or bordering on BLP sourcing from blogs, twitter, or low quality publications which just summarize the drama. If any of these pan out to something in a reliable source then it would be worth visiting. The Japanese version of Lockley's talk page had a conversation where a 'controversy' section was edited out as editors there could not find reliable sources covering the matter.

3. Lockley before any of #1 or #2 noted in a published work that 'some' people disagree with Yasuke being a Samurai. So far from everyone's hunt for relevant sources there really hasn't been anything that could answer the question of who this 'some' are, and how their argument manifests.

The standard you would like to employ on this page is counter productive to an encyclopedia since it imposes an unnecessary hurdle to move beyond purely presenting primary source material - which is not what encyclopedia's are for. There are an endless list of topics where the secondary scholarship over many decades has been built to increase understanding off of the same primary sources - with an example I'll give being classical Greek texts such as Thucydides' account of the Pelopponesian war having had significant advances in understanding in only the last few years. As noted by Lockley in many interviews and touched on in some of the secondary source documents, it wasn't until the relatively recent translation of the portuguese documents that many started to really look into Yasuke. Similarly many historians who may have read Yasuke's name in passing even further back would not have had access to the Shincho Koki. Though Wikipedia maintains a very conservative approach to adapting to changing interpretations (for good reason), here we have a case where those operating with the current documents are generally in favor of the title's attribution for the reasons Gitz has stated. If you have an argument for why we should refocus the lede to be purely primary source rather than based in the understanding of the secondary sources, I would ask that you further explain why what you'd want to occur would not be a counterproductive standard for history articles for the reasons I've described. Relm (talk) 01:47, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

The reliable secondary sources we have refer to Yasuke as a Samurai.

I would like to know which sources you're specifically referring to. For all the talk on the WP:RSN, nobody actually bothered making a list of available reliable secondary sources on the subject. It's hard to find a consensus, or lack thereof, among sources if we don't even gather said relevant sources. I do realize it is a difficult task because Yasuke is rarely the main focus of any research paper but I do think the matter will not be laid to rest until we do. Yvan Part (talk) 02:10, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

>So far from everyone's hunt for relevant sources there really hasn't been anything that could answer the question of who this 'some' are, and how their argument manifests.

I don't think that matters as I noted in my response in RSN as it is doesn't make sense in the context of the sentence for Lockley to be referring to a "fringe subset of Japan" or to laymen. Here is the quote again:

In this era, the boundaries between samurai and other classes were unclear, and there is debate as to whether Yasuke truly became a "samurai," but it is believed that, at least for his lifetime, he was undoubtedly appointed as a vassal of Nobunaga.

What is the relevance from the first part of the sentence to the second part if he is referring to a fringe subset of people or laymen? That is, why follow up "some people disagree" with "he was a least a vassal" if the some people who disagree are not basing their claims on reasonable arguments? To give an exaggerated example, would it makes sense to write something like "there is debate as to whether the earth is round, but it is believed that it is at least 3 dimensional," if those who disagree are fringe or laymen? Why should the preceding opinion change that of the proceeding one as is implied in that sentence?

Secondly, if you are looking for an academic who Lockley might be referring to, see this line from Makoto Tsujiuchi: (more discussion here)

The perception of the Negro in mid-16th-century Japan, however, cannot be judged as totally full of contempt for the Negro. It is true that Yasuke was regarded as a beast and not a human being. But he was nevertheless released after the assassination of Nobunaga. In general, black people were viewed with curiosity rather than contempt rooted in the belief of racial hierarchy.

Truth be told I doubt he is actually referring to this exact paper but this does show an example of at least one historian who at least heavily seems to imply contrary to Lockley. As for how the argument manifests, Tsujiuchi sees Yasuke as viewed entirely as a novelty/curiosity. To clarify, I'm not saying Tsujiuchi's comment is explicitly stating Yasuke is not a samurai. What I am saying is that could one read that comment and think "this person likely disagrees with me?" And the answer to that is yes in my opinion. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 02:55, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Wether Tsujiuchi disagrees with Lockley is purely speculative. Even if he disagrees, however, that wouldn't be conclusive. His essay was published in 1998; the quote from the Sincho Koki (stating that Yasuke received a stipend, a house and a sword) was first circulated by Kaneko in 2009 and apparently had a great impact on the way professional historians understand Yasuke's social status. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 07:30, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I am not saying that Yasuke is not a samurai, I am saying that he might not be a samurai, and that is what the sources said. I am operating under the assumption that Thomas Lockley is a reliable source. This middle position has been attacked from both sides. One side is the "Lockley is a liar" school and the other is the "There is no explicit doubt" school. Both schools, while operating in good faith, are flawed and misunderstand Lockley´s position but also wikipedia policy and reliable sources. I think that an academic consensus hasn't formed yet, and it is hard to say what position is the minority and which is the majority opinion. Current published scholarship leans towards Yasuke being a samurai, which is a lot weaker than what the article says now. The article treats it as a fact, when even if there was a consensus, it would be the best guess.

My suggestion is to rewrite the article to say that Yasuke was possibly a samurai. To say probably a samurai would be a compromise, but suggests a more mathematic understanding of the situation than exists. Other options would be saying that he is believed to have been a samurai. Perhaps that samurai is a rank should be emphasized. It is a bureaucratic legal designation, not a job. It certainly isn’t some romantic idea of a "true samurai." Tinynanorobots (talk) 07:46, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I am saying that he might not be a samurai, and that is what the sources said.

As Relm explained, this is not what the sources said.

• The Smithsonian
• Time
• BBC
• Britannica
• CNN
• Professional Historian Hirayama Yu
• Vera's work
• Lockley's work
• Atkin's work
• Several academic reviews of the above

All of the above reliable sources refer to him as a samurai. There isn't a single RS that says he wasn't.

To say probably a samurai would be a compromise, but suggests a more mathematic understanding of the situation than exists.

It would be a violation of WP:NPOV to depict something as contested when it is the majority view in reliable sources. Symphony Regalia (talk) 15:58, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

A few points:

- it is the Smithsonian Magazine, which isn’t that scholarly.

- Lockley wrote that it was disputed, why are you ignoring that?

- CNN is not reliable and in general news media isn’t a good source for history or science.

- Twitter isn’t a valid source and I heard Hirayama Yu recanted.

-Britannica says it is disputed.

Tinynanorobots (talk) 18:15, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

>Britannica says it is disputed

I assume you are referring to this line:

>Yasuke is commonly held by Japanese historians to be the first recorded “samurai” of foreign birth, although this has been disputed by some people.

It's not exactly clear what he means here, but being this is written by Lockley I assume he means the "foreign birth" part is disputed, although he might have written it unclearly intentionally. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 18:51, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think anyone believes that Yasuke was born in Japan. Lockley doesn’t communicate in a way that gives the impression that he is parsing his words, most likely any lack of clarity is unintentional. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:01, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

For the record, Hirayama Yu did not recant. He merely chose to remain silent on Twitter after being attacked on Twitter. It does us no favours to report hearsay even on the talk page. _dk (talk) 20:34, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree Twitter is a poor source. I have found some other sites referencing other tweets he made, but I can only find the first one on twitter. It looks like he only posts once a year anyway. Even then, it doesn´t matter because there is enough evidence to say that the status is disputed, so the incapacity to doubt of one historian doesn’t contradict that. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:34, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Even then, it doesn´t matter because there is enough evidence to say that the status is disputed

There is not. There is not a single RS stating as such. Again, it would be a violation of WP:NPOV to depict something as contested when it is the majority view in reliable sources. Symphony Regalia (talk) 16:01, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

there is enough evidence to say that the status is disputed There's literally not a single source that disputes Yasuke's samurai status - it's just a bunch of WP accounts, Reddit users, videogamers, bloggers, youtubers, etc., and other WP:SPS on the internet. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:26, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Half of these sources are not scholarly (Time, BBC, CNN, Britannia and possibly Smithsonian) and can be summarily discarded from this source list. The academics you have mentioned should be the focus instead. I'm aware of problems with Lockley's work pointed out in this talk page so ideally a source other than him should be used, like those other researchers. HetmanTheResearcher (talk) 20:55, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

All of the sources on that list are scholarly or are citing the work of scholars. However it should be noted scholarly is a weasel word, and there is no requirement that sources be scholarly.

Reliable non-academic sources may also be used in articles about scholarly issues, particularly material from high-quality mainstream publications.

Every source on that list is considered reliable.

I'm aware of problems with Lockley's work pointed out in this talk page

Aside from people pushing WP:OR, I have not seen any issues with his work overall. Symphony Regalia (talk) 16:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

In this case we should avoid non-scholarly sources. Perhaps they may work in less controversial issues, or ones where a lack of scholarly material is available. But from a reading of this talk page there seems plentiful scholarly sources, both already-existing ones and Japanese historians who are just now making their views on the subject matter. The non-scholarly sources you mentioned can then be discarded out of hand.

I also don't appreciate you calling the word scholarly a weasel word. There is meaning behind the word, namely studies published in history or science journals and work from individuals at tertiary institutions. These are objectively better sources to use than BBC or CNN and attacking the word only diminishes quality sources in favor of sources with questionable notability like the two news articles mentioned above.

I have no comment on Lockley. I'm not involved in the subject like some of the other editors so perhaps my reading of the talk page is malinformed. HetmanTheResearcher (talk) 16:32, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I think either are fine. I am fine with a preference for scholarly sources, however there is no reason or precedent to avoid mainstream high quality sources, and core Wikipedia policy explicitly calls this out even for scholarly articles. CNN for instance has been called outright "unreliable" by editors here which is not true [13], and may fall under POV pushing. Symphony Regalia (talk) 17:04, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:NEWSORG scholarly sources are generally better for academic topics than newspapers. Newspapers, even if assumed reliable (which has been contested in this particular case for Yasuke), are limited to repeating what scholars have to say on the topic. As such the historians consulted by these newspapers should be used directly rather than the news releases.

