![]() Yao people were just coming into contact with the Portuguese at the time, which might account for his name: that is, Yao added to the common Japanese male name suffix of suke produces Yao-suke. Yasuke may have been a member of the Yao people, or from the more inland area of Mozambique. The Makua are not documented as having had any significant contact with the Portuguese based in Mozambique until 1585. However, the program provided little evidence for its conclusions. This name seems to be derived from the more popular Mozambican name Issufo. In 2013, a Japanese TBS television program titled Sekai Fushigi Hakken! ( 世界ふしぎ発見!, "Discovery of the World's Mysteries!") suggested that Yasuke was a Makua named Yasufe. ![]() They reached Japan in 1546 as shipmates or slaves who served Portuguese captain Jorge Álvares (not to be confused with another explorer of the same name who died in 1521). According to Fujita Midori, the first African people who came to Japan were Mozambican. This would be consistent with other accounts of Africans from Mozambique in Japan. Theories about early life Īccording to Histoire ecclésiastique des isles et royaumes du Japon, written by Jesuit priest François Solier of the Society of Jesus in 1627, Yasuke was likely from Mozambique. He was also present during the Honnō-ji Incident, the forced suicide of Nobunaga at the hands of his general Akechi Mitsuhide on 21 June 1582. Yasuke was one of the several Africans to have come with the Portuguese to Japan during the Nanban trade and is thought by some to have been the first African that Nobunaga had ever seen. In 1579, Yasuke arrived in Japan in the service of the Italian Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano, Visitor of Missions in the Indies, in India. ![]() Yasuke ( 弥助 or 弥介) was a man of African origin who served as a retainer and weapon-bearer to the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga. ![]()
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