Talk:Yasuke/Archive 4

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Why not an RfC?

This talk is an unreadable mess that will never deliver a consensus on the samurai issue. I suggest that editors interested in the topic read WP:RFC carefully. You could use the RfC on Trans woman as a reference model. This so-called RfC was not advertised at RFCA using the {{rfc}} tag. Note that opening statement should be brief and neutral, and that best practice is to keep the survey and discussion sections separate. In this case I suggest a separate section or page (example) also for Sources, where editors can list sources and publish excerpts from them. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:42, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding a separate Sources section, is it typical for a RfC to also discuss the reliability of individual sources entries? The reason for the Yasuke RfC and the historical figure of Yasuke are a slightly unusual scenario in the sense that primary sources are very scarce and secondary sources are largely non-academic and/or engage in speculations without clear backing in (or in contradiction with) primary sources. 81.223.103.71 (talk) 12:55, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

In principle we should avoid dealing with primary sources because that's close to original research: Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them per WP:PRIMARY and Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources per WP:SECONDARY. If there's a dispute about whether a particular source is a reliable source (RS), editors may start a discussion at WP:RSN. Finally, for the purposes of an RfC an organised presentation of RSes such as this one could be very helpful. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:45, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that we must be wary of engaging in WP:Original research.

That said, I don't think we should therefore avoid looking at primary sources altogether, especially when those primary sources are referenced as the ostensible origin of claims made in the secondary sources.

As part of doing our due diligence in identifying reliable sources for history, we must evaluate the claims of the secondary sources we wish to cite. And if those secondary sources make claims that are ostensibly backed by other sources, it behooves us to look at those other sources to see if those claims are indeed backed up.

By way of example, see the discussions above about Manatsha's paper "Historicising Japan-Africa relations" (in #Samurai status and #Why not just add a section about the samourai status), where an evaluation of Manatsha's cited sources revealed that those backing references actually do not support Manatsha's claims — rendering Manatsha's paper unreliable.

Using primary sources as a reference point for our articles could thus be appropriate — so long as we limit our use of primary sources to the work of determining the reliability of secondary sources (or quoting from them to help illustrate a point made by the secondary source, as per WP:HISTIP). ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:07, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr

There are not really any secondary sources on Yasuke in the first place. Yasuke is a trivial figure who doesn't even have a surname/clan name in Japanese history, therefore no one really study about him whose historical records can be read under 2 minutes in Japanese.

Lockley is an associate professor for English/Linguistics in Japan University in Japan and his study on Yasuke is like his hobby not a academic job.

If Lockley's book can be a secondary "academic" source then anyone can write about Yasuke and can be used as a secondary source.

Would the editors here take those secondary sources then?

Lockley's book and any media using his book are like a novel not academic level sources. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 10:09, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

One concern I have about the not-quite-RFC that happened earlier, is that many of the commenters seemed to be ignorant of the many issues brought up previously on this Talk page about the reliability of the sources. Either concerns were ignored, or dismissed out of hand. The process played out as basically a popularity vote, rather than an open discussion of the issues.

I'm not sure this kind of popularity vote would be avoided by holding a proper WP:RFC.

That said, I entirely agree that having a full list of all sources looked at so far, with room for talking about the perceived issues with each, would be a good idea. That would hopefully help us avoid the problem recurring on this Talk page, where multiple posters independently bring up the same sources multiple times, each in apparent ignorance of the reliability issues already identified and discussed in the past. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:29, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry that the vast majority of editors, including myself, don't agree with your original research or opinion on the sources presented. Silverseren^C 22:42, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

The lead now says that Yasuke served as a retainer. Two sources are provided ([1] [2]), which are in Japanese and don't look like high quality / academic sources (the second one is the Huff Post). Per WP:NONENG, English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones when they are available and of equal quality and relevance. Several reliable sources in English call Yasuke a samurai:

• The Britannica article about Yasuke says "Yasuke (born c. 1550s) was a Black samurai".
• BBC says "He would go on to become the first foreign-born man to achieve the status of a samurai warrior".
• Smithsonians Magazine calls him "The first Black samurai".
• Time says "Yasuke was a real-life Black samurai".
• CNN says "Nobunaga soon made him a samurai – even providing him with his own servant, house and stipend, according to Jesuit records".
• France Info says "premier samouraï d'origine étrangère et africaine" [the first samurai of foreign and African origin].

I browsed through the long talk page discussions and noticed that Eirikr made nearly 70 comments arguing that all of the secondary sources describing Yasuke as samurai or koshō (page boy) are not backed by any primary sources and that One of the big problems we've been zeroing in on in this Talk page is that the secondary sources do not appear to be all that reliable. They claimed that CNN, Smithsonian, Radio France, and Time sources do not appear to be usable, that the Britannica article about Yasuke is vague in its defintion of the term [samurai] and is inconsistent with what I've read in other more-detailed sources, and that Manatsha, Boga Thura (2019). "Historicising Japan-Africa relations". Pula Botswana Journal of African Studies. 33 (1) is not a reliable academic source. I don't know anything about Japanese history, and I have no prior knowledge or interest in the subject, but I do know that this approach to sources is contrary to core policies WP:V and WP:NOR.

So I'm now changing the lead according to the best available sources. Please feel free to revert if you don't agree and we'll have a meaningful and orderly RfC on the subject. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:57, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

There's also the academic sources and quotes I presented in the Talk:Yasuke#On_the_subject_of_academic_sources section, Gitz6666. I was honestly just waiting for the one month period on the RfC to end, ask for admin closure, and then it wouldn't matter what arguments were being made, consensus would be shown. As you noted and I've elaborated on before, it seems very against WP policy to claim that the consensus of the editor community is wrong because they're "ignorant" of the subject. We've had plenty a "subject-matter expert" come around on various topics and try to enforce their opinion despite what the broader editor community consensus was on the subject. Things rarely turned out positively for the "experts" in question. Silverseren^C 23:14, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Silver seren, excellent sources. Is this the RfC you are referring to? It's on a different albeit related question (the viewpoint that he was a samurai might be more mainstream than a significant minority view) and most importantly WP:RFCOPEN was not followed so that that "RfC" was not listed at WP:RFCA, uninvolved editors were not notified by Yapperbot and basically the wider community could not join the discussion. I doubt that RfC deserves closure. I'm pinging RomeshKubajali on this. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:38, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

That's a fair point, actually. I can make an RFC and ping the participants in the old "RFC" in a few hours (or if you want to I'm fine with someone else making it first). Loki (talk) 00:04, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Local talk page RfCs involving people interested in the article are allowed. Not every RfC gets listed on RFCA (otherwise it would be a lot more congested, considering the amount of talk page discussions going on at any one time). And the involvement of 15 editors seems fairly high for a random article talk page discussion. But doing a larger RfC is fine too. Silverseren^C 00:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I think that if/when my edit to the lead gets reverted we can have a larger RfC and ping the editors who took part in the first one. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:27, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping and please forgive me for the slow reply; I've been rather tired of this entire Yasuke situation and Wikipedia in general. My RfC was listed on RfC/A, I used the RFC template and included the RfC in the bio and hist categories (see diff). I additionally announced the RfC on other related articles and WikiProject Talk Pages (see diffs for Foreign-Born Samurai, Samurai, Black People in Japan, WikiProject Japan, WikiProject Biography and, WikiProject Africa). I understand however that the RfC template is for some reason no longer in my section (I assume the bot removed it after 30 days?) which has caused this confusion over whether the RfC was properly made and publicised.

On a related note I am going to/have revert(ed) your edit adding the Samurai title to the lead. I believe this edit was improper given my RfC attempted to resolve this issue and currently has an active closure request. RomeshKubajali (talk) 02:12, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

my mistake, thanks for clarifying the RfC tag issue. Still, that RfC is not neutrally framed: it asks whether the view that Yasuke was a samurai should be included as "significant minority view", while it is actually the only view supported by reliable sources: an uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertion.The RfC should have been worded as @LokiTheLiar's RfC here below - four options on an equal footing, none of which is presented as majority or minority view. Notwithstanding this shortcoming, the RfC's question received (if I'm not mistaken, I'm on a mobile) one No and nine Yes, and six editors !voting Yes (myself included) specified that the subject's status as a samurai is actually the mainstream view to be stated in wikivooce.

That RfC should be closed per WP:SNOWBALL and my edit to the lead immediately restored. Alternatively we could re-open Loki's RfC, which was interrupted for no apparent reason. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:21, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

In theory we ought to wait until the old RFC is closed. But it's kinda on the border of WP:SNOW territory. Loki (talk) 08:25, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

No, we should not close the RFC and immediately restore your edit, as there are serious problems with stating in wikivoice that Yasuke was a samurai. There are serious problems with the sources claimed as "reliable", which issues have not been addressed. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 08:49, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

@Gitz6666

Recently Kirino Sakujin denied Lockley's claim that Kirino did a fact-check on Lockley's book.

https://x.com/kirinosakujin/status/1795768862652449021

Since there is no one having fact-checked his book, Lockley's book and any media using his book as source are all unreliable.

So you should stop repeating any media using Lockley's book as sources. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 09:10, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

So are you not going to address these issues? You are completely ignoring every argument we have been saying and given you multiple chances to explain to us why you believe these sources are reliable or why we should use these sources. Not once have you actually acknowledged this question, you keep trying to insist on changing it without considering the sources. If you continue to ignore this we're going to assume you're disrupting this conversation with zero interest in having an honest discussion on the verifiability of these sources claiming Yasuke is a samurai. Hexenakte (talk) 13:24, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I could have worded the RfC better. I don't think my poor first attempt at an RfC necessitates another RfC though; other Wikipedia users gave various "Yes but..." responses to the RfC so I don't see another, better worded, RfC resulting in a different outcome. Looking at the other responses in this thread other users also have issues with the RfC for varying other reasons so maybe it would be beneficial to go to DRN.

...while it is actually the only view supported by reliable sources: an uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertion.

That is only the case if you accept the idea that a source needs to explicitly state he was not a samurai for it to disagree with the assertion that Yasuke was a samurai. That's an absurd view to take though as I and others have explained previously. RomeshKubajali (talk) 00:33, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

It is in fact just how sourcing works. A source can't be used to source claims it doesn't make, even if it also doesn't make the opposite claim either. Loki (talk) 01:08, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

To refer to the proof of negative claims, this section explains it well here:

A negative claim may or may not exist as a counterpoint to a previous claim. A proof of impossibility or an evidence of absence argument are typical methods to fulfill the burden of proof for a negative claim.

Keep in mind most of this information was sourced from earlier discussions (see #Samurai_status, #Reaction_of_Thomas_Lockley, #On_the_subject_of_academic_sources, #Priority_of_title_justification), so assume everything here is supported by secondary sources unless I state it is OR otherwise for the sake of saving time. For evidence of absence regarding Yasuke's samurai-ness:

• The default status for Japanese people was non-samurai, and that being a samurai was a rarity/privileged class. Also that Toyotomi Hideyoshi was specifically stated as not a samurai until after his marriage with his wife One (who came from Minamoto lineage) in 1561.

• Yasuke lacked a surname, which is necessary to be considered of a samurai status or class. If we compare him to Tomo Shorin, Tomo Shorin was given a 100 koku estate, a daisho set, a horse with armor/gear, a kosode, a stipend, and a "private residence". Yasuke only received a stipend, a "private residence", and a sayamaki (a Japanese sword of some kind lacking a tsuba; this could refer to a tantō, which commonly did not have a tsuba (this tanto claim is OR)).

• Yasuke was never once referred to as a samurai nor was he referred to by any title.

• The lack of a conformed definition of "what a samurai is" among academic scholars pushing the positive claim that he was a samurai.

• The lack of proper citation and/or support for the positive claim that he was a samurai.

• The lack of Yasuke being considered a samurai by academic historians for decades up until the last 10 or so years, which so far all of those listed in this talk page goes back to the previous bullet point.

Overall, it does not need to be said that he was explicitly not a samurai in the article, which source support is required for. What you do not get is that we are not advocating for making this explicit statement, instead he should be referred to as what is supported by proper citations/evidence, that is that he was an "attendant retainer", which several of the secondary sources listed here do call him, such as from Russell's paper mentioned in #Samurai_status:

Retained as an attendant by Nobunaga, he later accompanied him into battle against the rival lord Akechi Mitsuhide (1528? —1582)who upon defeating Nobunaga at Horyuji, spared the African and subsequently released him. (Emphasis mine)

This is evidence we can use for the article in accordance with WP:CONTEXTFACTS ("The very same source may be reliable for one fact and not for another."), as this is supported by the primary sources as he was said to carry Nobunaga's tools and that he was in his service.

So no, the burden of proof for the positive still needs to be met. You cannot dismiss our arguments simply because no academic paper made a negative claim about it, this is an argument from ignorance. The burden of proof lies on the positive, not the negative. Hexenakte (talk) 02:00, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

We already have explicit unambiguous policy on this. Basically some editors on this talk page are arguing, on the basis of their background knowledge of the history and culture of Japan, that Yasuke as a samurai is an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim. I don't agree with them (and will explain why) but even if we accept the point, it follows that we need multiple high quality sources, which we do have. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:51, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I categorically disagree that we have "multiple high quality sources". I will post a more in-depth look at this later. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 09:10, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't WP:RSN be the right venue for posting your forthcoming in-depth source analysis? We've already had plenty of those on this talk page and it's clear that they don't help reaching a consensus. If you keep on posting them here you are only WP:bludgeoning the process. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:35, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@Gitz6666, I am honestly confused — what issue do you take with my analysis of Manatsha's paper, "Historicising Japan-Africa relations", as described in detail in the #Why not just add a section about the samourai status section?

In that analysis, I point out that Manatsha makes two claims (about the status of Yasuke as a samurai, and about the derivation of the Japanese term kuronbo), which he cites to specific sources. Upon inspection, we (not just I) found that those sources do not back up his claims.

Are you contending that WP:V and/or WP:OR state that we (editors in general) should not attempt to evaluate the reliability of a source, by looking into the verifiability of a source's claims? Seeking clarity here. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:28, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I want to highlight as the person, who had a strong discussion with Eirikr just before your section, about the slave status of Yasuke, that Eirik is the calmest voice in this talk page with the biggest insides in this matter here, who took the most effort to actual view into these sources and i dont see the same commitment in your posts in this section, except the same claims already stated and dismissed MONTHS ago on a wimp to push a certain view.

A lot of your "reliable sources" about his samurai status state papers of news-articles, who are not about Yasuke, but about a various shows, that takes historic liberties with this historic figure. These samurai Yasuke articles in recent media are not the historic Yasuke, they talk about the media-Yasuke and try to connect this media-Yasuke with his actual historic reality. I even talked on this talk page about this issue and these articles were highlighted to not talk about the historic Yasuke countless times on this talk-page by various people. You ignored this and just posted the same stuff again as "reliable".

It seems to me, that your "browsing" was not based on a NPOV and ignorant to the primary sources in the enjoyment on specific secondary sources and their claims over other secondary sources with different claims.

Just to prove your point, i will write a third time again about this Time article About a Yasuke of the Netflix’s New Anime Series.

Even the main academic source for the Time was just requesting e-mails from Lockley, who acknowledges the theory of Yasuke being a slave and not a samurai In your source. He just disagrees to this view.

Personally I don’t think he was a slave in any sense of the word, I think he was a free actor,” Lockley said. But his personal views are not even so relevant to Lockley's own academic papers and his followed 3-4 statements from various statements of him to the Times, clearly evaded the term samurai and classify him as "a kind of bodyguard" "warrior".

Statements like “Anybody who took up weapons on behalf of a lord could technically call themself a samurai, or could be called a samurai.” were used by Lockley, after getting directly asked about the samurai status at these times and they were not specific about Yasuke, but were inserted into the article in a way to make the claim of his samurai status somehow reasonable explained, ignorant to Lockley's other statements in the same article, just to make the modern media not oblivious ignorant to the real historic Yasuke.

It is in all honesty not the job of Wikipedia to defend modern non-historic media by ignoring primary sources and it is not the job of Wikipedia to use articles about a media adaptation of a figure as reliable sources for a historic figure, while not quoting the experts in these same articles in a reliable way. ErikWar19 (talk) 04:07, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, a lot of people here are trying to falsify the history of Japan.

There are primary historical records that contradict Lockley's speculation, but many editors here are ignoring the contradictions .

And the Japanese man, who Lockely (Associate professor for English/Linguistics) claimed that he did a fact check, DENIED officially that he did a fact check. Then the Japan Times retracted the part that Lockley said his book was fact checked by that Japanese man .

BTW, Lockley is not a historian but he is just an associate professor for English/Linguistics. He is NOT an associate professor for history. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Gitz6666

Western media are not reliable sources if they use unreliable sources. Since when those Western media became the academic authorities?

Your insistent attempt of making Yasuke into a historical samurai is very concerning and getting a troll on Wikipedia page.

I noticed that you wrote French in your page.

Anyway please provide valid historical Japanese evidences to back up those western media about Yasuke. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 10:22, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I noticed that you wrote French in your page.

@Shinjitsunotsuikyu: If you’re referring to Gitz6666’s userpage, that’s Italian and a bit of Latin, not French.

Some primary sources about Yasuke are in Middle French, French speakers (including myself) have helped translate them on this talk page, so not sure what the problem is. Thibaut (talk) 10:46, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

@Thibaut120094

Some primary sources are in mid French?

I don't know what primary sources you are referring.

Could you put a link for that?

Hope it is not a few hundred years later like in Meiji period when French people came to Japan. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 11:38, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

It's a book called Histoire ecclésiastique des isles et royaumes du Japon (lit. 'Ecclesiastical history of the islands and kingdoms of Japan'), published in 1627, you can read the discussion by clicking this link. Thibaut (talk) 15:14, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

"I'm sorry that the vast majority of editors, including myself, don't agree with your original research or opinion on the sources presented. SilverserenC 22:42, 27 June 2024 (UTC)"

@Silver seren — It is not "original research" to follow up on a source's own sources. That's all I did for Manatsha's paper. In doing so, I found that Manatsha's citations did not make the statements that Manatsha said that they did. This is not my opinion, this is a simple matter of logic, and of Manatsha's claims, cited to other works, not aligning with the actual statements in those other works.

Whether intentionally, or incompetently, Manatsha's paper essentially lies about what its sources say. This renders Manatsha's paper unreliable. Yet you continue to hold this paper up as a "reliable source", even after the problems have been clearly pointed out.

Honest question: what does "reliable" mean to you? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:33, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Gitz, before making completely erroneous assertions like the RfC was not advertised at RFCA using the {{rfc}} tag, maybe actually check the page history? [3]. I've closed the new RfC for now because there is no reason to rehash the debate when the original valid RfC is stil at RFCLOSE and hasn't been closed yet. If the result of the old RfC is inconclusive I am happy to re-open the new one. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:10, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

it was hard for me to imagine that you or others might have removed the RfC tag from an open RfC. I don't understand the reason why you did so, but that's not important: that RfC is not neutrally worded because it presents as "significant minority view" (rather than irrelevant/fringe) what is actually the mainstream view supported by all RSes. That RfC should already be closed with Yes prevailing per WP:SNOWBALL but that Yes would still not be conclusive - arguably we should use wikivoice and state that he was a samurai. I'm not reopening the second RfC launched by Loki only because my recent edit to the lead has not yet been undone. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:17, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

"arguably we should use wikivoice and state that he was a samurai."

