Doing Aikido does not make you a samurai. However, Aikido is a Budo that incorporates the best of the samurai tradition and omits the elements that are no longer desirable. For those interested in the history of the samurai, one question that often comes up is, “When did the samurai originate, and when did they disappear?”
There are many broad histories of Japan that include some information about these events. For more detail, THE FIRST SAMURAI: THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF THE WARRIOR REBEL TAIRA MASAKADO, by Karl Friday, is excellent for the general reader. (His HIRED SWORDS: THE RISE OF PRIVATE WARRIOR POWER IN EARLYJAPAN is a more detailed and scholarly book.) Professor Friday is a noted scholar and a fine Budoka. He describes how Masakado exemplifies the development of regional warrior power after the threat of invasion from China dissipated and local leaders with military skills ascended.
The end of the samurai period is captured well in two biographies.
THE LAST SAMURAI: THE LIFE AND BATTLES OF SAIGO TAKAMORI by Mark Ravina describes the individual who was the model for the Tom Cruise movie where the Japanese hero’s name was changed to Katsumoto. The real-life Takamori helped to overthrow the government of the Shogun and prepare Japan to face the outside world. Later, he became disillusioned with some of the changes and led a rebellion against the new regime that he had helped to create.
In THE SWORD OF NO SWORD: LIFE OF THE MASTER WARRIOR TESSHU, John Stevens tells the story of a truly remarkable individual whose life bridged the end of the samurai period and the beginning of the new Japan. He became a tutor to the teenage Meiji Emperor and tried to inculcate into him the best of the samurai tradition. Like Miyamoto Musashi, Tesshu was a great swordsman but also an artist of considerable skill. Ueshiba Morihei was six years old when Tesshu died in 1889. O-Sensei inherited much of what Tesshu had stood for.