As for CNN, or any other individual news source, the perennial sources page is not relevant for the current conversation per the policy I cited above. Newspapers are not scholarly and this immediately reduces their value as sources for history. HetmanTheResearcher (talk) 18:28, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

High-quality mainstream publications are not necessarily limited to repeating what scholars say. They can also offer analysis; they generally have lots of fact checking staff and experts on hand. And when they function in a tertiary role they help establish due weight. Symphony Regalia (talk) 19:44, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

This is just circular reasoning. The BBC, Time and Smithsonian all rely on Lockley as their source which already fall to into WP:tertiary sources and are only used to give more legitimacy to what is essentially Lockley's opinion on the matter. On top of that the most recent update on Lockley is the Britannica article which is unambiguous in the contested status of Yasuke. Yvan Part (talk) 16:34, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

It is not circular, and on the contrary it is exactly what Wikipedia values.

On top of that the most recent update on Lockley is the Britannica article which is unambiguous in the contested status of Yasuke.

Lockley unambiguously refers to Yasuke as a samurai in his own voice. Symphony Regalia (talk) 17:17, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

You forgot:

although this has been disputed by some people.

I don't see why this part should be dismissed if Lockley bothered to add it. Yvan Part (talk) 17:22, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

You are leaving out:

Yasuke is commonly held by Japanese historians to be the first recorded “samurai” of foreign birth

Wikipedia generally reflects what the expert consensus is, and not an unattributed fringe. Symphony Regalia (talk) 18:12, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I suggest you look at WP:SCHOLARSHIP. The CNN article also obviously didn’t fact check. Or should we add that Yasuke was seen as a god and trained Japanese warriors in martial arts in the Wiki article? It is well documented that the news media does a poor job of covering subjects like history and science. Tinynanorobots (talk) 18:13, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Please refer to WP:RS:

Reliable non-academic sources may also be used in articles about scholarly issues, particularly material from high-quality mainstream publications.

As for:

It is well documented that the news media does a poor job of covering subjects like history and science.

What is your source for this claim? I would like to remind you to refrain from inappropriate POV pushing. Symphony Regalia (talk) 19:39, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

• The Smithsonian — presumably you are referring to "Who Was Yasuke, Japan’s First Black Samurai?".

This has been discussed before, multiple times, starting from March 13, even before the "Assasin's Creed" issue exploded. This Smithsonian article has been deemed unusable.

Moreover, for statements about Yasuke as a samurai, the Smithsonian piece relies on the Lockley / Girard book African Samurai (deemed unusable in the discussion at RSN) and on the CNN Travel article "African samurai: The enduring legacy of a black warrior in feudal Japan", which likewise appears to rely on Lockley / Girard.

• Time — this is probably the article "The True Story of Yasuke, the Legendary Black Samurai Behind Netflix’s New Anime Series", also discussed before and discarded.

This relies in part on Lockley / Girard, and it seems also on comments directly from Lockley. However, the article also includes this particularly egregious gem from Lockley:

“Anybody who took up weapons on behalf of a lord could technically call themself a samurai, or could be called a samurai.”

This is at odds with every definition I've ever read of the term "samurai". Moreover, Yasuke is only recorded as having fought ("took up weapons") in the Honnō-ji incident, so even according to Lockley's reductive description, Yasuke would not have been a samurai until then. And immediately afterwards, Akechi is quoted as saying that Yasuke was not a samurai.

• BBC — likely "Yasuke: The mysterious African samurai".

Appears to rely on Lockley / Girard. Due to how the article is written, there are actually zero statements about Yasuke as a samurai that are directly attributable to anyone but the article author, one Naima Mohamud, a Somalia-born filmmaker, who has no expertise at all about Japan, as best I can tell.

• Britannica — "Yasuke" entry

As @J2UDY7r00CRjH already pointed out, the Britannica entry was written by Lockley himself, and he explicitly points out that Yasuke's status is in dispute.

• CNN — "African samurai: The enduring legacy of a black warrior in feudal Japan"

Appears to rely on Lockley / Girard for statements about Yasuke as a samurai.

• Professional Historian Hirayama Yu — must be various comments on Twitter. Also as @J2UDY7r00CRjH has pointed out, Twitter isn't a valid source. I can't find any posts of Hirayama's recanting his position, but googling briefly just now, I did find this other comment by economist Nobuo Ikeda, pointing out a logical problem in Hirayama's argument that Yasuke was a samurai because he was a 家臣 (kashin, "vassal"), in that if kashin = samurai, then all the other kashin in Nobunaga's household would also be samurai — including the pages and the performers (actors, geisha, etc.).

Even here, Hirayama does not say that "Yasuke was a samurai" — he says things like 『「侍」身分であったことはまちがいなかろう』 ("it is probably without doubt that [he] was ‘samurai’"), where he hedges his comments and does not make any flat-out absolute statements.

• Vera's work — problematic as it lacks inline citations, but it appears usable.
• Lockley's work — his Japanese-language work that has been peer-reviewed has been deemed acceptable in other threads. His English-language work seems problematic, and the African Samurai book has been deemed unacceptable after a long RSN discussion.

Even here, Lockley's Japanese-language texts (and his more-careful English texts like the Britannica article) don't make unqualified statements that Yasuke was a samurai, and instead they use softer hedged language like "many historians think that".

• Atkin's work — A History of Popular Culture in Japan: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present

Already included in Yasuke#Citations, and already discussed as not stating that Yasuke was a samurai.

• "There isn't a single RS that says he [Yasuke] wasn't [a samurai]."

As has already been pointed out multiple times, it is a logical fallacy to insist that authors will have made explicit statements in the negative, and that the positive statement must be true if there is a lack of such explicit negative statements.

Ultimately, we have one independent source that describes Yasuke as a samurai, in clear, unambiguous, and unhedged terms: López-Vera.

"It would be a violation of WP:NPOV to depict something as contested when it is the majority view in reliable sources."

Once we pare down the list of sources to those that have done actual research on the historical texts, we find that it is not the majority view that Yasuke was a samurai. We might be able to demonstrate a majority view that it was within the realms of possibility that Yasuke might have been a samurai, but that is not the same thing. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:17, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I believe it was @Tinynanorobots above who pointed out that twitter is not a valid source. Otherwise this looks like a good review of some of the problems with these sources as they've been discussed on the talk page so far. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 21:30, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

it was @Tinynanorobots above who pointed out that twitter is not a valid source. Please see WP:EXPERTSPS, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". I truly don't understand why some editors here are trying to undermine Hirayama Yu: either they ignore policy (in that case I suggest a careful reading of WP:V and WP:RS) or they are pushing a POV (and in that case WP:SOAPBOX and WP:IDNHT are the relevant pages).

@Eirikr: may I suggest, for the sake of clarity, that you refrain from stating your personal views as if they were the outcome of a consensus? E.g. This Smithsonian article has been deemed unusable, Lockley / Girard book African Samurai (deemed unusable in the discussion at RSN), Time [...] also discussed before and discarded, etc. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:16, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

>Please see WP:EXPERTSPS,

I didn't stake a claim on that point. I explicitly said that someone else said it, not me. If you look at the rest of the page and the archives, you will see I never said one way or another if his tweet is reliable. Not sure why you are replying to my post about it. Edit: I guess maybe my wording implied that? To be clear, I was exactly rephrasing the above post. "as J2UDY7r00CRjH has pointed out, Twitter isn't a valid source" -> "it was Tinynanorobots above who pointed out that twitter is not a valid source." This was not meant as an endorsment of the claim. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 19:16, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Note the second last sentence of WP:EXPERTSPS: Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources.

I don't think we should be sourcing article content to Tweets. Rotary Engine ^talk 22:43, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Indeed we have someone else [who has] published [the information] in independent, reliable sources - Thomas Lockley. But these reliable sources are disputed by hordes of samurai-enthusiasts who really can't accept the idea that Yasuke was a samurai. So Japanese historians Hirayama Yu and Yūichi Goza have posted SPSes stating that if the primary sources are accurate, then Lockley is right and Yasuke was a samurai. In doing so, they have added to the pile of subject-matter experts (López-Vera, Atkins) and news agencies (BBC, CNN, TIME, etc.) that subscribe to Lockley's research and/or consider it reliable. Since no expert has ever contradicted them, it's surprising that the debate about Yasuke as a samurai still continues on this talk page, despite previous discussions (an RfC + RSN thred) and the absence of new sources. This seems to be in defiance of WP:IDHT. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:56, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Yūichi Goza specifically does not say he was a samurai. In fact his conclusion is that we should not claim that, as I pointed out below. His reason was that he thinks the Sonkeikaku Bunko version of the Shinchō Kōki has the potential to be unreliable and that it is only one source. You seemed to have called that "something hardly relevant" below but I disagree. (Although perhaps you were referring to something else there.) The only reason I did not push to add this source, which I actually believe supports the view that he may not be a samurai, is because it's just on a blog and while WP:EXPERTSPS exists it doesn't seem reasonable to use it in a disputed page (note the {{Controversial}} banner). I actually have the same feeling about tweets (in fact, even more so than a blog). These may be reliable in the general case from experts but it isn't clear how reliable they should be for something {{Controversial}}. I'm not saying the are certainly not reliable. Taking the idea that WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims require exceptional sources, and one of the first things to go for exceptional claims is "self-published sources," that implies to me that a similar standard should hold for controversial claims.

