After the Dragon: Enter the Snake - Japanese New Year 2025

 

So an old year leaves and a new one comes around. And in Japan that means the start of a new animal year according to the Chinese zodiac (yes, from January 1st, which might not be quite in line with the Chinese world, but is a tradition that has been going for the last 150 years or so). This year, 2025, is the Year of the Snake.

In Japan, like many other cultures, snakes tend not to be popular animals, but they command a sense of respect as well as fear – they can be divine messengers, as well as representing the dangerous and uncontrollable forces of nature. Their physical nature - the ability to shed their skin, their poisonous bite point towards other symbolic aspects such as renewal on the positive side, and malice on the not so positive.

Alas for this blog, there seems to be little overt connection to traditional martial arts in Japan –not the case in China, for example, where snakes and snake style movement feature in a number of styles. There is certainly a tradition of respect - snakes were revered at certain shrines, avoided when traveling in the mountains (although there seems generally to have been a prohibition against killing them) and even today you may still hear the old wisdom that one is not supposed to whistle at night for fear of attracting them. Snakes were not, however, common motifs for samurai or thematically embodied in their traditions.

As one of the animals of the Chinese zodiac, snakes do crop up in art, although they are not as common as many other animals. The white snakes used for many New Year decorations are auspicious - sometime divine messengers, they are often associated with the goddess Benzaiten. Nowadays, they are often depicted curled up, and here incorporating the mochi rice cakes that are often used as New Year decorations, looking cute but not particularly snakey. In the past, artists felt more comfortable with a more naturalistic representation, as you can see from the painting at the top of the page by Hokusai.

On the other hand, there is quite a selection of giant snakes (known as uwabami) to be found in ukiyo-e prints, as sinuous as you could hope for, usually locked in battle with a variety of brave heroes. Here is one such uwabami pre-encounter, once again by Hokusai.

 One of these, Heita Tanenaga, a real life 13th century samurai, seems to have made something of a career taking on these monster snakes, with tales telling of at least five different encounters. Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s dynamic style was well-suited to depicting such encounters, and strongly influenced other artists in their approach.

 but Hokusai who could turn his brush towards almost anything, was clearly not to be outdone.

I have seen such tussles explained as (a subconscious depiction of) the struggle of the upper and lower selves, the earthly and divine sides of our natures, and it’s easy to see where the snake fits in here. It seems nicely ‘symbolic’, but I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss it completely as there is something deeply attractive about such themes, something that you might be expected to grow out of (like superhero movies) but which many people do not.

Speaking of esoterica, snakes were also popularly associated with magic and the dark side of spirituality in novels and theatre in the Edo Period, and you can see these in prints as well. Here is Kidomaru engaged in his esoteric arts. 

Interestingly, some schools of bujutsu also incorporated aspects of these arts (and still do to some extent). Of these, perhaps the best known is Tenshin Shinden Katori Shinto Ryu; there are others. Some regard esoteric training as psychology, whereas others see the training as having a somewhat different flavour, enabling access to something beyond the merely human. The Japanese tend not to like categorically falling in one camp or another on many issues, but I have found that the world of spirits is one that is not dismissed lightly here. You may feel a little reassured to reflect that the swordsmen in the stories were not outmatched by sorcery – the strength of spirit from their training was a match for their opponents.

An unusual painting - I'm not sure just where it's from - it looks
like a picture scroll involving the zodiac animals up to more of their zany antics.

 

I’ll leave you with another rather unusual painting, once again by Hokusai, of a snake and dragon, painted as a lantern. If I recall correctly, it was painted for a business, in Fukugawa in Edo. This area was also known as Tatsumi, which meant south-east, as the area lay in the south east of the city. It is also a play on the place name, as ‘tatsu’ means dragon, and ‘mi’ is an alternative pronunciation for the word snake.

Happy New Year 2025!

