Paper short abstract:

This presentation focuses on the first contact by the European to the Japanese archipelago in the middle of the sixteenth century. This topic is not just major inside and outside Japan, but complicated. It will develop newer perspective for maritime Asian regional and global history.

Paper long abstract:

The first contact by the European, which was probably the Portuguese merchant, to the Japanese archipelago in the middle of the sixteenth century attracts many researchers inside and outside Japan.

A Portuguese captain, António Galvão (1490-1557) described his image of the approach of the Portuguese merchants to Japanese waters. Three Portuguese saw an island in thirty two degrees during their drifting. Galvão explained that the island was one of "os Japões," or the Japanese archipelago. The year of their navigation was 1542.

On the other hand, a Japanese zen monk, Bunshi Genshō (1555-1620) recorded a similar but different story. A great ship was discovered at a village of Southern Tanegashima. An elderly person of the village communicated with the Chinese captain in writing, and understood that the crew included "Sei-nanban," which means probably Portuguese, merchants. The year of their conversation was 1543.

Despite of many other sources related to this topic, they have to be cut in this small presentation to simplify the argument. How should we consider these similar but different texts? Some researchers discuss that they express the same navigation, stressing similarities.

However can we ignore some differences among two texts? They are extremely essential, for instance the year of arrival, the place. Besides them, Galvão did not mention their landing the island in the thirty two degrees. The main topic of Bunshi's record is gun introduction. The text includes their landing Tanegashima and stay. In a word, it will be more appropriate to understand that these two navigations are completely different. I would like to reconsider the concrete image of the first encounter between the Portuguese and the Japanese with these texts and issues, because it is a landmark to think about the change from medieval period to early modern.