This poster from the Akira Kurosawa film Kagemusha illustrates the classic view of early samurai cavalry. Great cavalry charges of thoroughbred looking horses.
But as Karl Friday in his book Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan reveals, the mounted samurai of the movies bare little resemblance to the actual mounted warriors from medieval Japan. Early medieval Japanese war-horses were actually much smaller and slower than the horses seen in classic samurai movies.
According to Friday, the mounts favored by early medieval samurai were stallions raised in eastern Japan and selected for their size and fierce temperament. They were stout, short-legged, shaggy, short-nosed beasts, tough, unruly and difficult to control.
In 1953, a mass grave at Zaimokuza near Kamakura was unearthed that is believed to contain the remains of men and horses killed during Nitta Yoshisada's attack on the city in 1333. The skeletons show the horses of the period ranged in height from 109 to 140 cm at the shoulder. Modern thoroughbreds by comparison range in height around 160 to 165 cm.
Also, these medieval horses could not sustain high speeds for long distance due to their size and the weight they were carrying, mounted samurai with full armor. Even modern racing horses can only go full out for 200 or 300 meters. Early medieval Japanese horses gave the samurai a rugged, stable, and comfortable platform from which to shoot their arrows, but it was a heavy beast not well designed for high speeds or long distance riding.
So the scenes in the movies with the cavalry charges that seem to go on forever are of course greatly embellished. But they make for an exciting movie.
The horses the Mongols used were small too. When the archers shot their arrows, they were accurate. Thomas Conlan also mentioned about the small horses used by the Japanese in his Samurai Warrior book.
ReplyDeleteThat would make sense. I read Conlan's book State of War which I really enjoyed. I would like to read his other books also.
ReplyDeleteWhen we visited Tachibana-dera Temple, there was a bronze stature of the horse Prince Shotoku rode. The horse looked small and delicate.
ReplyDeletehttp://nihonehime.blogspot.com/2009/05/tachibana-dera-temple-birthplace-of.html
I wonder how accurate in size the statue is to the actual horse.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to say. Out of anything, the Japanese take care in preserving their past. Is it accurate? I can assume the the custodians of this complex did their homework when it came to historical recreations. Is the bronze statue of the horse a recreation of the actual horse? Obviously not but is it representative of horses of that period in time? Most likely, yes.
ReplyDeleteA great book on Shingen and the Takeda horses is Saga of the Samurai, Shingen in Command (4). The book actually has some pictures of small horses. I am still waiting for nook number five to come out.
ReplyDeleteThanks Otsuke. I recently came across those books through Google book searches. They look interesting so I will keep them in mind.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the excerpts from this interesting book. I'll definitely have to pick up a copy. We definitely tend to romanticize the samurai as well as other warrior classes around the world.
ReplyDeleteI think most medieval horses around the world were rather small, or at least smaller than we imagine. Even the heavy chargers used by European knights only came about near the end of the medieval period. And they were used only in certain areas by a few knights, due to the expense of keeping them around.
I think you are right Wind. The movies have given everyone the impression that warriors throughout history have been running around on sleek, fast thoroughbreds.
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