Ukita Muneie (宇喜多宗家)
Muneie UKITA (date of birth and death unknown) was a person who lived in the latter part of the Muromachi period. He was Shurishin (an Official of Palace Repairs). He seemed to be the progenitor of the Ukita clan who had used the letter 'ie (家, house)' as tsuji (distinctive character used in the names of all people belonging to a single clan or lineage) for generations.
He was a son of Nobumune SANJO (there is a possibility that his surname was not 'Sanjo' because of the origin of a branch). His wife was a daughter of Takaie KOJIMA.
Hisaie UKITA was guessed to be his son or his adopted son, who was a son of Shintoku KOJIMA (it is suspicious that he actually lived, but if he lived in reality he seems to have been a brother of his wife).
He seemed to be a hikan (low-level bureaucrat) of the Akamatsu clan, because there is a record in Saidai-ji Temple (a temple in Okayama City) that Muneie UKITA donated land by an order of Masanori AKAMATSU in 1470.
Although it remains poorly understood, many family trees and documents show that he had an origin in the Sanjo family, a family of pedigree of Court nobles and the main line of the Kanin Line of the Northern House of the Fujiwara clan.
In order to avoid the fires of the Onin War which happened in the latter part of the Muromachi period, many Court nobles went down to local regions around this time, and Muneie is thought to be one of them.
Muneie went down to Bizen Province, relying on the Akamatsu clan, and there he was taken as a husband of a daughter of Takaie KOJIMA, who was a grandchild of Takanori KOJIMA who had a linage of the Miyake clan, and began to use the surname of UKITA.
As this process shows, Muneie was a Court noble with an origin in the Sanjo family from the Fujiwara clan, and had no blood tie with the Kojima clan.
Therefore, the Ukita clan who wanted to emphasize the relationship with the Kojima clan, ignored the existence of Muneie itself in the family tree on which Hisaie was placed as a son of Shintoku KOJIMA. However, judging from the record of his name in the Saidai-ji Monjo (Saidai-ji document collection), it is sure that a person named 'Muneie UKITA' existed and it can be thought that Muneie adopted Hisaie as a son if standing on a theory which regards Hisaie as a son of Shintoku KOJIMA.
In this case, there remain many questions and contradictions such as 'Why he had to adopt another son in spite of the existence of Shintoku?,' 'Why Hisaie, who was born as a heir of the Kojima clan, needed to be adopted as a son of Muneie, who was not a relative?.'
In addition, some people guess that this family tree itself was 'created by later descendants who felt unnatural to emphasize the maternal line, although it is no problem to identify itself as descendants of the Kojima family because Hisaie was a real son of Muneie and his mother was an origin of the Kojima family.'
However, there are no historical sources which support the theory that Hisaie was a real son of Muneie, so that it cannot be helped saying that it is unclear.
In addition, there is a record that Goroemon Nyudo hosho UKITA (the oldest person of the Ukita clan who can be confirmed by existing ancient documents) donated to the Seiko-ji Temple in 1469, which was one year before Muneie donated land to the Saidai-ji Temple.
There are various theories on this document, for example, this person might have been Nobumune, Muneie's father, who went down to local regions around the same period. However, the details of these theories are also unclear.