>>35495347Hosokawa Tama (細川玉), usually referred to as Hosokawa Garasha (細川ガラシャ), (1563 – 25 August 1600) was a Japanese woman in the 16th century. She is known for being the daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide, the wife of Hosokawa Tadaoki, and a Christian convert.
She was named Tama or Tamako at birth; Garasha, the name by which she is known in history, is based upon her Catholic baptismal name, Gracia.
She married Hosokawa Tadaoki at the age of sixteen; the couple had five or six children. In the Sixth Month of 1582, her father Akechi Mitsuhide betrayed and killed his lord, Oda Nobunaga, making the teenage Tama a traitor's daughter. Not wishing to divorce her, Tadaoki sent her to the hamlet of Midono in the mountains of the Tango Peninsula (now in Kyoto Prefecture), where she remained hidden until 1584, until Toyotomi Hideyoshi requested that Tadaoki bring Tama to the Hosokawa mansion in Osaka, where she remained in confinement.
Tama's maid, Kiyohara Kayo, baptized Maria, was from a Catholic family, and her husband repeated to her conversations with his Christian friend Takayama Ukon. In the spring of 1587 Tama managed to secretly visit the Osaka church; a few months later, when she heard that Toyotomi Hideyoshi had issued a proclamation against Christianity, she was determined to be baptized immediately. As she could not leave the house, she was baptized by her maid and received the Christian name "Gracia". She is said to have studied both Latin and Portuguese and to have read and become fascinated with Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ.
In 1595 Tadaoki's life was in danger because of his friendship with Toyotomi Hidetsugu, and he told Gracia that if he should die she must kill herself. When she wrote asking the priests about the plan, they informed her that suicide was a grave sin. However, the danger passed.
