ABSTRACT
Akechi Tama was born in 1563 as the third daughter to Akechi Mitsuhide and Fuseya, daughter of Tsumaki Kageyuzaemon Norihiro.2 Born into a family of a small feudal lord in Ōmi, Mitsuhide spent ten years as an unaffiliated soldier in Wakasa between around 1557 and 1567. In 1571, Mitsuhide became an advisor to unifier Oda Nobunaga and quickly rose to become the lord of the Sakamoto Castle. Nobunaga arranged a marriage between Tama and Hosokawa Tadaoki, son of Hosokawa Fujitaka Yūsai, when they were both 15 years old in 1578. The newlyweds lived first in Seiryūji, and then Nobunaga moved Tadaoki to the Tanabe Castle in Miyazu as daimyō of Tango. Tama gave birth to their first daughter and then son in 1579 and 1580. Misfortune struck Tama when her father Mitsuhide assassinated Nobunaga in the Honnōji no hen incident on 2 June 1582. The Hosokawa supported Hideyoshi, a self-claimed successor to Nobunaga, refusing to side with Mitsuhide. After three weeks of victory as a potential unifier, Mitsuhide killed himself while running away from Hideyoshi’s troops. Tama’s mother and brother were executed as the family of the traitor. Tadaoki divorced Tama immediately, but, instead of delivering her to the authorities, he hid her away in a remote mountain village in Mitono with his guards. From this time on, Tama was branded as the daughter of the most notorious betrayer of Japanese history.
