The Otokodate were friendly associations of brave men bound together by an obligation to stand by one another in weal or in woe, regardless of their own lives, and without inquiring into one another’s antecedents.  A bad man, however, having joined the Otokodate must forsake his evil ways; for their principle was to treat the oppressor as an enemy, and to help the feeble as a father does his child.  If they had money, they gave it to those that had none, and their charitable deeds won for them the respect of all men.  The head of the society was called its “Father”; if any of the others, who were his apprentices, were homeless, they lived with the Father and served him, paying him at the same time a small fee, in consideration of which, if they fell sick or into misfortune, he took charge of them and assisted them.

The Father of the Otokodate pursued the calling of farming out coolies to the Daimios and great personages for their journeys to and from Yedo, and in return for this received from them rations in rice.  He had more influence with the lower classes even than the officials; and if the coolies had struck work or refused to accompany a Daimio on his journey, a word from the Father would produce as many men as might be required.  When Prince Tokugawa Iyemochi, the last but one of the Shoguns, left Yedo for Kioto, one Shimmon Tatsugoro, chief of the Otokodate, undertook the management of his journey, and some three or four years ago was raised to the dignity of Hatamoto for many faithful services.  After the battle of Fushimi, and the abolition of the Shogunate, he accompanied the last of the Shoguns in his retirement.

In old days there were also Otokodate among the Hatamotos; this was after the civil wars of the time of Iyeyasu, when, though the country was at peace, the minds of men were still in a state of high excitement, and could not be reconciled to the dulness of a state of rest; it followed that broils and faction fights were continually taking place among the young men of the Samurai class, and that those who distinguished themselves by their personal strength and valour were looked up to as captains.  Leagues after the manner of those existing among the German students were formed in different quarters of the city, under various names, and used to fight for the honour of victory.  When the country became more thoroughly tranquil, the custom of forming these leagues amongst gentlemen fell into disuse.

The past tense is used in speaking even of the Otokodate of the lower classes; for although they nominally exist, they have no longer the power and importance which they enjoyed at the time to which these stories belong.  They then, like the ’prentices of Old London, played a considerable part in the society of the great cities, and that man was lucky, were he gentle Samurai or simple wardsman, who could claim the Father of the Otokodate for his friend.

The word, taken by itself, means a manly or plucky fellow.