>an RfC

Multiple new sources have come out since the RfC, including one where Lockley says the claim that Yasuke is a samurai is disputed and all we know for certain in that he was a retainer, and the Goza source, which while it may or may not be suitable to directly quote, perhaps it can still inform what the apparent consensus is among historians. One of the points of the RfC was that no source explicitly disputes Lockley, so we have to assume all sources that use "retainer" must agree or not be commenting on the matter. Goza's conclusion is not the same as Lockley's so he is disputing him. Although the conclusion is 100% clear. To me it sounds like he is saying we don't really know enough to actually make the claim based on that one source which doesn't exist in other versions. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 18:51, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that the phrase "took up weapons" shouldn’t be taken literally. It has more the connotations of a peasant picking up a weapon and going to war, than an armed retainer. I believe that Lockley misspoke here and means that any armed retainer would be considered a Samurai. Otherwise, only samurai who fought would be samurai. I do think there are different definitions of samurai. The List of foreign-born samurai in Japan mentions several definitions, but I suspect contains errors. The Separation Edict article says: "during this period of history the word "samurai" did not refer to warriors, but rather to the wakato, who were retainers of warriors just like the chugen and the komono". I think the most common definition is the Edo period definition after Samurai status became fixed. The question is then are we talking about Sengoku period usage, or the modern definition? Tinynanorobots (talk) 15:26, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

This has been discussed at length and these violations of the WP:OR policy are exactly what we need to stop.

This is at odds with every definition I've ever read of the term "samurai".

so even according to Lockley's reductive description, Yasuke would not have been a samurai until then.

Moreover, Yasuke is only recorded as having fought ("took up weapons") in the Honnō-ji incident, so even

However, the article also includes this particularly egregious gem from Lockley

I will respectfully remind you that you've been warned about this time and time again for the two past months now. Per WP:OR

Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.

The conclusions of reliable secondary sources cannot be declared unusuable for contradicting your WP:OR readings of primary sources.

The above sources are all reliable according to our standards, and they cannot be dismissed for simply providing analysis that you disagree with. On the contrary, we rely on them for that analysis.

As has already been pointed out multiple times, it is a logical fallacy to insist that authors will have made explicit statements in the negative, and that the positive statement must be true if there is a lack of such explicit negative statements.

It is not, and would be at odds with core Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia is not concerned with what editors personally believe to be the truth, it is concerned with what reliable sources say. Per WP:V

"Its content is determined by previously published information rather than editors' beliefs, opinions, experiences, or previously unpublished ideas or information."

Symphony Regalia (talk) 16:51, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

So can I change the article to better reflect the reliable source: Encyclopedia Britannica?

Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:14, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Yasuke is commonly held by Japanese historians to be the first recorded “samurai” of foreign birth

Lockley confirms that it is the majority scholar view, and then says that it is contested by "some people" who he does not refer to as historians. Wikipedia generally reflects what the expert consensus is, and not an unattributed fringe. Symphony Regalia (talk) 18:01, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for actually responding to this point. That is an interesting interpretation. "People" is indeed ambiguous. I don’t see how you can be sure that it is fringe, though. Tinynanorobots (talk) 18:20, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Since it follows what I said ealier I will simply reply here. This is WP:OR. You are the one interpreting "some people" as "not historians" and "fringe", two elements that are not stated in the article.

While it's true that he does say "Japanese historians" which is at best vague and does not really help narrow down who he is talking about, it does also exclude historians who are not Japanese from the discourse.

Not directly related but it does make part of your recent revert undue on the "status/rank/title of samurai" because the Britannica article used as source for this use both status and rank but not title, as discussed in Talk:Yasuke#Is_Samurai_a_title? below. Yvan Part (talk) 18:36, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

It is not. Lockley is the one who uses the term "some people", choosing to not refer to them as historians. As for "fringe", that is my voice and it is not being attributed to the article. I am using it in the context of WP:FRINGE. Symphony Regalia (talk) 19:13, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

With about 20 minutes of searching, here's list of more than a dozen scholarly sources which mention Yasuke, but do not describe him as a samurai.

1. Fujita M. (2021). The presence of black people in Japan during the Edo period. In The Tokugawa World (pp. 453-469). Routledge.
2. Leupp, G. P. (1995, March). Images of black people in late mediaeval and early modern Japan 1543–1900. In Japan Forum (Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1-13). Taylor & Francis Group.
3. Leupp, G. P. (2003). Interracial intimacy in Japan: Western men and Japanese women, 1543-1900. A&C Black.
4. Meyer, M. J. (2020). Wrestling, Warships and Nationalism in Japanese-American Relations. Martial Arts Studies, 10, 73-88.
5. Morris, J. H. (2018). Christian–Muslim Relations in China and Japan in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries. Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, 29(1), 37-55.
6. Nardy, D. T., & Coates, J. (2021). Back to the future: imaginaries of Africa on East Asian Screens. Open Screens, 4(1).
7. Nitta, K. (2017). The Reception of African American Literature in Prewar and Postwar Japan. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature.
8. Russell, J. G. (2008). Excluded Presence: Shoguns, Minstrels, Bodyguards, and Japan's Encounters with the Black Other. Zinbun, 40, 15-51.
9. Russell, J. G. (2008). The other other The black presence in the Japanese experience. In Japan's Minorities (pp. 106-137). Routledge.
10. Suzuki, H. (2020). African Diaspora in Asia. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History.
11. Tsujiuchi, M. (1998). Historical Context of Black Studies in Japan. Hitotsubashi journal of social studies, 30(2), 95-100.
12. Yamada, K. (2019). On the Genealogy of Kokujin: Critical Thinking about the Formation of Bankoku and Modern Japanese Perceptions of Blackness. Japanese Studies, 39(2), 213–237.
13. Wright, D. (1998). The use of race and racial perceptions among Asians and Blacks: the case of the Japanese and African Americans. Hitotsubashi journal of social studies, 30(2), 135-152.

Some of those sources are obviously more focused on the topic of Yasuke than others; some are mere passing mentions, but the same is as true (if not more so) of the sources which have been provided in support of samurai.

There were another half dozen or so sources for which I was not able to retrieve the full text but which appear on a search for "Yasuke" "Nobunaga" -"samurai"; matching the third term would imply that they do not include the word samurai in any context.

Have not even begun to look at Japanese language sources.

Can we please move on from claims that all the sources say samurai? Rotary Engine ^talk 22:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

References

So basically there seems to be some critiques on the sourcing of this article.

I don't know anything about this Yasuke guy so I don't have much to say except point out that other people have disputed the sourcing of this article. Here are links to posts that I saw on X.

https://x.com/Mangalawyer/status/1812588750465359972

https://x.com/Mangalawyer/status/1810493719378014218

https://x.com/iinchou125/status/1806581266390651324

Thanks,

NamelessLameless (talk) 03:56, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Don’t know how reliable this is but it’s also there [14]. Volunteer Marek 04:29, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I love the claim that Yasuke, who has been depicted in Japanese media for decades as a samurai even into the black and white television era, is only being considered a samurai now because one person wrote about him being such recently. Do these people even know the history within Japan itself? Silverseren^C 04:34, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Depiction in media is different from historical fact, it is very well possible for popular media to misrepresent a historical event (take Vikings with horns for example, a Hollywood myth. Emphasis should be placed on English and Japanese academia instead. HetmanTheResearcher (talk) 05:30, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

@HetmanTheResearcher Very VERY good point. NamelessLameless (talk) 01:13, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

There was a fictional children's book about Yasuke called Kurosuke, written by Yoshio Kurusu (w:ja:来栖良夫), published in the 1960s, which kicked off a lot of popular depictions of Yasuke as a samurai. That said, it was presented as fictional, and (AFAIK) everyone took it as fictional. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:55, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

• As mentioned above, Twitter posts aren't reliable sources; and none of those seem to actually be citing any, they just seem to dislike what the article says. Lots of people have opinions and feelings about articles; but if you want to propose changes, you'll need reliable sources to back them up. --Aquillion (talk) 09:44, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

New Japanese source(s)

As alluded to somewhere in the above conversation, Japanese researchers are coming around to the Yasuke debate. For us here in Wikipedia, that means we are starting to get new published material that we can use as reliable sources to shape the Yasuke article. First one out of the gate is Yūichi Goza (assistant professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies) publishing a piece on the Japanese opinion site Agora (https://agora-web.jp/archives/240721081916.html) where he describes:

1. The existence of a recent contention over whether Yasuke was a samurai on the internet.
2. Evidence from the Sonkeikaku version of the Shinchō Kōki (and only that version) that points to Yasuke being treated as a samurai.
3. The undiscountable possibility, despite the general reliability of the Sonkeikaku version of the Shinchō Kōki, that said evidence was a later addition based on the primary source Ietada Nikki.

Given the eyes on this topic, I suspect more reliable sources will come out in the near future. _dk (talk) 05:47, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The relevant passage is here:

この記述に従えば、弥助は明らかに信長の家臣、すなわち武士（侍）として遇されている。名字が与えられていないから侍ではなく、中間（侍より下の武家奉公人）なのではないかといった意見もネット上で見られるが、中間が刀と屋敷を与えられることは考え難い。いずれ名字が与えられる予定だったという解釈が成り立つだろう。加えて、弥助は時に信長の道具持ちもしていたというから、信長に近侍していたと考えられる。

Here is the profile of the author: https://agora-web.jp/archives/author/gozayuichi

He holds a PhD in literature studies with specialization in Japanese medieval history (専攻は日本中世史).

