Tomoe Gozen, Samurai Warrior

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE

Country or Culture: Japan

Genre: Legend

Overview

As a female samurai warrior, Tomoe Gozen is a rare and exceptional person and a legendary character. Her given name is Tomoe; Gozen is an honorific title best translated as “lady” or “dame” in English. Most Japanese and international scholars believe Tomoe is a historical person who lived for ninety years in the tenth and eleventh centuries CE. Even though there is no irrefutable proof for Tomoe’s historic existence, the evidence suggests she was a real person around whom a powerful legend was built. Her legend stems from her unusual status as a female samurai and as an accomplished warrior. In her early twenties, Tomoe Gozen fought for her lord, Kiso no Yoshinaka, during the Genpei War of 1180 to 1185 CE. She fought alongside Kiso no Yoshinaka at his last, fateful battle of Awazu in 1184. Thereafter, she relinquished the way of the warrior to become a wife, a mother, and, later, a nun.

The historic and legendary account of Tomoe Gozen is given in two primary Japanese sources. The most accessible one to an English reader is The Tale of Heike, translated in full by Helen Craig McCullough in 1988. It is used as source text for this discussion.

In Japan, The Tale of Heike, or Heike monogatari, originated as an oral tale generally told by blind monks. They chanted the tale to the accompaniment of the biwa, a Japanese musical instrument similar to the lute. Japanese tradition has it that it was a former governor of the province of Shinano, birthplace of Tomoe Gozen, who transcribed The Tale of Heike in the thirteenth century CE and read it to a blind monk to chant the text. The oldest existing copy of The Tale of Heike is the 1371 version named after its author, Kakuichi, a biwa storyteller who composed the standard text of the legend. This served as the basis for generations of biwa storytellers continuing into the twenty-first century.

The second, more detailed source of Tomoe Gozen’s life and legend is the fourteenth-century Japanese work Genpei jōsuki, transcribed also as Genpei seisuki or Genpei seisuiki. It comprises forty-eight volumes, expanding on the subject covered by The Tale of Heike. By 2013, the Genpei jōsuki has not been translated into English in full. However, passages referring to Tomoe Gozen have been translated by Royall Tyler in his biography of Tomoe Gozen in Chieko Irie Mulhern’s 1991 anthology, Heroic with Grace: Legendary Women of Japan.

An analysis grounded in new historicism and cultural criticism illustrates how Tomoe Gozen has captured the imagination of Japanese audiences since the thirteenth century CE. This popularity elevated her person to legendary status. Her life as a female samurai warrior has proven fascinating, and it has permeated and influenced what was told as historical record. In addition, a Noh play was created based on her story, translated into English by Tyler. A feminist critical analysis reveals how the extraordinary life of Tomoe Gozen stands out against the backdrop of traditional Japanese attitudes toward both women and the warrior caste of the samurai. Here, Tomoe Gozen’s career as a female warrior does not serve as a general model. She is seen as a fascinating exception, and her character is ultimately reconciled with the beliefs of traditional society concerning the status of a highborn woman.

Summary

Female samurai warrior Tomoe Gozen enters the narrative of The Tale of Heike just before the climactic last battle of her lord, Kiso no Yoshinaka. According to this text, Kiso brings along “from Shinano two female attendants, Tomoe and Yamabuki” (McCullough 291). In this case, “attendant,” or binjo in the original Japanese, means a warrior woman attending to her lord.

“Tomoe was especially beautiful, with white skin, long hair, and charming features. She was also a remarkably strong archer, and as a swordswoman she was a warrior worth a thousand, ready to confront a demon or god, mounted or on foot. She handled unbroken horses with superb skill; she rode unscathed down perilous descents.”

It is the Genpei jōsuki that provides more background about Tomoe’s life. In the absence of a complete English translation of this Japanese chronicle, Tyler has translated or paraphrased the passages relating to Tomoe Gozen in his biography of the female samurai. Because of the details about Tomoe’s life given in Genpei jōsuki, especially before and after her last battle at Kiso’s side, most Japanese and international historians believe that Tomoe was a real person. Her prowess in battle became the source of her legend.

According to the Genpei jōsuki, Tomoe was born around 1157 to Gon no Kami Nakahata Kaneto, a warrior, and the wet nurse of her future lord, young Kiso no Yoshinaka. Yoshinaka was born Minamoto no Yoshinaka. However, after his father was murdered, the infant Yoshinaka was raised by the Nakahara clan in Kiso. For this reason, Yoshinaka changed his last name from Minamoto to Kiso (family names come first in Japanese). Tomoe’s two brothers, Imai no Shirō Kanehira and Higuchi no Jirō Kanemitsu, were so-called milk brothers of Yoshinaka because they were breast-fed by the same woman (Tomoe’s mother). Another medieval Japanese chronicle, the Genpei tōjōroku, states that Kanemitsu was Tomoe’s father. However, this appears unlikely.

