I've been meaning to get access to his genealogy research (He is required to maintain those by the Japanese government since he is technically a Japanese citizen), but he has told me on several occasions that during the feudal period, our family's male line were small-time samurai working small plots of land in the countryside (historically the most I know at the moment is that we have always been from the Hiroshima region). He told me he had learned much of this while he was more or less deported-in-exile to Japan from Canada during World War II, but he hasn't really provided me with the better specifics of historicity which would help me ask (and help you answer) this question. I'm currently bugging him since I know he has a giant-ass folder in his office so I'll have to ask if I can look at it when I visit him.
Absolutely! The jizamurai were half-samurai, half-peasants who were expected to train and fight and warriors, but spent much if their time earning a living as small farmers.
If your family was from the Hiroshima area, they may have been retainers of the Mōri clan, since they controlled the region during the Sungoku Period until 1600.
https://i.imgur.com/TjzG6IH.jpg - a somewhat fanciful ukiyo-e woodblock print of a jizamurai. Note his peasant's straw cape and the hoe he's using as a weapon.
Hi! There have been some fantastic answers to the question you proposed, and wanted to add some additional context to the discourse (will have to make multiple posts for the explanation). As u/Bacarruda stated, your grandfather could very well be describing the jizamurai. As stated, imagining them as occupying some middle ground between samurai and peasant/farmers is an excellent way to think about them. I quiet like the explanation given in the glossary of Japan Before Tokugawa:
"Jizamurai: Literally, “samurai of the soil,” or “base samurai,” this term referred to rural samurai of a sort not far removed from the peasantry; corresponds roughly to the dogō class.” ([1] pg. 376)
While this is all a rather clear and concise explanation to what you were asking, it is important to note that conditions were more complicated and muddied. The jizamurai were part of this “lower level” to Japanese warrior society of the period, though they were not the only ones. Other terms such as kokujin, ryōshu, kokujin, dogō, gōshi, myōshu, etc., refer to groups of a similar position, with varying status and ties to the land. The dividing lines between these different groups (and the correct terminology) is a topic which is debated by historians. ([2] pg. 207-208) While it is uncertain which term would best apply to your ancestors, for the sake of brevity, I will continue to use (and focus on) the term jizamurai.
Who Were the Jizamurai, and Where Did They Come From?
As the topic of terminology for lower ranking samurai is complex, so is the origins and evolution of jizamurai, and how one would have become a jizamurai. You will find varying explanations given by different historians and authors. George Sansom in his book A History of Japan 1334-1615 states that the jizamurai emerged from an amalgamation of two concurrent occurrences; the growing shift in warrior’s loyalty from the bakufu to their families, and the existence of a new class of rural warriors/cultivators who partook in intensive control over their holdings due to the emergence of the practice of split inheritance in the Muromachi period. ([3] pg. 205) Pierre Francois Souyri provides another explanation in The World Turned Upside Down: Medieval Japanese Society, stating that the jizamurai emerged from upper-class peasants called myōshu. ([4] pg. 129) The myōshu were heads of peasant groups, who acted as managers and middlemen for shōen proprietors in earlier periods. ([1] pg. 378) Souyri elaborates that the myōshu took on more power during the Muromachi period and became land-owners of small holdings which they once managed (an occurrence that is detailed beautifully in Japan Before Tokugawa [5], pages 30-35), and those which owned horses and weapons took on the status of warriors, thus becoming jizamurai. ([4] pg. 129) These two different paths detailed by Sansom and Souyri have an important difference, in that with Sansom’s explanation, the jizamurai emerged from the warrior status, and with the splitting of inheritance, became more closely tied to the land/farms which they owned (in a sense moving “lower”), while in Souri’s explanation, the jizamurai emerged from the peasant-myōshu, and with an increase in status, took on the roles of warrior/land-owner. With either explanation, what we have in the end is this group which occupies a middle ground between the warrior and peasant cultivators. They had warrior status, but were also closely tied to the lands which they held. This gives us this picture of “samurai of the soil”.
