Otokichi
en.wikipedia.org
Otokichi
1–10 of 78 posts
Re: Otokichi
#2Is there anybody who could confirm that even castaways were subject to death penalty upon return to the shogunate? That sounds really cruel.
Re: Otokichi
#3Is there anybody who could confirm that even castaways were subject to death penalty upon return to the shogunate? That sounds really cruel.
Presumably it would have been assumed they were lying to avoid death.
Re: Otokichi
#4It is endlessly fascinating to me to contemplate how much the world has changed in a relatively short period of time, and specifically with regards to how much time was required for communication between people separated by great distances.
Re: Otokichi
#5It just occurred to me, boats have been around way before 1492, and they would drift away by accident, just like in this case, more often than not.
Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous.
Conclusion: Asia to America migration didn't only happen through Bering/Beringia land bridge pre-10000 BC?
Question: Has there been any investigation of similarities between west coast indigenous languages and Asian languages, esp. Japanese?
Re: Otokichi
#6A very interesting little story. I wasn't surprised when I saw that a movie about this had been made in the 80s.
Although, I was also not surprised to see a healthy amount of [citation needed]. Oh well, no good story comes without a bit of embellishment, right?
Re: Otokichi
#7Fascinating story. I had to dig a bit but I found the Johnny Cash film mentioned in the article:
Re: Otokichi
#8It just occurred to me, boats have been around way before 1492, and they would drift away by accident, just like in this case, more often than not. Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous. Conclusion: Asia to America migration didn't only happen through Bering/Beringia land bridge p…
You need to also take into account the likelihood of them surviving the trip and reaching a shore. It has likely been an extremely minute amount of people who would have done this, almost certainly too insignificant to influence the culture or genes in any way.
Re: Otokichi
#9It just occurred to me, boats have been around way before 1492, and they would drift away by accident, just like in this case, more often than not. Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous. Conclusion: Asia to America migration didn't only happen through Bering/Beringia land bridge p…
Ship building technology development is an important factor you didn't factor in. You'd need a ship that can survive crossing the pacific and also enough rations of food to survive the trip.
In this case they also used some desalination tech to survive those 14 months, per the article.
Edit: More details:
https://www.historylink.org/File/9065
> The crew had an adequate food supply (rice from the cargo, supplemented with fish and an occasional seagull). They could collect rainwater for drinking. They probably had on board a device called a ranbiki, normally used to brew sake, which they could have used to desalinate water from the sea. They also could have distilled saltwater simply by boiling it. But they had no source of vitamin C. By the time the ship washed ashore near Cape Flattery on a wintery day in 1834, there were only three survivors. Most of their crewmates had died of scurvy.
(That essay seems to have a lot of other interesting details, by the way.)
Re: Otokichi
#10Is there anybody who could confirm that even castaways were subject to death penalty upon return to the shogunate? That sounds really cruel.
There was another castaway who eventually did return to Japan and was made a samurai because of his English skills and potential utility to the government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakahama_Manjir%C5%8D
Otokichi's Wikipedia article also indicates that he was given permission to live in Japan again.