Giving Up the Myths, Part II

Moving into the actual book, we continue our look at Noel Perrin's "Giving up the Gun". My first impressions are here. For the background, etc., read that first and then return here.

So, to review what we learned from the cover, foreword, and so forth:

1. Perrin is self-admittedly not an expert on Japan or Japanese history, and borders on orientalizing in his incorrect descriptions of aspects of CURRENT Japanese culture, much less anything historical. I'm afraid of what we will find going forward.

2. Perrin's focus isn't on the facts of Japanese history at all; he clearly approaches the subject from an anti-nuclear weapons perspective, and is looking for an analogy to justify his stance. That he cherrypicks facts to support his view shouldn't be surprising to anyone who reads the Foreword alone.


Anyways, moving on...

Chapter One

Perrin begins (p. 1) with a description of a US surveying mission commander's comments on his visit to the island of Tanegashima in 1855, shortly after Perry's celebrated (depending on your view) "opening" of Japan the previous year. We'll ignore the whole "opening" misconception and stick to the specific subject here.

Perrin quotes this passage from Commander John Rodgers:

"These people seemed scarcely to know the use of firearms," he noted in his report to the Secretary of the Navy. "One of [my] officers caught the Japanese word for gun with which a very learned man was displaying his knowledge to his companions. It strikes an American, who from his childhood has seen children shoot, that ignorance of arms is an anomaly indicative of primitive innocence and Arcadian simplicity. We were unwilling to disturb it."

He then proceeds to tell us how CDR Rodgers was "almost as Arcadianly simple as the Tanegashimans themselves," by proclaiming that this was an "acquired innocence, not a primitive one." He's right in pointing out the irony that the islanders Rodgers  observed were the descendants of those present when the Portuguese landed in the same place in 1543, bringing the first Western-style firearms mentioned in textual sources. He spends considerable energy telling us how Rodgers could not have known much about Japan at all from contemporary Western sources, citing examples of vague and misleading encyclopedia entries available at the time. Perrin's point in all this is to show that Rodgers could not have known that the Japanese at one time used guns on a prodigious scale, only to turn "back to swords and spears." (p.5)

Perrin, in his lack of knowledge and experience (he's not even a historian, after all) falls into the same trap with Rodgers' words that he points out. Yes, of course Rodgers did not know much about Japan--so why should Perrin take Rodgers' description as evidence that there was any "acquired innocence"? The officer mentioned caught the word for gun (presumably teppô) in the conversation between the two Japanese; based on that one word, are we to assume that this was one learned person explaining the entire concept of what a gun was to his counterpart? Could it not have just as easily been one person describing to another that these weapons carried by the American foreigners were teppo, just like those that they were familiar with, but much more advanced?

Of course the Japanese here had never seen the type of modern guns carried by the American Navy personnel. That is in no way an indication that they had no conception of what guns were. Rodgers, as Perrin points out the lack of knowledge available to him, can be excused for this; Perrin, however, cannot.

Perrin next moves into a description of Japan's first supposed encounter with guns. This is the story of the three (two?) Portuguese traders who show up and show Lord Tanegashima Tokitaka, the daimyo of the island, their magical new weapon. I won't criticize too deeply on the details here; Perrin gives us a commonly accepted version of the story, and just because specialists debate different interpretations and versions in the primary textual sources like the Teppô-ki, the Tanegashima Kafu, and the Peregriniçam doesn't mean Perrin should be expected to wade through these. As we have noted, he couldn't if he wanted to. Most importantly, this is backstory, and not crucial to his argument other than establishing how Japanese received the art of shooting and gunsmithing.

Next Perrin notes (p. 8) the spread of firearms, to the extent that Oda Nobunaga could place an order for 500 of them in 1549. "By 1560, the use of firearms in large battles had begun (a general in full armor died of a bullet wound that year), and fifteen years after that they were the decisive weapon in one of the great battles of Japanese history." (pp. 8-9). I'll ignore the reference to Nagashino for now; as with the Tanegashima story, Perrin can't be held accountable that most of the literature in English on Nagashino is wrong. What bothers me is the first part of the statement--guns were used in Japanese warfare way earlier than 1560, and saying that their use "begun" based on the fact that a general was killed by a bullet in that year ignores quite a lot of other poor souls dispatched by guns prior to that point. The Shimazu were using guns in battles in the 1540's (not surprising, since they were the overlords of the Tanegashima where guns "arrived"), and guns of some type and origin were used in 1548 at the Battle of Uedahara. Perhaps a more charitable reviewer would write it off to poor phrasing, but poor phrasing like that leads to inaccuracies being perpetuated.

