MINAMOTO NO YOSHIIE

MINAMOTO NO YOSHIIE
A sample chapter from the book
Natt the Return of a P rehistor ic Food Source
by Hadrian Mr lija h Bar Isral
http:/ /w ww. mare l i ja h. or g
2 0 1 6 A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d b y K en k Sh u b b an s h a

Maybe the most interesting piece of folklore created to explain the invention of
Natt, is that of M inamoto no Yoshiie (1039 - 1106 A.D.).
While modern outsiders tend to think of Japan as a unified country of a single people
united in one harmonious government, it has not always been this way. The notion
of unity is less than two centuries old.
On 20 February 1869, M eij i-tenn (1852 1912 A.D.) moved the Imperial
Court from the Kyoto -gosho

(i.e. Kyoto Royal Palace ) to Edo

renaming that city as Tk y or Eastern Capital, and beginning what history

has come to call the Meiji Restoration . Up until that time what we think of
as Japan was never a single unified country, but instead a feudal society where
warriors from differe nt clans claime d control of various regions .
Sometimes known as Hachimantar , literally the First Son of the God of
War M inamoto no Yoshiie , descended from the Imperial family, was a Samaurai who
fought many of the most strategic battles of the Middle Ages . It is this famous
warlord that many people have claime d origina ll y invent e d Natt .
Ezochi (now Hok k aido ) and some parts of northern Honshu were ruled
by the Ezo king in Sapporo. As Chinj uf u shgun or Great General of
the Northern Def ence , or, it was Minamoto no Yoshiies job to uphold the military
control of the region, and to protect Japan from the Ezo.
The story goes, that during the Gosannen War , sometime between 1083
1089 A.D., as a struggle between the various clans over power of the area,
M inamoto no Yoshiie s men were boiling soybeans at their camp, when word came
of an imminent attack by soldiers of the Kiyowara family. M inamoto no Yoshiie
is said to have ordered his troops to pack up the soybeans they were boiling to feed
their horses, as well as their other accoutrements, into rice straw baskets, and bring
them with them as they fled the camp.

They were on the run for several weeks, but finally, making camp again, they opened
the baskets of rice straw to find that the soybeans had become fermented. Being
hungry they ate the beans and found that they were good.
Natto has since been proven to have existed in prehistory , and this story supposes
several improbabilities. The first, but not least of which being the unlikelihood of
soldiers pouring soaking wet beans into rice baskets and then loading those (now
very hot and heavy) baskets onto horse drawn carts to be tow ed as they fled in time
of war... Regardless of this, the story has merit in the fact that it associates Natt
with one of the great heroes of Japan, therefore showing Natt s prominence and
impor ta nce in Japanese culture , outside of being a mere food stuff.