The Oguni clan (小国氏)
The Oguni clan is a Japanese clan.
The first generation was MINAMOTO no Yoriyuki (a younger brother of MINAMOTO no Yorimasa), who was descended from Settsu Genji (Minamoto clan), and in the Kamakura period his grandchild MINAMOTO no Yoritsura became the jito (land steward) of Oguniho in Echigo Province (the present-day Oguni-cho, Nagaoka City, Nigata Prefecture) and took the name of Oguni. Subsequently, as Kokujin (local samurai) of Echigo Province, Yoritsura participated in the army of Tomotoki HOJO as part of the Jokyu War. The Oguni clan appears intermittently in reputable historical materials and has a reliable genealogy even until to the Sengoku (Warring States) period.
During the Northern and Southern Courts period (Japan), Masamitsu OGUNI played an active role on the part of the Southern Court army in Echigo, based in Tenjinyama-jo Castle. In 1335 he built Kanbaranotsu-jo Castle and, in 1336, based in Shimazaki-jo Castle, it fought along with the Ike clan, the Kawachi clan, the Kazama clan, the Ogi clan, the Chiya clan and the Takanashi clan against Takanaga IROBE and Kagetsuna KAJI on the part of Takauji ASHIKAGA's army, but the castle fell to the army.
In the Sengoku period, Yorihisa OGUNI, who served Kenshin UESUGI, distinguished himself in a follow-up strike in the first battle of Kawanakajima, as reserve corps in the Ecchu attack and in punitive expeditions to Sado and Kanto. In the Odate War, after the death of Kenshin, the Uesugi clan split into the two groups of Kagekatsu UESUGI and Kagetora UESUGI. After the war, Kagekatsu had a younger brother of his confidant Kanetsugu NAOE, called Yoshichi HIGUCHI, adopted, whereupon he took on the Oguni clan and changed the name to Okuni. Consequently, he became Saneyori OKUNI. Saneyori was later banned from the Uesugi clan, but Kanetsugu appointed a son of his brother Hidekane HIGUCHI, Mitsuyori OKUNI, and had him inherited as part of the family. The Okuni family continued as a feudal retainer of the Yonezawa clan after Mitsuyori.