Excavations suggest a third of the fallen at one samurai battle were women
When archaeologists examined 105 sets of remains from the 1580 battle of Senbon Matsubaru, 35 turned out to be women. There was no castle nearby for them to have been defending, which led one researcher to conclude they had come to fight. Japan's female warriors, the onna-musha, were far more than legend.
Onna-musha were women of the bushi, or warrior, class in pre-modern Japan, trained with weapons to protect household and honour and sometimes fighting beside samurai men. The most celebrated is Tomoe Gozen, who served Minamoto no Yoshinaka during the Genpei War of 1180 to 1185 and fought at the Battle of Awazu in 1184. The early 13th-century epic The Tale of the Heike paints her as a superb archer, rider and swordswoman whom Yoshinaka sent out as his leading captain. Whether she really existed is uncertain, yet she shaped naginata schools, a Noh play and many woodblock prints. On the opposing Taira side fought Hangaku Gozen.
The warring Sengoku era, roughly 1467 to 1600, produced many documented cases. A 14th-century chancellor's journal had already noted plenty of female cavalry from western Japan. In 1569 Ichikawa no Tsubone defended Kōnomine Castle with armed ladies-in-waiting while her husband was away. Kaihime fought during the siege of Oshi in 1590, Ikeda Sen commanded 200 women musketeers, and Tachibana Ginchiyo, head of her clan, organised a resistance of nuns at Yanagawa in 1600. Akai Teruko reportedly kept fighting until she was 76.
Their signature weapon was the naginata, a polearm with a curved blade. Its length offset the reach and size advantage of male opponents and worked well against cavalry, so it became the emblem of the woman warrior. Because defending the home was the main task, ranged weapons fired from fortifications also mattered.
Peace brought decline. Under Edo-period neo-Confucianism from 1600, warrior women were steered into domestic roles, needed a male escort and permits to travel, and faced harassment at checkpoints. A final flourish came in 1868, when Nakano Takeko led a corps of about 20 women in the Boshin War at Aizu, among the last samurai in history. Yamamoto Yaeko, who also defended Aizu, later became one of Japan's first civic leaders for women's rights, and Aizu's autumn festival still honours the women's corps.
Source: Onna-musha
