JAPANESE WARRIOR TERMINOLOGY

Terminology for people within the military power structure varied during specific eras. First used in a Heian period (794-1190) document, the term samurai derives from a classical Japanese verb, saburau (to serve), and aptly describes how duty bound warriors to their provincial leaders. At the same time, the term bushi (literally men, shi, of the martial arts, bu) was also used to describe warriors, although the word samurai was used to distinguish armed people who served the aristocracy.

Under the military rule that ensued from the Kamakura period (1192-1333) onward, soldiers holding an official rank designated by the shogun or the imperial court were considered samurai. After reunification was achieved in the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), the term samurai was used to indicate warriors of a comparatively high (upper-class) social status, although by that time many of these samurai no longer served a provincial leader in the original military sense.

From the Kamakura period, bushi were considered members of ‘warrior houses’, or buke, which in principle were regulated by the shogun or overseen on his behalf by a powerful provincial leader, later known as a daimyo. The term buke came to refer generally to the warrior class and was used more or less interchangeably with the term bushi. The term daimyo was not used extensively to refer to provincial leaders until the Warring States period (1467-1568), when these domain rules began to direct regional polities.