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Thread: Headhunting

  1. #1

    Default Headhunting

    It's pretty well known that samurai were rewarded and honoured based on the number of heads they took, and if you took the head of someone important you would be fairly well off for a while. What I don't understand is how the cutting of heads actually happened? Surely after you killed someone you wouldn't stop (or dismount from your horse), cut the guy's head off, collect it and walk around to find someone else to kill with all your other heads in tow? If it was someone important then did your mates cover you while you did the dirty work? Or was there some kind of strange code of honour that you didn't try to whack someone as they took a head? (Surely not??)

    Going around the battle to collect your heads isn't exactly practical either. Or was there a system to "keep score"?
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  2. #2

    Default Re: Headhunting

    Important people had their heads removed
    Lesser combatants had their noses taken and added to "Nose Pyramids"
    Sweat Saves Blood
    -Erwin Rommel

  3. #3
    Erwin Rommel's Avatar EYE-PATCH FETISH
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    Default Re: Headhunting

    Yes its known, but what the OP is questioning, how they do it, was it like.

    "YO! Yukimura.....I see your carrying 5 heads already...."

    "OH! That you Yuusuke? Good to see you alive, I thought I lost you at the attack or something"

    "Nah, I bagged 5 here in this general area"

    *gestures to a field of bodies*

    "Now I'll just have to remember where the hell did I kill them"

    *turns over one corpse*

    "Nope, not mine.........damn I'm sure it was here, one bastard tough to kill, he was wearing a momonari helmet with a red mempo.........HEY! YOU THERE!"

    "HAI! YUKIMURA-SAMA"

    "YOU FOUND ANYTHING MATCHING THAT DESCRIPTION"

    "Apologies Yukimura-sama, I am still searching"

    "Damn, well lets wrap this up, 2 hatabugyos, one yoriki and a tsukaiban is enough for the victory celebration..........aint that right my little kawaii head."

    *pokes the cheek of one head.*

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  4. #4

    Default Re: Headhunting

    Quote Originally Posted by Erwin Rommel View Post
    Yes its known, but what the OP is questioning, how they do it, was it like.

    "YO! Yukimura.....I see your carrying 5 heads already...."

    "OH! That you Yuusuke? Good to see you alive, I thought I lost you at the attack or something"

    "Nah, I bagged 5 here in this general area"

    *gestures to a field of bodies*

    "Now I'll just have to remember where the hell did I kill them"

    *turns over one corpse*

    "Nope, not mine.........damn I'm sure it was here, one bastard tough to kill, he was wearing a momonari helmet with a red mempo.........HEY! YOU THERE!"

    "HAI! YUKIMURA-SAMA"

    "YOU FOUND ANYTHING MATCHING THAT DESCRIPTION"

    "Apologies Yukimura-sama, I am still searching"

    "Damn, well lets wrap this up, 2 hatabugyos, one yoriki and a tsukaiban is enough for the victory celebration..........aint that right my little kawaii head."

    *pokes the cheek of one head.*
    Everything you write is adorable.

    This is a bit of an exaggeration, though, as typically the head would be taken as they ran past. That's why you have instances where Oda told his men to dump the heads they were carrying and go straight for kills.

    And yes, if you die while taking a head that was completely your fault.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Headhunting

    Yea the other thing is: if you took someone's head, or more than one head or a handful of noses - what did you do with it while you ran around the battlefield killing other people? You strung it to your belt and let it dangle/drip while you went about your business..? The samurai gives it to his attendant/ashigaru and tells him to run back to camp with it safely? ()

    And yes, if you die while taking a head that was completely your fault.
    So how did you take the head amid the melee without dying?
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  6. #6

    Default Re: Headhunting

    Luck played a big part, I'd imagine. From what I understand, someone would have their buddies watch their back while they went to decapitate their kill... Or the guy who died is avenged almost immediately by comrades.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Headhunting

    In most instance's it tended to be those out of the main line of battle that took the most noses or head's because they'd just sit behind the line's collecting noses from other peoples kills.
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    we shall fight on the beaches,
    we shall fight on the landing grounds,
    we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
    we shall fight in the hills;
    we shall never surrender.

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    Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from the truths of others.
    The dark protects us from what we dare not know.
    Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night’s embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in the day’s harsh light. But the greatest of its comforts is the illusion that dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it’s the day that is temporary.
    Day is the illusion.
    Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the center of its own self.
    With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins.


