Showing posts with label Flask of the Drunken Master. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flask of the Drunken Master. Show all posts

Jul 24, 2015

The Rope and the Sword: Medieval Japanese Justice, an article by Susan Spann


Justice Play

THE ROPE AND THE SWORD: Medieval Japanese Justice

article and photos by Susan Spann


Today, I’d like to take you on a whirlwind tour of Medieval Japanese justice—a topic close to my heart, and one I explore in the newest Shinobi Mystery, Flask of the Drunken Master.

Medieval Japanese justice actually followed two different, but parallel systems: one for commoners, and the other for the samurai nobles who sat at the top of the social ladder.

By the 16th century—the era when my Shinobi Mysteries take place—Japan had a highly developed system of courts and law enforcement.

Magistrates presided over the courts in every major city (and many towns), resolving disputes and conducting the trials of commoners accused of crimes. Although the magistrates themselves were members of the ruling samurai class, their jurisdiction extended mostly to commoners. By law, the samurai had the right to resolve their legal disputes without the magistrate’s intervention (although samurai could agree to submit their problems to magistrates for review).

Beneath the magistrates, a handful of yoriki (“assistant magistrates”) conducted investigations and acted as supervisors for the medieval Japanese version of “beat cops” (called dōshin) who patrolled the cities and arrested commoners accused of crimes. Dōshin were easy to recognize, because they carried a forked truncheon, called a jitte, in addition to a sword:

Like magistrates, yoriki and dōshin were always members of the samurai class. However, policemen usually came from low-ranked samurai families, whereas magistrates almost always belonged to powerful, influential clans.

Despite the fact that their social group controlled and composed the police force, samurai rarely used the justice system to resolve their own disputes. Samurai families generally resolved their minor issues through negotiation, and where that failed, they delivered their justice on the edge of a sword. For the most part, the official justice system existed to manage the lower classes.

Like the justice system itself, the punishments meted out to criminals often depended on the social class or rank of the convicted (or condemned).
Sengakuji
As the highest-ranking social group, samurai had special privileges with regard to punishment. For serious crimes, samurai often had the right (and sometimes the obligation) to commit seppuku – a form of ritual suicide in which the offending samurai disemboweled himself with a dagger. During my recent trip to Japan, I visited Sengakuji, a temple in Tokyo where the famous “47 Ronin” are buried. These famous samurai, whose adventure is memorialized in the famous epic Chushingura, avenged their master and then committed seppuku en masse. Here’s a photograph of that temple:

The "self-determining" samurai was usually allowed a “second,” called the kaishakunin, who ended the samurai’s life with a merciful strike to the neck as soon as the fatal stomach cut was completed. A skillful kaishakunin didn’t sever the head completely; instead, his skillful stroke resulted in a head that hung from the owner’s body by only a narrow strip of skin. The thinner the strip, the more respect the kaishakukin—and the now-deceased samurai atoning for a crime--received.

Ritual suicide by seppuku restored a samurai’s honor, and that of his family, preventing the need for a feud between the wrongdoer’s clan and the clan of his victim. However, only samurai were allowed the option of seppuku (and the “honor” was not extended to every samurai who committed a crime.)

Among commoners, the sentence for serious crimes was generally death by hanging. In contrast to seppuku, which restored a condemned man’s honor, hanging was a degrading and defiling form of death. It shamed not only the convict, but his (or her) family as well. Hangings often took place in public, sometimes followed by decapitation and display of the criminal’s head as a warning to the population at large.

In an ironically “modern” twist, the Japanese justice system treated female criminals as equals of their male counterparts where punishment was concerned. Females went to the gallows alongside male criminals, and female samurai who committed crimes were often allowed the option of suicide (usually by poison but occasionally by seppuku).

Doshin-style truncheon
My first two Shinobi Mysteries, Claws of the Cat and Blade of the Samurai, involved medieval Japanese ideas of crime and punishment—ideas which the Japanese considered inseparable from the larger ideals of honor, respect, and social class—but the plots of those novels didn’t give me the chance to show a criminal on trial. Flask of the Drunken Master shifts the investigation to a crime against a commoner, which gave me an opportunity to explore the issues of justice—and punishment—from a significantly different point of view. The trial scene at the end of the book is one of my favorites in the entire series.

