I believe many of you have already known what "samurai" is. But, as I have experienced, there are plenty mistakes in people mind of what samurai really was. Many people thought samurai is a sword, well... half of it is right, demo... that's not what samurai really was. In that case, I wanted to straight it up for the sake of samurai. And also as my acknowledgments or those brave warriors who lived before us.

The Population of Japan is estimated at having been slightly under 30 millions for most of the Tokugawa period, remaining remarkably static for this length of time. There were probably fewer than two million who were samurai, the highest of the four classes into which the people of Japan were divided. The word samurai implies 'servant' and it strictly applicable only to retainers, but the custom arouse of applying it to the whole warrior class, who were in any case all liegemen, direct or indirect, of the Shogun himself, the apex of the pyramid. Membership of the class was hereditary, and included many whose ancestors in earlier times had been farmers, ready to take up arms to fight in local armies. Others had belonged to clans with great estates in the regions distant from the capital, themselves descendants or supplanters of still earlier land-holders under the Emperor when re really ruled Japan. Some samurai families had originally been closely connected with the Emperor, who, embarrassed by the financial burden of too numerous descendants, had reduced several groups of his dependents to the rank of ordinary noble in the 10th century, giving them land and also freeing himself from further responsibility.

The warrior class included everyone with the right to wear two swords from the Shogun down, through the great lords in their domains and senior officials in Edo, to minor officials and foot soldiers. They all received incomes according to their station, and the machinery for distributing these incomes was a fundamental part of the organization of society. Income was calculated not in money but in rice. The two main groups involved were the warriors themselves, as recipients, and the farmers, as suppliers. Land was measured not so much by area, as by the estimate of the amount of rice it would produce in a year. The unit of rice used for this purpose was the koku, which is equivalent to about five bushels, and would, in fact, feed one person a year; at the beginning of the 17th century surveys indicated that the annual national production was about 25 million koku. It has to be realized that incomes were not normally linked to the job that the recipient was doing, except in the sense that the income fitted a man for his position rather than the other way round. To serve as an official to a lord was part of feudal obligation, and a vassal should not expect to be paid especially for something that it was his duty to do. In the 18th century there was a slight modification to this, which allowed the Shogun to give a temporary allowance to a person whose rate of income did not in fact qualify him for a certain position, but whose ability fitted him for it.

The koku-rating of samurai was used in all sorts of circumstances. Below daimyou with their minimum of 10,000 koku, it determined the area of the plot on which a samurai was allowed to build. For example, 8,000 koku entitled him to about two acres, 2,000 koku to about one acre, while the lowest income of five bales of rice gave the right to about 280 square yards. In fact, the lowest grades lived more or less communally, in 'long houses', divided into apartments with some degree of shared accommodation. A typical arrangements was to have a gateway with a row of rooms as its upper storey. Lastly, there were some samurai who had no official income at all and no right to a residence; these were the masterless men, the rounin, who had either abandoned their allegiance or whose master had been deprived of his post (such as the Akou Roushi or the 47 Rounin).

Rank was also reflected in clothes. For ceremonial occasions and when on duty, the samurai wore clothes called kami-shimo. It's the combination of 'upper and lower', that is, an over-jacket (kataginu) with stiffened shoulders and trousers (hakama). On ordinary occasions for samurai of all ranks, and for lower-ranking ones at all times, these trousers finished at a little above the ground-level, but for the superior ranking warriors at special ceremonies, very long trousers were worn; these trailed on the floor and the feet were entirely enclosed within them. The wearing of these naga-bakama required special skill; any change of direction had to be accompanied by sharp movements of the feet to bring the trailing portion behind the wearer, otherwise there was danger of tripping; he must also grip each leg of the trousers, pulling it up at every step to give his leg room for movement. It was possible to run in them, but this required extremely good coordination between hand and leg. Obviously this was an impracticable garment, although an imposing one; its use leisure to learn to manage it, but it also said that the rulers ordered it to be worn because it would impede anyone if he tried to make violent attack. They were not normally worn out of doors.

