Aizu's Onna-musha
Tsuruga Castle in Aizu-Wakamatsu
This
photography was taken in the 1870s and belongs to a
series of portraits of Kabuki actors and geisha. She (or he) is not an onna-musha. The armor bears the Taira clan emblem (probably representing the clan from the Heiki monogatari but this shall be for another story).
During the Boshin War in 1868, loyalists of the Shogunate lost a series of
battles between Kyoto and Edo against imperial troops before retreating to
northern domains where some clans still supported the Tokugawa regime, forming
the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei (Northern Alliance). Amongst them were the Matsudaira of
Aizu, members of the original branch of the Tokugawa clan. Having anticipated
the arrival of roughly 20,000 imperial troops, men and women, supported by
remaining loyalists, were prepared and waited for them in the castle town of
Aizuwakamatsu arms in hand.
Nakano Takeko, a member of the warrior class, was recruited to lead a unit of women skilled in the art of war (onna-musha) positionned outside of the city walls. This corps was later named Jōshitai 娘子隊, lit. Girl's unit.
It was more than 600 women, led by Matsudaira Teru, the adoptive sister of Matsudaira Katamori, the Lord of Aizu, who were posted in Tsuruga castle to defend it. They resisted under siege for a month. Amongst them was Yamamoto Yaeko, an unusually skilled gunner, who would later become a nurse during the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars.
Many died fighting during the Battle of Aizu and an extremely large number of women, children and elderly people committed suicide fearing the repercussion on the domain and its people at the hands of imperial soldiers. This war was a culmination of resentment between imperialists (mainly from Tosa, Satsuma, and Choshu) and supporters of the Bakufu, of which the Lord of Aizu was Military Commissioner of Kyoto from the early 1860s and had spent a decade fighting imperialists. Following the fall of Aizu, the samurai population was sent to prisoner of war camps and the domain ceased to exist.
Nakano Takeko, a member of the warrior class, was recruited to lead a unit of women skilled in the art of war (onna-musha) positionned outside of the city walls. This corps was later named Jōshitai 娘子隊, lit. Girl's unit.
It was more than 600 women, led by Matsudaira Teru, the adoptive sister of Matsudaira Katamori, the Lord of Aizu, who were posted in Tsuruga castle to defend it. They resisted under siege for a month. Amongst them was Yamamoto Yaeko, an unusually skilled gunner, who would later become a nurse during the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars.
Many died fighting during the Battle of Aizu and an extremely large number of women, children and elderly people committed suicide fearing the repercussion on the domain and its people at the hands of imperial soldiers. This war was a culmination of resentment between imperialists (mainly from Tosa, Satsuma, and Choshu) and supporters of the Bakufu, of which the Lord of Aizu was Military Commissioner of Kyoto from the early 1860s and had spent a decade fighting imperialists. Following the fall of Aizu, the samurai population was sent to prisoner of war camps and the domain ceased to exist.
More here: Diana E. Wright, 'Female Combattants and Japan's Meiji Restoration: The Case of Aizu', in: War in History, vol. 8 no. 4 (2001) https://www.jstor.org/stable/26013907
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