ABSTRACT
When the first Portuguese met the young lord of Tanegashima, Tokitaka (or Naotoki), they had, as true barbarians, no idea of the long and entangled historical tradition that met them. The island had since early Kamakura times been connected with the lordship of one family of Taira origin and the question is whether it was the island or the family that received the name Tanegashima first. The first Tanegashima lord, Nobumoto, was, after the debacle of the Tairas, enfeoffed with the ‘twelve islands in the southern sea’ (nankai jūnitō), the largest among them being the island of Tanegashima.1 According to tradition, Nobumoto was the great-grandson of Taira no Kiyomori (1118-81) and the son of Taira no Yukimori (no dates).2 Further, according to the same tradition, he was spared from Minamoto Yoritomo’s rage and adopted by Hōjō Tokimasa (1138-1215) whose daughter, Masako (1157-1225), was Minamoto no Yoritomo’s wife. Tokitaka was the 14th generation in the genealogy beginning with Nobumoto. The rule of the family was to continue down to the 25th generation, Hisanao (1854-82), who in the 2nd year of Meiji (1869) ‘restored’ the Tanegashima fief to the government in Edo, now Tokyo. In the Tanegashima kafu the chronicle continues until 1891 with the 27th generation, Moritoki (1879-1929). The 28th generation of the family, Tokimochi (1907-54) lived on the island and the 29th generation of the family, Tanegashima Tokikuni (b. 1949) today lives in Kagoshima.3
