was the common name of the head of the Japanese Katakura clan, who served as senior retainers to the Date clan. Following the Date clan's move into Sendai han, they were granted holdings at Shiroishi Castle (12,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. 1 koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about . It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1000 gō. One ''gō'' is the volume of the "rice cup", the plastic measuring cup that is supplied ...

'' in total), which they held through the start of the

Meiji Era The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

. A chronologically arranged list of the generations of Edo-era Katakura Kojūrō (listed by their formal name) follows:

Edo-era Katakura family heads

# Kagetsuna (1557–1615) # Shigenaga (1585–1659) # Kagenaga (1630–1681) # Muranaga (1667–1691) # Murayasu (1683-?) # Muranobu # Murasada (1676–1744) # Murakiyo # Muratsune (1757–1822) # Kagesada # Munekage # Kuninori (1818–1886) # Kagenori (1838–1902) # Kagemitsu

Katakura family heads since 1868

# Kenkichi # Nobumitsu # Shigenobu Kagetsuna, the first Katakura Kojūrō, was arguably the most famous, having served alongside

Date Masamune was a regional ruler of Japan's Azuchi–Momoyama period through early Edo period. Heir to a long line of powerful ''daimyō'' in the Tōhoku region, he went on to found the modern-day city of Sendai. An outstanding tactician, he was made ...

. The clan came to prominence yet again in the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a clique seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperi ...

, when Shiroishi Castle was used as the headquarters of the Ouetsu Reppan Domei. After the war, the 12th Kojūrō, Katakura Kuninori, sold the castle and relocated to

Hokkaidō is Japan, Japan's Japanese archipelago, second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost Prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own List of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; th ...

. The castle was then given to the

Nanbu clan The was a Japanese samurai clan who ruled most of northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region of Japan for over 700 years, from the Kamakura period through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Nanbu claimed descent from the Seiwa Genji of Kai ...

Morioka is the capital city of Iwate Prefecture located in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan. On 1 February 2021, the city had an estimated population of 290,700 in 132,719 households, and a population density of . The total area of the city is . ...

, before the domain system was finally ended in the early 1870s. The current head of the family, Shigenobu (who would have been the 17th Kojūrō), is the chief priest of Aoba Shrine, in

Sendai is the capital city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 designated cities. The city was founded in 1600 by the ''daimyō'' Date M ...

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Katakura Kojūrō in fiction

In the Sony PlayStation Video Game Sengoku Basara and the anime adaptation of it he was depicted as Masamune Date's loyal right-hand and right-eye man. He was using wakizashi and katana as his main weapon.

References

External links

Family tree of the Katakura clan
(in Japanese)

(in Japanese) Samurai Meiji Restoration {{samurai-stub