Enigma of tanegashima

The guns, that Mendes Pinto (probably) and his crew brought to Japan, were called 'tanegashima'. Some scholars say that they were harquebus (is the plural harquebes ?), the others that they were muskets, but usually they are said to be the same weapon. If it is so, why do we have two different English names for it? As far as I know they are not equivalents. In XVI-XVII, harquebus/bes were commonly used in Europe by riders of cavalry, but muskets by infantry. Maybe the first guns brought to Japan by the Portuguese were harquebus/bes (because easer to use aboard), and then, according to the growing daimyo's demands, muskets were also imported for military purpose, fully used for the first time in Nagashino battle (1575).
Who's right? ... Any idea?

P.S.... and what is the plural of this word - Latin originated 'bes', or is it uncountable?

A caveat lector - firearms are not my specialty, so I look forward to this thead for both technical and historical reasons.

konstancja said:

usually they are said to be the same weapon. If it is so, why do we have two different English names for it? As far as I know they are not equivalents.

Click to expand...

A bit hard on the eyes, but from the Oxford English Dictionary (since it is a restricted-access resource and I can't link you all to it)-

[a. 16th c. F. (h)arquebuse (-bute, etc.). The MHG. hakebühse, MLG. hakebusse (see HACKBUSH), was transformed in It., by popular etymology, into arcobugio, -buso (arco bow + bugio, buso 'hollow, hole', in reference to the hollow barrel, and to its taking the place of the bow or arbalest), also later archibugio, -buso (cf. Sp. arcabuz); under the influence of the It., the earlier French name haquebute (see HACKBUT) was changed through the intermediate harquebute, harquebuse, to arquebuse. These French forms were in turn adopted in English, where also the influence of the earlier hackbush, hagbush, gave rise to the mixed forms harquebush, hargubush, harguebusse, etc.]

1. The early type of portable gun, varying in size from a small cannon to a musket, which on account of its weight was, when used in the field, supported upon a tripod, trestle, or other 'carriage', and afterwards upon a forked 'rest'. The name in German and Flemish meant literally 'hook-gun', from the hook cast along with the piece, by which it was fastened to the 'carriage'; but the name became generic for portable fire-arms generally in the 16th century, so that the type with the hook was subsequently distinguished as arquebuse à croc:

Click to expand...

and musket

[< Middle French mosquet (1568), Middle French, French mousquet (1571), and (in feminine form) Middle French mosquette (1564), mousquette (a1585) < Italian moschetto (a1536), moschetta (a1573), both attested earlier in the sense 'arrow from a crossbow' (a1300, a1336 respectively), app. orig. an extended use of moschetto sparrowhawk (although this is first attested much later: see MUSKET n.1). Cf. Spanish mosquete (1535), Portuguese mosquete (16th cent.).
The development of sense appears to have been: 'sparrowhawk; arrow from a crossbow; crossbow; musket' (cf. also the use of arrows discharged from muskets referred to in the note at sense 1). With regard to the practice of naming types of ballistic weapons after birds of prey, cf. FALCON n., FALCONET n., SAKER n.1, and SAKER n.2]

I. Simple uses.

1. A type of infantry gun with a long barrel, typically smooth-bored and firing a large calibre muzzle-loaded ball, usually aimed from the shoulder or mounted on a forked stand. Cf. CALIVER n. 1, HARQUEBUS n. 1. Now chiefly hist.
Originally applied to the matchlock and in the 18th cent. still sometimes distinguished from the firelock or fusee. Subsequently it became the general name for an infantry gun, whatever its construction. However, from the mid 19th cent. musket was restricted to obsolete forms of the weapon, with rifle or other technical terms being used for contemporary firearms.
From early examples it appears that arrows as well as balls were sometimes discharged from muskets; see quot. 1595

Click to expand...

So the two words seem to mean, more or less, the same thing. Why do we have two words? Probably the same reasons we call cars and trucks by different names while they are the same type of thing - automobiles. Different shapes, sizes, different uses.

From what I can gather, muskets started out longer and heavier than harquebuses, but got lighter while retaining their bullet velocity, making them more valuable on the battlefield.

konstancja said:

Maybe the first guns brought to Japan by the Portuguese were harquebus/bes (because easer to use aboard), and then, according to the growing daimyo's demands, muskets were also imported for military purpose, fully used for the first time in Nagashino battle (1575).

Click to expand...

Why would a harquebus be easier to use on a ship? I know very little about early firearms.

Since we are dealing with 1543, it would seem to make sense that the sailors brought whichever weapon was most readily available to them, while not discounting the possibility of the presence of the other.

So the question becomes, which was the gun most at hand to European sailors in the mid-1500's?

I know little about weapons, so I'll just post the links that should be of interest to you (hoping you can read Japanese):

Wikipedia article on the history of "hinawa-ju" in Japan, plus photos of the guns reportedly brought into Japan (replicas that were on display at Expo 2005 Aichi):


Articles say that historians now believe that firearms were introduced in Japan not only from the Portuguese but also from the Chinese and other sources. The claim that it was brought by the Portuguese stems from a chronicle of the development of gun making in Japan written 50 years later. Modern researchers believe that the Chinese traders were the first (a year before the Portuguese).

Seems the first "hinawa-ju" link was wrong(?):

This article says "a Chinese ship carrying Portuguese traders", which mixes both...


If the traders were travelling on the Chinese ship and had these weapons, it seems to make sense that the guns probably came from China.

Mandylion, your quotation: "Portuguese mosquete (16th cent.)" solves the problem of scholars, I think. Some of them translate tanegashima as a musket after the Portuguese, and maybe because it's said to have been used for sure in the Nagashino battle. Others prefer the word 'harquebus' with a broader range of meanings. It's a safer option with less probability of failure and more suitable for military equipment used by sailors and tradesmen like Mendes Pinto. (Was it he, or was it just the rumour he made?)

But the question about the word is more complicated, I think, because as we see, it differs periodically and locally. I said that a harquebus was easier to use aboard because the Polish name for a harquebus - 'arkebuz' means a gun similar to a musket, a smaller one, and mainly used by cavalry. The Polish one is more specific. That's today's meaning. I'm not sure if it was the same in the 16th-17th centuries. Probably, more or less the same, but while translating, although I would write in English that: "The guns brought to Japan by the Portuguese were harquebuses", I wouldn't write this in the Polish version of the sentence because of today's meaning. I also wouldn't write: "Among guns brought to Japan by the Portuguese, the most popular was 'arkebuz' ...", because I can't say if the gun we are talking about is the same one. I would write that the most popular was a musket, because there was at least one musket among them, and this weapon was later used on a large scale in the Nagashino battle, which proves its popularity. Quite complicated. Fortunately, a musket is a musket in both languages.

Thanks for all your suggestions, guys