July 7 1579 (Tenshō 7)
Donated by the Homma family
Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616) was the first shōgun of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603. In this letter, he thanks an unknown addressee for their hospitality in the previous year (1578), and asks him to take care of his falconers, whom he has sent traveling to Ou (in Tōhoku, northern Japan).
Although there is no name specified here, it’s possible that the recipient of the letter was either Endō Motonobu, a senior vassal in the Date clan, or his lord Date Terumune, as there exists a letter from Ieyasu to Motonobu around the same date addressing some of the same issues.
This letter is a valuable historical document showing that Ieyasu was working to strengthen ties between Oda Nobunaga’s regime and the Tōhoku region, in this case under the pretext of falconry.