The military rake in times of peace – from the battlefield to civilian protection – part 2

 

A real antique kumade - this one was more than  260cm long

We looked at the military rake (kumade) last month, so now it’s time to see how it fared after the long centuries of war came to an end. Perhaps it was its utility that doomed it in the field of war – It didn’t have much mystique or status as a weapon, did not seem particularly attached to any social or military group (unlike the masakari or long handled axe, for example, which was long associated with yamabushi), and without anywhere to realise its use as a weapon, people forgot how useful it could be, and little more is seen or heard of it…as such. 

A modern day yamabushi with a masakari

 

(image courtesy of Trip Advisor)

 

While it doesn’t seem that the kumade made the transition as a weapon into the relatively peaceful Edo period, several weapons were used in civil defense/law enforcement that involved entangling and immobilizing an opponent. These were the triad of sasumata, sodegarami and tsukubo (there are several alternative names, but these are the most common – the fork, the sleeve entangler and the push pole. Matsura Seizan, for example, calls them the sasumata, hineri and shumoku). They were categorized as implements or tools rather than weapons, but their array of short spikes, partly to deter grabbing, would have been capable of causing significant damage, as well as helping to catch and entangle clothing. If you get the chance to see them close up, there is no doubt that you wouldn’t want the business end of any of them near you. 

sasumata

sodegarami

tsukubo

In their use, they could very well have replicated the hooking functions of the rake, and perhaps they were more suitable for use against unarmoured opponents. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of techniques for these implements that have been passed down, though there are several videos online of people using them in more or less plausible ways. 

I would think that anyone reasonably well-versed in the use of pole arms (and jujutsu, perhaps, given their use for restraint) could come up with similar techniques. 

These were not the only tools used to subdue unruly lawbreakers. Anyone who has seen the classic film, Daisatsujin Orochi, starring Ichikawa Raizo, will surely remember the scene where the lone swordsman is confronted by a crowd of constables who attempt to capture him using ropes, doors two-wheeled wooden wagons and ladders (as well was some of the more usual implements just visible in the bottom of the frame below. (This is well worth watching in any case – one of my favourite Japanese movies. it's English title is The Betrayal).

A still from Daisatsujin Orochi - the hero is in the centre - note the the tsukubo and sasumata at the bottom of the frame.

A slightly less conventional law enforcement tool

Though this approach may seem to be a relic of the past, a modern iteration of the sasumata is still a common piece of equipment in schools (and police stations) in Japan (and also in China apparently – I saw one in evidence in a news report about one of the recent mass stabbing incidents) and has occasionally been deployed successfully. It offers the ability to hold off a knife wielding attacker while remaining at a safe distance. Techniques have been designed to give it more flexibility in use, and it looks as if it could, indeed, be quite effective, especially if it is part of a coordinated effort involving several people. An ideal version is depicted in the picture below. 

 

Teachers training with sasumata

 Here is a link to a video showing training in a supermarket:

https://youtu.be/WtdCxgmqDI4

Note the use of supermarket trolleys, too!

However, as always, the reality of an attack is likely to be quite different from practice. It would require a cool head to use it well against a knife wielding assailant, and, perhaps because of its success in being sold as such a practical response to a knife attack, there has been some criticism of its effectiveness. These criticisms stress the relative ease with which the knife wielder could catch hold of the head, either to twist it around so they can get past, or, by grabbing both prongs, take control of it. (As someone holding the two prongs has a mechanical advantage over someone just holding the shaft, this is quite possible.) The lack of spikes in the centre of the ‘u’ section, a feature in some ‘samurai period’ sasumata also means that there is nothing to stop the aggressor pushing back directly against the force of the defender, possibly forcing the defender to drop the sasumata or risk being cut. 

I like pole weapons but space limitations in Japan means I haven’t had the chance to practice with them as often as I would like. The modern sasumata certainly seems like something it would be fun to play around with.

On a final note, although the sasumata is designed to immobilize an attacker, that is not the only way of using it. The video below shows the owner of a jewelers shop in Tokyo using it successfully as a club in the most basic of ways – and it worked.

https://youtu.be/q1vwgwi-k9Y?si=9_Xv-ugJsCjvXLz9