| Sasaki clan 佐々木氏 | |
|---|---|
 The emblem (mon) of the Sasaki clan | |
| Home province | Ōmi province |
| Parent house | Uda Genji Seiwa Genji |
| Titles | Various |
| Founder | Minamoto no Nariyori |
| Founding year | 10th century |
| Ruled until | 1871 |
| Cadet branches | Rokkaku clan Amago clan Kyōgoku clan Kuroda clan Takashima clan |
Sasaki clan (佐々木氏,Sasaki-shi) are a historical Japanese clan.
They are descended directly fromEmperor Uda (868–897) by his grandsonMinamoto no Masazane (920–993) (Uda Genji), but were adopted by theSeiwa Genji. Minamoto no Nariyori, great-grandson of Masazane, is the first who took the name of Sasaki from his domain inŌmi province (now Shiga).
Hideyoshi (1112–1184), descendant of Minamoto no Nariyori, lost his parents young and became an orphan. He was adopted byMinamoto no Tameyoshi (then head of the Seiwa Genji). He participated in theHōgen war (1156) in which his fatherMinamoto no Tameyoshi was killed, and theHeiji war (1159) with his (adoptive) uncles, brothers, nephews, cousins and clansmen. After his brotherMinamoto no Yoshitomo was killed (1160), and the defeat of theSeiwa Genji, he went North to askFujiwara no Hidehira of Mutsu province to give him shelter, but stopped at Shibuya (Sagami province) and remained at that place for 20 years. When his nephewMinamoto no Yoritomo rose in revolt against theTaira, he with his four sons sided with him (1180). He was killed during theGenpei war (1180-1185) at the battle of Ōhara (1184) in Ōmi province fighting against theTaira clan. His descendants received from their Seiwa Genji cousins the title ofshugo (governor) of Ōmi and other provinces, which they kept until the 16th centurySengoku Period wars.He is the ancestor of the Sasaki, theRokkaku, theAmago, theKyōgoku and theKuroda clans.
In 1868, at the end of theTokugawa period :
There existed a certain Sasaki Shrine where Sasaki Yamagimi, a warlord, worshiped the god of ancestor's spirit. Following the middle of the Heian period (794 - 858), the shrine was used to worship the tutelary god of the Sasaki clan. It is said that through this, the "Ōmi-Genji Festival" is held every year on October 10 in respect of the Sasaki clan. One member of note amongst the Sasaki clan is none other thanSasaki Kojiro, the famous swordsman and rival ofMiyamoto Musashi. The favorite technique of Kojiro was his "Tsubame Gaeshi" (Turning Swallow Cut), which he attempted to use on Musashi throughout their duel. It is also known that the Sasaki clan apparently was a political obstacle to that of theHosokawa, and the defeat of Kojiro would be a political setback to his religious and political foes.
Bold designates a master. The "〇" mark is a person who participated inMinamoto no Yoritomo's rising in arms.
∴Emperor Uda(867-931) ┃Prince Atsumi(893-967) ┃Minamoto no Masazane(920-993) ┃Sukenori(951-998) ┃Nariyori(976-1003) ┃Noritsune(1000-1058) ┃Tsunekata ┃Tametoshi ┃Sasaki Hideyoshi(1112–1184) ┣━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━┳━━━━━┓ 〇Sadatsuna 〇Tsunetaka 〇Moritsuna 〇TakatsunaYoshikiyo ┏━━━━━━┳━━━━━┳━━━━━┫ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣━━━━━┓HirotsunaSadashigeHirosadaNobutsunaTakashigeKaji Nobuzane ShigetunaMasayoshiYasukiyo ┏━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━╋━━━━━━━━┓ ┏━━━━━┳━━━━━┫Shigetsuna Takanobu Rokkaku Yasutsuna Kyogoku UjinobuYoriyasu Yoshiyasu Muneyasu