On what basis? Because TIME Magazine says so?

I've shown conclusively that one source, Manatsha's paper, contains outright fabrications. That source was re-listed as a "reliable source" in the abortive RFC from earlier today. Lockley's book has also been shown to be problematic, not least by this academic review by historian Roger Purdy, who characterizes the book as "popular history and historical fiction".

If these are your "reliable sources", I see deep problems with how sourcing is playing out for this article. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 08:36, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

On what basis? Because TIME Magazine says so? Yes, TIME is a reliable source, same as Britannica, Smithsonian magazine, CNN, Lockley's book, etc. They all qualify as WP:RS irrespective of what you think about them. However, editors' original research on this talk page is not reliable until it gets to be reputably published. I strongly suggest you read the guidelines and policies that have been mentioned on this page multiple times. Lack of knowledge or disregard for basic policies on verifiability and sources has already wasted a lot of editors' time. If you don't agree with this, please seek input from uninvolved editors at WP:RSN. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:04, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Many of these so-called reliable sources trace their information (directly or indirectly) back to Lockley's book on Yasuke. As has been pointed out by Roger Purdy and in fact many comments from readers online, the book is NOT a historical book, but a work of fiction. The claims it makes hinge strictly on the reputation of Thomas Lockley as they cannot be verified. More so, some have been refuted based on the sources Professor Lockley himself listed in the book.

Should then editors not pursue due diligence in verifying individual secondary sources? 84.115.239.106 (talk) 11:31, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@84.115.239.106

Lockley is an associate professor for English/Linguistics at Japan Uni.

He is never a professor for history let alone Japanese history.

I am going to phone Japan Uni. about Lockley when I get time. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 10:31, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Erikir's, Hexenakte's, and several other editors' posts regarding the reliability of certain sources do not conflict with Wikipedia policy. In fact, they conform with it. Refer to WP:RSCONTEXT and WP:CONTEXTFACTS which exist due to the natural need for discretion when editing Wikipedia. Please be aware, I am not speaking about the various posts on this Talk page that are obviously original research or original synthesis (such as Yasuke's height), or the obvious WP:SOAPBOX posts. I am purely speaking about the posts which question the reliability of sources which claim Yasuke is a samurai. Do not misconstrue the text within the WP:NOR and WP:V policies to declare that no discretion may be exercised by Wikipedia editors. Editorial discretion does not conflict with these core policies. In fact discretion is used to varying degrees everytime someone determines a source to be reliable or unreliable. This is even more important when dealing with figures or events that deal with non-"Western" languages and cultures due to the higher difficulty of preventing mistranslation and crossing cultural barriers, especially with the historical, not current, versions of that language and culture. This article covers a niche subject matter. (from a Westerner's perspective)

Editors who may want to report Yasuke as a samurai have furnished at least one tertiary work -- for example, the Britannica encyclopedia, the TIME article, and CNN article. Although reliable for some subjects, this can be questionable for certain historical contexts. And in this context, it has been shown numerous times, that several popular sources pertaining to Yasuke are unreliable. Not via original research, but by simply evaluating the source. Note that tertiary works that are generally reliable can still have unreliable entries, especially for non-Western figures, even more so for those that were obscure to Western audiences until relatively recently. Additionally, there are cultural barriers and the difficulty of historical translation.

To get specific, if you read the Britannica article, it appropriately uses soft language such as "historians speculate..." and "historians assume..." etc., which is fine; however, for the exceptional claim of Yasuke being a samurai there is no softer language and it reads as a secondary source would. Naturally, the tertiary work is not appropriate for this claim, and a secondary source should be used for this claim. There exists information on Wikipedia that requires sources that are more robust than teritary works -- this is typical and not a problem, hence Wikipedia preference for secondary sources.

Apropros of the above, editors have also furnished secondary sources. Unfortunately, these have been shown to be unreliable and unverifiable. Even the most basic implementation of editorial discretion, for example viewing a cited work within a secondary source, has led to indications of fabricated claims in a secondary source. Not to mention the issues with the other secondary sources such as Lockley. Checking a cited work, as many Wikipedia editors are used to doing, does not qualify as original research. In fact, it does not conflict with any wiki policy as far as I can tell. I am not implying the fabrications are intentional but at the very least the sources conflict with WP:RELIABILITY. That is to say, to report the default condition of Yasuke as him being a samurai conflicts with the WP:RELIABILITY policy.

Be aware, the default condition for nearly any individual in Japanese history is that of not being a samurai. To report someone as a samurai is exceptional. It needs reliable, appropriate sources. Not a tertiary work in this case, and not news articles, and not popular history works.

The term "samurai" cannot in good faith be invoked in the lede. Apologies for any poor formatting as I am traveling (in and out of internet service) for several days, and posting from a mobile device. To other editors: I strongly support opening up the Rfc but am not in the position to do so at this moment. Green Caffeine (talk) 14:15, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Green Caffeine

I am Japanese and I am opposing this history falsification by secondary sources from western people on Yasuke that have no historical backings.

Historical records contradict the "secondary sources" based on Lockley's book.

Yasuke was never born into a samurai family not even into a bushi family not even into a Japanese family.

Yasuke was brought as a slave by Jesuit to Japan and stayed in Japan for about three years but only was with Nobunaga for 15 months.

Yasuke was given like a property by Jesuit to Nobunaga.

Nobunaga did NOT give Yasuke a clan/family name which is a must-have as a bushi class at least.

Ietada stated in his diary that Yasuke was GIVEN by missionaries to Nobunaga.

Akechi Mitsuhide said of Yasuke as black slave and animal.

William Adams got his SURNAME, fief and a TITLE of hatamoto. He got his status after SEVEN years after he did everything for Ieyasu like building ships, teaching European math etc.

Hideyoshi got promoted because he did contributed to Nobunaga in wars.

But Yasuke had done NOTHING. So, it is not possible for Nobunaga to make Yasuke a samurai (high rank bushi or noble bushi clan).

If western people wants to claim Yasuke as samurai historically, they need to provide valid proofs backed by Japanese sources and backgrounds.

大体、日本語も読めない書けない喋れない外国人が日本の史料を無視して現代のポリコレメディアを使って勝手に15か月の荷物持ちの黒人を歴史上の侍に仕立て上げることは、完全に文化盗用であり、文化植民地主義であり、歴史捏造です。

日本人として断固として反対致します。

Please search in the Youtube with the word "アサクリ" to see the opinions from the Japanese people. Majority of Japanese are really mad at this history falsification and cultural appropriation by the "so-called politically correct westerners". Our history is not westerner's politics nor tools for black lives matter. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 16:37, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

The ethnicity of the person who wrote a source has nothing to do with if the source is allowed or correct. To even propose such a thing is ludicrous.

There are plenty of good sources that prove that Yasuke was a samurai regardless of how much that angers ultra-nationalist groups, or right-wing Japanese racial purist groups, who are the ones trying to revise history in spite of a documented fact. It is not unlike how Japanese ultra-nationalist groups still try to revise history in real-time in regards to the Nanking Massacre and Japan's atrocities during WW2.

Your comment comes across like the screed of a very racist Japanese nationalist and is entirely out of place here. Symphony Regalia (talk) 16:52, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

This is an extremely weak defense of the sources. They are all post-race riots of 2020. They have the same shared sources, not actual investigation but instead appear to be a crude ritual of repetition. This exact problem is something that critics of wikipedia frequently bring up. We have the actual primary sources, the exact same ones as these 'reputable' sources you speak of and their claims are not reflected in the only history known to anyone alive today. This should disqualify the articles and perhaps the specific authors. Not only that, but Britannica previously reported far lower numbers of victims in the holocaust than the 'agreed upon' number today. Is that authoritative? to be wrong? Or perhaps NYT running stories during political campaigns which turn out to be complete fabrications? The problem with "well the source is reliable" is that it is false on its face on a case-by-case basis. There are times when NYT's articles *are* accurate, and times when they are easily disproved by open source information such as witness accounts from the time of the event which corroborate each other. This is how history and encyclopedic records *should* be handled. Not blindly following some guideline of 'party' approved publications - and I don't mean that politically, I mean that in the very sense of completely disregarding the motivations behind certain articles.

Many of the articles cited in this wiki entry are from 2024. The majority are since 2020. This is not a reliably or ethical use of sources and it is painfully obvious to everyone looking in from the outside. FifteenthClause (talk) 19:18, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I am Japanese and I oppose any history falsification on Japan. There is no historical record of Yasuke being samurai. And based on our culture, Yasuke was not samurai since he had no clan/family name (surname) to become a bushi in the first place. Samurai was a high rank bushi before mid-Edo period. So foreigners like Lockely (associate professor for English/Culture in Japan) who are trying to falsify the Japanese culture and history are pure cultural appropriators.

Yasuke was not born into a samurai clan. Yasuke was a slave brought to Japan and given to Nobunaga by missionaries. Therefore, any foreigners who want to claim that Yasuke was a samurai historically must provide valid historical sources of how and when Yasuke became a free man first and then how and when he became a samurai.

William Adams had a clan name/surname with a fief and a title of Hatamoto.

Where are those for Yasuke? You guys need to provide the same amount of historical records as William Adams.

The depiction of Yasuke in fictional stories in pop culture does NOT make him a samurai in our history.

Also any foreign media or web site does not make him a samurai in our history.

This is literally a real cultural colonialism. Western media do NOT define our culture/history. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 10:45, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Who is "we" whose history you are talking about, we Japanese people or we black people? Don't bother answering - comments that are not based on soruces or policy are irrelevant here and close to WP:SOAPBOX. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:16, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

We as Japanese people.

I am Japanese and I oppose this history falsification of our history.

Yasuke was never born into samurai clan. So if you say he was a samurai then you need to provide valid Japanese sources that say Yasuke became a samurai or was considered as samurai.

Why do you think that western media citing just an English associate professor's book is accepted as a proof of samurai?

Is Japan a colony of western world? Do the western people determine who is samurai or not by ignoring Japanese historical records?

We Japanese know that Yasuke having no surname is just enough proof of him not being samurai.

Do you speak/read/write Japanese like native Japanese? Are there anyone in the editors group who speak Japanese like native and who can read Japanese historical records like native?

何で、日本語も読めない書けない喋れない外国人が勝手に日本の歴史を決定して世界中に拡散しようとしているんですか？

Like there is Japanese Wikipedia on Yasuke and all the editors can read it using google translation, why not do that?

日本語のウィキを自動翻訳するくらいはできるのに、それもせずに、英語のウィキで勝手に日本の歴史を改変して世界中に嘘をバラまくのは、完全に歴史改変行為であり、文化盗用です。 Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 16:50, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

The ethnicity of the person who wrote a source has nothing to do with if the source is allowed or correct. To even propose such a thing is ludicrous.

I am Japanese as well. There are plenty of good sources that prove that Yasuke was a samurai regardless of how much that angers ultra-nationalist groups, or right-wing Japanese racial purist groups, who are the ones trying to revise history in spite of a documented fact. It is not unlike how Japanese ultra-nationalist groups still try to revise history in real-time in regards to the Nanking Massacre and Japan's atrocities during WW2.

Your comment comes across like the screed of a very racist Japanese nationalist. Symphony Regalia (talk) 16:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

There is absolutely no basis for your claims.

The foreign people who assume that Yasuke is a samurai are basing their claims on Lockley's non-academic, speculation-filled book, while the Japanese are basing their claims on primary sources.

Your story that you are Japanese and that the right wing is trying to roll back history is also completely unfounded and a scribble not worth discussing.

No one with a sane brain would even think of discussing such futility. 217.178.103.145 (talk) 01:48, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I am Japanese, and Lockley's published works are indeed academic, and have been peer reviewed by other historians and subject matter experts, who also support the claims in them. Symphony Regalia (talk) 03:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The current RfC is a popularity contest with majority of those entering into it not even participating in the talk page, nor are they considering the reliability of the secondary sources presented. Only a small portion of those in the RfC are active participants. I will reiterate a comment I stated above to Loki when he stated that editors had no business in determining the reliability of secondary sources:

This is not per Wikipedia policy where the content itself can affect reliability (see WP:SOURCE) and the scrutiny and fact checking given to said sources makes it more likely to be reliable, and that editors must use judgement on what sources should be used or deemed inappropriate (see WP:SOURCEDEF). In fact it states that "no source is 'always reliable'". The idea that editors cannot practice due diligence on the reliability of secondary sources is not only wrong, but calls into the question of whether you are even acting in good faith about the topic at hand.

The fact of the matter is, all of these secondary sources lack the proper in-line citations to check their claims, they lack the primary source support, they even lack the peer review support as evidenced by R.W. Purdy. What more do you want? Credentials do not override the content of their writings especially if the information they say is complete fabrication. This is not just Lockley, but this is every other secondary source presented, such as Lopez-Vera and others also talked about. These sources cannot in good faith be used. Hexenakte (talk) 14:48, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

One of the common uses of an RFC is to break up a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that's against global policy, so it's not a problem that the majority of participants weren't previously active on this talk page. If anything I expect !votes from experienced editors who weren't participating on this talk page to be weighted more highly than the swarm of new WP:SPAs that descended on this talk page after the news about Yasuke being in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

You can in fact dispute any given source, but saying that a forest of RSes saying that Yasuke is a samurai are all wrong while you have zero sources that say he's not a samurai just doesn't make sense. It's clearly WP:OR special pleading to reach the result you want. Loki (talk) 15:55, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Since you're a relatively new user, I think you should defer to Loki's judgement on this matter rather than questioning their good faith. Alternatively you can go to WP:RSN and explain the reasons why Britannica, CNN, TIME, Smithsonian magazine, BBC, Lockley's and Lopez-Vera's books are not reliable sources for the claim that Yasuke was a samurai. There you will also be able to explain that WP:SOURCE and SOURCEDEF imply that "content itself can affect reliability" and that "editors must use their judgement as to which sources should be used or deemed inappropriate". Editors at RSN need a laugh from time to time. As for the editors on this talk page, I think they've had enough of this crap. Repeating the same point over and over again may be disruptive. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:02, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Since you're a relatively new user, I think you should defer to Loki's judgement on this matter rather than questioning their good faith.

Since you are relatively new to this talk page, I think you should defer to the multiple sections I have committed in participating and provided multiple secondary sources as well as peer review studies by academic professors such as R.W. Purdy (see Talk:Yasuke#Samurai_status, Talk:Yasuke#Reaction_of_Thomas_Lockley, Talk:Yasuke#On_the_subject_of_academic_sources, Talk:Yasuke#Priority_of_title_justification). I have more than enough provided information on why Lockley, Lopez-Vera, etc etc. are not reliable, with no one in opposition actually acknowledging it. I do not like to assume bad faith, but it is extremely difficult vice versa if no one actually acknowledges the problems that Lockley and other sources have. Not a single person still arguing that these are reliable sources has actually acknowledged these problems, especially when I said that statement to Loki, but there are quite a few who initially did that aren't anymore, such as Silverseren in one of the sections I pointed to already. Not a single person here who hasn't been convinced otherwise has actually engaged with this discussion, the only ones who did have already changed their mind on it.

Alternatively you can go to WP:RSN and explain the reasons why Britannica, CNN, TIME, Smithsonian magazine, BBC, Lockley's and Lopez-Vera's books are not reliable sources for the claim that Yasuke was a samurai.

Please look at the sections I have listed above. It is unacceptable to say that credentials and regurgitation are the only factors to affect reliability, according to Wikipedia's own policies, content is also a factor, and it is most applicable here, please see WP:SOURCE and WP:SOURCEDEF. There is plenty of documentation in this talk page about these sources, but you have to actually engage and acknowledge these arguments if you want to get anywhere with this issue, which you simply have not done.

Editors at RSN need a laugh from time to time. As for the editors on this talk page, I think they've had enough of this crap. Repeating the same point over and over again may be disruptive.

You are essentially doing the same thing you accused me of doing, assuming bad faith. I have tried my absolute best to engage with other editors who disagree with me and tried to be as fair as possible, even going so far to defend other editors as not being WP:SPAs even though they disagreed with me. Saying I am "repeating the same point over and over" and "disruptive" is ignorant to the participation I have given in this talk page, as with each new section I am often giving new information each and every time. Every time I look for more sources, the case against Lockley only gets stronger. You cannot hide behind credentials as a reason to accept these sources at face value, if you are aware of the issues that a source has arguing the opposite, that is, they have ZERO in-line citations, which isn't even acceptable in an academic environment, then you also would be arguing for its removal, even if they had more credentials. No one wants to purport knowingly wrong information, and if you say you do, you are not being honest.

That being said, I have cited a peer review by an academic professor R.W. Purdy - you can read his review in the sections I listed above - which is vital for the integrity and accuracy of academic research who states that Lockley's work is not applicable to the academic field and contains historical fiction and creative embellishments. If you want me to assume good faith - which I have done plenty enough already - you have to address these issues. This work is simply not acceptable. Please go read those sections before accusing me of anything regarding WP:OR or arguing in bad faith, I have been providing way more than what should be required. Hexenakte (talk) 16:25, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Gitz6666 i just want to point out, that i explained already on one example of your still insisted to be "reliable sources", the Times article about Yasuke, who actual talks about the popular culture view of a Netflix show and their historic base, that the actual source state the "samurai status" of Yasuke with Lockley's statements, who is NOT CALLING YASUKE A SAMURAI in this article, but more or less anything else, except a samurai.

Lockley, the dude you spammed 4-5 times already as a reliable source, evades the term himself in this source, you provided.

You are using articles about the popular western culture view on Yasuke to warp the historic section of this article. STOP IT.

If i would use the same OriginalResearch, you are using and if i actual use the same sources, you provided as "sources", i could argue, that Yasuke is a slave and was never free in Japan. If there is a mention of a potential samurai status of Yasuke in this article the same sourcing will be used 1to1 by me to call Yasuke a slave in Japan. Your source, the Timearticle, talks about this common interpretation of Yasuke as a slave. Your form of sourcing allows this form of argument level as well.

To allow one Original Research opens up the door for every similar original research with the same sources. --ErikWar19 (talk) 21:11, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't understand what you wrote. There seem to be issues with the English translation of your comment. But please, don't ping me again unless you have a reliable source that unequivocally states Yasuke never acquired the status of a samurai. Until we have such a source, I'm not interested in discussing about sources reliability on this talk page. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:25, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

oh i see WP:ICANTHEARYOU just kinda shows, that you are a disruptive editor, that often exhibits these tendencies:

Is tendentious:

continues editing an article in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition from other editors.

Is unwilling or unable to satisfy Wikipedia:

Verifiability; misrepresents reliable sources, or performs original research.

Fails to engage in consensus building:

repeatedly disregards other editors' questions or requests for explanations concerning edits or objections to edits;

repeatedly disregards other editors' explanations for their edits.

Fails to recognize, rejects, or ignores community input.

resists requests for comment

continuing to edit in pursuit of a certain point despite an opposing consensus from impartial editors.

In addition, such editors might:

Campaign to drive away productive contributors like @Eirikr:

Act of Ownership of articles that might not exhaust the general community's patience but still operates toward an end of exhausting the patience of productive, rule-abiding editors on certain articles.

