The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-04-03
The Amazons
Of Japan
Great.Great Grandmothers Of the Jap Women of
To-day Used the Sword Against the
Enemies Of the ShosunS.
BY BASSETT STAlNES.

mortal combat. He chose the latter,
and was slain. According to one Jap
anese chronicler, the woman cut his
head clean oft by the first strong
sweeping blow of her sword.
A Strong-Minded Jap woman.
Ishi, the wife of Oboshi Yuranosuke,
leader of the forty-seVen ronins who
avenged the death of their lord and
then committed "hari-kari' at his
tomb in a body, was another strong
minded woman, who is held up to the
When her husband departed on his
fateful enterprise she told her son,
Rikiya, lad of 10, that he must go
with his father and show piety to the
memory of their lord.
After they had gone, she sent all
the male servants away and trained
her maids in the art of swordsman-
ship, so that they could help her to
defend the house while the men were
away. They slew a band of robbers
who attacked them, and kept faithful
watch and ward, hoping for the mas
ter's return. When the news came
that father and son had performed
the HAPPY Dispatch Ishi did not
weep. She promptly drew the short
sword of the samurai from her sash,
and Joined them. She is regarded in
Japan as Il perfect type VI ln6 DIdNC
and faithful wife.
A story which Japanese artists have
loved to tell for centuries past in their
color prints is that of the brave peas
ant girl Rowan. About 1850 A. D.,
she lived in Otsai, and her lord was
secretly a traitor to the Shotgun Tor
itomo, who ruled Japan at that time
in the name of the Mikado. Serving
in the lords house, Rowan became ac-
agv.N It, -
the Shotgun and got possession of a
letter which contained the details of
it.
The Shotgun was aboard his junk on
Lake Biwa, some distance away.
Thither the girl fled. holly pursued by
the treacherous lord and his vassals.
They came up with her just as she
reached the shore of the lake, but she
plunged into the stormy waters and
swan to the Shoguns ship. with the
all important letter firmly gripped in
her teeth. Dozens of arrows cut the
water all around her, but she escaped
them and was picked up by a boat
lowered from the junk. When the
Shotgun heard the story, he promptly
treated the treacherous lord and his
fellow conspirators to something lin
gering with boiling oil in It,"
Unfortunately, he did not fall in love
win tAiC SIN anu biellAJ WHlih
rather spoils the story from an Occi-
dental standpoint. Rowan is always
represented in the color prints swim
ming out to the junk, while the trait
ors on shore furiously rage together.
The Empress lingo.
The Empires lingo, greatest of all
the Amazons of Japan, belongs to the
legendary era of that country before
the introduction of Buddhism in the
fifth century, and many stories are told
of her which certainly cannot be re-
garded as authentic history. For ex-
ample, she is said to have been en-
ciente before she left Japan to IN
wade Korea and to have given birth
to her son DIN, afterwards deifed as
the japanese god of war, upon her re-
turn. Inasmuch as three years elapsed,
that could hardly have been possible;
but when this fact is pointed out to the
Japanese jinriksha man who tells the