Sandaime Onoe Kikugoro no Oboshi Yuranosuke
Regardless of the criminal’s social status, major crimes like murder were considered unforgivable not only in their own right but also because they demonstrated disrespect for the Japanese social order. A major crime created a debt that could only be “repaid” with the criminal’s life—a truth that transcended even the sharp class lines that pervaded medieval Japanese culture--and one that my ninja detective, Hiro Hattori, understands all too well. 

Thanks to Susan Spann, author of the three Shinobi mysteries, Claws of the Cat, Blade of the Samurai, and Flask of the Drunken Master, for this guest post.

See my review of The Flask of the Drunken Master.

For other reviews/guest posts/giveaways of the Flask of the Drunken Master, visit the tour schedule at Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.  

Jul 20, 2015

Book Review: Flask of the Drunken Master by Susan Spann

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme hosted by Jenn
Flask of the Drunken Master: A Shinobi Mystery #3 by Susan Spann
Published July 14, 2015; Minotaur Books
Genre: historical mystery, 16th century Japan

Opening paragraphs:
"Halt!" The armored samurai stepped forward to block the bridge. "No one crosses the Kamo River without identification. State our names and your business in Kyoto."
Hattori Hiro gestured to the Jesuit at his side. "Father Mateo Avila de Santos, a priest of the foreign god, from Portugal . I am Matsui Hiro, his interpreter and scribe." 
My comments: And so begins the third book in the Shinobi Mystery series, featuring Hiro, a samurai in disguise as an interpreter, whose job is to guard the Jesuit priest, Father Mateo, in Japan. The two have solved murders before, and continue to do so in this book. Hiro is the main crime solver, with Father Mateo as his sidekick or helper.

Samurai and Japanese codes of conduct are very much in the forefront, and Hiro must steer Father Mateo clear of any offence the Jesuit might make in speech, manner, or conduct while they interrogate people and make inquiries regarding the crime they are determined to solve. The two make an interesting pair of sleuths and their complimentary characters add to the interest of the novel. 

The author brings Japanese history, its customs and politics, to life in this series and in this book, as we enjoy detecting from an unlikely pair of sleuths. I highly recommend it for history and mystery buffs alike. 

The plot: "August 1565: When a rival artisan turns up dead outside Ginjiro’s brewery, and all the evidence implicates the brewer, master ninja Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo must find the killer before the magistrate executes Ginjiro and seizes the brewery, leaving his wife and daughter destitute....

But with Kyoto on alert in the wake of the shogun’s recent death, a rival shinobi on the prowl, and samurai threatening Hiro and Father Mateo at every turn, Ginjiro’s life is not the only one in danger."  (publisher)


Susan Spann is a transactional publishing attorney and the author of the Shinobi Mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and his Portuguese Jesuit sidekick, Father Mateo. Her debut novel, CLAWS OF THE CAT (Minotaur Books, 2013), was named a Library Journal Mystery Debut of the Month. Susan has a degree in Asian Studies from Tufts University, where she studied Chinese and Japanese language, history, and culture. Her hobbies include cooking, traditional archery, martial arts, and horseback riding. She lives in northern California with her husband, son, two cats, and an aquarium full of seahorses.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours and the author for a review copy of this book. For other reviews of this and other books in the mystery series, for giveaways, and author posts, visit the tour schedule.

BOOK GIVEAWAY: 

A hard copy of Flask of the Drunken Master to a resident of the U.S. or Canada. To enter the contest, please email me at harvee44@yahoo.com with the email heading, FLASK CONTEST. The contest will run now through July 27. A winner will be notified by email on July 28 and will have two days to respond with a mailing address. TLC Book Tours will arrange for the mailing of the book to the winner. Good luck!

UPDATE: The winner, chosen at random, is Kay Stewart. Congratulations, and thanks to all who entered the contest. 
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