Maybe you should read about WP:POWER --ErikWar19 (talk) 21:49, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

"[...] don't ping me again unless you have a reliable source that unequivocally states Yasuke never acquired the status of a samurai."

As has already been pointed out multiple times on this very page, samurai-ness was the exception, and non-samurai-ness was the default state. @Green Caffeine stated it quite well here:

If I may throw my hat into the ring as a third party.... Multiple people keep bringing up that no sources state that Yasuke wasn't a samurai, but it's highly atypical to expect sources to argue the negative/default condition. The default condition for anybody, even those in Japanese history such as Yasuke, is the state of not being a samurai. Multiple published resources such as the Smithsonian refer to Lockley or whichever of the few sources that say Yasuke was a samurai, but these resources *cannot* be used to argue that the default condition is Yasuke being a samurai, because they either are non-academic resources that are not typically used on Wikipedia, or they are unreliable resources, or they have little to no expertise in the field, or they circle back to the same unverifiable sources. They should not significantly factor into the discussion of what the "default" condition is for Yasuke. I cannot stress enough that the burden of proof is on the positive condition. The few sources arguing the positive condition are unverifiable.

This is NOT original research. (However, yes, there is original research taking place elsewhere on this Talk page.) This is looking at the sources which is typical for any Wikipedia editing process. We can verify that Yasuke attended to Nobunaga, but claiming he was a samurai by using one of the unverifiable sources is nearly equivalent to espousing legend as verifiable fact. Or espousing modern folk-tale as verifiable fact. Which is not acceptable. When you take a step back, the situation here is not that complicated.

Lastly, and I will be short here since this paragraph is only a tangent and just my personal unverifiable opinion, I can't help but feel that there are people here fetishizing the status of being a "samurai." I get the vibe that people believe that if Yasuke was not a samurai, then he is somehow less "cool." It's problematic to think this way, to say the least. Green Caffeine (talk) 01:58, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Requiring sources that explicitly argue for the negative, non-samurai, default condition, while simultaneously ignoring the many issues with the sources that argue for the positive, samurai, non-default condition, and while pushing for the article to make a statement of objective fact (in "wikivoice") based on such flawed sources, is problematic. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:00, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr

Yes, Samurai-ness is not a default even for Japanese.

I am Japanese and my ancestors were not samurai as far as I know. If I wanna state that my ancestors were samurai, I have to PROVE by some historical records.

Yasuke was never born into a samurai clan but he was just brought and given as a slave to Nobunaga.

Rather he was a slave by default based on historical records.

Yasuke was not samurai by default.

Therefore anyone who claims that Yasuke was a samurai must prove by some historical records. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 12:02, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I am Japanese as well. There are lots of reliable sources supporting Yasuke's status as a samurai. Symphony Regalia (talk) 16:55, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

@Gitz6666

There is a source of Yasuke NOT being a samurai. Nobunaga never gave Yasuke a clan name/surname.

In Japanese culture and history, having and officially using a clan name/surname is a "must" for samurai.

Samurai was a hereditary clan status, so all samurai had clan name/surname.

Yasuke never had a clan name/surname to form a buke (bushi clan).

samurai is a high rank bushi especially before mid-Edo era. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 11:20, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

A clan name was not necessarily required to be a samurai. Yayosu, the other European samurai who was bestowed the high rank of Hatamoto alongside Williams Adams aka Miura Anjin, never received a clan name. He was also allowed to practice daisho, the carrying of two swords, which by that time was a privilege reserved for the samurai class. He was unequivocally a samurai, yet had no surname. 98.15.205.40 (talk) 20:05, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

＠Loki

Yasuke was not born into samurai clan.

Therefore you need to provide valid historical records that can prove Yasuke became samurai.

I am Japanese and my ancestors are not samurai as far as I know. But in your logic, my ancestors were all samurai because there are no proof that they were not all samurai.

Your logic is just ridiculous and disrespecting our culture and history.

On the other hand, there is a historical record that proves that Yasuke was a slave.

Why don't we write that?

But why do you wanna write something you cannot prove? Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 17:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

"a forest of RSes saying that Yasuke is a samurai"

Honest question: what makes a source reliable, to you?

Are you aware of the real concerns that multiple editors, not just editors that might be categorizable as single-purpose accounts, have brought up about these sources? Why is a source "reliable" even after it has been shown clearly that that source includes outright fabrications (Manatsha's paper)? Why is a source "reliable" even after it has been shown clearly that an academic review by a credentialed historian characterizes the source as historical fiction (Lockley)? I cannot understand your reasoning. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:16, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

A kind reminder that a lack of evidence for a negative is not evidence itself. It's a known logical fallacy and I have seen it committed multiple times on this Talk page.

Considering being a samurai is not a default status of a person living in Sengoku Jidai and it is strongly implied Yasuke was a slave, on top of being a foreigner, the more the burden of proof is on the claim Yasuke was a samurai.

None of the secondary sources argue or try to address this conflict. Yasuke is called a samurai without clarification on how that conclusion was reached and/or demonstrative support in primary sources. More so, some sources emphasize Yasuke was "given the status of samurai" which stands in conflict with primary sources.

While part of it is my reasoning, I believe editors should be allowed the discretion to verify challenging claims made in secondary sources. 2A02:8388:1AC1:CC80:3D59:E610:1824:DB59 (talk) 16:24, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

@Gitz6666

As a Japanese, I am opposing that you decide our history based on the votes. Our history is not politics nor popularity contest.

If you wanna state Yasuke as a samurai, please provide some valid Japanese sources not western media that use Lockley's book that was never fact-checked by anyone reliable.

If you can't we should just write "Yasuke served Nobunaga". There should not be any words like "as a samurai" since there is no evidence but rather more evidences that say Yasuke was a slave. Shinjitsunotsuikyu (talk) 09:23, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, I haven't joined the discussion in a while but I did keep reading everything that has been said and quite frankly, strong-arming a "consensus" based on a weeks old RfC while ignoring every argument that has been added to the discussion since is quite frankly disgusting.

That being said, all the editors in favor of the samurai status still insist on using a handful of dubiously reliable secondary sources (some of which shouldn't even be considered secondary but tertiary) that have been discussed extensively on this page, personally only considering Lockey and Lopez-Vera to still even be worth considering, while entirely ignoring the argument that other reliable secondary sources that mention Yasuke did not need to explicitly mention he was not a samurai because that idea had never been brought up before.

I think a new RfC is needed, presenting all sides of the argument on not only the argued definition of samurai, the reliability of the secondary sources that call him a samurai and the existence of secondary sources that do not call him a samurai and the extremely limited primary sources.

We've just been running in circles with editors refusing to acknowledge logical arguments and it's time to put an end to this. My personal opinion on this hasn't changed since the first RfC and think we should have a separate section about him being a samurai or not rather than a blanket statement for or against it. Yvan Part (talk) 15:12, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

I am once again imploring you all to take this to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard. This is a complex issue which is not suitable for RfC. As for "weeks old RfC", the default state/assumption for an RfC is that they are ripe for closure after 30 days. The RfC running its course is not "strong arming" a consensus. Having an RfC to establish a consensus and then having an RfC immediately after asking the same question just because you disagree on some level with the consensus just established is not likely to be a productive course of action. Chrhns (talk) 18:29, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Retainer

A retainer can be a warrior that fought for noble fuedals. The Oda clan pages and history clearly point to many of his warriors being retainers. But samurai is not the proper definition of Yasuke as we have no confirmation. I could care less the color of his skin. But there is some misinformation being spread. Requesting retainer term to be readmitted. Many other real samurai have used the retainer term as well such as Sakuma Nobumori who was described as a retainer. Many 'Samurai' had to be born within hints why they never earned the title. However, we do know that the term Samurai wasn't used at the time. History experts will back me up on this. Hatrick24 (talk) 00:49, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

"Retainer" in Japanese historical contexts does not necessarily mean "warrior". The word is a rough translation of the Japanese 家来 (kerai), which is spelled literally "house/family" + "coming [to]". Historically, this word was also used to refer to anyone on the household's payroll -- including maids and cooks. As, indeed, the English word "retainer" can refer to a servant. See also https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retainer, for example. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Sakuma Nobumori was described a retainer but a warrior who led fights for Nobunaga. William Adams (samurai) was a foreign-born who attained Hatamoto Samurai status. Yasuke is identified as a retainer of the Oda clan but had no official title. If Yasuke had been a samurai after being taken, he would have been considered a ronin and most certainly executed after the battle or willing to commit Seppuku. However, this did not occur, and he was thrown to the Jesuits. I'll leave it as he was treated as a Bushi, which can be used to construct a Samurai case. But Yasuke was never officially given a title, which to me yields the case for retainer title similar to Nobumori. 

Hatrick24 (talk) 02:01, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

History expert here. Yasuke is described as a samurai by reliable sources.

弥助は伝説の武士です、それについて泣きます。

12.75.41.40 (talk) 05:19, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Descendent of an (actual) samurai of the saeki clan, with a preserved 15th century land grant document in my family's possession here. I'm seeing a lot of accusations thrown around here, and I want to add my understanding.

Looking at ja:弥助, as well as googling the topic, the only mentions of him described as a samurai come from pop culture WP:headlines/movie titles in or translated from english. He was absolutely a bushi and a retainer of oda nobunaga, no question about it. Maybe by the english use of samurai (which most people just think of "soldier holding katana = samurai", from it seems), you could call him one. To be accurate to the way it's used in Japanese, he was not formally a samurai.

Most of the sources calling him a samurai are in english, and use samurai to mean warrior or reference the hollywood production "Black Samurai," whenver mentioned in japanese, have samurai written in katakana (signifying it's a foreign usage of the term). My guess was this was to keep it simple without overloading english speakers with terms they might not know. "Black Bushi" sounds more catchy, but people might not know what that means. Samurai, everyone knows.

[4]https://sengoku-his.com/43

This repeatedly makes mention of him, in japanese, as a bushi (武士). Interestingly, upon further research google translate and several en-jp dictionaries translate bushi to "samurai", furthering my point that this is likely an english use of samurai as a catch-all for "katana wielding man."

If you want to just call all bushi and samurai samurai because that's how "samurai" is used in english, that's fine. The historical argument however, is completely invalid.

Also, if you're going to try to be disrespectful in a language you don't know, i recommend not using google translate, it might make you look like a silly goose. (〃ω〃) DarmaniLink (talk) 13:50, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

You admit to not understanding the usage of certain English words, so why not contribute to a wiki where you are fluent instead of worrying about word usage here?

あなたは特定の英語の単語の使用法を理解していないことを認めていますが、ここで単語の使用法を気にするのではなく、流暢に理解できる Wiki に貢献してみてはいかがでしょうか?あなたは弥助のことをとても怒っています。

12.75.41.40 (talk) 15:55, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Maybe you misunderstood, samurai is used in English as a catch all for "ancient Japanese man who swings a katana" when it's a specific type of Japanese nobility. Id like to thank you for conceding by the way. I agree, he's a bushi. DarmaniLink (talk) 16:06, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I think you may be confused about what is happening here. Your personal understanding of a word doesn't matter, neither does mine. We use reliable sources, which refer to Yasuke as a samurai. You should suggest specific changes, backed by reliable sources. It will be a better use of your time than wondering openly about the meaning of words. Please read WP:NOTFORUM 12.75.41.40 (talk) 17:13, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Please read wp:civil, given you (incorrectly) told him to go cry about it.

I am assisting in the building of a consensus for removal and the discrediting of the author who called him a samurai, given the common (improper) use of the phrase DarmaniLink (talk) 18:44, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

If you aren't providing reliable sources, you aren't helping build a consensus. Wikipedia isn't a vote based system. Any opinions not backed by policy have no weight when making a consensus based decision here. We don't care if you feel right, or claim to be descended from a samurai - even if that samurai is Yasuke himself. We only care if you have reliable sources. 12.75.41.40 (talk) 21:27, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I provided my source, and my argumentation already. Take your WP:IDHT elsewhere. DarmaniLink (talk) 23:50, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

We've just had an RfC on this very issue and there are ongoing discussions at both RSN (here) and ANI (here). I suggest @Hatrick24 and others to join them (especially the RSN one) but please leave "samurai" untouched for the time being, as per the RfC closure. I must say I find adding a template:under discussion inline three days after the closure of an RfC unhelpful. Finally on the "retainer" issue - the subject of this thread - please provide sources. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:44, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

It's what's is happening and by not noting, isn't being truthful @Gitz6666 , which I assume is going on with some here who have ulterior intentions. I can name dozens of Samurai during the Sengoku period using the term retainer on wiki pages including Sakuma Nobumori, Sakuma Morimasa, Yamauchi Kazutoyo, I just found this topic yesterday and will be moving on from this mess. Hatrick24 (talk) 18:58, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I think this dispute is really about the confusing and ambiguous use of the word "samurai" in English, rather than any factual dispute about the role Yasuke served in Nobunaga's service. Ideally we should have a section in the article disussing how the term "samurai" is used in English, which would result in less annoying talk page comments. This dispute is largely culture war bullshit over semantics, after all. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

+1. As a uni prof of mine was fond of drilling into us, we need to define our terms.

Much of the confusion on this page (among many, actually) appears to stem from confused usage of the word "samurai" in English, and the lack of a clear and specific definition that is shared by us and the authors of the works we seek to reference.

When people start using a word to mean different things, without being explicit about their intended defintions, confusion and dispute is pretty much guaranteed. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:44, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I think an efn on the word samurai, briefing outlying that in english, due to misconceptions, "samurai" often is used to refer to both warriors (bushi) and the warrior nobility (samurai), and would save a lot of future headache. DarmaniLink (talk) 23:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I tried adding something like this [5], but it was reverted [6]. Go figure. Does anybody have any good (preferably academic) source discussing the ambiguities regarding how the term "samurai" is used in English? Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

https://www.britannica.com/topic/samurai

The term samurai was originally used to denote the aristocratic warriors (bushi), but it came to apply to all the members of the warrior class that rose to power in the 12th century and dominated the Japanese government until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

Samurai are usually bushi, but not all bushi are samurai. (I also think aristocratic is being used... loosely here)

I think britannica would be acceptable, given it's being used routinely for a basic definition, and not much more (and drawing a firm line at that). DarmaniLink (talk) 00:19, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that using Britannica as a source for the definition of "samurai" would be okay in this instance. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:45, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

What?!? Hemiauchenia, you just removed Britannica from everywhere in the article claiming it was a low-quality source when it says Yasuka is a samurai) [7][8], and now you're claiming that Britannica is "okay" for providing a definition of samurai? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:56, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Ordinary claims require ordinary evidence. A low quality source making an ordinary claim, that we agree is an ordinary claim is fine, so long as we're in consensus. Please don't play gotcha games in talk pages and help us to build a consensus. It comes off as divisive. DarmaniLink (talk) 00:58, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

It's okay for providing basic definitions, but not much more than that. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:11, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Alright, so, we can move forward with a light consensus here, so, i'd recommend adding something, sourcing that with a "per talk" and if anyone wants to challenge it, they can come here. DarmaniLink (talk) 00:57, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Nope, no consensus - it's just you two guys talking to each other. There's just been an RfC with 15 !votes. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:00, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:STONEWALLING - We aren't saying to remove the description of samurai, but to add additional context that in english the word is used differently than how it was historically used. This is *adding* to the article. If you have a problem with it, let us know why. DarmaniLink (talk) 01:04, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Sure, I tell you why. I opposed adding this footnote [9] because it is unsupported by RSs and possibly confusing. Let’s try to clarify the issue.

First, we are talking about a 16th century samurai, but the 16th century Japanese meaning of “samurai” is useless to us. I read in Michael Wert's Samurai. A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2019) that originally "samurai" had a very narrow meaning, referring to anyone who served a noble, even in a nonmilitary capacity, so that a pre-17th century nobleman would have been insulted to be called a “samurai.”.

So we are referring to the contemporary/modern meaning of samurai. Are there two modern meanings of samurai, as you claim? If so, I'd like to see a source on this point. What are these two meanings? On the one hand, any warrior with a sword, and on the other, warriors of higher status? Or rather, on the one hand, warriors of higher status, and on the other, hereditary warriors?

Moreover, were there hereditary warriors in 16th century Japan? If there were, did they belong to a closed caste system, meaning that you could not be appointed as such by a lord? If so, Yasuke, as a foreigner, was obviously not one of them; but what were they called? Not "samurai" (per Michael Wert). And why should we care whether Yasuke belonged to their rank or not?

Probably in 16th century Japan, the status of higher-ranking warriors (rarely if ever called "samurai") was quite fluid and depended not only on birth, but also on the favour of the lord. Yasuke enjoyed the favour of his lord and had a higher social status, so he was a "samurai" in every meaningful sense of the word, as all RSes call him.

To sum up, I doubt we should be making dubious distinctions about the meaning of "samurai" in this article. If there are good sources, I’d like to see them, but it’s likely that the samurai article would be the best place for this explanation. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:10, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Given the amount of dispute on this talkpage about the definition of "samurai" and whether it applies to Yasuke it would be nice to have even just a footnote discussing the meaning of the term so we can educate readers who may be confused, especially as the lede of the samurai article currently states that samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of feudal and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in the late 1870s during the Meiji era. Also, the definition of the word samurai in Japanese (侍) both historical and current is separate from its definition in modern English. This articles use of the term "samurai" should seek to use the broad modern English use of the term (to which many authors seem to agree that Yasuke qualifies). Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:30, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

This conversation should be moved to the Samurai talk page. And if people are interested in what a samurai is, they can click the wiki link. 12.75.41.40 (talk) 02:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

So, I looked at the wikipedia definition of samurai when I was doing the RfC and saw that in the terminology section it says that samurai became synonymous with bushi, if that helps y'alls discussion on definitions out. I had during the RfC considered the argument between being a bushi and being a samurai. There are sources referenced there that could be of value to this notation about bushi and samurai. Samurai#Changing the definitions of "samurai" and "bushi" Chrhns (talk) 06:50, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I gotta go eat dinner, so I'll have to dip out for a bit, and can google sources later if you want me to. I'll quickly address some points though.

What a samurai was/meant changed based on era and period heavily.

Historically, they were military nobility. Many of them, and their families, *owned* the land they lived on (rather than be subject to a lord), which was exceedingly rare at he time. Some, (such as the ones i descend from) lived in castles as well.

The shogunate caste system was *more or less* open until the sword hunt, then became de-facto closed as any feasible potential for upwards mobility was then lost to commoners.

The ordinary soldiers were just called "bushi", literally "swordman." In english, though technically wrong, many sources from what i've seen refer to ordinary soldiers as samurai, which is wrong.

