ABSTRACT
At the time that the first shot was fired on Tanegashima, according to the Teppōki, a merchant’s apprentice from Sakai in Izumi Province was visiting Tanegashima. His name was Tachibanaya Matasaburō and he learned to use the teppō with such perfection that, upon his return to Sakai, everyone called him not by his real name but with the nickname Teppōmata, ‘The Teppō Master’.1 He understood that this was something important and transferred the knowledge of the new weapon and possibly also the weapon to Sakai. It would be interesting to know how news was conveyed-and how quickly-in those earlier times. It seems that important communications were transmitted with amazing speed. It can therefore be surmised that the tidings about the new weapon were reported within months, even weeks, to his superiors in Sakai by way of sea and land. The question is how soon he could have also acquired the weapon itself. The sources do not mention how but the fact is that a teppō of one origin or another reached Sakai by 1544 and we may assume that Tachibanaya Matasaburō was instrumental in bringing it.