In the Genpei jōsuki, Tomoe, given the honorific title of Gozen, grows up with Kiso, who is three years older. Because it was a historical Japanese custom of the time, Tyler suggests that, as teenagers, they entered a casual, temporary marriage. For this reason, Tomoe is sometimes referred to as the concubine of Kiso. However, by the time Tomoe appears as a samurai warrior at Kiso’s side, their relationship seems less romantic and more like that of lord and vassal.

After Kiso reconciles with the Minamoto clan, he is ordered to attack the rival Taira clan. Tomoe, like her brothers, accompanies Kiso on his campaign. According to the Genpei jōsuki, at the Battle of Kurikawa (also called Battle of Tonamiyama) on June 2, 1183, Tomoe “personally command[s] a force of one thousand mounted warriors” (Tyler 137), an extraordinarily rare feat for a female samurai. Kiso wins the battle and conquers the imperial capital of Kyoto. Tomoe moves to Kyoto as Kiso occupies the city.

In the fall of 1183, Kiso’s relationship with his cousin Minamoto no Yoritomo sours to the point that both men try to destroy each other. Kiso’s wild and barbarous behavior in Kyoto estranges him from the household of the retired emperor, Go-Shirakawa, who appoints Kiso as his shogun (military governor) nevertheless. In early 1184, Kiso is attacked by the two brothers of Minamoto no Yoritomo, Yoshitsune and Noriyoro. Kiso orders Tomoe’s brother Kanehira to defend access to Kyoto in the east and sends her brother Kanemitsu on a raid to the south. The Minamoto brothers circumvent Kanehira’s blocking troops and ford the Uji River to the south of him and advance toward Kyoto.

On March 4, 1184, which corresponds to the twenty-first day of the first month of the year 1184 in the traditional Japanese calendar (and often mistakenly transcribed as February 21), Kiso faces certain defeat. Outnumbered, Kiso lingers at the home of his sixteen-year-old girlfriend until it is nearly too late for an escape. Accompanied by Tomoe, Kiso performs a fighting retreat. It is at this point, according to the Genpei jōsuki, that Tomoe is tested in battle again. One of Minamoto’s captains, Hatakeyama no Shigetada, believes Tomoe to be Kiso’s mistress and seeks to capture her alive. Hatakeyama catches up with Kiso and Tomoe. Kiso does not want Tomoe to fight Hatakeyama in personal combat and drives his horse between him and her. Eventually, Hatakeyama is able to seize “the left sleeve of Tomoe’s armor” (Tyler 142). On her strong battle horse, Harukaze (Spring wind), Tomoe breaks free of Hatakeyama, letting her sleeve be torn off. Convinced that Tomoe is a demon woman, at whose hands it would be extremely shameful to die, Hatakeyama gives up his pursuit of her.

Numbering only seven surviving warriors, Tomoe and Kiso’s group reaches Awazu Plain south of Lake Biwa, east of Kyoto. Here, in preparation for a final battle, Tomoe takes off her helmet, lets fly her long hair, puts an ornamental band across her forehead, and dons an elegant white hat. She encounters the boisterous enemy samurai Uchida Ieyoshi, who appears confident of victory over her. Instead, Tomoe kills Uchida with her long samurai sword, the naginata.

Even though Kiso reunites with the surviving forces led by Tomoe’s brother Kanehira, he is outnumbered and prepares to die in battle with Kanehira. Before this, as The Tale of Heike reports, Kiso wants Tomoe to leave the battlefield, saying, “It would be unseemly to let people say, ‘Lord Kiso kept a woman with him during his last battle’” (McCullough 292).

Anguished but obedient, Tomoe looks for one last worthy opponent. This she finds in enemy samurai Onda no Hachirō Moroshige. Riding up alongside Onda, she “seize[s] him in a powerful grip, pull[s] him down against the pommel of her saddle, [holds] him motionless, twist[s] off his head, and [throws] it away. Afterward, she discard[s] armor and helmet and [flees] toward the eastern provinces” (McCullough 292). Obedient to the wishes of her lord, who indeed is killed in battle and followed in death by the suicide of Tomoe’s brother Kanehira, Tomoe disappears from The Tale of Heike. However, the Genpei jōsuki chronicles her subsequent fate.

After the battle of Awazu, Tomoe is ordered by the victorious Minamoto no Yoritomo to report at his capital, Kamakura, near Edo (modern Tokyo). Tomoe complies. At Kamakura, she is originally sentenced to death as Minamoto’s enemy and placed into the custody of his samurai Mori no Gorō. Another samurai, Wada no Kotarō, impressed by her valor as samurai warrior, falls in love with Tomoe. He wins her pardon and marries her. Together, they have a son, Asahina Saburō Yoshihide. When Tomoe’s husband is killed by the rival Hōjō clan, Tomoe becomes a nun. She dies in 1247, at ninety years old (or ninety-one years by traditional Japanese account).

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