The reason to care is because this entire dispute has been over confusion over definitions, and will continue. By just saying "hey, in english, we don't use this term the way its used in japanese", which is true, we can just tap the sign at anyone trying to further argue the point that he wasn't historically considered a samurai. DarmaniLink (talk) 01:31, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps you are right when you say that "this entire dispute has been over confusion over definitions", but you must concede that this is a dispute between WP editors (plus other digital communities) and not between sources. Sources don't dispute his status, whether he was a samurai or not is of no interest for the historians, who would probably all agree that he can be called in that way (at least, nobody disagreed so far). So if this is a dispute among editors, why should we settle it by agreeing on definitions that are not made by the sources? Couldn't we just let the sources speak in our articles, without aiming at solving all the questions, avoiding all the ambiguities and mistakes, preventing all the disputes? Just write down what the sources say, that should be our job here. Thus was not merely a Japanese black warrior, but a Japanese black warrior of higher social status, which in modern parlance is a samurai. The very day a professional historian publishes something new and different on the social status of Yasuke, we'll add a section on the issue and modify the lead accordingly. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Frankly, because the sources are wrong and unreliable in regards to the proper usage of the term, leading back in a circle to this dispute. Deferring back to the sources is what has gotten us into this mess, as their expert-ness is being called into question over their usage of the term samurai. Allowing the sources to speak is what created this problem, and why their reliability has been called into question.

By acknowledging in a footnote that in English, the term is often used as a catch-all compared to the relatively narrow definition in Japanese, you maximize the truthfulness of the article and minimize the amount of lost context, and reach a compromise where everyone's (hopefully) happy.

Him being a retainer to nobunaga already places him in high social status, but isn't enough for him to be samurai by the japanese definition. By the english definition, you could build a case for it, perhaps. So long as we ignore this glaring contradiction, sources will constantly be on the chopping block over their reliability because of this. DarmaniLink (talk) 04:50, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

If the sources are wrong, Wikipedia will be wrong. That's part of the entire thing. This is an echo of the sources. You could solve one of the unsolved problems in mathematics in an article, but your contributions to math will be removed from Wikipedia until a reliable source covers it. Even if we agree that you solved it. If the sources aren't telling the truth, you should persuade reliable sources to print the truth. See WP:TRUTH 12.75.41.40 (talk) 05:15, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

If your understanding was reflected in reality, WP:RSN wouldn't exist. Before trying to educate others on policy, please familiarize yourself with the site longer to avoid causing disruption. DarmaniLink (talk) 05:29, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Please, comment on content not people. Please read WP:NPA, as well as WP:NOTFORUM 12.75.41.40 (talk) 06:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@12, the issue many of us have is not so much that "the sources are wrong", but rather that "the sources don't agree": on the one hand, as to whether Yasuke as a samurai or not, and on the other, as to what a "samurai" even was.

As such, we have no business making any pronouncement that Yasuke was or was not a samurai, as an uncited statement of fact (in "wikivoice").

As I noted some time before, we can objectively state that "some authors say X, some say Y", as attributed statements of what other authors have written. Ideally, each attribution would note what definition of "samurai" each author was using. I would have no opposition to this approach. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:29, 5 July 2024 (UTC

The sources do agree that Yasuke was a samurai. You are not a source. There is reliable sourcing that states as such, that has been peer-reviewed by historians and other subject matter experts. There is no reliable source that contradicts this. Symphony Regalia (talk) 04:21, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

You keep claiming that Lockley (specifically the Lockley / Girard book) has been peer-reviewed.

We have a Japanese reference explicitly stating that Lockley has not been peer-reviewed (1).

Do you have any source at all stating that Lockley has been peer-reviewed? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:16, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Historical accuracy seems to have gone out the window considering primary Japanese sources (現代語訳 信長公記, 吉川半七〈文科大学史誌叢書〉, etc) are being ignored in favor of English-based historical embellishment disguised as ‘non-fiction,’ taking roughly 13 sentences of primary source material, made "research-based assumptions" then ended up with a 480-page book (Lockley). There is also a vast misconception between ‘bushi’ (武士) and ‘samurai’ (侍), the former which gets translated into the latter by Google Translate.

It’s deeply ironic how overseas sources about Yasuke have been heavily favored and cited against proper Japanese sources, not one which ascribes Yasuke to the role of 侍. This might be what they call historical revisionism. 24.205.146.71 (talk) 20:50, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds, I see you dismissive of this claim that Lockley is fiction. How would you characterize passages like the following, directly quoting from Lockley's book?

Yasuke thought back to other multilations, decapitations and executions he'd witnessed. One he'd seen in India had taken five swipes of a blunt sword; [...]

Yasuke only appears in the historical record in 1579 as part of the Portuguese Jesuit mission to Japan. We have zero evidence about his existence prior to this date. Nor indeed do we have any evidence about Yasuke's internal thoughts. This text by Lockley can only be fiction.

Yasuke boarded as if in a dream. He'd wondered about his cattle, the cows that were his job and his family's whole life. Why did these horrid men not take them?

Again, pure fiction. We don't know what country / culture / ethnicity Yasuke came from. He might have been from one of the cattle-based cultures, or he might instead have been from a mercantile family, or some other background entirely. We have zero evidence about Yasuke's existence prior to his arrival in Japan in 1579.

Just as written, the above excerpts are composed in a novel style, richly describing internal emotional states and character backgrounds, quite different from any historical analysis.

Even if the thread now open at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Reliability_of_Thomas_Lockley ultimately determines that Lockley is reliable enough for purposes of our article at Yasuke, we cannot ignore that it contains elements of speculative fiction. Purdy's review of Lockley's book concludes:

Although this lens may not be detailed enough for the academic, African Samurai’s lively writing style does offer the reader of popular history and historical fiction a glimpse of samurai values from late sixteenth-century Japan.

By my understanding, Purdy has determined that Lockley's book is "popular history and historical fiction". If Lockley's account also runs counter to what Japanese sources say, this is certainly worth discussion. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:41, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I would also like to direct parties of interest to this specific interview with Thomas Lockley himself: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&v=MFbL9pf08ec

In here, Lockley explicitly says the information about Yasuke collected “needed to be interpreted and put into context…” (28:34), while admitting earlier that “not much had been known about him. It was only a few paragraphs, maybe a couple of pages something like that…” (5:35). But most importantly, he says he was tasked to write “the factual one (points to the Japanese version) but then I was asked to team up with Geoffery Girard and write the narrative version you see today (points to the English one, the historically embellished ‘non-fiction’)…” (8:30). If that isn’t a clear difference between factual vs. novelization, then I don’t know what is.

Throughout the interview, it is clear that Lockley was speaking from conjecture based on his interpretation of biographical sources such as Nobunaga and Yoshikawa when attempting to answer the question whether Yasuke was a 侍 or not.

It’s also worth noting that Lockley also said he had Sakujin Kirino, one of Japan's leading experts on the Honnoji Incident, fact-check “Nobunaga and Yasuke," but in fact Kirino himself denies that: https://x.com/kirinosakujin/status/1795768862652449021?s=61&t=oW-zJ2zqNqwwnjQg6PFz3Q 天罰れい子 (talk) 23:19, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr overseas sources about Yasuke have been heavily favored and cited against proper Japanese sources

Could you please share the Japanese sources you are referring to? On this talk page, original research and unfocused walls of text are as disruptive as constant bombardment by SPAs. However, if you or others could provide accurate and non-selective analysis of Japanese secondary sources, with references and extracts and avoiding cherry-picking, that kind of contribution could improve the quality of the article.

For example, I would be interested in knowing what these two sources say about Yasuke:

• 藤田みどり『アフリカ「発見」日本におけるアフリカ像の変遷』岩波書店 (Fujita, Midori, Africa 'Discovered': The Changing Image of Africa in Japan, Iwanami Shoten)
• 金子拓『織田信長という歴史―「信長記」の彼方へ 』勉誠出版 (Taku Kaneko, A History of Oda Nobunaga: Beyond the 'Nobunaga Ki', Bensei Shuppan)

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:46, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

@Gitz6666, thank you for the ping. I've already ordered Professor Kaneko's book (side-note: his given name appears to be pronounced as "Hiraku", see also his WikiData page; given names are always tricky in Japanese), and with any luck it should arrive in the next week or two. I've also ordered Lockley's translated-into-Japanese book on Yasuke, 『信長と弥助 本能寺を生き延びた黒人侍』, ostensibly his more factual work, and this should arrive around the same time. Obviously, it'll take a little while to read through both, but I will certainly be happy to post any relevant findings to any threads still open at that time.

I'll also see (possibly later on, however) if I can track down a copy of Fujita's book. Thank you for the recommendation! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:10, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

One more thing to add is there are also many outlandish claims about Yasuke in “Nobunaga and Yasuke” as well, but in this book there are no attempts to hide it (since Japanese people will have learned the history from school or can search it more easily online). Excerpt from the text:

「本書では、弥助という特筆すべき男の人生の中で現在判明している史実を分析し、同時にほとんど、あるいはまったく知られていない部分をほかの史料から推理して、空白のピースを埋めてみたい」

“Within this book, I want to analyze the known history about the life of this remarkable man named Yasuke, and at the same time, infer from the scarce or completely unknown parts of historical sources, thus filling in the blanks.”

There are no new facts presented beyond existing historical recorded data. In fact, some Japanese people are upset that it brands itself as “historical non-fiction” when the above passage contradicts it.

I apologize for the add-on. 天罰れい子 (talk) 23:57, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you have any citations that it was received negatively on factual matters in Japan? That quote does not delegitimize the book since that's what many such books do - as long as the work makes clear what is speculative and drawing from historical context to, for example, explain how an African man at the time period might most likely have arrived in India and for what purposes or context on the Jesuit missions to Japan at the time which he might have been apart of, and other such details. Rafe de Crespigny - one of very few historians to publish works in English related to the Han dynasty - has promulgated academia with many such examples where providing context to the gaps in the primary sources are useful. As such, what has been cited here is not outside the realm of the academic process. Relm (talk) 12:01, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break

While searching, I came across this really interesting book chapter that discusses the definition of "samurai", and I think really cuts to the heart of the current dispute: Milites, Knights and Samurai: Military Terminology, Comparative History, and the Problem of Translation. Reading this, it's pretty obvious that Yasuke qualifies as a samurai in the broad way that the term was used during the Sengoku period (which is pretty much just "retainer of the daimyo"), and that the status of the Tokugawa samurai as a hereditrary social class obviously has resulted in much confusion when this understanding of the term "samurai" is inappropriately retroactively applied to this period. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:07, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the helpful addition to the article, though I don't think it's a confusion anyone actually had realistically. We've discussed said distinction multiple times here on the talk page anyways. It's more that certain groups coming here in droves since March haven't wanted Yasuke to have any connection to the term because it would help them to mentally invalidate the new Assassin's Creed game. That's the only real reason this became a controversy, as the sources and academic view of Yasuke being a samurai (and his usage in Japanese media as such going back decades) has been quite clear on him being one. It was a non-issue until this year. Silverseren^C 01:33, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Actually, if you read page 183 of the source I linked, it does seem to result in confusion even among academics (at least around 2001 when the chapter was written). As Morillo writes ... the strong social component of medieval Japanese military terminology has tended to obscure the functional realities of medieval Japanese warfare, making sixteenth-century Japanese warfare look far more elitist and "feudal," to use that other unambiguous term, than it really was. Like the organizational component of the word infantry, suitable to the realities of the post-medieval world but confusing when read back, the social status component of the word samurai, accurate in Tokugawa Japan, misleads when read back in to the fluid world of the sixteenth century I think some of the on-Wikipedia confusion has been compounded by the samurai article emphasising the hereditary nobility aspect as primary. I've gone and done some reworking of the samurai article in order to make the multiple meanings of the term, including during the Sengoku period more clear. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:40, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Just my humble input on this saga: As others who oppose the connotation of samurai with Yasuke have pointed out, the surviving documents from Yasuke's time do not specifically use the term "侍" (samurai) to describe Yasuke's "social function," even though he might fit the definition of samurai (retainer) of that time. I think we can at least agree that addressing Yasuke as a samurai came from much later sources. Because of the controversy it raised, "Yasuke was a black samurai" should be attributed rather than stated in Wikivoice. Regarding the outcry against Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft is guilty of fashioning Yasuke as a bushi general, which is definitely unhistorical. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 03:33, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Do have any sources discussing Yasuke being referred to as bushi rather than samurai? I would be open to adding this if this was the case. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:24, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

At Yasuke's time, samurai meant something like "servant". It did not refer only to warriors and did not imply higher social rank and prestige; on the contrary, it excluded such rank and prestige because it was used for the lower orders. The meaning of samurai changed in the 17th century. Paradoxically, if primary sources would call Yasuke a samurai, contemporary academic sources would not. However, the primary sources describe a warrior of higher standing, who had a servant, a house, direct relationship with his lord, someone who was expected to become a tono (lord of the castle, commander). This is why contemporary secondary sources refer to him as a "samurai" in the contemporary and modern sense of the term. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 06:35, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia

a) no samurai doesn't mean just servant, but to be under service, technical every peasant and servant is in service of a lord, this is only a relevant form of servitude for nobility, to be called a samurai and than reflected down to similar trained warriors. the nobility class eroded in the sengoku era, because people enlisted warriors into their armies without these titles, but still called them in this manner, BUT in the chronics of Nobunaga, that talks about Yasuke, Japanese samurai were actual called samurai, while Yasuke was not mentioned to be a samurai.

b) A lot of people here still want to ignore the existing distinction between ashigaru and samurai explicit in this era, because Yasuke has to be a samurai for their OR. ashigaru were in service under a lord and used weapons in war, they owned whole areas and house complex and they had servants......they were still only peasant farmers and obliviously not samurai. Some (rare cases) of these RICH peasants became samurai at these times....by their military actions and their ability to pay for their military services THEMSELF.

c) he was not to be expected to become a tono, peasants made rumours about him, when he was seen serving Nobunaga in public. The relation with Nobunaga is mirroring the typical relation between a black-servant (slave) and his noble owner, like in Goa. Black servant slaves were popular for Portuguese nobility at these times and clerics, like the people, who brought Yasuke to Japan in the first place. Yasuke was gifted to Nobunaga for this purpose and returned to them after his death. He was not in a single action a free actor for the Portuguese.

d) Secondary sources refer to him as a "samurai", because some western media depicted and called him a samurai since ~ the 2010ths, while hiding his clear slavery background. Than people try to use these newsarticles about Netflix-shows and their netflix-Yasuke to twist the actual historic Yasuke to these modern depictions, while openly admitting to ignore primary sources.

e) Even Lockney, one of their main sources, refers to Yasuke more as a black servant with some fighting training than as a samurai as a speculative claim, while calling him only a slave as a minor in India without providing any source for this personal view of him. Lockney calls him a warrior, bodyguard and servant more than a samurai, but these terms are ignored for OR.

Lockney actual wants to argue, that Yasuke was only pretending to be a slave-servant in Japan to allow the Jesuits (missionaries) to have a trained bodyguard in Japan at their side.

His statement about samurai is simply to point out, that the term was defined more open at these times and that he can not be a slave, because his actions depicted a free will. Which action he doesn't clearly define. The majority of his claims (claims are not facts) are just his personal views, who he highlighted in a fictional historical novel about Yasuke.

f) The gifts, Yasuke received in Japan are speculated to be motivated by Nobunaga to thereby identify a potential interest of Nobunaga of liberating Yasuke of his servant/slave-status to a position as a bodyguard/retainer for Nobunaga and to make Yasuke loyal to him to remain a free man. This interesting view is sadly ignore din this article, together with Lockney's actual thesis, that Yasuke just pretended to be a slave, because some editors want to hide Yasuke's slavery background in favour for a speculated samurai status of him in line with some modern entertainment views, what Yasuke would have to be, to not make their entertainment goods simply inappropriate to the real Yasuke, a victim of Portuguese slavery. -- ErikWar19 (talk) 20:04, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you have sources that showcase this? 216.138.9.189 (talk) 03:54, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

The point of the second part of my reply is to explain the outrage against Ubisoft's portrayal of Yasuke, who is clad in full armor above his station. Either way, that argument is moot in this discussion, and I apologize for bringing it up. As the reference to Yasuke being a black samurai only appears in contemporary sources, the best compromise is to attribute the source of that claim in the article. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 07:05, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

It should be mentioned, that the outrage against Ubisoft (not the first one, they talked about black Vikings in former releases) not only introduced people from one point of view to this article, but insulting and blocked people from both sides of this...cultural war?

And i will add, that this article saw these influences by other similar releases in the past too. -- ErikWar19 (talk) 20:13, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I just saw the addition of the source added to the article, while at the moment I cannot look at it now, I would like to see how the academic source handles its citations regarding this specific claim. Just looking at the research done on Yasuke specifically, there is little to no consistency on how they got to the conclusion of samurai off of a conformed definition for the time period. If you look at my lengthy post on samurai status and initial review of Lockley here, my reply to X0n under that, Lockley's definition of samurai and his lack of proper citation as well as comparing it to other academic definitions on Yasuke's samurai status, we can see this subject is not very well researched surrounding Yasuke.

This is more of a request, but because I emphasized on it so heavily in the first diff I posted, is there any mention or regard of the Ritsuryo system, court titles, court ranks, relations with the Emperor, etc., mentioned in this academic source? Because this system was still in place during the Sengoku period, where court titles were regularly being granted to numerous daimyo as I explain thoroughly in detail above in the diff links. I think this is important to consider since the very titles of Shogun, Kampaku, etc. all originate from the Ritsuryo system and they were strictly preserved all this time. Do note that I am assuming you have already read my diff links and that all the appropriate sources are already listed there, so if you have any questions regarding where I got specific information from, please ask before claiming WP:OR as a lot of editors have done to me in this talk page.

The reason why this is so important is because under the ritsuryo system, you needed to be of a certain rank (Fifth Rank) to have the privilege of entering the Imperial Court.[10][11]

Under the Ritsuryo System, 'the nobility' were referred to as persons of Fifth Rank or higher, and granted the privilege of stepping into the Imperial Court.

In contrast to 'the nobility,' those who were of Sixth Rank or lower to no rank were called 'Jige' or 'Jigenin.'

In regards to specifically samurai, who were of Sixth Rank while their lords were of at least Fifth Rank:[12]

In the system of the dynasty state, lower-ranking nobles who were officials for practical works appointed to the zuryo and who were promoted up to shii (Fourth Rank) or goi (Fifth Rank) were called shodaibu (aristocracy lower than Kugyo) and the technical officers and kenin (retainers) who were promoted up to rokui (Sixth Rank) and served upper-ranking nobles or shodaibu were called samurai (warrior) and they were in charge of administrative affairs. Technical officers who did the practical work of military art were divided into these two statuses and the military aristocracies such as Seiwa-Genji (Minamoto clan) or Kanmu-Heishi (Taira clan) and so on, who were staying in Kyoto, were in the shodaibu status and the majority of local bushi were in the samurai status.

If we look closer at the term jige,[13][14] this again emphasizes the privilege of entering the Imperial Court:

After the Medieval Ages, the status of Jigeke was established when court officials were clearly divided according to their family rank, and families permitted to enter the Hall were called Toshoke, and families not permitted to enter the Hall were called Jigeke.

When we are considering nobility status, this is exactly it. Dealing with the imperial ruler/monarch and having specific privileges relating to it as opposed to the average commoner. Now because samurai often did not get this privilege, but they still retained a court rank and specific privileges (such as riding on horseback, having a true surname, and overall higher status than a peasant), they would are considered to be "lesser nobility" or to be more blunt, petty nobility. This particular academic source I did however find called Ranks, Offices, and Certain Incumbents goes into large detail about this very subject, even mentioning this about Toyotomi:

[Toyotomi Hideyoshi] was of too low an origin to qualify as shôgun. In lieu of holding that office, he managed to get himself appointed chancellor (kampaku) of the court in 1585, and in the next year prime minister (dajô daijin). This settling for mere court ranks tells us how far the court had declined, but the choice of them shows nonetheless that the titles were still far from negligible and might have become the basis for a new system of government, if the Fujiwara and Taira trick could be played again.

