In most societies of the past, it was only men who engaged in the artifice of war. However, some stories have been recovered more recently showing that although few, some women actively participated in it. Tomoe Gozen was one of those women. A Samurai warrior.
Tomoe participated in the Genpei wars, a clash between two Japanese clans that lasted 5 years.
In the Tale of the Heike, an epic account of this fight, which proved to contain real accounts, Tomoe is described as especially beautiful, an excellent archer, and "with a sword worth a thousand warriors".
In this war, she would have commanded 300 samurai, under the leadership of Yoshinaka, her husband or lover, in the position of first captain, against 2000 warriors from the rival clan.
In 1184, she and other warriors took Kyoto, after winning the Battle of Kurikara.
Although it was rare for a woman to go to war, it was common for women in feudal Japan to receive training with the sword (naginata) and archery. They were known as ONNA BUGEISHA and trained for defense, with the function of protecting the house from enemy attack. Tomoe was, however, an offensive warrior and went to war with men.
This warrior role does not correspond with the Western imagination of complacent Japanese women.
However, Tomoe became almost a mythical figure in Japan. She was part of the group of 5 or 6 warriors who survived when Yoshinaka fled Kyoto and had his army decimated, in a dispute for power within his own family. Her cousin Yoshimori wins the conflict.
When Yoshinaka dies in the Battle of Awazu, Tomoe says she wants to kill one last opponent to honor him. Then a group of warriors approaches and she rides straight into them, grabs the leader and decapitates him.
Although some of her heroic stories have survived, her final fate is quite uncertain. There are at least three versions for it. There are those who say that when she is defeated by Yoshimori, she is forced to become his concubine. Others say she escapes the battlefield and becomes a Buddhist nun, dying at the age of 90. Or there are those who argue that she avenges Yoshinaka's death by killing his enemies and then ends her own life by throwing herself into the sea.
Regardless of his final fate, the story of her courageous and brutal deeds lives on today. Between mysticism and real life, the story of a woman who made her own path and fought her own battles survives.