are a historical Japanese clan.

Overview

After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

the clans of Sasaki-rokkaku were combined, the clans were spread out between South Eastern Asian islands and the head of the clan left Japan and eventually moved to the United States. The current head of the combined Sasaki-Rokkaku clans lives in the US and is not of Japanese descent. The Sasaki-rokkaku Clans may have left do to rising tensions between ultranationalist organizations and clan interests abroad after fall of the Japanese Empire. (

Uda Genji The {{nihongo, Uda Genji, 宇多源氏} were the successful and powerful line of a Japanese Minamoto clan that were descended from Emperor Uda (宇多天皇). Overview Many of the famous Minamoto warriors, including Sasaki clan (佐々木氏), ...

)

History

They are descended directly from

Emperor Uda was the 59th emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 宇多天皇 (59)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession. Uda's reign spanned the years from 887 through 897. Traditional narrative Name and legacy Befor ...

(868–897) by his grandson

Minamoto no Masazane was one of the surnames bestowed by the Emperors of Japan upon members of the imperial family who were excluded from the line of succession and demoted into the ranks of the nobility from 1192 to 1333. The practice was most prevalent during th ...

(920–993) (

), but were adopted by the

Seiwa Genji The is a line of the Japanese Minamoto clan that is descended from Emperor Seiwa, which is the most successful and powerful line of the clan. Many of the most famous Minamoto warriors, including Minamoto no Yoshiie, Minamoto no Yoritomo, the f ...

. Minamoto no Nariyori, great-grandson of Masazane, is the first who took the name of Sasaki from his domain in

Ōmi province was a province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō circuit. Its nickname is . Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, Ōmi was ranked as one of the 13 "great countri ...

(now Shiga). Hideyoshi (1112–1184), descendant of Minamoto no Nariyori, lost his parents young and became an orphan. He was adopted by Minamoto no Tameyoshi (then head of the Seiwa Genji). He participated to the Hōgen war (1156) in which his father Minamoto no Tameyoshi was killed, and the Heiji war (1159) with his (adoptive) uncles, brothers, nephews, cousins and clansmen. After his brother

Minamoto no Yoshitomo (1123 – 11 February 1160) was the head of the Minamoto clan and a general of the late Heian period of Japanese history. His son Minamoto no Yoritomo became ''shōgun'' and founded the Kamakura shogunate, the first shogunate in the history o ...

was killed (1160), and the defeat of the

, he went North to ask Fujiwara no Hidehira of Mutsu province to give him shelter, but stopped at Shibuya (Sagami province) and remained at that place for 20 years. When his nephew

Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1192 until 1199.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Minamoto no Yoriie" in . He was the husband of Hōjō Masako who acted as regent ('' shikken'') after h ...

rose in revolt against the

Taira The Taira was one of the four most important clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian, Kamakura and Muromachi Periods of Japanese history – the others being the Fujiwara, the Tachibana, and the Minamoto. The clan is divid ...

, he with his four sons sided with him (1180). He was killed during the

Genpei war The was a national civil war between the Taira and Minamoto clans during the late Heian period of Japan. It resulted in the downfall of the Taira and the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate under Minamoto no Yoritomo, who appointed hi ...

(1180-1185) at the battle of Ōhara (1184) in Ōmi province fighting against the

Taira clan The Taira was one of the four most important clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian, Kamakura and Muromachi Periods of Japanese history – the others being the Fujiwara, the Tachibana, and the Minamoto. The clan is divi ...

. His descendants received from their Seiwa Genji cousins the title of ''

shugo , commonly translated as “(military) governor,” “protector,” or “constable,” was a title given to certain officials in feudal Japan. They were each appointed by the ''shōgun'' to oversee one or more of the provinces of Japan. The po ...