I would like to see if this can be cleared for verifiability by the bibliography at the end, it might be extremely useful for settling this matter.

Now, this is not a comprehensive list of sources and I do plan on getting more academic sources to alleviate the muddy waters, but clearly this places a large emphasis on court ranks and ancestral ties to the Gen-pei-to-kitsu imperial families, which if you look at any clan article, you will see something along the lines of, for example the Ii clan, "The clan claims descent from Fujiwara no Yoshikado, who had been one of the Daijō daijin during the ninth century." This is well documented throughout Wikipedia, so if this were to be added that the samurai had absolutely no nobility status whatsoever, the entire website would be internally inconsistent.

So because it specifically pertains to the nobility status of the samurai, does the mentioned academic article mention anything at all about the following information? I appreciate any collaboration on this subject. Hexenakte (talk) 20:13, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

This would be better posted in a new talk discussion on the Samurai article as there are multiple sources that make the claim about the term bushi and samurai becoming conflated together during the period.

-

The yasuke article is by no means the place to have wikipedia change an article on the term samurai.

-

If you wish to showcase that the sources are incorrect and the definition during the period is wrong and the sources claiming this are wrong, then that would be the place to do such. 216.138.9.189 (talk) 03:57, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia --

(Also pinging @Gitz6666, who might find this interesting.)

The paper you linked to by Stephen Morillo, "Milites, Knights and Samurai", seems to include a misunderstanding about the use of the term "samurai", or at any rate a section that could easily be misconstrued.

In the paragraph starting on the bottom of page 178, he states that "True, all soldiers were a class above peasants. But among soldiers samurai were clearly a cut below the top."

Two potential points of confusion here.

• "all soldiers were a class above peasants"

Yet, Hideyoshi's father as pointedly described as both a peasant, and an ashigaru, which is a kind of soldier, basically a light-infrantryman.

• "among soldiers samurai were clearly a cut below the top"

This, he backs up with a quote from The Tale of the Heike: "I am Etchu no Zenji Moritoshi, born a Taira but now become a samurai because of my inadequacies." As I understand this, Etchu's point isn't that samurai are contemptible (a possible interpretation of Morillo's text), but rather that he is no longer his own master: he has been cast out of the "lord" class / role, and must now submit to the instructions of a lord of his own: he is a samurai in a sense closer to the historical origins of the word, which originally meant "one who attends upon / serves [a lord]". In terms of the older Ritsuryō ranks, he has been demoted to imperial court noble rank 6 or lower.

Separately: A little bit earlier in the paper, I noticed another misunderstanding. In the paragraph in the middle of page 178, he writes:

• "The word bushi derives from the components bu, meaning warrior, and shi, meaning class."

This is about half correct.

The word bushi is spelled in kanji as 武士. The 武 (bu) part means "martial", and the 士 (shi) part basically just means either "man" or "warrior". See also the Wiktionary entries at wikt:武士#Japanese, wikt:武#Japanese, and wikt:士#Japanese, among other references. (I know Wiktionary is as citable as Wikipedia – not at all – and I link it here only as a starting point.)

Anyway, HTH! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:40, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Proposed edit re: samurai, retainer

Reliability discussions aside, might it be effective to utilize both terms? We have sources referring to Yasuke as a samurai, and we also have sources that refer to him as a retainer yeah? And the terms are not equivalent. So the article can be slightly reworded as follows: "Yasuke was a man of African origin who served as a samurai or retainer to the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga for a period of 15 months between...." Or alternatively: "Yasauke was a man of African origin who served as a samurai[nb 1 - Sources also refer to Yasuke as a retainer.] to the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga for a period of 15 months between...." I think using an [nb] note reads as more of an "asterisk" -- i.e., it is more disputational, doesn't read as well (in my opinion). Whereas the first example reads more naturally and conforms to WP:DUE. Sources that don't directly dispute using the term "samurai" and instead use the term "retainer" are still notable. Anyone with better wordsmithing or source prowess feel free to jump in. Please know I am aware of the previous RfC, but my post here is asking a different question. I am not asking to exclude information from the article, but rather to include all notable information. Green Caffeine (talk) 04:22, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. These terms also overlap to some extent[15], so it would be redundant. Also, ultimately this comes across as an attempt to circumvent the spirit of the RfC by adding needless WP:UNDUE qualifiers, where a clear consensus on this topic was achieved already. Symphony Regalia (talk) 04:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

For the record I am not attempting to circumvent anything and this idea was never floated by anyone during that RfC. Thanks. You are correct that calling someone a retainer does not mean they weren't a samurai. Green Caffeine (talk) 05:01, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The two proposed formulations may suggest that samurai and retainer are two alternative or competing qualifications for Yasuke. Why not having instead something like "Yasuke was a samurai of African origin who served as a retainer to the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga" (replacing "man" with "samurai")? This looks quite similar to what one reads in Hineno Hironari, Date Shigezane, Hara Toratane, Hirano Nagayasu, Abe Motozane. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

To avoid redundancy, I think it is appropriate to just mention which lord Yasuke served, which the lead already does well. An example of this is Hineno Hironari. Symphony Regalia (talk) 06:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I am still a bit uncomfortable with this samurai label being supported by a single low-quality tertiary source like Brittanica. The article was written by an interning student who didn't finish his undergraduate at the time of writing, not exactly the most scholarly, reliable source. Personally I think it's a pretty poor article, full of "may have"s, "would have"s, "it is possible"s, ending in this absolutely wild speculation of him beheading Nobunaga. Meeepmep (talk) 16:43, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Since other editors have already made the same point, I have boldly removed Britannica from the lead (not from the article body) and replaced it with Lopez-Vera, Jonathan (2020). A History of the Samurai: Legendary Warriors of Japan. Tuttle Publishing. pp. 140–141, and Atkins, E. Taylor (2023). A History of Popular Culture in Japan: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic. p. 72. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:01, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

"Yasuke was sent to the Nanban-ji and treated by Jesuit missionaries"

I'm having issues with the last paragraph of the Honnō-ji Incident section. The article cites two sources in Japanese, huffingtonpost.jp and intojapanwaraku. None of them (if I'm not mistaken) mentions the Nanban-ji, but maybe this falls under WP:CK and WP:BLUE. Anyway, I don't know if the two sources are reliable. The first one says (google translated)

We know that Yasuke was apparently treated by Jesuit missionaries shortly after his release, but there has been no news of him since then.

The second one says (google translated)

Yasuke was taken to the church and his wounds were treated. Thus ended Yasuke's Honnoji Incident, and all records of his whereabouts ceased. It is certain that Yasuke, who was seriously injured, survived, as Luis Frois wrote a letter of thanks that Yasuke had not lost his life five months after the Honnoji Incident. However, his whereabouts after that are unknown.

I can see that Lockley and Girard's account of the incident is purely fictional. Do we have better sources to verify this? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:11, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Screen image

@Gitz6666, you recently changed the image of the screen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yasuke&diff=prev&oldid=1233672701

I just noticed that this means the text of the article becomes a bit confusing, particularly this bit:

"[...] while others believe that the dark-skinned man wrestling in the center is Yasuke and the one to his right, playing the role of a gyōji, is Oda Nobunaga."

The detailed image you switched to only shows two people. If a reader doesn't know what a "gyōji" is and doesn't click through to that article, the text thus sounds like Yasuke must be wrestling with Nobunaga himself.

Would it be possible to find, or create, a detailed image of the screen that shows the two wrestlers, and the gyōji? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I found this image overly detailed and nearly incomprehensible when reduced to a thumbnail. Moreover the caption ("Sumō Yūrakuzu Byōbu, drawn in 1605") lacked context and required the reader to consult the article text. If you disagree with my edit, feel free to undo it, but please improve the caption by adding information (e.g., "it has been suggested that the black sumo wrestler in the centre of the painting is Yasuke"). Alternatively, we could include both the full image of the painting and the close-up of the sumo wrestlers. A second alternative would be to create a cropped image showing the wrestlers and the gyōji, as you suggest. I'm not sure about the quality but we could try. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:57, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the image of the entire screen is visually difficult to parse.

I did not realize that that larger image was such low resolution: I agree that simply cropping that would result in a lower-quality image than the detailed one you found.

So rather than try to do any image editing, instead I have tweaked the image caption and the body text to clarify things, so hopefully readers do not come away with any misunderstanding that the other wrestler is Nobunaga. Cheers! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:29, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. If I'm not mistaken, per WP:ELMAYBE (No 5) we could link to the larger image within the caption, which would then become Detail from the Sumō Yūrakuzu Byōbu, drawn in 1605 .... This seems reasonable, as the image may be of interest to the reader, especially as the gyōji is mentioned in the article. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Why are citations from books written post 2020?

It's a very biased attempt to skew historical facts where there are no sources of. Depictions of historical events need to be backed by reputable writers and long standing undisputable sources.Alexceltare2 (talk) 22:54, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

We preferentially use recent scholarship rather than decades old sources, if newer publications are available. When referencing Wikipedia articles, you should avoid using old academic sources that may have a biased or less complete understanding of a topic that is better formed in modern scholarship instead due to the intervening years of academic research on the topic. Silverseren^C 23:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Biased or less complete? You're twisting historical facts, sir. It's like saying "ancient hieroglyphs depict vocal sounds. but we think it depicts animals because it sounds cuter". There is no universal academic consensus to back your claims. Even books need citations and those are NOT the definitive source. -Alexceltare2 (talk) 12:22, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

If you have pre-2020 citations on the subject you're welcome to add them if they deserve it, but there's no reason to remove existing citations just because they are post-2020. Arguably, recent scholarly sources are preferable for history articles (see WP:HISTRW). By the way, what happened in 2020? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Remove "samurai"

I'm not sure how we ended up with the article stating that he was a samurai and doesn't even have a cite on the word samurai to prove it. Remove it or prove it. There should be some documents saying that Yasuke was indeed granted the rank of samurai. This kind of thing has to be done officially and therefore had some official documents recorded. Stop using Lockley's book and Netflix anime as a source for him being a samurai. Those are fictions. Ezio's Assassin (talk) 19:30, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

You should create an Wikipedia:Requests for comment for that Trade (talk) 22:54, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

 Not done

Completed RfC on to include samurai or not

Some of many sources discussing Yasuke's history as a samurai

Have a nice day. Silverseren^C 22:56, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Usually statements in the lead are left uncited, as they are already sourced in the body of the article, though clearly this suggestion/guideline has been somewhat haphazardly applied on this article. XeCyranium (talk) 19:36, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley, his books, and other sources citing him should be flagged as unreliable sources

His books were exposed as historical inaccurate source, so we should remove everything on the article that mentioned Lockley's information or opinions such as:

- "...depicts a black man wearing Portuguese high-class clothing. Author Thomas Lockley argues that it could be Yasuke." --- Just his opinion.

- "Thomas Lockley suggests that Nobunaga may have heard Valignano's group pronounce the name "Isake" (Jewish name "Isaac") and named him "Yasuke"" --- "may have heard", yeah... so it's just his assumption again. It's too opinionate to be on the article.

A lot other parts of the article are also citing Lockley's books that has already been exposed to be fictional. And on this talk page, people were using BBC, Times, CNN's articles as sources while those articles were also repeating what Lockley wrote in his books. Now we have people and media keep citing Lockley-media-Wikipedia in circle, while it's the same false information. We should stop this immediately. Ezio's Assassin (talk) 13:02, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

There's already a discussion going on at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard about Lockley. Go over there if you want to argue about this, this isn't the right place for it. Silverseren^C 17:26, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Missing person?

The article is currently included in two categories Category:1580s missing person cases & Category:Missing person cases in Japan, perhaps on the basis that the article subject falls out of the historical record after the Honnoji Incident. This seems an inappropriate categorisation, given that we have no sources indicating that the subject was considered missing at the time. I will remove these categories, and the See Also link to List of people who disappeared. Rotary Engine ^talk 01:37, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a weird thing to have added. People fall off in both the historical record and the news all the time, but that's not the same thing as missing. Good removal. Silverseren^C 04:34, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The formidable strength of Yasuke

As a Japanese, I would like to point out that the history books do not say that Yasuke's formidable strength surpassed that of ten men. This is simply a mistranslation of the word jūninriki (十人力, strength of ten men), which describes someone's strength as being very strong. Hyakuninriki (百人力, strength of a hundred men) and senninriki (千人力, strength of a thousand men) mean the same as jūninriki (十人力, strength of ten men).

Another word often mistranslated by English speakers is yaoyorozu no kami (八百万神, eight million kami), which describes Shinto, a polytheistic religion. It does not mean that there are 8 million kami in Shinto, but simply that there are many kami. SLIMHANNYA (talk) 05:26, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not a native English speaker, but I think that in English his formidable strength surpassed that of ten men is a hyperbole. No one would understand it as an accurate factual description, and everyone would understand it as synonymous with "he was very strong". Since the meaning is the same, I wouldn't speak of mistranslation here. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:54, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

It's a figure of speech and properly attributed as a quote from the Shinchō Kōki. I doubt most people would understand this as an objective fact that he was literally stronger than ten people. A less direct translation using modern idioms (or contemporary idioms for that matter) just wouldn't make sense for a historical 16th century document. Yvan Part (talk) 12:48, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Yasuke and elements that define a Samurai

To explain to a non-Japanese audience, a Samurai is a "bushi" (warrior) of high societal status who serves a noble. However, not everyone who serves a noble is a Samurai. To be a Samurai, one typically needs a family history or lineage of Samurai, marked by strong loyalty to their noble. Alternatively, exceptional service in battle or as a bodyguard could also earn one the Samurai status, particularly during the Sengoku Period, when Yasuke lived. - Recommended Reading: https://www.touken-world.jp/tips/21046/

Yasuke lacks crucial elements that define a Samurai, and thus does not deserve this respectful status/title. He does not come from a family of samurai (武家) and is not entitled to the samurai status by birth. Furthermore, his official service to Oda Nobunaga was not due to exceptional service in battle or as a bodyguard, but rather because his black skin piqued Oda Nobunaga's curiosity. - Source: https://kutsukake.nichibun.ac.jp/obunsiryo/book/005729777/

Yasuke was also not recognized as a Samurai by Akechi Mitsuhide and his army, as evidenced by his treatment during the incident at Honno-ji (already mentioned in this Talk). True samurai loyal to Oda Nobunaga would have fought to the death or committed suicide in the form of seppuku. Akechi Mitsuhide executed surviving Samurai to prevent any attempts at revenge. Yasuke, however, was allowed to live. Akechi Mitsuhide decided to release Yasuke to the temple for the southern barbarians (南蛮寺), deeming Yasuke as an animal who knew nothing. It is clear from this humiliating treatment that Yasuke was not taken seriously as a Samurai, for he did not have the loyalty nor pride that defines a Samurai.

Moreover, it is not sensible to try to define him using pre-existing Japanese words "Samurai", "Bushi", "Kosho" etc, given Yasuke's unique situation in Japan. Yasuke was different to other Japanese people in every aspect, and did not seamlessly integrate into Japan's society. As such, Yasuke is best described as a private servant or pet of Oda Nobunaga. He was chosen privately by Oda Nobunaga purely for his rare appearance, not for his family background, loyalty, or service in battle, as would be the case for a samurai. Sakamajiro (talk) 15:56, 2 July 2024 (UTC)— Sakamajiro (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Did you really make a new account just to post this 216.138.9.189 (talk) 20:18, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Others have mentioned this but this place isn’t Reddit so refrain from making unrelated posts :) FYI, this is my first and only Wikipedia account. Sakamajiro (talk) 22:39, 2 July 2024 (UTC)— Sakamajiro (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

The records of those who died in the Honnō-ji Incident as described in the Shinchō-kōki, along with explanations and literature about Yasuke, lead to the following conclusion:

If Yasuke had died in battle, he would likely have been recorded as a chūgen (middle-ranking servant) or kozō (menial servant).

[1] https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100108970/699?ln=en

[2] https://note.com/46468892/n/n3a1fba30d081

[3] https://note.com/46468892/n/nec768a9fb69f

This is because he was not given a family name (myōji). The difference between a chūgen and a samurai was that samurai were permitted to carry two swords and were given family names by their lords. Chūgen were allowed to carry one sword.

Records show that capable chūgen and kozō could sometimes be promoted to samurai status, which conversely indicates that chūgen and kozō were not samurai. If promoted to samurai, they would have been given a family name by their lord.

Additionally, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who was also under Nobunaga's command during the same period, issued a status control order that outlined these distinctions.

The Kobayakawa family documents' Hitohaki-rei (status control order) shows classifications such as hōkōnin (retainer), samurai, chūgen, kozō, and arashiko.

[4] https://ee-arts.biz/database/jh308/516/

[5] https://imidas.jp/jidaigeki/detail/L-57-114-08-04-G252.html

[6] https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A6%E5%AE%B6%E5%A5%89%E5%85%AC%E4%BA%BA

Given this information, if Yasuke had died in the Honnō-ji Incident, he would likely have been recorded as a chūgen or kozō. This could be considered evidence that Yasuke cannot be classified as a samurai. Phoepsilonix (talk) 15:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Can anyone follow up on E. Taylor Atkins's A History of Popular Culture in Japan's mentions of Yasuke and see what actual sources lead to this possible missunderstanding? Same goes for Jonathan López-Vera "A History of the Samurai: Legendary Warriors of Japan." referencing. These are the two academical sources on this article that claim he was a Samurai.

Can't find peer reviews on these as well. RustyRapier (talk) 11:11, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnYyYDpC00Y

In the video mentioned above, after obtaining the papers and books by the author of "African Samurai," specific issues with his statements are pointed out. It is also explained that primary sources about Yasuke are not hidden, but were originally very scarce. This is why it is clear that "African Samurai" is historical fiction. The fact that the author is manipulating public opinion by promoting it as historical non-fiction, even engaging in self-promotion on Wikipedia, is itself a significant problem. Phoepsilonix (talk) 15:03, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Historical documents reveal that in the 10th year of Bunmei (1478), social classes called "chūgen" (中間) and "komono" (小者) existed, which were distinct from the bushi(warrior, retainers) class. Furthermore, by the 5th year of Tenshō (1577), a classification system including "samurai" (侍), "komono" (小者), and "chūgen" (中間) had emerged. Given that the Honnō-ji Incident occurred in 1582, it is reasonable to assume that distinctions such as "samurai" and "chūgen" were already established within Oda Nobunaga's ranks.

https://wwwap.hi.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ships/w10/search?keyword=%E4%BE%8D%E3%80%80%E5%B0%8F%E8%80%85&resultoption=%E3%82%B3%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%80%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9%E8%A1%A8%E7%A4%BA&page=1&itemsperpage=200&sortby=jc_date&sortdesc=false&sortitem=%E5%92%8C%E6%9A%A6%E5%B9%B4%E6%9C%88%E6%97%A5%EF%BC%9A%E6%98%87%E9%A0%86

https://wwwap.hi.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ships/w10/search?keyword=%E4%B8%AD%E9%96%93%E5%B0%8F%E8%80%85&resultoption=%E3%82%B3%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%80%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9%E8%A1%A8%E7%A4%BA&page=1&itemsperpage=200&sortby=jc_date&sortdesc=false&sortitem=%E5%92%8C%E6%9A%A6%E5%B9%B4%E6%9C%88%E6%97%A5%EF%BC%9A%E6%98%87%E9%A0%86 Phoepsilonix (talk) 19:02, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

• About Hitohaki-rei

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%BA%E6%8E%83%E4%BB%A4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_Edict Phoepsilonix (talk) 16:31, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

https://kanagawa-u.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/1971/files/41-08.pdf Phoepsilonix (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Good, it's in line with what I saw in historian Raffaello Urbani's channel. The sources are no good.