The source itself looks good, but since the article is an opinion piece, we would probably need additional supporting evidence (peer-reviewed works?) that the writer is a matter-expert. There is an extensive JP Wikipedia article about him: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%91%89%E5%BA%A7%E5%8B%87%E4%B8%80

Great find! SmallMender (talk) 07:45, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I think this is equally relevant:

弥助が武士（侍）に取り立てられたという説の根拠は、尊経閣文庫本『信長公記』のみであり、弥助を「黒人のサムライ」と断定するのには慎重であるべきではないだろうか。

MTL:

The only basis for the theory that Yasuke was raised to the rank of samurai is the Sonkeikaku Bunko edition of "The Chronicles of Nobunaga," and we should be cautious in concluding that Yasuke was a "black samurai."

More on that issue (MTL):

According to Kaneko Hiraku, a professor at the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo who is known for his research on Oda Nobunaga, the Sonkeikaku Bunko version was copied in 1719 by Ota Yazaemon Kazuhiro (four generations after Gyūichi) from a handwritten version that had been handed down in the Kaga Ota family, who were descendants of Ota Gyūichi and served the Maeda family of the Kaga domain, and presented it to the Maeda family (the handwritten version by Gyūichi that had been handed down in the Kaga Ota family was destroyed in a fire).

Given the circumstances under which it has been transmitted, the Sonkeikaku Bunko version can be considered a copy with a certain degree of reliability, but it cannot be denied that the description of Yasuke being given a sword and a house may have been added during the copying process.

Kaneko Hiraku is the author of 「織田信長という歴史　『信長記』の彼方へ」, which is the source of the quote (as in, first published source mentioning it).

J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 08:23, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The provided machine translation is a bit rough. The "ではないだろうか" expresses a degree of uncertainty in his own statement. In any case anything self-published should be given less weight. In a similar vein Japanese medieval historian Yu Hirayama, who has written several books on the Sengoku period, has recently made a statement[15] saying there is "no doubt" that Yasuke was a samurai.

It seems like there's a lot of talk about Yasuke, a black man who served Oda Nobunaga. There are very few historical documents about him, but there's no doubt that he was a samurai who served Nobunaga. Regardless of one's social status, if one's master promoted one to the rank of samurai, one could become one in medieval (warring states) society.

That said, I suggest we continue to use peer-reviewed works and works published by respectable publishing houses.

Symphony Regalia (talk) 08:28, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Since a scan of the relevant pages of Kaneko's book was provided (thanks Thibaut120094!), it should be noted that Kaneko acknowledges that it is difficult to dismiss the whole Sonkeikaku addition relating to Yasuke as a work of fiction (p.313), after expressing that there is a undiscountable possibility that the Yasuke record was a later addition. (p. 312) Goza only quotes Kaneko partially, leaving out Kaneko's acknowledgement on page 313. _dk (talk) 10:52, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

@‎Gitz6666 I see you added this source to the article. If we are quoting him, we should also include his other main points, otherwise it might be WP:CHERRYPICKING. The first point we should add is the information about the multiple versions of Shinchō Kōki, and that the quote only appears in one of the versions. That is really just a fact that as I understand we didn't have a secondary source for until now (although perhaps I am wrong here and ohter secondary mentioned that the quote appeared in only one version). The second point we should add is at least his conclusion that "The only basis for the theory that Yasuke was raised to the rank of samurai is the Sonkeikaku Bunko edition of "The Chronicles of Nobunaga," and we should be cautious [or "shouldn't we be careful"] in concluding that Yasuke was a 'black samurai.'" I think quoting a single point from an article that has multiple points for and against an certain view could amount to cherry picking. (Although note that WP:CHERRYPICKING is not an official Wikipedia guideline, however much of it claims to be based on other policies such as WP:NPOV, perhaps from the phrase "representing fairly." It is also listed as an essay in the WP:NPOV page.) J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 19:02, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

That seems fair. May I suggest you either revert my edit or add a line or two of text to make it more balanced? Until we'll have a section on the controversy about Yasuke's status as samurai (if and when such a controversy will produce reliable secondary sorces), we should avoid spending too many words on something hardly relevant, so perhaps you'd better just revert my edit. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 19:09, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I reverted it until others give their input on this. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 19:17, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Skimmed through the article, focusing on text surrounding uses of 家臣 (kashin).

I see some interesting leaps of logic.

然に、彼黒坊被成御扶持、
名をハ号弥助と、
さや巻之のし付幷私宅等迄被仰付、
依時御道具なともたされられ候。

尊経閣文庫本『信長公記』によれば、この黒人は「弥助」と名付けられ、鞘巻の熨斗付（装飾刀）と私宅（屋敷）を与えられたという。
この記述に従えば、弥助は明らかに信長の家臣、すなわち武士（侍）として遇されている。名字が与えられていないから侍ではなく、中間（侍より下の武家奉公人）なのではないかといった意見もネット上で見られるが、中間が刀と屋敷を与えられることは考え難い。いずれ名字が与えられる予定だったという解釈が成り立つだろう。加えて、弥助は時に信長の道具持ちもしていたというから、信長に近侍していたと考えられる。

---

[First, the quote from the Sonkeikaku Bunko version's text, as in this other section:]

[...] yet it was ordered that the young black man be given a stipend,
to be called Yasuke as a name,
and [be granted] an inlaid sayamaki and private quarters,
sometimes he was allowed to / was made to hold/carry the [master's] tools and other items.

According to the Sonkeikaku Bunko version of the Shinchō Kōki, this black man was named "Yasuke", and granted an inlaid sayamaki (decorated sword) and a private residence (yashiki ["residence; mansion, manor"]^*1).
According to this description, Yasuke was clearly being treated as Nobunaga's vassal [家臣, kashin], in other words as a bushi [武士] (samurai [侍]). There are opinions seen online that he [Yasuke] was not granted a surname so he was not a samurai, or that he was probably a chūgen [中間] instead (a warrior-household servant ranked under a samurai), but it is difficult to imagine a chūgen being granted a sword^*2 and a yashiki. At any rate, the interpretation could stand that [Nobunaga] planned to grant [Yasuke] a surname later.^*3 In addition, since it says that Yasuke was sometimes acting as weapons-bearer,^*4 it appears that he was serving close to Nobunaga.

Notes:

• 1: The word in the primary source text is 私宅 (shitaku, literally "private residence"). As I noted earlier in #The_relevant_quote_from_the_Sonkeikaku_Bunko_version_of_the_Shinchō_Kōki, rendering this instead as 屋敷 (yashiki, "residence; mansion, manor") invites a deviation in meaning from the source, due to the different senses of the two words. While Goza rightly points out that a low-ranking chūgen would not be granted a manor house of their own, it is within reason that a chūgen might be allowed to use a vacant hut instead of bunking in a dormitory. The term 私宅 (shitaku) could apply to either case (manor or hut), while the term 屋敷 (yashiki) could not.

Fundamentally, we just don't have enough information about the kind of 私宅 (shitaku) in question.

• 2: As noted elsewhere on this page, the term sayamaki as used as a standalone noun at that time seems to refer specifically to a kind of short sword. Considering that short swords including such sayamaki were excluded from the successive sword hunts carried out in turn by Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and then Tokugawa Ieyasu, it is clear that these were not considered indicative of warrior status: not dangerous enough to confiscate.

If any sources turn up that describe the word sayamaki, in use at that time as a standalone noun, as applying to full-sized swords as well, this point will need revisiting.

• 3: This is pure speculation, even as worded. Yasuke was with Nobunaga for about 15 months, without any mention of a surname. If Nobunaga had any such plans to give Yasuke a surname, they were never implemented, making this immaterial to Yasuke's actual, as opposed to planned, status during those 15 months.
• 4: I have commented earlier on the deviation between the specific text of the primary source and secondary-source claims that Yasuke was acting in the specific role of "weapons-bearer". The Japanese term for this title, 道具持ち (dōgu-mochi), is attested since at least the late Muromachi period (1336–1573), early enough that Ōta Gyūichi, the author of the Shinchō Kōki, would have known the word and ostensibly would have used it if that's what he intended. Ōta's use instead of this odd circumlocution ("sometimes he was allowed to / was made to hold/carry the [master's] tools and other items") indicates that Yasuke was not serving in any official "weapons-bearer" capacity.

That said, I agree with Goza that the text indicates that Yasuke would have been serving physically close to Nobunaga.

Some of this is definitely my own analysis. I provide this to help contextualize Goza's remarks for those who don't understand Japanese. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:15, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I find this interesting. I have a few questions. How similar is a yashiki to a European manor? and if Weapons bearer is an office, was it exclusive to samurai and is its rank in the retinue known? Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:25, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Just a quick note, due to time restrictions.

> "How similar is a yashiki to a European manor?"

From what I can find in my resources, it seems that the word 屋敷 (yashiki) has always included a sense of "land", possibly including agricultural fields, in addition to a "residence". This is distinct from 私宅 (shitaku), which is just "private residence", with no "land" connotations.

> "and if Weapons bearer is an office, was it exclusive to samurai and is its rank in the retinue known?"

It appears that "weapons-bearer" (道具持ち, dōgu-mochi) and "sandal-bearer" (草履取り, zōri-tori, literally "sandal-taker") were broadly similar in the important outlines:

• Both entailed physical closeness to the daimyō being served, which in turn means it was easier to communicate directly with the daimyō.
• Neither appears to require that the office-holder be of samurai status, although these positions do seem to be avenues to potentially gaining such status (at least, during the Sengoku period).