All this represents what would now be called a technological breakthrough. As present-day Japanese writers like to point out, the Arabs, the Indians, and the Chinese all gave firearms a try well ahead of the Japanese, but only the Japanese mastered the manufacturing process on a large scale, and really made the weapon their own. (p. 9)

 Since Perrin doesn't provide a citation for this, I don't know who these "Japanese writers" are. But it's hardly surprising that writers of one nationality would try to point out they were "more advanced" than those of other nationalities. Apparently these writers are unaware of Maharatha Confederacy cannon foundries in India, Arab gunsmithing, and the fact that the Chinese are where gunpowder weapons originated in the first place. Sadly, it seems Perrin is unaware of these things as well.

Perrin next leads into a description of Japan at the time of the introduction of guns with a passage from St. Francis Xavier noting the preoccupation with military matters common amongst the Japanese. Hardly surprising that in a time of chaotic warfare with little centralized authority, the members of a society took a keen interest in weapons and warfare.  On p. 10, Perrin notes the high-level of technological sophistication by the Japanese and the abundant copper and steel shipped all over the globe "just as Japanese electronic equipment is now." Summary of the next few pages is that Japan produced significant raw materials, and also excelled in refined goods such as paper; the larger point is that this is no primitive society here. Perrin is certainly right in that regard. On p. 13, he tells us that Japan was the premier exporter of weapons in the "Far East," and explains how wonderful Japanese swords were, using period European witnesses that attest to their superiority to their own blades. Next Perrin quotes population statistics to tell us that Japan was a healthily booming country, tells us of the Buddhist "universities" and high interest in artistic matters which show Japan was an educated to a higher standard than their European counterparts. None of this is at all eyebrow raising to anyone familiar with Japanese history, but apparently Perrin felt it necessary to establish that Japan was not like many other countries that Europeans encountered during this period. One point of annoyance is the footnote on p. 17:

Certainly this [that Japan had higher rates of literacy than European countries] was how it struck the Japanese. They could hardly believe how widespread illiteracy was among their visitors. In fact they found our ancestors fairly simple in most respects. The earliest Japanese account of the three original Portuguese adventurers is typical. The Japanese chronicler wrote in a superior way, "They eat with their fingers instead of with chopsticks such as we use. They show their feelings without any self-control. They cannot understand the meaning of written characters...."

First of all, "our" ancestors? Is everyone reading this book a descendant of Portuguese traders? If so, I guess I was not the intended audience, as that is not my own heritage. But more important is the conclusion he draws from the statement "they cannot understand the meaning of written characters..." How is it surprising that a Portuguese trader did not understand Japanese or Chinese written text? The Japanese author here of course describes this as a negative trait, since anyone educated in Japan at the time would be able to read characters. That does not, however, mean that the Portuguese could not read at all; what basis would a Japanese observer have to understand that? While it is well documented that Japan had a high rate of literacy, and most European countries of the time did not have nearly the breadth of literacy, it troubles me that Perrin would draw such sweeping conclusions from this statement, or rather use this statement in support of those conclusions. Were I to write something like this, my favorite professor at UH would have written in the margin "well, no #%@$!" It's blindingly obvious that the Portuguese wouldn't have been able to read Chinese characters.

On p. 18-19, Perrin gives an anecdote of poetry saving the life of a feudal lord condemned to death. Who this Lord Tameakira was is not made clear. The footnote cites George Sansom's "Japan and the Western World". Knowing Sansom, it likely came from one of the gunkimono, the so-called "war tales" which describe warfare of the Medieval period much like the Song of Roland, for example, in Europe. While Sansom and some of the older generations of historians based much of their history on these texts, most historians writing now view them with a skeptical eye as romantic idealism rather than factual accounts of events. Early historians like Sadler and Sansom accepting the gunkimono as factual bases for their work is unfortunately how a lot of the idealized orientalist/nihonjinron mythology of Japan as "unique" came to be. Is Perrin at fault for using it? No, like other points I can't fault him; however, it points to his own interest in romanticizing Japanese history to fit his agenda. I don't have that particular Sansom book, so if anyone can provide me the reference it would be appreciated.


We will stop there for now, and get into Chapter Two in a few days.