Beneath the kamishimo, the ordinary kimono was worn, with a girdle which the straps of the shoulder garment were inserted, and underneath that a white undergarment were showed at the neck. The swords in their scabbards were held by the girdle. The costume was completed by white tabi-socks with padded sole and a division between the big toe and the smaller ones to allow for the thong of the footwear, when that was worn. The Shogun himself, and daimyou when not in attendance upon him, did not wear kamishimo, but had luxurious garments of the normal kimono shape. For the rare, very grandest ceremonies, the Shogun and his entourage wore Imperial court costume, with a hat indicative of rank.

Here I took a scene from the 47 Ronin Story by John Allyn, when Lord Asano from Akou was about to attend the annual ceremony at Shogun residence:

" At the entrance to the castle, the palanquin stopped and Lord Asano got out. He stepped directly onto a low wooden porch so there was no need for him to be lifted out by his bearers. His costume was brilliant green, and he made and expression of distaste as he looked down at himself. Outfits like this were one of his biggest problems in life at the capital. Besides a ridiculous hat that flopped over on one side and threatened to fall off if he inclined his head (fu...fu... ^.^), he was strapped into a broad-shouldered kamishimo jacket that constricted his arm movements. But worse of all were the cumbersome trousers which Kataoka now hastened to adjust for Lord Asano's entrance into the castle. The voluminous legs were overlong by several feet and were supposed to stretch out flatly behind the wearer for aesthetic effect. This required great care in walking and Lord Asano, naturally impatient, felt hemmed in and vulnerable. He had a constant urge to kick holes in the legs and strut in his normal manner instead of mincing like a woman in a tight kimono (ah... I know how it feels ^^"). Kataoka finished laying out the cloth so that his master was pointed in the right direction... Lord Asano braced himself and started the walk to the door. Although it was only a short distance, it seemed to him interminable as he carefully lifted each foot, kick it slightly forward, and took a step down onto the trousers leg themselves. There were only a couple of guards watching him at the moment, but Lord Asano walked carefully for the benefits as he would have before the Shogun himself. He knew that Kira would goad him unmercifully if he made even one false step, and he was determined to show these Edoites that a samurai from the country could play their game ^_^. "

When an official journeys, mounted samurai wore the trousers with a three-quarter-length kimono-shaped coat (haori) instead of the shoulder-jacket; this was held together by a tie at the chest-level. A flat round hat, slightly conical, for protection against sun and rain was standard wear (look at the one Kenshin wears in the picture above). The men on foot wore a sort of breeches, drawn in at the knee, with leggings. The coat was lifted up at the back by the sword, and gave a characteristic silhouette to the samurai when he was on a journey.

Generally speaking, colors for samurai clothes was very sober, being mainly dullish blues, greys and browns, either plain or with small patterns or stripes. The shoulder-jacket and kimono worn beneath it normally bore the wearer's family crest, his mon. Trousers were lined for winter wear, unlined for summer wear, the dates for the change being fixed at the fifth day of the fifth month and the first day of the ninth month. Off-duty dress was the kimono without jacket or trousers. A samurai going to the town for pleasure would often hide his face by wearing some sort of deep hat, often a rather comical basket-like affair (what a nice cosplay ^^"), in order not to be recognized for he might well be disobeying the rules of the establishment in which he resided.

Another characteristic feature was the arrangement of the hair. The top of the head was shaved, With the hair at the back and sides gathered together into a queue, oiled, and then doubled forward over the crown, being tied where it was doubled over. The bunch of hair was trimmed off very neatly into a cleanly cut end. It was important for the samurai not to have a hair out of place, and it was most embarrassing for him to have the tie become undone or cut in a sword-fight; it was even worse if the whole queue was cut off. If he was ill, he would leave the crown unshaven, and the hair would grow into a bushy mass, but he would not appear in public like this (of course so! ^o^).

Actually there are plenty more about the samurai, demo I cannot write it all here. I guess it's not difficult to get clues about them.
Soushite, I only wrote some which I think crucial to know about their lifestyle in traditional Japan. Hope it'll do you good. Ja, matta ne!

Acknowledgments :

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