For instance, Toyotomi Hideyoshi became Oda Nobunaga's sandal-bearer not long after joining Nobunaga's forces, and before gaining samurai status (see also Toyotomi_Hideyoshi#Service_under_Nobunaga_(1558–1582)).

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:22, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

The relevant quote from the Sonkeikaku Bunko version of the Shinchō Kōki

This is from page 311 of Professor Hiraku Kaneko's book, 『織田信長という歴史　－　「信長記」の彼方へ』 (Oda Nobunaga to iu Rekishi - "Shinchōki" no Kanata e, "The History of Oda Nobunaga: Beyond the Shinchōki").

This is marked as from Scroll 14.

二月廿三日、きりしたん国より黒坊［主］まいり候、［年之］齢廿六七相見へ、惣之身之黒キ事牛之ことく、彼男器量すくやかにて、しかも強力十［之］人に勝れたる由候、伴天連召列参、御礼申上候、誠以御威光古今不及承、三国之名物又かやうに珍寄之者［共余多］拝見仕候［也］、然に彼黒坊被成御扶持、名をハ号弥助と、さや巻之のし付幷私宅等迄被仰付、依時御道具なともたさせられ候、（二月二十三日条）

---

February 23, a young black man came from the Christian country, he appeared to be about 26-7 in age, his whole body black like a cow/bull, he is dexterous and robust, moreover he would beat / exceed ten strong men, he came as a servant of the Padres, and gave the usual formalities, sincerely [Nobunaga's?] authority is unparalleled in history, and [Nobunaga?] has seen the famous things of the Three Kingdoms^*0 and rare visitors such as these, yet it was ordered that the young black man be given a stipend^*1, named as Hachigō to be called Yasuke as a name,^*2 and [be granted] an inlaid sayamaki^*3 and private quarters^*4, sometimes he was allowed to / was made to^*5 hold/carry^*6 the [master's] tools^*7 and other items, (this ends the paragraph/section for February 23)

Notes:

The Japanese text in ［square brackets］ above does not appear in the photograph of the manuscript in the book. I have not yet read the rest of the book, and I am unsure what Kaneko's intention was with these additions: perhaps they appear in other versions of the Shinchō Kōki?

As @SmallMender pointed out above, there is some uncertainty about a few of the words in the source.

• 0: As noted by @_dk below, this is a reference to the specific "three kingdoms" of Japan, China, and India, as an allusion to the world at large.
• 1: The word for "stipend" here is 扶持 (fuchi).

It is not certain if this was simply food, or money, and whether this was a one-time payment or something ongoing.

Considering the definitions in Japanese dictionaries, I suspect that this was ongoing and not just a one-time payment; that said, I cannot tell if this was monetary or alimentary support. Unclear.

Some commentators have claimed that Yasuke receiving fuchi means that he was a samurai. However, the term fuchi at that time meant something closer to "payroll", be it in money or food rations: even household maids and cooking staff would receive fuchi.

• 2: The source text describes his name as 八号弥助 (Hachigō Yasuke). While Hachigō here might be parsed as a surname, this literally means "number 8". There were multiple people in Nobunaga's employ with the given name of "Yasuke", one of whom also mentioned elsewhere in the text was 七藏彌助 (Nanakura? Shichizō? Yasuke, literally "Yasuke Seven-Storehouse"). So the Hachigō / "Number Eight" here might be a play on that. Either way, 八号 never appears as a surname: see also the lack of any hits here at ENAMDICT, the online names dictionary.

Update: I mis-parsed the text initially, mistaking the katakana ハ (ha, used as topic particle wa or voiced version ba in certain combinations) for the almost-identical kanji 八 (hachi, "eight"). Reading 名をハ号弥助と with the topic particle instead, it is even plainer that "Yasuke" is simply a 号 or a kind of nickname or name of convenience, and that Yasuke had no surname at all.

• 3: A sayamaki is usually a kind of tantō (short-sword or long dagger), specifically one without a tsuba or hilt-guard, and with winding (maki) or inlay on the scabbard or sheath (saya). From what I've read so far, these were usually around 30cm or so, markedly shorter than the 70-80cm blade length of a 太刀 (tachi) or Japanese greatsword. A sayamaki style mounting without a tsuba would look like the image here at right.

Note that the lack of a tsuba or hilt-guard makes this less useful as a weapon of war, as the wielder's hands are less protected from either an opponent's blade sliding down into one's hands, or from one's own hands sliding onto the blade when thrusting or stabbing.

The term sayamaki refers specifically to the mounting of the blade: the scabbard with winding and/or inlay, and the lack of any hilt-guard. The K. Hirayama poster on Twitter maintains here on July 19 that there were tachi greatswords with a sayamaki mounting. While I have found pictures online that appear to be this kind of setup (such as the fourth from the top in this image at Wikimedia Commons), these are often described as "ceremonial", and the use of a sayamaki mounting on a longer sword does not seem common; in almost all cases I've seen or read about so far, the sayamaki mounting is reserved for tantō.

At any rate, this mention of sayamaki in the source is ambiguous.

It is also just one sword (short or otherwise). I have seen some commentators claim that Yasuke was granted the right to wear two swords, but this is not supported by the Sonkeikaku Bunko text above.

• 4: The word for "private quarters" here is 私宅 (shitaku, literally "private" + "residence/dwelling"). This could mean that Nobunaga gave Yasuke a villa. Or it could mean that Nobunaga just arranged for Yasuke to not have to use a shared dormitory. Or somewhere in between. Unclear.
• 5 + 6: The word here is もたさせられ (motasaserare). This is the causative-passive conjugation stem of the verb 持つ (motsu, "to hold, to have in one's hands, to carry"). The causative-passive conjugation means either "was made to do [verb]" or "was allowed to do [verb]", depending on context.
• 7: The word for "tools" here is 道具 (dōgu). In the context of warriors, this was often used euphemistically to refer to "armaments". The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten entry for dōgu here lists a first citation for the "armaments" sense of the early 1600s, but the version available online via Kotobank is not the full unabridged, and this is likely not the earliest attestation. I am not yet willing to pay ~$100 for access to the fuller version.

I suspect that Lockley uses point #7 here as his reason for claiming that Yasuke was Nobunaga's weapons-bearer. I do not think that the source text actually supports this contention: there was a specific term for "weapons-bearer", and that was 道具持ち (dōgu-mochi, literally "tools/armaments-holder"). The source text instead says that Yasuke 「依時御道具なともたさせられ候」 "was sometimes allowed to hold the master's tools and other items", which indicates that this is not about Yasuke being granted the specific (and not "sometimes") role of 道具持ち or "weapons-bearer". ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:50, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I would request a scan of the page in question to ascertain if the transcription, and hence the translation, are correct. It is likely that the ハ in the sentence 名をハ号弥助と is not the kanji 八 (eight) but the katakana ハ, making the whole sentence read as 名をば弥助と号す and thus 名は弥助と呼ぶ in modern Japanese. I must repeat the oft-cited Wikipedia policy of WP:no original research and leave the interpretation of primary documents to the experts. _dk (talk) 02:19, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

The other thing I should add is that the 三国 in 三国之名物 here should not be piped to the Three Kingdoms of China, since it refers to the three realms of Japan, China, and India — a metonym meaning the whole known world. (https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%89%E5%9B%BD-138372) _dk (talk) 02:27, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

@_dk, thank you for the sanity check. Correct on both counts: wrong Three Kingdoms, and the specific character string should be をハ号 (wo ba gō), not を八号 (wo hachigō). I'll fix the above. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 08:34, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Scan of the page 311 of Professor Hiraku Kaneko's book is available here. Thibaut (talk) 09:23, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Confirming that I have seen the page and that, to my eyes, the character as printed is ハ, not 八; the sentence fragment then being 名をハ号弥助と. No comment on the meaning. Rotary Engine ^talk 04:28, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed on the WP:OR and possible modern rendering of 名をハ号弥助と, however I would leave specific interpretation to historians (for instance, as part of secondary sources), even if these sadly don't discuss the implications of the privileges Yasuke received (stipend, sword, lodgings, etc.) in detail. SmallMender (talk) 07:15, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr Here is a pdf I created of words starting with とうく in Nihon Kokugo Daijiten. Let me know if this contained your entry. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 08:44, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, yes — second page, third entry from the right on the top row, sense ③. This lists two citations, one from a puppet play called 夕霧阿波鳴渡 (Yū-giri Awa no Naruto) and dating from 1712, the other from 柳多留 (Yanagi-daru), apparently a kind of humorous poetry anthology that was first published in 1765.

I must ask: what edition of the NKD is this? The later citations than the version at Kotobank suggests that this is clearly not the same version, but also not the unabridged...? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 09:01, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Its from volume 14 of the 1980 version. here is some info from the cover page. Also, you may want to download those pages if you haven't already as the link will expire soon J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 17:12, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

@_dk, @Rotary Engine, @SmallMender, you mention OR. My intent in posting the above is not to that we should include any of this in the body of the article. My intent is instead 1) to respond to a couple different editors who have specifically requested this quote and translation, and 2) to help us all better evaluate the claims of the secondary sources: both those of us who do understand Japanese but do not have the book, and those of us who don't even understand Japanese. I think it is vital for us to understand when a secondary source is making a claim based on their own synthesizing or inferring, and when a secondary source is making a claim based directly on the text of a primary source. Having the exact text of the sources available, both primary and secondary, helps us to do that. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 08:51, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr Thank you for the explanation. However, I did not mention WP:OR. I am personally comfortable with the use to evaluate reliability (broadly construed; explicitly including WP:RSCONTEXT) of secondary sources (and their use of primary sources, in the context of that evaluation); which is, for mine, well within our remit. Appreciate your efforts in this regard. Rotary Engine ^talk 09:00, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Eirikr. The quote you provided is indeed helpful. First, we should remove the template:failed verification. The quote is verified and the source (Japanese HuffPost) is reliable. It reports the quote as follows:

黒人は信長様から家臣として召し抱えられて俸禄を得た。名前は弥助とされた。短刀と屋敷なども与えられた。時折、信長様の道具を運ばされた

Automatic translation:

The black man was taken on as a vassal by lord Nobunaga and received a stipend. His name was Yasuke. He was also given a short sword and a house. He was sometimes made to carry Lord Nobunaga's tools.

