Student: Jayson Knapp
11/23/18
Instructor name: Mr. Knight
What was a Samurai?
1. Samurai the elite warrior group of Japan.
2. The time samurai were around was the Edo period in Japan when Tokyo was called Edo or feudal Japan.
3. A samurai wasn’t just a warrior group, but hey were also shoguns or a commander-in-chief in feudal Japan.
The life of a Samurai
1. When a boy in a samurai family is born he is given a sword.
2. It’s not a real sword, but it is a symbol of his future.
1. The sword is more important than anything except for bushido and his training.
The Samurai training
1. When a samurai boy becomes 13 he is given a proper sword, armor, and a warrior name half his father’s name and half of his, so if you were in the Minamoto clan it would be Minamoto then your name.
2. The 13-year-old samurai may be a samurai but they still have to learn how to be loyal, how to fight, honorable and bushido.
3. Samurai followed a special code “bushido” or “The Way of the Warrior”.
4. The bushido states that samurai must be honorable and loyal to their master.
5. If the samurai disrespects bushido would be dishonored everywhere.
Weapons, Armor, and War
1. By the 1000s, there were two powerful family groupings in Japan they were the Taira and the Minamoto clans these families fought in the Gempei War.
1.The Taira won at first but then the Minamoto clan returned and won the first battle.
2.They had a helmet, shoulder guard, arm guard, war apron, and animal skin boots.
3. The weapons were bows, arrows, long sword and a short sword. T
4. The long sword was a katana and the short sword was wakizashi together these swords were called daisho which means “big and small.”
[The end of samurai and how it happened]
1. The shogun had banned trade with European countries Japan only began trade with Europe again in the 1800s.
2. The samurai did not like this change and wanted to remove the Tokugawa shogun who allowed it.
3. They succeeded in 1868 Emperor Meiji became ruler, stripped shogun power and thought the samurai system was bad and wanted a more European army.
4. The new emperor encouraged trade this annoyed the samurai who made him ruler.
5. As a result the samurai became less powerful
Works Cited
Murrell, D. (2009). A Hero’s Guide to Warriors. New York, NY: QEB.
Harpur, J. (2007). Warriors. London: Carlton.
Lay, D. (1998, October 26). Origins of the Samurai. Retrieved November 24, 2018, from https://judoinfo.com/samurai/
Guide, J. (2018). Samurai. Retrieved November 24, 2018, from https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2127.html
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