'' (governor) of Ōmi and other provinces, which they kept until the 16th century

Sengoku Period The was a period in Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga shogunate. Variou ...

wars. He is the ancestor of the Sasaki, the Rokkaku, the Amago, the Kyōgoku and the Kuroda clans. In 1868, at the end of the

Tokugawa period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

: * The Kyōgoku were ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

'' of

Marugame is a city located in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 108,541 in 46101 households and a population density of 970 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Marugame is located in north- ...

and Tadotsu in Sanuki Province, Toyooka in Tajima Province, and Mineyama Domain in Tango Province.Iwao, Seiichi ''et al.'' (2002)
''Dictionnaire historique du Japon,'' p. 1704.
/ref> A branch of the Kyōgoku was ranked among the 26 families which were permitted to fill the office of ''

kōke A during the Edo period in Japan generally referred to the position of the "Master of Ceremonies", held by certain -less samurai ranking below a daimyō. Historically, or in a more general context, the term may refer to a family of old lineage a ...

''.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric ''et al.'' (2002)
''Japan Encyclopedia,'' p. 547.
/ref> * The Kuroda were ''daimyō'' of Fukuoka, and of Akizuki (Chikuzen province). * The Rokkaku had the rank of ''Kōke''. There existed a certain Sasaki Shrine where Sasaki Yamagimi, a warlord, worshiped the god of ancestor's spirit. Following the middle of the Heian period (794 - 858), the shrine was used to worship the tutelary god of the Sasaki clan. It is said that through this, the " Ōmi-Genji Festival" is held every year on October 10 in respect of the Sasaki clan. One member of note amongst the Sasaki clan is none other than Sasaki Kojiro, the famous swordsman and rival of

Miyamoto Musashi , also known as Shinmen Takezō, Miyamoto Bennosuke or, by his Buddhist name, Niten Dōraku, was a Japanese swordsman, philosopher, strategist, writer and rōnin, who became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship a ...

. The favorite technique of Kojiro was his "Tsubame Gaeshi" (Turning Swallow Cut), in which he attempted to use on Musashi throughout their duel. It is also known that the Sasaki clan apparently was a political obstacle to that of the

Hosokawa Hosokawa (typically ja, 細川, meaning "narrow river" or "little river") is a Japanese surname. People with the name include: *Bill Hosokawa (1915–2007), Japanese American author and journalist *Chieko Hosokawa (born 1929), a Japanese manga a ...

, and the defeat of Kojiro would be a political setback to his religious and political foes.

Genealogy

Bold designates a master. The "〇" mark is a person who participated in

's rising in arms. ∴

(867-931) ┃

Prince Atsumi A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

(893-967) ┃

(920-993) ┃ Sukenori(951-998) ┃ Nariyori(976-1003) ┃ Noritsune(1000-1058) ┃ Tsunekata ┃ Tametoshi ┃ Sasaki Hideyoshi(1112–1184) ┣━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━┳━━━━━┓ 〇 Sadatsuna 〇 Tsunetaka 〇 Moritsuna 〇 Takatsuna Yoshikiyo ┏━━━━━━┳━━━━━┳━━━━━┫ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣━━━━━┓ Hirotsuna Sadashige Hirosada Nobutsuna Takashige Kaji Nobuzane Shigetuna Masayoshi Yasukiyo ┏━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━┓ ┏━━━━━┳━━━━━┫ Shigetsuna　 Takanobu　

Rokkaku Yasutsuna Rokkaku ( ja, 六角, "six corners" or "hexagon") can refer to several things: * Rokkaku Chuu (市立六角中学校), a fictional school that appears on ''The Prince of Tennis'' * Rokkaku clan, a clan of samurai * '' Rokkaku dako'', a type of six ...

　 Kyogoku Ujinobu Yoriyasu　 Yoshiyasu　 Muneyasu

References

Sources

* Iwao,Seiichi, Teizō Iyanaga, Susumu Ishii, Shōichirō Yoshida, ''et al.'' (2002)
''Dictionnaire historique du Japon.''
Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose.
OCLC 51096469
* Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2002)
''Japan Encyclopedia.'' at Google Books
Cambridge:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the reti ...

. (cloth) -- (paper) {{DEFAULTSORT:Sasaki Clan Japanese clans Minamoto clan

Overview

History

Genealogy

See also

References

Sources