Then these sources and "samurai" claims should be removed. Are revisionist wikipedians even going to allow it? RustyRapier (talk) 16:14, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Makoto Tsujiuchi - Historical Context of Black Studies in Japan

Full title: Tsujiuchi, Makoto 1998, ‘Historical Context of Black Studies in Japan’, Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2, December, pp. 95-100.

pdf: https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/8322/HJsoc0300200950.pdf

Doesn't seem discussed in the archives. It actually is already cited in the main article but for a trivial unrelated point. Relevant quote:

Another episode showing the curiosity of the Japanese regarding the Blacks can be gleaned from Shincho Ko ki. When Padre Alessandro Valignani brought a Negro to Kyoto, Oda Nobunaga, the prime mover of Japan's 16th-century reunification after a hundred years of strife, could not wait until the designated date to meet with the missionary. The news about the black man's arrival instantly spread throughout Kyoto and its vicinity. Hearing the news, many people congregated in the city, threw stones, and pulled down walls and gates to get a glimpse of the Negro. When Nobunaga saw him, he ordered the kokudo (black fellow) to take off his clothes suspecting that his black skin color was painted. After a short conversation with the missionary, he decided to take the kokudo with him and gave him a Japanese name Yasuke.

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. In fact, Yasuke was described in Shincho Ko ki as follows:

A black man came from a Christian country. His age seems somewhere around 26 or 27. He is as black as a cow, and looks healthy and talented. He is stronger than ten powerful men.

This passage simply refers to the external appearance of the kokudo with allusive admiration and without representing his nature as inferior. It would be, therefore, wrong to understand 16th-century Japan through race and racial stereotypes invented in the 19th and 20th century. The concept of "color line" in early modern Japan too was so uncertain that people did not distinguish black Malayans from black Indians and Africans. The term "Negro" (kokujin, kokudo) was very often used to describe all kinds of dark-skinned people. The Whites, on the other hand, were classified by their national origin.

I think this article can be said to be disputing that Yasuke was a Samurai. It is as close as you can get to saying that without saying it directly. And unless the RfC literally means that a statement must be made that Yasuke was not a Samurai and not that other authors dispute it, I think this is a valid example of disputing that claim.

That said, there are two problems with this source. The first is that it is not published in a history journal but a social studies journal which, while certainly related to history, probably does not carry as much weight as a solely history focused journal. Do note that the article itself is about history and this is not simply a passing mention of a historical event within a modern context. Also note that one of Tsujiuchi's main disciplines was history via https://fulbrightscholars.org/grantee/makoto-tsujiuchi which lists him as a visiting scholar to Duke University with the host department being the history department.

The second issue is that this paper was written before (to my knowledge) the first publishing of the quote from Azuchi Nikki, which based on what I gather from Talk:Yasuke#Requested removal of possible misattributed quote claiming to be from the Shinchō Kōki was first made available in 2009 via 織田信長という歴史―『信長記』の彼方へ . So it is missing a primary source, and one that would potentially change the author's view.

Nevertheless, I am posting this source here as it does demonstrate at least one author who seems to reject Lockley's view, the lack of which was a substantial reason from the RfC. To elaborate further on why I think this text disputes Lockley's view, the reason that the sources that say only that Yasuke was a retainer are not valid according to the RfC as being disputes of Lockely is that those two things are not mutually exclusive. However in this case I think these two things are mutually exclusive. The picture Makoto paints of Yasuke ("It is true that Yasuke was regarded as a beast and not a human being") isn't simply not commenting on the matter as was suggested of the sources that only use the term "retainer." His framing of Yausuke is completely incongruent with that of Lockley.

Lastly, while Tsujiuchi may not be a great source for the samurai dispute (at least, certainly not good enough for a wikivoice usage of him in that context), he may be useful as a source in terms of how Yasuke might have been viewed in historical Japan at the time.

The archives to mention Tsujiuchi here but do not discuss him at all. He was simply mentioned within the citation of another author. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 04:51, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

One potential point of concern: Tsujiuchi renders the Japanese term kokudo here as simply "black fellow". This is a mistake, but with layers to it.

• Kokudo is spelled in kanji in the Japanese as 黒奴, an abbreviation of 黒人奴隷 (kokujin dorei, "black-person slave"). This does not mean "black fellow".
• That said, this term 黒奴 (kokudo) is not used in any of the primary materials I've seen so far, and only seems to appear describing Yasuke in modern Japanese texts as a translation of the Portuguese term cafre, used in the Jesuit letters of the 1500s to describe Yasuke. This translation into Japanese appears to be in error: we have discussed the term cafre elsewhere on this page (and in the page archives), and as best we've been able to tell so far, in the Portuguese usage of the late 1500s, this term did not include any inherent sense of "slave", and instead referred to Bantu peoples of the southeast of Africa (whether specifically non-Muslim or not is something I'm still unclear on, but this is also tangential to Tsujiuchi's points here).

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:35, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

On the point of mistranslation of 黒奴, I'm sure Tsujiuchi knows what it means as he is Japanese. Why he used the term when primary sources do not is a bit strange as you say. If I had to guess it is because of one of two reasons: 1. he is borrowing from the Portuguese translation into Japanese that you mention or 2. he is using it in his own words, not intended to be a quote from any of the primary sources. To see this, look at the other usages of kokudo in the text:

>>A black man came from a Christian country. His age seems somewhere around 26 or 27. He is as black as a cow, and looks healthy and talented. He is stronger than ten powerful men.

>This passage simply refers to the external appearance of the kokudo with allusive admiration and without representing his nature as inferior

It is clear that the usage of kokudo here is not intended to be a quote because it is all but certain that Tsujiuchi read the quoted text in Japanese which does not use the term kokudo there (as per your comment) and it is even likely that the translation he gives is his own. Yet he still uses kokudo here. So in terms of the quotation I don't think it is a problem as I don't think it is intended to even a be a real quotation in the first place. As for why he translates the term incorrectly it is more puzzling. I don't think it matters too much however because as I said he obviously knows what the term means himself so in terms of his credibility as far as demonstrating his understanding of the texts goes there is no issue. There is the slight chance that by fellow Tsujiuchi means something along the lines of "(obsolete) A person's servant or slave" or "(chiefly Southern US, derogatory) A black man." See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fellow. See also OED "Used as the customary title of address to a servant or other person of humble station. Obs." (It appears to still have been in use at the end of the 16th century. See full entry bellow). Note that Tsujiuchi's research topic as a Visiting Scholar in the US was "New Social Status of Ex-Slaves After the Civil War," so he might have been familiar with terms related to slavery, although this is just a guess.

OED "fellow" entry 10:

10. †a. Used as the customary title of address to a servant or other person of humble station. Obs.

In 14th c. it implied polite condescension, = ‘comrade’, ‘my friend’ (cf. mod.F. mon ami similarly used). In Shakspere’s time this notion had disappeared, but the word when addressed to a servant does not seem to have necessarily implied haughtiness or contempt, though its application to one not greatly inferior was a gross insult (cf. c).

c 1350 Will. Palerne 275 þemperour.. clepud to him þe couherde & curteysly seide; now telle me, felawe.. sei þou euer þemperour? c 1477 Caxton Jason 23 Vaissale or felawe [orig. vassal] thou hast done me now the most grettest dishonour. 15.. King & Hermit 328 in Hazl. E.P.P. I. 25 Unto the knave seyd the frere Ffelow, go wyȝtly here. 1580 Shaks. L.L.L. iv. i. 103 Thou fellow, a word. Who gaue thee this Letter? 1594 - Rich. III, III. ii. 108 Gramercie fellow: there, drinke that for me.

b. One of the common people. Obs. [examples excluded]

c. contemptuously. A person of no esteem or worth. [examples excluded]

d. A Negro. U.S. Obs.

1753 New Jersey Archives (1897) 1st Ser. XIX. 270 Run away.. a Mulatto Fellow named Anthony... Whoever takes up said Fellow.. shall have Three Pounds Reward, 1860 Bartlett Diet. Amer. (ed. 3) 144 Fellow or Black Fellow, a black man. Southern.

Note the usage in d. ("a Mulatto Fellow named Anthony") seems to imply "slave" more than "black man" as "Mulatto" makes the latter designation superfluous (and perhaps somewhat inaccurate).

It is also interesting to see "vassal" appear here, although it is coincidental.J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 03:13, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the fuller context. I still find his usage puzzling. From what I can find in Japanese dictionaries, 黒奴 is not cited in written Japanese until the 1700s, making its use in the context of the 1500s a bit of an anachronism. See also the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten entry here, showing a date of 1787. Tsujiuchi also appears to conflate the neutral term 黒人 (kokujin, literally "black person") with the loaded term 黒奴 (kokudo, literally "black slave") towards the end of the earlier passage you quoted, when he states “The term "Negro" (kokujin, kokudo) was very often used to describe all kinds of dark-skinned people.” As Portuguese, negro does appear to be used in the Jesuit letters simply to mean "a black person", regardless of free / slave status, so maybe that's what Tsujiuchi meant here by including both Japanese terms in the parentheses?

Time (and mental bandwidth) allowing, I may read through the rest of the paper later to try to figure out the author's intent.

(Side note: Sadly, it seems that Tsujiuchi passed in 2000 at the age of 46 due to a traffic accident. See also his JA WP page at w:ja:辻内鏡人.) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 06:43, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

If the word is not used in the 16th or early 17th century then that would appear to be an error on Tsujiuchi's part. Although note in that context he isn't really making a etymological comment about what words were used, he's just saying that all black skinned people were described by the same term without distinguishing between their countries of origin. It still is a strange sentence though as you say.

Searching in google books, I did find the term appear in Chinese in the form 常渴看黒奴九主之 which according to google books appears twice in 續修四庫全書第1021冊 on pages 39 and 131, which according to google books is from 1605. However, I didn't find the text myself and don't know what the context is. My guess is it is not related. Also, the OCR in that document seems really bad. Even in the quoted text I gave above, "渴" is not a name or surname and is probably an error.

In terms of the 1787 first appearance, I don't know if that is correct as it seems appear in the title of a painting by ja:平賀源内 who died in 1780, although it is possible the original title was different. I can't find a picture of that painting either. The general point still seems to be true however. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 17:22, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Pointless contradiction

_{"Crasset states that Yasuke was a servant brought from India when Alessandro Valignano came to Japan, while Solier states that he was from Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony."}

Mozambique was a dependency under Portuguese India during Yaskue's lifetime, I find this to be a pointless addition as neither of them would be technically wrong. IkuTurisas (talk) 01:08, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

It is unclear what "addition" you are talking about. Are you stating that Mozambique and India should be treated as identical locations, due to their administrative categorization by the Portuguese authorities? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 06:25, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Im not sure how you do not know which part of the text I am referring to, you can do ctrl + f to the part I mentioned there. Also yes, They are treated as the same location, I would highly doubt that it is a contradiction someone from Mozambique, which was a dependency, a literal region of Portuguese India, would not be also counted as being from Portuguese India, no? It is in the same way despite if you are from Saint Helena, you are also from the United Kingdom. IkuTurisas (talk) 14:41, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

In modern English-language parlance, India is in South Asia, and Mozambique is in southeast Africa. Somewhere around 6,400km / 4,000mi and a chunk of the Indian Ocean separates the two.

Stating that Yasuke "was brought from India" tells us that he was in India. Stating that Yasuke "was from Mozambique" tells us that he came from Mozambique.

These are different locations, and stating them separately tells us different things about Yasuke. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:20, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that our article may be misleading. It says Crasset states that Yasuke was a servant brought from India [...] while Solier states that he was from Mozambique. However, Crasset's "India" was actually "the Indies", which at the time might have included the island of Mozambique. So Crasset and Solier are not necessarily in contradiction. Compare Lockley in Britannica: Many sources say that Yasuke came with Valignano from “the Indies,” indicating that they probably met in Portuguese-controlled Goa or Cochin (modern-day Goa and Kochi in India), although in contemporary terms the Portuguese-held Island of Mozambique could also conceivably have been classed as “the Indies.”. So I suggest replacing the current text with the following:

Numerous sources suggest Yasuke accompanied Valignano from "the Indies," which, at the time, could have encompassed Portuguese-controlled Goa, Cochin (modern-day Goa and Kochi in India), or Mozambique. In 1627–1629, François Solier described Yasuke as a servant native of Mozambique. Thomas Lockley speculates that Yasuke might have also born among the Dinka people of what is now South Sudan.

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:56, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

The sentence would be better as two sentences, without the conjunction. Something like: Crasset describes Yasuke as a servant brought from India when Alessandro Valignano came to Japan. Solier wrote that he was originally from Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony. Rotary Engine ^talk 20:39, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Pointless contradiction. References

References

"A1: This article has been vandalised to promote a certain political worldview."

Does someone being an samurai even counts as a "political worldview". Not really a fan of declaring the edits vandalism. There are definitely both for and against the charactization Trade (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

For added context, Trade is talking about this recent edit done by Kyoraki (talk · contribs) (also pinging AlphaBetaGamma who created Talk:Yasuke/FAQ). Thibaut (talk) 21:32, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

"You have a worldview, I have the truth" said every fool ever. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:53, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Not sure if you were agreeing with me or not Trade (talk) 21:55, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreeing. "A certain political worldview" simply boils down to "a worldview with which I disagree." Just being a bit too poetic about the danger of ignoring our own biases. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:58, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

If it weren't for UBI lacking common sense this disruption wouldn't have occurred, but that FAQ needs to be semi protected due to the fact it is being used by IPs and non autoconfirmed users to bypass protection. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 23:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I have to wonder if someone canvassing gave them this "tip". Your average SPA probably would not have figured this out Trade (talk) 00:37, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Anything can be part of politics, including a bucket (see Italy's War of the Bucket).

In this case, it's clearly in line with afrocentrism, promoting the notion that africans were major global influencers, even when historical analysis doesn't support the expected historical grandness and accompanying titles.

An opposing revisionist parallel would be denying that Thomas Alexandre Dumas, a napoleonic black man, wasn't a general and had a great role in his lifetime, the worldview supporting revisionism that he was a low rank, or something as baseless. RustyRapier (talk) 11:07, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

The point of a FAQ should be to give a neutral summary of content dispute to uninvolved editors.--Trade (talk) 21:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Anyways, that vandalism against the FAQ is now reverted and it's up for RfPP as well. Have a good day. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 23:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Well that was certainly a new one. Still some context on whom Lockley is and what exactly makes Yasuke a samurai would be an helpful addition--Trade (talk) 00:34, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

There was a successful RfC to define Yasuke as a samurai a week ago, so I doubt it's getting overturned. Because so many people are pissed about the decision (including me), the page and other related things are becoming a target for SPA vandalism or disruption. I respect that Wikipedia has consensus to display that information because it has references to sources, so I'm taking the anger out on a different place in internet instead, but some people unfortunately engages in destruction of encyclopedia. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 00:49, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

What I also find interesting is that no one has mentioned the fact that this could very well be being influenced by paid actors, beyond other questionable motivations. A certain large video game company worth several billion dollars has a vested interest in Yasuke being identified as “samurai.” I’m not trying to claim that the content of this article will make or break the bank for this company, but it is interesting what lengths people will go to for mega-corporations.

Regardless, I genuinely don’t understand what the issue would be with admitting that Yasuke’s status and title is, at best, unclear. Either by presenting opposing sources or by presenting sources that state just that. Outright identifying him as samurai — from all of the evidence I have seen - seems questionable, at best, particularly in the lead. MWFwiki (talk) 03:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

We all know Ubisoft is famous for their fidelity to history and their mastery of subtle language nuances. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 04:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

A certain large video game company has no such "vested interest". They can make games about whatever they want. The very successful TV series "Afro Samurai" was based on Yasuke, and they had no "vested interest" either. So far the only attempted influence I've seen has come from certain perpetually angry culture war crowds.

Regardless, I genuinely don’t understand what the issue would be with admitting that Yasuke’s status and title is, at best, unclear. Outright identifying him as samurai —

Because it isn't unclear. As mentioned by someone in the closed RfC, the sourcing here seems to be pretty clear that "Yasuke was a samurai" is not in fact a minority view, it's the majority view. We have lots of reliable sources that say that he was a samurai, including:

• The book by Lockley mentioned several times above.
• Several academic reviews of Lockley's book.
• The book by Lopez-Vera linked in a previous comment.
• The Smithonian magazine.
• Time.
• The BBC.
• Britannica.

In contrast to all this, opponents don't appear to have a single source other than WP:OR readings of primary sources that Yasuke was not a samurai. So therefore, the view in both scholarly sources and news sources is that Yasuke was a samurai. Symphony Regalia (talk) 04:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Really? So all of the sources on the Japanese Wikipedia are not reliable?

Ahhh, the ol' "NPR" rule. Once enough secondary sources say something, unless you're an expert in primary sources, it doesn't matter.

There is clear revisionism going-on here, and you're a willing and active participant. MWFwiki (talk) 09:50, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, could you please be more specific about which sources on the Japanese Wikipedia you are referring to? So far the editors working on this article have not been able to find a single source that denies that Yasuke was a samurai, while there are a relatively large number of sources (including academic sources from experts in the field) that call him a samurai. Besides, are you sure that the "revisionist" here is not you? In 2016, 2017 and 2018, before the media frenzy about Yasuke, this article spoke of Yasuke as a samurai (July 2016, Nov 2016, Nov 2017, Mar 2019) and no one cared until 5 March 2019, when an unregistered user made this edit and Yasuke stopped being a samurai for Wikipedia (not just the English edition). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:39, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

As a long-time page watcher who largely refrained from the whole debate after the AC:Shadows reveal, if I may add my point of view: I don't believe it is fair to demand a devil's proof that "denies" Yasuke as a samurai in order for Wikipedia to be able to say his status was contested. Instead, I believe effort should be spent to survey how historians describe Yasuke where he is brought up. Lockley and Lopez-Vera can be considered subject experts who use the word "samurai" for him, which is great, but they are only two researchers. What words do other researchers of the period use when describing Yasuke? More importantly, what words do the Japanese experts of the period use for Yasuke? If we can't answer these questions, then we risk putting WP:UNDUE weight on Lockley and Lopez-Vera's views.

