campus buzz

Battle Tested

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After Chinese history professor Paul    V. Hyer (BA ’51) helped an acquain-

tance while on a research trip to Japan in 1964, he came home with a most unusual payment. While in Japan, Hyer met Kimura Hisao, a former spy who sought Hyer’s help in translating and publishing a manuscript. To thank Hyer, Hisao gave him a samurai suit that had been in his family for generations. Hisao was from Satsuma, lo-cated on the southernmost island of Japan, and was a descen-dant of the Shimazu samurai clan, which rebelled against the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868. According to associate professor of Japanese Jack C. Stoneman (BA ’98), the suit was likely worn in this con-flict. “It’s not the kind of armor that was put on display,” says Stoneman. “It’s pretty clear that it’s been used and has met battle.” Decades later Hyer, now retired, donated the suit to the Harold B. Lee Library, where it now sits on the fourth floor in the Asian Studies collec-tion. This fall the suit will be the center of a yearlong samurai culture exhibit on the library’s main floor.

—Natalie Sandberg Taylor (’14)

2. The silk sleeves’ overlay of lac-quered leather and iron chainmail allowed soldiers more mobility com-pared to earlier, all-metal suits—but at the cost of reduced protection and shock absorption.

3. Samurai honored to carry the clan’s banners could do so hands free, thanks to loopholes on the back of the suit for holding the pole.

1. This helmet’s colored fringe protected the side of the warrior’s head from arrows, while the animal hair and crest on top were individualized decorations. “The more visu-ally stunning you are to your enemy,” says Stoneman, “the more advantage you have.” Elements of samurai culture—including helmets—inspired filmmaker George Lucas and influenced the helmet design of his infa-mous villain, Darth Vader.

nursinghumanities

a-lister: How does BYU compare to nearly 1,400 other nursing schools in terms of afford-ability, academic quality, accessibility, and board-exam pass rates? According to CollegeAtlas.org’s 2014 nursing “A-List,” BYU comes in at no. 10.

explore the viki wiki: English professor Leslee Thorne-Murphy (BA ’90, MA ’93) and students created a wiki of Victorian short fiction from the HBLL Spe-cial Collections, making samples of the genre avail-able for future study. See more.byu.edu/vikiwiki.

18 byu magazine | summer 2014

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