Secondly, per WP:RSUEQ we can quote from Hiraku Kaneko's book. "Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations by Wikipedians, but translations by Wikipedians are preferred over machine translations". If I'm not mistaken (and I could be), this quote has never been translated and reported verbatim by any English secondary source. So we can translate it ourselves, using Eirikr's draft with corrections by _dk and others. This is not OR (see also WP:TRANSCRIPTION). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:29, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

By the way, I've checked WP:BIBLIOGRAPHY and MOS:LISTSOFWORKS and apparently there's nothing stopping us from creating a bibliography of primary sources. I've never seen one in a WP article, but in Yasuke's case it seems useful and relatively easy to make, especially for editors like Eirikr, Rotary Engine, Thibaut and others, who are familiar with the list of primary sources. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:36, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

discussed in a new section

@Gitz, This is a very interesting idea, and I thank you for it. Even a list of sources on a subpage of this Talk page would not be bad; something in the spirit of {{refideas}}. As for the contents of a bibliography of primary sources, I would suggest: Jesuit Cartas from Frois, Mexia Solier Shincho Koki (published version(s?)) Shincho Koki (unpublished Maeda clan version) - given that it is unpublished, this might not meet RS Ietada's Diary and possibly one more that I'm still looking into. Have I missed any? Rotary Engine talk 06:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC) A transcript of the Maeda clan version is published in a secondary source this section is about. Kaneko’s book largely meets WP:RS. Thibaut (talk) 07:00, 24 July 2024 (UTC) Understand this, but in a list of strictly primary sources, I didn't want to include those which we only have by way of a secondary source. I might move my comment out to a separate section. Rotary Engine talk 07:09, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Broadly, I agree that the Huffpost text is confirmed. I do have two concerns about the Huffpost restatement, where their word choice could suggest meanings that are not backed up by the primary text:

• 家臣 (kashin, "vassal") sometimes has overtones of higher rank than can be supported by the Sonkeikaku Bunko text, which simply states that Yasuke was granted a 扶持 (fuchi, "stipend / payroll"). If we take 家臣 (kashin) as a synonym for 家来 (kerai, "retainer", or more loosely "household member/employee"), then I think we are in safer territory.
• 屋敷 (yashiki, "residence", but also "mansion, estate") similarly has overtones that go beyond what the Sonkeikaku Bunko text strictly tells us. We are in alignment with the primary text so long as we take 屋敷 (yashiki) in the more-general "residence" sense.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 09:44, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

But the original text doesn't use the word 家臣 (kashin, "vassal") - am I wrong? If I understand correctly, this would be a good translation of the text:

It was ordered that the young black man be given a stipend (Template:Lang-ja), named Yasuke, and provided with a short sword (Template:Lang-ja) and a private residence. At times, he was also entrusted with carrying the master's weapons.

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:41, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Correct, to my knowledge primary sources don't mention 家臣, 家来 or any other specific position. I have only seen it stated in Japanese secondary sources or articles.

- For sayamaki the writing さや巻 is used in the primary source. I have seen modern renderings as 鞘巻 or written in all hiragana.

- For private residence you could probably use the original 私宅, unless a more modern 屋敷 is preferred, though as mentioned by @Eirikr the meaning points more to a mansion, estate (邸宅) according to dictionaries.

In other words, the Huffpost article does some interpretation of the original text. I don't have an opinion on how to approach this. SmallMender (talk) 12:04, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Notably the term '家臣' has come up before as it is the term used by Lockley to refer to Yasuke's position in his peer reviewed work as discussed in [this] chain on the RSN. This would make it the second reliable source to explicitly refer to Yasuke as a vassal in this manner. Relm (talk) 17:52, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

If we want to use a primary source, we should pick facts of the source over claims about the sources translation possibilities.

rather than using a translation, we could evade a speculative claim with a secured fact by using the existing English article for tanto.

Same with the term stipend, we could simply evade a claim with the translation of salary. Explicit by non-verified claims, that Yasuke would have gotten 俸禄 (houroku) or similar stipends. 扶持 (fuchi) is not a synonym for 俸禄 (houroku) and lead to the common misconception.

We handled like this the Cafre term being translated as slaves in Japanese articles by using the more accurate term used in the primary sources and using the existing english wikipedia page for the term. -- ErikWar19 (talk) 15:38, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

An unregistered user left a message on my talk page suggesting that we should refrain from translating sayamaki as "short sword". One of the sources they quote says: The word Sayamaki was originally used to describe a regular sword [...] the sword called Sayamaki is undoubtedly a Katana. I haven't been able to verify their sources except for this one [16] which says the style of tachi is also sometimes called sayamaki no tachi (鞘巻太刀) or "scabbard wrapped great sword". So I think we should err on the side of caution and simply translate さや, sayamaki, simply as "sword", which is undoubtedly correct, without giving potentially inaccurate information about its length. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:59, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I am familiar with that website, actually. I came across it when researching sayamaki in the context of Yasuke. Sayamaki can refer to both the wrapping of a regular sword (tachi, 太刀) or a short blade (a koshigatana, 腰刀). For instance, the HuffPost article renders it as 短刀.

Additional context and concrete secondary sources would be needed. Other mentions in Shincho Koki would also be relevant, since that provides the appropriate historical context. However, any of this would delve into SYNTH and might be more suitable as disambiguation in the Tachi article or even a separate article if it's justifiable in the future.

For the purpose of the Yasuke article I agree "sword" is the safest option. SmallMender (talk) 10:36, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Having reviewed the IP's comment, and the accessible links therein, I think @Gitz initial reaction concerning WP:SYNTH is correct. And I do genuinely thank them for raising the question here; Talk page protection notwithstanding, it is vital that on topic IP input is included & discussed.

I suggest there are some logical flaws in the IP's comment.

Briefly: While さや巻/鞘巻 (sayamaki) does appear in 鞘巻太刀 (sayamaki no tachi; wrapped scabbard great sword), in this context referencing the mounting of the sword; it does not follow that さや巻/鞘巻 on its own refers to a great sword. Without the 太刀, an isolated 鞘巻 means a short sword.

Chiisagatana, which the IP's quoted source equates with sayamaki, is literally "small sword" 小さ刀. [17]

In this regard, the IP's sources may actually confirm a translation of "short/small sword". Historical meanings (from the time that the Sonkeikaku Bunko version of the Shinchō Kōki was written and transcribed) would, of course, need to be accounted for. Rotary Engine ^talk 11:02, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I tried to think of an English language equivalent. The nearest I could get was something like "iron", which is both a noun and an adjective. An iron (noun) has meaning; many of us might think pressing clothes or golf; the name derives from the original material of manufacture (though both clothes and golf irons are no longer made from iron). An iron (adjective) something (e.g. iron greatsword) has a different meaning; the meaning here literally the material of manufacture. Sayamaki is the same: In the context of 鞘巻太刀, it is an adjective, describing the style of mount; in the context of さや巻 alone, it is a noun. We should not take a noun and infer that it is an adjectival reference to an unstated noun referent. Though iron greatswords exist, we should not take a source which says "iron" and infer "greatsword". Rotary Engine ^talk 11:45, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Good catch with the 小さ刀 (chiisa-gatana). The NKD entry for this term here at Kotobank defines this as:

① 腰刀の一種。鍔(つば)のない合口(あいくち)作りの短刀。鞘(さや)に刻み目をつけ、葛藤(つづらふじ)の蔓(つる)などを巻きつけたもの。鞘巻(さやまき)。
② 殿中差(でんちゅうざし)として用いる柄糸(つかいと)を巻いた鍔つきの短刀。

---

(1) A kind of koshi-gatana [lit. "hip-sword", a kind of short-sword worn at the hip]. A tantō of the tsuba-less aikuchi [lit. "meeting-mouth", where the grip and scabbard come together without a hilt-guard in between] construction. The scabbard is engraved, and wrapped such as with Chinese moonseed vines. A sayamaki.
(2) A tantō with a tsuba [hilt-guard], the grip wound with cord, and worn in one's sash when in a lord's compound.

Sense (1) is marked as attested at least since the 1603 Nippo Jisho, and sense (2) since at least the mid-1500s. Both senses of chiisa-gatana denote a short sword, which makes sense considering the components of the term: chiisa is the stem of adjective 小さい (chiisai, "small"), and -gatana is the rendaku compounded form of 刀 (katana, "sword", literally "single-blade").

