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How a beheaded samurai cursed the 2020 Olympics

"The reverence shown by a stream of suited Japanese businessmen gave me the impression it was a shrine to a Buddhist or Shinto deity" - ronan o'connell
"The reverence shown by a stream of suited Japanese businessmen gave me the impression it was a shrine to a Buddhist or Shinto deity" - ronan o'connell

At first glance, it makes no sense. On some of the world's most expensive real estate – flanked by Japan's Imperial Palace and skyscrapers home to Fortune 500 companies – Tokyo authorities have dedicated a big parcel of land to a severed head.

For more than 1,000 years, Tokyo has, according to legend, been cursed by Taira no Masakado, a 10th-century Japanese Samurai decapitated by his foes. This rebel leader has been blamed for many of the city’s problems –earthquakes, fires, bizarre deaths, economic collapses, and even the cancellation of the 1940 Tokyo Olympics after the outbreak of the Second World War.

Now he’s getting attention once more due to another major setback for Tokyo. With the 2020 Olympics postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis, at a cost of more than £2 billion, Masakado’s curse has again been brought up via Japanese social media. That did not shock an expert on Masakado, Prof. Karl Friday from Japan’s Saitama University.

The author of The First Samurai, the definitive English language book on Masakado, Prof. Friday said that when it came to this warrior, “nothing should be surprising”. “Maybe one of the [2020 Olympic] venues is on or near one of the spots covered by earlier curse legends,” Prof. Friday said this week.

This sentiment was shared by East Asian studies Prof. Thomas Conlan, from Princeton University. Asked about the giant construction effort for the 2020 Olympics, he said some Japanese people believed building new structures could disturb Tokyo’s “net of protective shrines” built to trap Masakado’s restless ghost.

The Soma Nomaoi festival started as a military exercise more than 1,000 years ago by Taira no Masakado - getty
The Soma Nomaoi festival started as a military exercise more than 1,000 years ago by Taira no Masakado - getty

“A strong belief exists that graves are sites which should not be disturbed,” Prof. Conlan said. “Spirits of the wronged could be contained with the construction of nearby shrines and temples and the performance of pacification rites.”

It was by ignoring these beliefs, and disrespecting Masakado, that Tokyo officials earned his wrath. Prof. Friday wrote in The First Samurai that when Masakado’s Tokyo grave was neglected in the 13th century his ghost caused “one natural disaster after another”.

Centuries later, after Japan’s Ministry of Finance constructed an office next to Masakado’s grave, a 1923 earthquake rocked Tokyo and razed that building. When Tokyo authorities then decided to demolish his tomb and build over it, the troubles escalated.

“Construction workers and Ministry officials began dropping like proverbial flies,” Prof. Friday wrote. “Within two years, 14 had died and large numbers of others suffered falls and other injury-inducing accidents in the new building”. To try to appease the Samurai, the Ministry building was then removed and Masakado’s grave restored.

The Otemachi financial district - getty
The Otemachi financial district - getty

It was too little, too late. In 1940, the 1,000th year after his death, Masakado’s fury rained upon Tokyo once more. The city lost a fortune when it had to cancel the 1940 Summer Olympics and then a lightning strike started a fire that engulfed nine Government buildings surrounding Masakado’s grave. In 2002, Mitsui Finance Corporation went bankrupt soon after trying to sell mineral rights to the land where the Samurai’s head is buried.

In Japanese mythology, all of these catastrophes are linked to the small but well-kept tomb I found by accident in Tokyo’s ritzy Otemachi financial district. Masakado’s extraordinary tale was foreign to me when I stumbled across this grave. The reverence shown by a stream of suited Japanese businessmen, who bowed their heads before the tomb, gave me the impression it was a shrine to a Buddhist or Shinto deity.

Later, after reading about the Samurai’s ferocity, I realised these office workers were not worshipping Masakado. They were asking to be spared his vengeance. This is the same plea Tokyo has made for centuries. Nearly 1,100 years ago, Masakado lost his head and then his temper.