Otazu no kata

Who They Were

Otazu no kata (お田鶴の方, d. December 1568) was a samurai woman of the late Sengoku period. She is also known as Otatsu no kata or Iio Tazu. She was the wife of Iio Tsuratatsu, a retainer of the Imagawa clan, a powerful warrior house that controlled Suruga, Tōtōmi, and Mikawa provinces in the sixteenth century.

Otazu no kata belonged to the class of women known as onna-musha, female warriors who took up arms and leadership roles during the civil wars that defined the Sengoku period. Her life straddled the Muromachi period (1336–1573), and she was born in the Tenbun era, specifically in the year 1550. She died in December 1568.

Life and Career

Otazu no kata married Iio Tsuratatsu, a samurai who served the Imagawa clan. The Iio family were local lords in Tōtōmi Province, and their fortunes were tied to the Imagawa, who were among the most powerful daimyō families in eastern Japan during the early Sengoku period.

The turning point came in 1560, when the Imagawa suffered a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Okehazama. Oda Nobunaga, a rising warlord from Owari Province, ambushed and killed the Imagawa leader, Imagawa Yoshimoto. The battle shattered the Imagawa's authority and threw their domains into chaos. With the clan in disarray, Otazu no kata turned against the Imagawa. She took up the cause of resistance, and after her husband Tsuratatsu died, she became the leader of the Iio clan.

Her decision to oppose the Imagawa placed her in direct conflict with the clan's remaining power structure. As leader of the Iio, she commanded the family's retainers and directed their military efforts. She was killed in December 1568, during the final collapse of the Imagawa's hold on their territories. The exact circumstances of her death are not recorded in the surviving sources, but her role as a female clan head in wartime was exceptional for the period.

Why They Matter

Otazu no kata matters because she was a woman who held formal military and political leadership in a samurai clan during the Sengoku period. Most women of the warrior class in this era are remembered as wives, mothers, or hostages—figures whose power was exercised indirectly through male relatives. Otazu no kata, by contrast, took command of the Iio clan outright after her husband's death and led it in opposition to the Imagawa.

Her story also illustrates the collapse of the Imagawa order after Okehazama. The battle did not simply destroy one general; it dissolved the bonds of loyalty that held the Imagawa's vassal network together. Otazu no kata's turn against her former lords is a concrete example of how quickly allegiance shifted when a dominant clan lost its military credibility.

She is one of the few named onna-musha from the late Sengoku period whose biography includes both a marriage alliance and an independent command. Her life offers a counterpoint to the more famous female figures of the era, such as the warrior nun Hōjō Masako or the later Edo-period ideal of the docile samurai wife.

The Name in Japanese

The name お田鶴の方 is written in a mix of hiragana and kanji. Its kana reading is おたづのかた, and its romaji is Otazu no kata.

• お — hiragana, the honorific prefix o-, used here as a polite marker before a name. It carries no independent meaning beyond adding respect.
• 田 — kanji, read ta in this word. It means "rice paddy" or "field." This character is common in Japanese surnames and given names, often evoking agricultural land.
• 鶴 — kanji, read zu in this word. It means "crane," the bird. In Japanese culture, the crane is a symbol of longevity and good fortune. The combination 田鶴 (tazu) is an old word for a crane that frequents rice fields.
• の — hiragana, the possessive particle. It connects the name to what follows, functioning like "'s" in English.
• 方 — kanji, read kata in this word. It means "person" or "lady," used as an honorific title for a woman of rank. In this context, の方 (no kata) is a formal way of referring to a noblewoman, roughly equivalent to "Lady" or "the Lady of."

The full name thus reads literally as "Lady of the Rice-Field Crane," or more naturally, "Lady Otazu." The alternative form Otatsu no kata uses the same characters but a different reading of 鶴 as tatsu. The name Iio Tazu, by which she is sometimes known, combines the family name Iio with the reading Tazu for 田鶴.

Legacy

Otazu no kata is remembered primarily through the records of the Iio clan and the Imagawa collapse. Her name appears in the context of the Iio family's resistance to the Imagawa after Okehazama, and her death in December 1568 marks the end of the Iio's independent resistance.

Her legacy is that of a woman who took up the sword and the command when her world fell apart. In the broader history of the Sengoku period, she stands alongside other onna-musha such as Myōrin-ni, who defended her castle against siege, and Kaihime, who fought in the defense of Oshi Castle. Unlike those figures, however, Otazu no kata's leadership was not a single battle but a sustained role as clan head.

For students of Japanese history, her story is a reminder that the samurai class was not exclusively male. The term onna-musha (女武者, "female warrior") describes a real and documented role, even if the surviving sources are far thinner than those for male warriors. Otazu no kata's name survives because she acted, and because her actions were recorded by the clans that fought against her.