Regarding the term sayamaki itself, the NKD entry here attests use as a standalone noun to denote a short sword with no hilt-guard since at least The Tale of the Heike, which apparently we date as "prior to 1330" and which the NKD dates to 「１３Ｃ前」 (the early 13th century / 1200s). ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:09, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Given the discussion above, suggest that the translation in the article content should be restored to saying "provided with a short-sword (Japanese: さや巻, romanized: sayamaki)". Additional text to current version underlined. Rotary Engine ^talk 18:19, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

IP left another comment on my talk, please have a look. I'd suggest to err on the side of caution and give as little information as possible. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 19:45, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

As I had done elsewhere, and now that I can do so properly here, I will note that Dr. Dan Sherer has translated to a degree the passage in the Sonkeikaku Shinchō kōki, writing that So he is made a vassal of a military family, given a stipend and a sword (さや巻之のし付) and a house and carries Nobunaga's (military) equipment. Per WP:EXPERTSPS Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Given his credentials, he is definitely a subject matter expert. This tweet translated by Dr. Jeffrey Hall from Historian Oka Mihoko says the status of "samurai" was vaguely defined in the Sengoku period, so it could be fair to refer to Yasuke a samurai. [This isn’t an endorsement of the various other claims Lockley made in his books.] and that Professor Oka notes that while academia wasn't really paying much attention to the topic of Yasuke or amateur works about him, the media was paying attention and spreading exaggerated information.

Despite statements that the Tweets cannot be used, they actually can be used per WP:EXPERTSPS, it merely advises exercising caution when using this sources. For instance, a Japanese Historian tweeting that the status of "samurai" was vaguely defined in the Sengoku period, so it would be fair to refer to Yasuke as a samurai could be used in conjunction with a secondary source such as Lopez-Vera that says that Yasuke was a samurai. WP:SYNTH dictates that we not combine sources and make them say something they do not, but a Japanese historian saying "it would be fair to refer to Yasuke as a samurai" and a source saying "Yasuke was a samurai" paired together would not be considered WP:SYNTH per the essay WP:SYNTHNOTJUXTAPOSITION SYNTH is when two or more reliably-sourced statements are combined to produce a new thesis that isn't verifiable from the sources. Emphasis my own. Since they are both stating the same thesis, it isn't WP:SYNTH to use the two sources together.

In short, it's perfectly valid to use WP:EXPERTSPS in the article, especially where other sources have stated similar things, since the main caution against using WP:EXPERTSPS is that other sources have likely already published it. In terms of Dr. Dan Sherer translating sayamaki as simply sword, several sources which I posted on @Gitz6666 and other's userpages have translated sayamaki a multitude of ways, all of which describe varying types of swords.

Arai Hakuseki in "My Father", translated by Hiroaki Sato in Legends of the Samurai describes of his father After he passed seventy, my father developed pain in his left elbow. On account of this he offered to resign from his post, but the Kohō would have none of it. From then on he went to work wearing only a sayamaki sword14 that was two inches wide and about a foot long, making a servant carry his long sword until he reached his office. When I think of it now, it must have presented a strange spectacle, but people didn’t object to it, and of course the Kohō didn’t seem to want to say anything. Come to think of it, my father must have thought, If something happens, it won’t do if you carry a sword but can’t use it. On the other hand, I have pain and can’t possibly use a sword. Well then, if it’s something useless, I might as well not carry it myself. Until his death my father always kept this sayamaki close at hand and, following the word he left when he died, I sent it to the person he adopted as a child and brought up, who now lives in Michinoku. As for its decorations, the iron part had waves carved on it; the sheath was lacquered black except for the part called “thousand coils,” which had gold foil underneath. After taking the tonsure, he kept it in a bag made of “toad-skin” leather

A foot long would place the sword more in-line with a wakizashi than the proposed tantō. Per The Japan Weekly Mail circa 1875, "Chisakatana is about two feet long to two and a-half feet, and lighter than the ordinary blade, and is worn with the naga hakama and the court dress called daimon" and "Sayamaki has a portion of the scabbard bound with silk. The mountings are numerous and the making of them is a special and honourable trade. Goto Yujo was a celebrated maker of the 15th century, whose descendants still exist"

Per the Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society, London, 1897, "The ordinary war tachi had frequently a scabbard of plain wood, or of plain or decorated lacquer, and the upper part was often wound round with braid or leather, like the hilt, and was then called "ito maki" tachi. When this braid covered the entire scabbard it was a "sayamaki" tachi. Some were wound with rattan or covered with brocade, and there were at least eleven varieties of tachi worn at court on different occasions" and The scabbard of the "chisa-katana," a sword intermediate between the katana and the wakizashi, and worn by itself, was more highly ornamented, having frequently not only a kozuka, but large menuki and an elaborate "kojiri."

Likewise, Here the term dai [from the word daishō] does not refer to the katana long sword but actually refers to the tachi great sword. There is a type of tachi great sword that is worn with a katana-obi (刀帯) and this is called the efu no tachi (衛府太刀). The efu no tachi was so named because it was worn by those within the six sections of e (衛) and the six sections of fu (府) – these were military officials in the imperial court.323 You should know that there are a variety of styles of tachi great sword. Furthermore, understand that the word sayamaki (鞘巻) is a subtle way to refer to a tachi great sword from Samurai Arms, Armour & the Tactics of Warfare: The Collected Scrolls of Natori-Ryu (Book of Samurai), Page 264.

Antony Cummins has a degree in Ancient History and Archaeology and a masters in Archaeology. He is the founder of the Historical Ninjutsu Research Team, who examine and translate ancient documents to reveal the truth about the Ninja. He has appeared in the documentaries Ninja Shadow Warriors, Samurai Head Hunters, Samurai Warrior Queens and Ancient Black Ops. He is the author of ten books including the best-selling Book of Ninja, Samurai War Stories, and The Illustrated Guide to Viking Martial Arts.

Further, we see Nodachi when they wear underdress ready for armors, and Sayamaki when they are on battlefield in 馬埸辰猪全集 Volume 3 by Baba Tatsui.

There is | this translation from 1913 of Arai Hakuseki's Sword Book in Honchō Gunkikō, and the Book of Samé Ko Hi Sei Gi of Inaba Tsūriō. In this book, it is written The word Sayamaki was originally used to describe a regular sword, but at present only the Makitachi is ever called Sayamaki, so that name is the same as in ancient days, although its meaning has become so limited. In a book (title and author not stated) quoted in the Sokutai Shikimoku, a statement is made that "the Sayamaki is so called because it is the Amezayamaki; the style is that of the ordinmary tachi. If the scabbard is wound round with string we say Sayamaki, as when the handle is bound with string we call the weapon Itomaki no tachi. It is a common weapon of modern and ancient days." Hakuseki then expresses his doubt about that opinion being a definite one" and also It is also mentioned in Azuma Kagami that 'On Katana and Sayamaki, both have Sageo, so that the sword called Sayamaki is undoubtedly a Katana' on page 36 and on Page 40 it also says "There are now two kinds of swords termed Katana, namely Chiisakatana, which is the same as the old Sayamaki, and those swords now ordinarily worn with Koshikatana, decorated as Sayamaki, but containing old Tachi blades". I have added my own emphasis, but in these sections it isn't saying that only "Chiisakatana" are Sayamaki, it is saying that two types of swords are termed Katana, the Chiisakatana, which is the same as the Sayamaki, and swords that are worn with Koshikatana, decorated as Sayamaki, that contain old Tachi blades.

Which means that rather than refute the historian on Twitter's claim who wrote でも、「鞘巻」は「鞘巻之太刀」を示す場合が多いのはご存じでしょうか。 Which reads, in essence, "However, did you know that [Sayamaki] often refers to [Sayamaki no Tachi], the 1913 translation above supports the statement that Sayamaki could have referred to Sayamaki no Tachi. There are secondary sources that say Sayamaki was used in battle, despite statements otherwise. There are secondary sources that, likewise, say Sayamaki no Tachi/Makitachi/Itomaki Tachi were more common than has been speculated. While there has been expressed concern about WP:SYNTH, this concern was borne out of a misunderstanding of what I intended to say, which is simply that: Editors of Wikipedia are attempting to translate what the Sonkeikaku Bunko text says. However, the opinions of outside subject matter experts (such as Professor Hirayama Yu) are being dismissed improperly based on the good faith attempts at researching what precisely Sayamaki means. It is no more WP:SYNTH to provide sources with a definition to sayamaki than it is to use a dictionary in the translation of the Sonkeikaku Bunko. What we can derive from a multitude of sources is that there is a style of sword called Itomaki Tachi, and that Itomaki Tachi were sometimes called Sayamaki no Tachi, and that such were sometimes called Sayamaki Tachi or simply Sayamaki. Just as it is also so that Sayamaki once referred to what is now called a Chiisakatana, and that Sayamaki is also used to describe a dagger without a guard. None of those statements is more true than the other.

Since we do not know which one the Sonkeikaku Bunko was referring to definitively, it is probably more appropriate to simply not translate it. Per WP:NONENGLISHTITLE, we can leave Sayamaki as Sayamaki In the English-language Wikipedia, the English form does not always have to come first: sometimes the non-English word is better as the main text, with the English in parentheses or set off by commas after it, and sometimes not (emphasis mine). In this instance, I think the best course of action would be to leave Sayamaki as Sayamaki and explain in a notation that there are multiple possible meanings for Sayamaki.

Kind regards, Brocade River Poems 08:29, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks for the thorough analysis! In addition to leaving sayamaki untranslated, we could later work on a disambiguation/separate article or section in an existing article defining what it is and reference it in the Yasuke article later.

Alternatively, we could translate sayamaki as "sword" or "a type of a sword" which is a broader meaning, but avoids the need to go into details. SmallMender (talk) 09:34, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

A "sword" or "a type of sword" would be acceptable as well if we did decide to keep it as something translated, but I would still suggest leading with the Japanese word and following with the proposed translation, i.e "sayamaki (a type of sword)". I also agree with the idea of creating a separate thing for sayamaki. Brocade River Poems 18:20, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

As a side note, 家臣 (kashin) and 家来 (kerai) have different connotations and should be treated differently.