Actually, it is interesting that Gitz6666 brings up timestamps when Wikipedia started calling Yasuke a samurai. 15 July 2016 precedes all sources we have listed here, even Lockley's book, which was published in 2019! This really makes me wonder what Yasuke was called in reliable sources before Lockley wrote about him, and if the prevalence of news media calling Yasuke a samurai without qualification is a result of citogenesis that ultimately began right on this very article. _dk (talk) 11:34, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley's "African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan" was published (if I'm not mistaken) by Hanover Square Press in April 2019, and was immediately covered by TIME. However, before Lockley there had been a book by Ivorian journalist and writer Serge Bilé, Yasuke, le samurai noir (Owen, 2018), which was covered by Le Monde and, in English, by Govamedia. As to Japanese historians, I agree that their views would be significant, but so far no one has been able to find anything. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 12:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

There is one source I can find that predates July 2016, and that is Thomas Lockley himself contributing an article in February 2016 called "The Story of Yasuke: Nobunaga's African Retainer" to Omon ronso, which seems to be a journal that undergoes a screening process from the Nihon University School of Law (where Lockley works). As such, it should be worthwhile to seek this paper out if his book is deemed unreliable due to its alleged lack of fact-checking. (I note that Lockley has not yet committed to call Yasuke a "Samurai" in the title of this 2016 work but "Retainer".) _dk (talk) 14:03, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

AC haven't been historically accurate for a very long time Trade (talk) 14:20, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I am fluent in Japanese. The Japanese sources and historical records support that Yasuke was a samurai. It is recorded for instance that Yasuke was permitted to bare arms, and that he directly served a Lord (Nobunga) (the definition of 侍). Of course this does not matter, as we ultimately follow the sources and the sources from historians and subject matter experts are overwhemingly clear that Yasuke was a samurai.

There is no "revisionism". Again, the only attempted influence I've seen has come from certain perpetually angry culture war crowds who dislike Yasuke for... reasons. Symphony Regalia (talk) 06:15, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I am also fluent in Japanese. Please share the sources you found so that we can all examine and WP:verify them for ourselves so that we can hopefully put this whole debate behind. _dk (talk) 07:35, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

The definition of 侍 I am referencing is from 新辞林。In particular 「帯刀し，武芸をもって主君に仕えた者。武士。」. Symphony Regalia (talk) 21:12, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know about 新辞林 (which doesn’t seem to be available online) but I’ve been able to confirm that the same exact definition can be found in the Daijirin (大辞林). Thibaut (talk) 21:33, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@MWFwiki, please Assume good faith and don't idly speculate about editors being paid, when you have no evidence to that end. Please see Wikipedia:Casting aspersions. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 11:09, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I was not accusing editors of being paid. I was stating that it is curious that the idea of a multi-billion dollar company with a vested interest in this very discussion could be employing paid actors, given that we seem to be working backwards towards a given conclusion. What evidence should I gather? It's impossible to do so, obviously. It doesn't mean it's not happening. But regardless, I will refrain from broaching the topic any further, as it seems it might be sensitive for some. MWFwiki (talk) 14:31, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

No offense, but that sounds like a conspiracy theory and the only ones I've seen who are working backwards from a given conclusion are those who are attempting to discredit Yasuke for personal reasons dispute very clear and overwhelming sourcing on this matter that existed before said game. Symphony Regalia (talk) 06:34, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

That would first require reliable sources in opposition to the academic consensus - which so far have yet to be provided. Relm (talk) 12:14, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Frankly, we don't know what the academic consensus actually is: we only have the handful of sources brought up so far on the main [[Yasuke]] page, and in various scattered Talk threads. We are missing any proper survey of works that mention Yasuke. I think this discussion could benefit from such a list, breaking down details like:

• Title of the work, date, and URL if any
• Type of publication: is this an academic paper? a book? a pop-culture article in a magazine? etc.
• Author, and author's educational / professional / linguistic background (are they trained as an historian? as a journalist? Can they read Japanese? or classical Japanese? etc.)
• Source of the work's own details on Yasuke: is this a primary source? secondary? tertiary? further?

• If secondary / tertiary / further, what sources does this work use for its information on Yasuke?

For instance, if we look more deeply at @Symphony Regalia's list just above:

• The book by Lockley mentioned several times above.

• The Lockley / Girard book African Samurai. This work has no inline citations, and includes content that is clearly fiction, as exemplified with quotes further above. This work is problematic in reliability terms, which is why it is under discussion over at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Reliability_of_Thomas_Lockley.

• Several academic reviews of Lockley's book.

• There's the review by Roger Purdy, which characterizes the book as "popular history and historical fiction".

• The book by Lopez-Vera linked in a previous comment.

• So far, this is one semi-solid source: the author has a degree in Japanese history, and the book is not a fictionalized biography. However, it also lacks inline citations.

• The Smithonian magazine.

• Tertiary source, non-academic, relying on Lockley / Girard.

• Time.

• Tertiary source, non-academic, relying on Lockley / Girard.

• The BBC.

• Tertiary source, non-academic, relying on Lockley / Girard.

• Britannica.

• Tertiary source, non-academic, entirely unsourced, contains speculations.

A list of what looks like seven sources boils down to two, of which the one underpinning many of the others is under discussion for reliability concerns.

A list of relevant works that clearly presents details like the above could go a long way towards clarifying the actual state of published views on Yasuke, and help us all to avoid this kind of citogenesis and source confusion. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

This work has no inline citations, and includes content that is clearly fiction

Oh god, you're still repeating this nonsense claim? This is beyond inane. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 00:14, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Have you actually read the quotes from the Lockley / Girard book in my earlier reply to you? How is it "inane" to point out that African Samurai has reliability issues? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:28, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley's work is reliable, and has been reviewed by other historians and subject matter experts. Lopez, Smithsonian, Time, BBC, and Britannica are all considered reliable as well.

Yasuke being considered a samurai is supported by historical records and several reliable sources, and challenged by no one except a few editors who engage in original research. Wikipedia is not for editors to push their personal interpretation, personal research, and/or other personal beliefs. No amount of WP:OR or refusing to WP:DROPTHESTICK will change this.

To paraphrase the other discussion: while the opposition has made arguments stemming from their deep, personal knowledge of Japanese history and readings of the primary sources, the guiding principle by which Wikipedia is edited states

"Its content is determined by previously published information rather than editors' beliefs, opinions, experiences, or previously unpublished ideas or information. Even if you are sure something is true, it must have been previously published in a reliable source before you can add it"

Likewise, per WP:NPOV:

Unless a topic specifically deals with a disagreement over otherwise uncontested information, there is no need for specific attribution for the assertion, although it is helpful to add a reference link to the source in support of verifiability. Further, the passage should not be worded in any way that makes it appear to be contested.

Rather than furnishing a source that argues or purports to argue that Yasuke was not a samurai, the opposition has maintained that they do not need to prove a negative. However, by NPOV as editors of Wikipedia all an editors job to do is to represent what is written in the Reliable Sources. 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. As per WP:REPUTABLE,

we publish only the analysis, views, and opinions of reliable authors, and not those of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves.

Symphony Regalia (talk) 06:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

You have provided zero sources backing up your contention that the Lockley / Girard book is reliable, despite several users asking you directly for such sources.

Please provide sources showing that African Samurai has been reviewed by historians and deemed reliable. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:26, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

the academic consensus is not provided.

There are quite a lot of papers and books even, who talk about the cultural exchange between Japan and Africans, starting with the Sengoku era and often started with sentences, that the first contact was based on the servants and slaves of European visitors.

the sources? October 2013 as part of Small Electronic Exhibitions Kaleidoscope of Books, No. 14. using material of the National Diet Library (NDL)'s collections

https://www.ndl.go.jp/kaleido/

they even provide a english translation: https://www.ndl.go.jp/kaleido/e/entry/14/2.html

But surely we dont have other sources:

Interracial Intimacy in Japan, Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900 by Gary P. Leupp, 2003

"In 1581, a mob in Kyoto broke down the door of a Jesuit residence in their eagerness to see an African slave, who had been born in Mozambique and brought to Japan by the missionary Alessandro Valignano. Several people were injured. Apparently embarrassed about the incident, the warlord Oda Nobunaga himself summoned the man, inspected his person carefully to ensure that his color was genuine, presented him with a gift of money, and then took him into his own service. <Yasuke>, as Nobunaga named him, subsequently accompanied his lord in battle. After the latter was trapped by Akechi Mitsuhide and forced to commit suicide in 1582, Yasuke was captured but released. (This was, after all, not his quarrel: <He is not Japanese,> noted Akechi)"

But Leupp, who clearly calls Yasuke a slave, is surely not a reliable source, except that we use Leupp already as one of our main sources in this article.

On Page 87 in Japan's Minorities. The Illusion of Homogeneity by J.G. Russel, 2009

We hear once again of Yasuke and the services he and other black people did under Nobunaga. Not as a samurai, but "as soldiers, gunners, drummers and entertainers." And he points at the works of Fujita 1987 and Leupp 1995.

Fujita is Fujita Satoru, just a japanese historian, who loves to write books about the clear terminology of terms in Japan and just a guy releasing a political-historical work 1987 about the Shogunat-system....surely some newsarticle knows more about the samurai-title. -- ErikWar19 (talk) 00:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

sidenote, not sure, if it is Fujita Satoru, but he comes up as the sole historian of this time-era with the name Fujita releasing anything 1987. But it is a common name. -- ErikWar19 (talk) 00:30, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Maybe Yosuke was a slave when he met Nobunaga, although I don't remember reading this in the sources I've checked so far. If not a slave, probably he was a servant. The point of contention, however, is what he became after meeting Nobunaga, while at his service. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:41, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

and while the Portuguese gave him to Oda simply as a servant and got him back after his service under Oda by Akechi Mitsuhide, who is in itself already a new and controversial making of a samurai out of just a ronin by Oda Nobunaga, we can add to this progress, that the Portuguese side and some retainers of Oda Nobunaga didn't saw him as a samurai.

Mitsuhide killed captured samurai, but he didn't killed Yasuke and called him an animal and not Japanese.

Sometimes you argued in this context of the delusion of the samurai definition in this era. And this is correct....the term became more flexibel, not with foreigners becoming samurai and i dont know about any source claiming this to be the reason for a lax terminology of the term in later times. Sources give as example for the change of definition of the term of samurai two Japanese powerful retainers, Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi who had to serve him for a long period as commoner and ronin and lead hundreds of men into battle for him, just to get the samurai status under Oda Nobunaga. ErikWar19 (talk) 03:00, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

At the same time we have people like Tetsuo Owada talking extensively about all the retainers of Oda Nobunaga and the conflict to just declare Hideyoshi and Mitsuhide as a samurai to highlight the controversy around Nobunaga in his actions in power against traditional values and he doesn't even mentioned once Yasuke as a even more controversial samurai-declearation of Nobunaga.

We know about the negative reactions about Hideyoshi, but the same people were suddenly apathetic and absolute silent about Yasuke. And the Portuguese former owners of Yasuke didn't even mentioned, that their servant was apparently made to nobility by Nobunaga, while there were still zero Portuguese visitors given any form of official status in Japan.

OR Yasuke was just one of hundreds of other non-samurai warriors, gunners, entertainers, servants in Japan in this era.-- ErikWar19 (talk) 03:08, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

There is a clear academic consensus that Yasuke was a samurai, and none of these dispute that claim. Symphony Regalia (talk) 06:19, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

the clear academic consensus would be the official publications of the National Diet Library (NDL) of Japan, who is calling these black people in Japan, like Yasuke, servants and slaves.

https://www.ndl.go.jp/kaleido/

they even provide a english translation: https://www.ndl.go.jp/kaleido/e/entry/14/2.html

the clear academic consensus talks about samurai and their dissolved definition of heritage NOT with Yasuke, but with Japanese people.

I already linked in a short search 2 realiable sources clearly stating Yasuke to be a slave. ErikWar19 (talk) 16:47, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

slave and/or something else than a samurai.

It still remains a fact, that Yasuke being a samurai remains to be a minority view. -- ErikWar19 (talk) 16:49, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

The page you linked refers to Yasuke explicitly as an 'African Priest' in the only mention of Yasuke. The very next paragraph it is listing an example where Africans and Indians both were praised for their service in a feudal conflict loading canons. The rest of the text is about the Edo period onward and is irrelevant. If anything this would serve as a source against what you claim.

Not all servants are slaves, not all Africans in Japan must be slaves. The source you linked is rather clear in stating Yasuke as having been a priest when serving with the Jesuits. Relm (talk) 13:31, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@Relm, I assume you're talking about this page?

• https://www.ndl.go.jp/kaleido/e/entry/14/2.html

This appears to be the translated English version of the Japanese text seen here:

• https://www.ndl.go.jp/kaleido/entry/14/2.html

I think this is the bit you're mentioning (problematic text bolded by me):

In Shinchō Kōki (信長公記, A Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga), a biography of ODA Nobunaga, there appears Kurobōzu (黒坊主, a black priest), who first attended the Jesuit priest Valignano and later served Nobunaga.

That 坊主 (bōzu) part is the problematic word: this can mean "monk", but it is also used to mean "boy, young man" as a mild pejorative. See also bilingual references like WWWJDIC, or Kenkyusha's J-E at Weblio. The historical term I've seen more commonly used to describe Yasuke in older Japanese texts is 黒坊 (kurobō at the time, kuronbō or kuronbo in the modern pronunciation), which is 黒 (kuro, "black") + 坊 (bō, "boy, young man"), where the bō is shortened from this same 坊主 (bōzu).

Here's the original Japanese from that page, with my translation:

織田信長の伝記である『信長公記』には、イエズス会司祭ヴァリニャーノが従者として連れており、その後信長に仕えることとなった「黒坊主」が登場します。
In the Shinchō Kōki chronicle about Oda Nobunaga, there appears a young black man (kurobōzu), who accompanied the Jesuit priest Valignano as an attendant and later served Nobunaga.

Translating the bōzu part as "priest" is a meaning error, and a rather bad one, given this context.

(I make no comment about @ErikWar19's claims, I simply wanted to point out that describing Yasuke as a "priest" here is an error on the part of the English translation of the NDL web page.) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:50, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

PS: I forgot to add that 坊主 (bōzu) in any "religious figure" context refers to a Buddhist monk, so rendering this as "priest" in a context that also talks about the Jesuits is a double-mistake. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:54, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley's latest work

Adding this discussion here from a portion of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Reliability of Thomas Lockley for those that are not following that page and as I did not see it discussed in the archives here or in the recent RfC.

Lockley appears as one of the authors in 『つなぐ世界史』2 近世 (2023) published by ja:清水書院. He has an article titled 信長の黒人「サムライ」弥助 (by ロックリー・トーマス ie. Lockley). In it, he writes the following on page 32:

この時代，武士とそれ以外の身分の垣根は曖味であり、本当に弥助が「サムライ」となったのかについては議論があるものの、少なくともその身一代においては、彼は間違いなく信長の家臣に取り立てられたと考えられている。

MTL:

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.

You can see the article listed on Lockley's page here and you can buy it here. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 19:26, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh. This is a surprise. Since Lockley is (correct me if I’m wrong) the source of the claim of Yasuke as samurai, I think this fundamentally complicates the notion, and we should reflect that complication in the article. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:35, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I am not so sure, given Lockley (user:Tottoritom) made conflict of interest editing on this article back in 2015 by citing his own to-be-published 2016 paper.[16] -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 22:10, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

No, to my knowledge, he's still the main author being cited here, with other third hand sources like Britanica and the Smithsonian using him as their source as well. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 22:14, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

That's not the case. If you look at the article there are two non-Lockley academic sources for the samurai claim (Lopez-Vera and Atkins) as well as the Smithsonian which seems to have talked to multiple historians.

Regardless, I'd suggest we avoid splitting discussions over multiple noticeboards (i.e. keep discussion about reliability of Lockley on RSN, other content/sources about Yasuke here, and discussion about conduct at ANI) CambrianCrab (talk) 23:46, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

>keep discussion about reliability of Lockley on RSN

This isn't about the reliability of Lockley. It is about a statement made by Lockley which was not discussed earlier and could be mentioned in the article.

>If you look at the article there are two non-Lockley academic sources

That may be the case. My main point was that Lockley is still one of the sources cited here which was implied not to be the case above. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 00:12, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

A few points.

• Re: the Smithsonian article, that relies entirely on Lockley for its statements about Yasuke and samurai status. The article quotes Natalie Doan, but only on other matters: none of her words touch on Yasuke and samurai-ness.
• Re: Atkins, I do not have that text myself and no preview is available. However, if the extent of Atkins's statements about Yasuke and samurai status are included in the quote currently visible in the "References" section, then he does not say that Yasuke is a samurai. Here's the quote, emphasis mine:

Impressed with Yasuke's height and strength (which "surpassed that of ten men"), Nobunaga gave him a sword signifying bushi status. Yasuke served as Nobunaga's retainer and conversation partner for the last year of the warlord's life, defending Azuchi castle from the traitorous Akechi forces in 1582, where Nobunaga committed ritual suicide (seppuku). Although there are no known portraits of the "African samurai," there are some pictorial depictions of dark-skinned men (in one of which he is sumo wrestling) from the early Edo period that historians speculate could be Yasuke.

His use of quotation marks here indicates that he is quoting others, not using that epithet directly himself.

• That leaves us with López-Vera, which consists of a short blurb about Yasuke described as a samurai, albeit without any citations, and no explanation of López-Vera's reasoning for calling Yasuke a samurai. I am fine with López-Vera's book being cited, provided that it is clearly attributed to López-Vera, and not in "wikivoice" as an unattributed statement of fact.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:14, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

My comment was strictly a response to the claim that Lockley is the main author being cited here, which does not seem to be the case for anything I saw in the article, and certainly isn't the case for the "samurai" title. Discussions about the reliability of the sources actually in use should take place under their own headers, either here or on RSN. CambrianCrab (talk) 00:30, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Without comment on the reliability of Lopez-Vera's "History of the Samurai", noting that, while Lopez-Vera is an historian, Tuttle Publishing is a popular press, not an academic press. And the work, therefore, is not accurately described as an "academic source". Rotary Engine ^talk 10:10, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

It's also really important to note that "Samurai" in these sources isn't even being defined at all. This reminds me of trying to find anything on "Ninjas" in English sources, and you find endless sources saying this or that about "Ninjas" and how they did or did not operate, and often never citing any kind of documentation (or citing other English books on the subject). With a lot of pop history sources you get people citing nothing, citing each other, and not defining anything. They seem more interested in telling a neat story than being accurate to minute details.

People just seem to imagine anyone with a sword in Feudal Japan is a "Samurai" and Japanese media often portrays them as having superhuman abilities in battle. Meanwhile it was a hereditary military nobility, and it's not something you can just enter into but something granted by a high ranking official. And for the matter, the reality is often much more mundane: William Adams was granted the status of Samurai, but he was really just a bureaucrat.