    The dark is generous, and it is patient.
    It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons love with grains of doubt.
    The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout.
    The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light.
    The dark’s patience is infinite.
    Eventually, even stars burn out.


    The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.
    It always wins because it is everywhere.
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    The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.


    The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.
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  8. #8

    Default Re: Headhunting

    Quote Originally Posted by robinzx View Post
    Yea the other thing is: if you took someone's head, or more than one head or a handful of noses - what did you do with it while you ran around the battlefield killing other people? You strung it to your belt and let it dangle/drip while you went about your business..?
    The Zouhyou Monogatari tells Ashigaru to insert the severed noses inside their breast plate. It also tells to cut the nose along with the upper lip, so the mustache would prove that the nose belonged to a man, not a woman

  9. #9
    Erwin Rommel's Avatar EYE-PATCH FETISH
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    Default Re: Headhunting

    I can imagine it now, Kawagoe, your berating your ashigaru to stop shoving noses at their do cuirass coz more important things are at hand like you know, relieving Kawagoe.

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  10. #10

    Default Re: Headhunting

    A battle is a group activity so the business of taking heads share the same feature. A man commanding other men would have his flunkies collect heads for him, others less fortunate would have to rely on their comrades or their own agility. Disputes over whom killed whom were not uncommon one might add, even as the kill itself was in the making.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Headhunting

    Quote Originally Posted by TomteOfDoom View Post
    A battle is a group activity so the business of taking heads share the same feature. A man commanding other men would have his flunkies collect heads for him, others less fortunate would have to rely on their comrades or their own agility. Disputes over whom killed whom were not uncommon one might add, even as the kill itself was in the making.
    So if one did not have minions/buddies to keep watch while doing the deed, it was a common occurrence for combatants to have their heads lopped off by the enemy while in the midst of lopping off the head/ear/nose of a fresh kill then?
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  12. #12

    Default Re: Headhunting

    Yes I would imagine so. I remember reading one account, can't remember where right now thought, where an eye-witness described a scene of heated battle. He was very specific about samurai and their followers getting cut down in short order while trying to carry away with or recover the prized heads of their masters.

    The head of a noted warrior was a tremendous thing to carry before your lord, and the rewards for doing so were great enough for friends at arms to literally come to blows over whom the prize belonged too. Post-battle investigations with testimonies from witnesses could be staged to decide who landed the killing blow, it was a serious matter to these people. An ashigaru could easily be promoted to samurai for taking a "helmeted head", one in specific who conducted himself bravely and claimed 3 such heads was promoted to "captain" with a stipend of 200 koku.

    It's not surprising that samurai and ashigaru alike would risk their lives to make sure they got their own hands on a good head. This also explains why generals sometimes had to specifically order the soldiers NOT to collect heads during battle, if for instance time was of the essence.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Headhunting

    One aspect of Samurai warfare which isn't oft mentioned, and certainly not present in the game, is that units trained and fought together as a whole.
    So let's you are a retainer for x district in y territory of z province under the Q Daimyo. The Q Daimyo decides to amass an army of 20,000 men. Let's say your z province provides 6,000. Within Q's army, your 6,000 contingent would be amassed in it's whole. Maybe you're the vanguard. Or the center. But you would not find part of the men from Z Province spread across the Vanguard and the Left Flank. You would fight as a cohesive unit unto yourselves, 6,000 strong.
    It carries on down this way with the forces from y territory and x district within your Vanguard (keeping with that theme). This goes for Ashigaru and Samurai alike.
    So let's say at the lowest level, your x district has provided 50 mounted Samurai, 200 ashigaru spears, 100 riflemen, and 100 bowmen. At all times during the battle, those 450 men would be within your immediate presence. Unless of course they died. As such, the taking of heads was a rather community effort. If you took a life of another retainer, most likely 4 or 5 of your fellow retainers would guard your back whilst severing the head. It's also worth noting that the kills were categorized depending on which part of the battle they occurred, whether it was a solo effort or joint, etc. So if 3 guys killed somebody, it was likely they all received credit -- but not as much credit as maybe the guy down the line who killed somebody in 1v1 battle, or somebody who scored kill(s) later in the battle during a rearguard action (with or without help).

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