I do have two concerns about the Huffpost restatement, where their word choice could suggest meanings that are not backed up by the primary text

家臣 is supported by the Sonkeikaku Bunko text from my reading of it. In terms of the analysis of anything that strictly isn't in the text though (this manner of derivation as opposed to translation), we should follow reliable secondary sources instead of conducting any derivation-based original research ourselves. It can be useful to know what is interpretative and what is not, but it should also be noted that we intentionally rely on secondary sources for that manner of analysis. Symphony Regalia (talk) 11:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

It's an interesting point, and I don't have an answer. We don't have an English secondary source to support the translation of this quotation, so WP:RSUEQ applies and we should translate it ourselves. Are there any good reasons for choosing the modernised version provided by a secondary source over the original text? Given that the secondary source is not of high quality (Japanese HuffPost [18]), I'd be inclined to translate the original text, although translating an old Japanese text raises difficult interpretive issues. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 12:21, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

To my understanding, 安藤健二 (JP Wikipedia article, likely the same person), the author of the HuffPost article, is a journalist, but not a historian. In that sense we rely on his knowledge as a native speaker for a modern rendering of the text in the primary source. Is that correct? If so, I think that might be acceptable.

If we are relying on him as a secondary source (meaning, interpreting the primary source), I think that would be more problematic. If so, I would also be more inclined with a translation by a Wikipedian, assuming such a translation is near-literal and unclear terms are not interpreted. SmallMender (talk) 12:35, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Rather that neither of the terms 家臣 (kashin, "vassal, etc.") nor 家来 (kerai, "retainer, etc.") are used in the primary texts, I think we should avoid using either kashin or kerai in English. (At least, when writing about the primary sources: if we're quoting a secondary source, that's clearly fine.) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:28, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you also for the clarification and apologies for the comment on OR. I agree that if a secondary source is making a claim, it would be important to know if that information comes from a primary source or it is a novel claim made in the secondary source based on the interpretation of the primary source. SmallMender (talk) 09:33, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Cheers, and no worries about pointing out the OR prohibitions: it is best that we are all clear on what we are doing and why. 😄 ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 09:35, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying! I agree that it is helpful to have a baseline so that we can better understand the secondary sources. _dk (talk) 10:55, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Yasuke's Roman Catholicism

There is far more evidence for his practice of the Catholic Faith, than there is he was a Samurai. Just saying the textbox should actually say "Roman Catholic" or "Jesuit Catholic" or even just "Catholic". Colliric (talk) 05:57, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Is it mentioned in the already linked References or do you have additional sources in mind? SmallMender (talk) 06:48, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Bibliography of primary sources

Per the suggestion of Gitz6666 above, some thoughts on a list of primary sources:

Jesuit Cartas from Frois, Mexia

Solier

Shincho Koki (published version(s?))

Shincho Koki (unpublished Maeda clan version) NOTE: We have this in a secondary source, Professor Hiraku Kaneko's book, 『織田信長という歴史 －「信長記」の彼方へ』 (Oda Nobunaga to iu Rekishi - "Shinchōki" no Kanata e, "The History of Oda Nobunaga: Beyond the Shinchōki").

Ietada's Diary

and possibly one more that I'm still looking into, but can only find discussed in secondary sources. Have I missed any? Rotary Engine ^talk 06:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Would the Jesuit letters be treated separately? As in, 1 entry for Frois, 1 entry for Mexia?

For the unpublished Maeda clan version of Shincho Koki, do I understand correctly the scans are available online for viewing, but the confirmed status is "unpublished"? In that case we could take it out and use Professor Kaneko's book as secondary source as a regular Reference.

The rest looks good. SmallMender (talk) 07:33, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I think probably three or more entries for Frois (one per letter), and separate entry for Mexia's letter. Rotary Engine ^talk 07:50, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I have created a subpage for the primary sources bibliography. Please, edit that page and add all the relevant entries and information. The relevant guideline is MOS:WORKS, Note that titles should not be linked to the URL of the online reference but to existing Wikipedia articles about the book. The link to the full text can be provided using a bare link of adding "read online" (or "full text") + external link to the citation - see e.g. GAs and FAs like Hugo Krabbe, Alfred Verdross, John Neal (writer), Honoré de Balzac. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:22, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I reordered and formatted a bit. I'm confused on a couple points:

• The sub-page is called "Primary sources", but there appear to be a few secondaries as well? Should the page be re-titled just "Sources", with separate sections for primaries, secondaries, etc.?
• Jean Crasset is dated to 1925, but he died in 1692...?

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:35, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. Having secondary sources may be necessary because the bibliography of primary sources may have footnotes and/or references to the sources where the primary sources are published. For example Cooper, They Came to Japan, includes an extract and a translation from the Jesuits' Cartas.

As for Crasset, I think 1925 is the date of this book [19]. It's used in the article, but it's not ideal: few readers will be able to verify these references. If possible, it would be best to replace them with references to this edition in English [20]. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:18, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Grounds for stating that Yasuke had a servant / servants of his own?

The second paragraph of the lede currently states:

As a samurai, he was granted a servant, a house and stipend.

This sentence is sourced to the CNN Travel article "African samurai: The enduring legacy of a black warrior in feudal Japan", written by one Emiko Jozuka. The article relies heavily on Lockley / Girard's book African Samurai.

The portion of the article that states that Yasuke had a servant reads in context as a paraphrasing of Lockley / Girard. Jozuka herself is a journalist, and her mini-bio on her own website states that she is more fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Turkish than Japanese, so she is probably lacking expertise in Japanese-language materials about Yasuke.

I haven't seen any sources other than Lockley / Girard stating that Yasuke had servants of his own. Is anyone else aware of any such sources? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:57, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

The CNN Travel article reads like it was a write up of an interview with Lockley. Suggest it would be inappropriate as a reference for unattributed statements of fact; but likely usable for attributed opinions. The essay Wikipedia:Interviews#Reliability has guidance on how to handle this type of source. Rotary Engine ^talk 05:50, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

The section in question is here:

In an era racked by political espionage, merciless assassinations and ninja attacks, Yasuke was seen as an asset. Nobunaga soon made him a samurai – even providing him with his own servant, house and stipend, according to Jesuit records.

The problem is, we don't know if this is a conclusion drawn by the author of the article or attributed to Lockley.

There are also speculative claims like this one:

When feudal Japan’s most powerful warlord Nobunaga Oda met Yasuke, a black slave-turned-retainer, in 1581, he believed the man was a god.

However, this one is later elaborated on by (and attributed to) Lockley.

I agree with @Rotary Engine that the article could be used as a source of attributed claims made by Lockley, but not for statements of fact based on the analysis/synthesis of other sources. Judging the CNN article is also made difficult by the fact that it mixes speculative elements, references to pop cultural depictions of Yasuke and doesn't always make it clear what the basis for the individual claims is. SmallMender (talk) 07:09, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Given that the article mentions Lockley 20 times (11 times with the verb says, 5 times according to, twice speculates and once each assumes and suspects), I think it's very unlikely that the conclusion is drawn by the author; and not part of the same pattern. Rotary Engine ^talk 08:36, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Noting that "according to Jesuit records" doesn't seem to reconcile with my recollections of the letters of Frois and Mexia. And, given the small set of primary sources, unless that attribution can be independently verified, I would not support including it in article text. But perhaps my recollection is incorrect; happy to be corrected with reference to a source. Rotary Engine ^talk 17:57, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the quote as stated now is misleading as it sounds too similar to the quote from the Sonkeikaku Bunko version of the Shinchō Kōki. If we do attribute this claim to Lockley, it should just read something like "According to Lockely, Yasuke also had servants." It shouldn't be included along with the other things that are not from Lockley. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 09:45, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Is Samurai a title?

The article refers to Yasuke receiving the title of Samurai, however the source cited refers to it as status. A title is a name, and samurai is a class, status or rank. Some ranks are also titles (for example, Duke). I know this is pedantic, but I think it leads to misunderstanding what it means to be a samurai. Tinynanorobots (talk) 07:54, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it should be "status" to be directly in line with the sources cited. Whether "title" or "status" is more appropriate and whether "received the title/status of samurai" is appropriate depends on how one understands the sources and "samurai" for the given time period (towards the end of Sengoku Jidai).

Factually, Yasuke was not officially given any explicit position. The "received a status of X" comes from interpretation done by secondary sources. SmallMender (talk) 09:22, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree, that matches not only to the text, but also to what Lockley has said in interviews, and other sources about the ambiguousness of samurai status at the time. Tinynanorobots (talk) 11:05, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Repetitive Lead

The lead repeats itself and I wanted to change it, but it was reverted.

Yasuke (Japanese: 弥助 / 弥介, Japanese pronunciation: [jasɯ̥ke]) was a man of African origin who served as a samurai to the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga for a period of 15 months between 1581 and 1582, during the Sengoku period, until Nobunaga's death in the Honnō-ji Incident. There are few historical documents on Yasuke. From the fragmentary accounts, Yasuke first arrived in Japan in the service of Jesuit Alessandro Valignano. He was summoned to Nobunaga after Nobunaga wished to see a black man. Subsequently, Nobunaga took him into his service and gave him the name Yasuke. As a samurai, he was granted a servant, a house and stipend. Yasuke accompanied Nobunaga until his death and was present at the Honnō-ji Incident. Afterwards, Yasuke was sent back to the Jesuits. There are no records of him afterwards. Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:20, 30 July 2024 (UTC)