So you have to ask: how do any of these authors know Yasuke was a samurai? We know for a fact that there's no recorded sources saying this (otherwise they would just be cited directly). So it seems to just boil down to how various authors define a "samurai", and these pop-history writers seem to just loosely define it as anyone serving under Nobunaga would be a samurai whereas retainer would be more accurate. But writing a post on "The African Retainer in Japan" doesn't sound as catchy as calling him a Samurai and playing into people's imagination. Harizotoh9 (talk) 22:00, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

>People just seem to imagine anyone with a sword in Feudal Japan is a "Samurai"

I don't think that is the case. In my mind, one of the main things people in the west associate with "Samurai" is the so called "Samurai Code", including to commit suicide rather than surrender. So I think the "English Samurai" is actually more restrictive than the true samurai of eg. the early Edo period. The Yasuke argument is the first time I've heard the claim that in English, "samurai" basically just means anyone with a sword. Besides, Wikipeida is a WP:Global project, and "language determines only the form, not the content of articles." It shouldn't be based on what Wikipedians say English speakers think about a topic. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 22:58, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

>People just seem to imagine anyone with a sword in Feudal Japan is a "Samurai"

I don't think that is the case. [...] The Yasuke argument is the first time I've heard the claim that in English, "samurai" basically just means anyone with a sword.

There is a lot of confusion in the English-language popular press on what exactly a "samurai" was, in different historical eras. Part of this is due to the effective conflation of samurai (hereditary social class) and bushi (professional warrior) during the Edo period (1603–1868), as laws implemented first by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and expanded upon by the following Tokugawa administration meant that the only people allowed to perform the role of bushi were those who had status as samurai.

We see this confusion expressed by Lockley himself, as he is quoted in the TIME article, "The True Story of Yasuke, the Legendary Black Samurai Behind Netflix’s New Anime Series" (emphasis mine):

"Lockley also explained that in Yasuke’s time, the idea of a “samurai” was a very fluid concept. “You don’t have to possess any particular killing skills to be a samurai,” the author said. “Anybody who took up weapons on behalf of a lord could technically call themself a samurai, or could be called a samurai.”"

Anyway, I think the English-language popular press, and Lockley himself to some extent, are responsible for propagating the idea that "pre-modern Japanese person wielding a sword" means "samurai". Consider even the common English-language collocation, "samurai warrior".

"It [article content] shouldn't be based on what Wikipedians say English speakers think about a topic."

I agree. At the same time, we must bear in mind how words might have different, or ambiguous, meanings. And we should strive for clarity in how our articles are written, and define our terms as needed to avoid confusion. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:45, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Yasuke, a Kafir

The article states Luís Fróis wrote of Yasuke as Cafre in his letters and provides the following source:

• "ハリウッドで映画化!信長に仕えた黒人、弥助とは何者だったのか?" [Movie made in Hollywood! Who was Yasuke, a black man who served Nobunaga?]. WARAKU web (in Japanese). Shogakukan. 30 August 2019. Archived from the original on 19 September 2023. Retrieved 12 September 2023.

The statement is verified but the source is not excellent. On the other hand, this good-quality academic source

• Thomas, David; Chesworth, John A. (2017). "South-East Asia, China and Japan". South and East Asia, Africa and the Americas (1600-1700). Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Vol. 33. BRILL. p. 335. doi:10.1163/9789004335585_007. ISBN 978-90-04-32683-5.

says Solier describes the servant as native of Mozambique, a More Cafre (kāfir) or Moorish infidel.

Do we have another source attributing "Yasuke as Kafir" to Fróis? If not, I would replace Fróis with Solier and provide the source Thomas and Chesworth.

On a side note, I think we should support our explanatory footnote ("Cafre" is a word of Arabic origin and referred to the inhabitants of the area around the east coast of Africa (Swahili Coast) at the time) with a source, otherwise it looks like an OR. Alternatively, we may closely follow Thomas and Chesworth on this and have a More Cafre (kāfir) or Moorish infidel. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:45, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

See [17] and [18]. Thibaut (talk) 16:53, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I see, thanks. So the text needs to be updated. The explanatory note is simply wrong and needs to be changed on the basis of the second source you provided and Eirikr analysed: in Portuguese parlance, Kafir were not (and have never been) "the inhabitants of the Swahili Coast"; besides, they were no longer the nomadic, non-Muslim Khoisan, but just someone with a dark skin tone, most of the time a slave (p. 8 of [19]).

As to the Luís Fróis, he needs to go. The question is whether to replace him with Father Lourenço Mexia (1539-1599) (and provide the primary source) or with François Solier (and provide the secondary source). The second option is more compliant with WP policy, the first one is questionable because it borders on OR. Perhaps we could also add them both, since the content of the primary source, while written in 16th century Portuguese, is still quite clear and accessible. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:19, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

If you are looking for a source for a quote, why not go to that source?

In this case, to cite a quotation from one of the Jesuit letters in Portuguese using the word cafre, then we should simply cite the relevant Jesuit letter. We don't need — and shouldn't use — a secondary source if all we are stating is "this document has this text in it". That is a straightforward statement of fact. Simply quoting directly from a primary source is not itself prohibited original research. See also the "Primary sources" subsection under Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources, in particular point 3 (emphasis as in the original):

3. A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a musician may cite discographies and track listings published by the record label, and an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:44, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that we can cite primary sources, but we should do so only when a secondary source supports the claim. The reason is not WP:V but WP:NPOV - how do we know the content represents a significant viewpoint that deserves inclusion in the article? A secondary source that mentions the claim helps us determine this. Once we've cited the secondary source, we can also provide the primary source for the "learned reader" who wish to delve deeper. As far as I know, this is common practice at WP:GAN and WP:FAC, and we should adhere to it. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I may have misunderstood something — I thought the claim here is "this Portuguese letter uses this word", in which case, surely we should just quote and cite the Portuguese letter?

At the top of this thread:

• "The article states Luís Fróis wrote of Yasuke as Cafre in his letters and provides the following source:"

If all we are looking for is evidence that the Jesuits described Yasuke as cafre in their letters, we should quote the letters. No?

Or is there some other claim at issue? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:05, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

The letters are already discussed by secondary sources, including the fact that few primary sources are available. That alone should deal with WP:NPOV because multiple secondary sources discuss Frois and say that there are barely any other sources at all and all those few other sources are also discussed as well. So its impossible for it to be NPOV to state a fact from a primary source that has been described by secondary sources to be important. That is, "representing [...] all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic" is not difficult when there are only a handful of sources in the first place. In terms of interpreting that statement, then I think you can run into issues with WP:OR. The interpretation of the usage of kafir is already given by other sources so that isn't a problem either. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 21:48, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

According to Morris cited above, Lourenço Mexia also describes hims a kafir:

>Such comments, which are congruent with Lourenço Mexia’s 1581 description of Yasuke as a kafir (1598, 17), might suggest that Yasuke was a Muslim.

See Talk:Yasuke#Another_source_not_yet_mentioned for further discussion of Morris and kafir J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 17:43, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Reviewing the Cartas themselves, Luis Fróes, in his letter dated 14 April 1581 clearly uses "Cafre" in the context of a man accompanying Valignano on a journey to Sakai. The relevant section is available at the bottom right of the page numbered 2 in the second volume of the Cartas, around 3/4ths through the document here.

No mesmo Domingo de Ramos mos partimos pera Vocayama & ao fair polla cidade de Sacay fora auia infinidade de gente que estava esperando pollas ruas pera verem a extraordinaria estarura do padre Visitador, & a cor do Cafre que hia comnosco, era tanta a gente, & tantos os fidalgos q comfer o Sacay tam livre com quanto a milutidao da nossa gente ...

And also later in the same letter, describing a meeting with Nobunaga:

Logoa segunda feira primeira oitava foi a gente tanta a nossa porta, por estar aqui Nobunanga no Miaco todos a ver o cafre que ve alguns principios de arroidos; & alguns feridos de pedradas, & outros que estavio pera fe matar, & quebravao as portas, & com avermuita gente de guarda as portas, com difficuldade se lhe podia resistir, & todos diziao que se mostrasse pera ganhar dinheiro, que polo menos ganharia hum homem com elle com grande facilidade oito ou dez mil cruzados em breve tempo, & he grande, & excessivo o deseio que tem de o ver, Nobunanga o mandou chamar, & levou lho o padre Organtino, fez estranha festa com elle fazendoo despir da cinta pera riba nao se podendo persuadir que era aquillo cousa natural se nao artificiosa : tambem o mandarao chamar os filhos de Nobunanga, & com cada hum delles ovve extraordinarias gracas, & hu sobrinho de Nounanga que agora he capitao de Ozaca lhe deu dez mil caixas, folgou em estremo de over, & temos bem de trabalho com svas vistas.

The document is scanned images of a book, so, unfortunately, not searchable. Portuguese is not my strongest suit, and the text uses an older font which makes transcription more difficult, but "cafre" is clearly used. Rotary Engine ^talk 20:06, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

See also Talk:Yasuke/Archive_2#The_Tono_Notation. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:54, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Ah, found a better source.

• https://purl.pt/15229 — "CARTAS DOS JESUITAS"
• Click through the image there to https://purl.pt/15229/4/ — this shows and gives links to the PDFs for TOMO I (the Primeiro Tomo or "Volume 1" that you linked through above; also not OCRed, so just images), and TOMO II (the Segunda Parte or "Part 2" of the letters; this one is searchabe, albeit with caveats due to old spellings and scannos).

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:01, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

And also later in his letter of 5 November 1582, describing the death of Nobunaga, Fróes again uses "cafre". Rotary Engine ^talk 21:06, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to adding a reference to Luís Fróis's letter. The article (in the latest draft following my recent edits) would then become A 1581 letter by Jesuit Lourenço Mexia, a 1582 letter by Jesuit Luís Fróis, and a later account from 1627 by François Solier all refer to Yasuke as cafre. If you could provide a wikified citation, that would be kind. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:08, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Based on the cite & source currently used for Lourenco Mexia:'s letter:

Luis Fróes, 14 April 1581:

Fróes, Luis (1598). "Carta que o padre Luis Frões escreueo do Miàco a quatorze de Abril de 1581. a outro padre no mesmo Iapão.". Segunda parte das cartas de Iapão que escreuerão os padres, & irmãos da Companhia de Iesus. Livro primeiro (in Portuguese). Évora: Manuel de Lyra. pp. 2, 2v, 3v.

Luis Fróes, 19 May 1581:

Fróes, Luis (1598). "Carta do padre Luis Frões, escrita em Quitanòxo no Iapão a dezanoue de Maio de 81. a outro padre no mesmo Iapaõ.". Segunda parte das cartas de Iapão que escreuerão os padres, & irmãos da Companhia de Iesus. Livro primeiro (in Portuguese). Évora: Manuel de Lyra. p. 9v.

Luis Fróes, 5 November 1582; on the death of Nobunaga:

Fróes, Luis (1598). "Carta do padre Luis Froes sobre a morte de Nobunànga, pera o muito Reuerendo, padre Geral da Cõpanhia de IESUS, de Cochinoçú, aos cinco de Noue[m]bro de 1582". Segunda parte das cartas de Iapão que escreuerão os padres, & irmãos da Companhia de Iesus. Livro primeiro (in Portuguese). Évora: Manuel de Lyra. p. 65v.

NOTES:

1. Page numbers containing "v" are the reverse side of those numbered pages; this numbering system is used in the sourced site.

2. Froes doesn't mention Yasuke by name, so there's an assumption that that is who he means when he writes "cafre". This assumption appears to have also been made by most of our secondary sources. I'm inclined to this that it's reasonable in most cases, particularly if Valignano is also mentioned, but perhaps less so otherwise.

Rotary Engine ^talk 03:06, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• Per WP policy, we should always prefer a secondary source discussing primary source information rather than using the primary source itself. The only exception would be if the secondary source is comparatively poor as a source. But an academic source is on the highest tier, so we should be using that in the article. Silverseren^C 00:32, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  Perhaps it would be best to have the policy explicitly named or linked here. Rotary Engine ^talk 00:39, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed. If all we are stating is "this word is in this source", that is a plain statement of fact, and appears to fit into point #3 that I quoted above from the "Primary sources" subsection under Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources. I am curious what other WP policy would contradict this one? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:08, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  I would consider translation and interpretation of meaning of that translation to be too close to the edge of what secondary sources need to be used for. And especially in this case where we already have a high quality secondary source making the analysis for us anyways. There is absolutely no need to use the primary source because of that. Silverseren^C 01:37, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  from WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD

  >Primary sources can be reliable, and they can be used. Sometimes, a primary source is even the best possible source, such as when you are supporting a direct quotation. In such cases, the original document is the best source because the original document will be free of any errors or misquotations introduced by subsequent sources.

  I since we are just going for a quotation, it is better to use the primary here.

  >And especially in this case where we already have a high quality secondary source making the analysis for us anyways

  Which source are you referring to? Is there an academic source that repeats Fróis' Kafir comment? Even if there is, I don't see why it is necessary, given we already have the interpretation from other secondaries about different primaries on the same point. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 01:59, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  I agree that any interpretation of what cafre means in the Portuguese or French of the time must be backed by a secondary source, much as @J2UDY7r00CRjH noted above. For purposes of citing the existence of the word in reference to Yasuke in the text of the Jesuit letters or the Solier work, surely we should refer to the primary sources themselves? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:59, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  I agree that any interpretation of what cafre means in the Portuguese or French of the time must be backed by a secondary source

  On whether or not the word meant "slave" in Portuguese at that time yes I agree (that's why I reverted this edit where a secondary source was replaced by a dictionary published in 1977, 1988 for the second edition). However, there seems to be some confusion in Thomas & Chesworth:

  Might be OR but I think Thomas and Chesworth confuse the meaning and etymology of the word Cafre or Caffre.

  In French (Solier's native language), Cafre means an inhabitant of Cafreria (Cafrerie, see Dictionnaire de Trévoux written by the Jesuits in 1721: [20], transcript), not an infidel (which is the literal translation of kāfir).

  That's why Solier wrote […] natif du Mozambic, & de ceux qu'on nomme proprement Cafres, habitans vers le Cap de Bonne eſperace. ("native of Mozambique, and of those who are properly called Cafres, inhabiting towards the Cape of Good Hope."

  And Solier didn't write "More Cafre", but valet more ("moor valet"), full transcript can be found here.

  Pinging @Yvan Part and @Seudo who took part in a previous discussion about Solier. Thibaut (talk) 07:56, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  You are right, he writes "valet more". However, according to J.H. Morris, Solier wrote "More Cafre" In marginal notes in the text and the index. This can be verified: I can see "More Cafre" in the marginal note at p. 444 [21] and "Cafre More, mené au Iapon" in the index [22]. According to WP:PRIMARYCARE, primary sources can be used for "straightforward descriptive statements that any educated person—with access to the source but without specialist knowledge—will be able to verify are directly supported by the source". I very much doubt that letters in 17th-century Portuguese and French qualify as such - see the extensive discussion among editors on this talk page. However, I wouldn't mind adding Fróis if we have an easily verifiable direct quote. Otherwise, since neither Fróis nor Mexia are major historical figures, we could simplify the article, avoid name-dropping, and have a generic all-inclusive "both contemporary letters by Jesuit fathers and a later account by François Solier". Would that be OK for everyone? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:37, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'm fine with not using a quote; as you note, that bulks up the text, and doesn't necessarily bring much value.

  If we are citing them as you suggest, I do recommend that we link to relevant source documents in the citation / ref section, with some indication to interested readers where they can find the specific text (page numbers, left or right columns, etc.). ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:11, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  While I'm fine with direct quotes and translations in the article, I would be very careful of where it would link to, like the current article does to kaffir. Tracking down two contemporary french dictionnaries [23] and [24] and some quick checks on early 17th century dictionnaries, none of them contain the word cafre, kaffir or caphre.

  All of them contain More or later Maure with the common definition being "someone native of Mauritania". Thresor de la langue françoyse 1606, Jean Nicot adds that the word "extended beyond its first limits(meaning) to almost everyone of the same faith" meaning muslims which runs contrary to the historical kaffir definition of a non-muslim. I'm afraid the 1721 definition for cafre linked by Thibaut is a bit anachronistic as the later definitions for More all seem to stick to the very strict "native from Mauritania" including the one in the same dictionnary which obviously doesn't apply to Yasuke.

  At least I wouldn't rely solely on Solier without a proper secondary source to link Solier's use of the word cafre and the historical kaffir definition because it's not as straightforward in french. Yvan Part (talk) 23:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

  I agree, but we do have secondary sources linking Solier's cafre and the historical kafir - they are cited in the article [25] [26]. As to the Franch More, Thomas & Chesworth says More Cafre (kafir) or Moorish infidel. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:25, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

COI

I added a COI tag to the article, since it does appear that a major contributor to this article has a conflict of interest. It got removed as “drive by”.

im gonna be careful about WP:OUTING here but it’s pretty easy to verify that the link is there. Volunteer Marek 05:16, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh, wait nevermind, Lockley self identified with his account [27]. Here is the difference between last version they edits and current version [28]. Comparison is difficult because lots of material got moved around. Volunteer Marek 05:21, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I also can't find the specific diff, however from discussions in other Talk threads I understood one of the critical changes was addition of the The African Samurai (2019) book as a reference shortly prior to its release. Whether it falls under WP:COI in the given context, I do not know. SmallMender (talk) 06:53, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Possibly this edit. For reference, the COI guideline text at that time. Rotary Engine ^talk 07:09, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

This one in 2015 when user:Tottoritom added a citation of Lockley's paper to be published in 2016. This is where the controversy surrounding Lockley/Tottoritom really exploded online. That said, I am not trying to argue about Lockley's study on Yasuke, as other Japanese experts have recently begun to endorse Yasuke's samurai theory. However, I believe this specific COI edit rightfully puts Lockley's academic integrity under scrutiny. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 09:08, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, some lines in the 2015 edit do seem like they might be violating NPOV and OR, but when I scanned the latest version of the page they have been removed and/or replaced with citations from appropriate independent secondary sources. For instance, Lockley's own translation of 信長公記 (Shinchōkōki) is now replaced by text from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke#cite_ref-26. SmallMender (talk) 10:46, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I believe this specific COI edit rightfully puts Lockley's academic integrity under scrutiny No, this is not correct - and it borders on a violation of WP:BLPTALK. WP:SELFCITE is the relevant guideline, and it states that Using material you have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant, conforms to the content policies, including WP:SELFPUB, and is not excessive. Arguably, the edit by Tottoritom (assuming they are Lockley, as they claim) is entirely consistent with WP:SELFCITE. A recent discussion on WP:SELFCITE did not reach a consensus on requiring editors to first declare a COI, and thus reveal their identity, before citing their own work. So Lockley's behaviour (who did disclose his identity, by the way) does not call into question his "Wikipedian integrity", let alone his "academic integrity". We do want academics to cite and add content based on their research if that material is relevant, reputably published, neutral, and not self-promotional. No academic helping to build an encyclopedia should be scorned for that. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:19, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

My issue is the timing, that Lockley cited his own writing in 2015 before that was even published in 2016, that means no one would be able to verify his claims contributed on Wikipedia. How could this not be an academic integrity problem? -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 11:52, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Academic integrity is not a matter for Wikipedia; and this Talk page is expressly not a forum for discussion of it. We have our own standards, as documented in our policies & guidelines. My own view is that the edit that linked above falls short of both contemporaneous and current expectations. But it is also 5 years old, the editor has not edited since, and is, consequently, not, for mine, much worth fussing over. Rotary Engine ^talk 12:06, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Then please update the FAQ to note that Wikipedia doesn't care about (but possibly appreciate) Lockley's past editing on Wikipedia. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 12:10, 21 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)

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[29] 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)

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 [30]. 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 [31]. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:18, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

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 [32]. 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)