LogFAQs > #970055724

ParanoidObsessive posted...

To be fair, they sort of fall into that weird category where they were originally invented to be something you could use as a weapon but also pass off as a non-weapon. Like how the tonfa were originally threshing tools, but were basically turned into batons you can use to beat the shit out of someone.

When nobles make it illegal for peasants to have weapons, peasants tend to make weapons out of their farming tools or other stuff. So you get less effective weapons, but they're easier to hide or justify when you get caught.

@ParanoidObsessive
Nunchaku were not "invented" as a weapon at all. Again, they're a horse's bridle - we have historical examples and pictures of this. People started using them as weapons at some point - we're not exactly sure when, but it predates the Satsuma clan's takeover of the territory and the imposition of Japanese weapons laws. Most likely it came from farmers having them on hand when they were out drinking and using them to defend themselves if a mugger or other bar patron came at them in a fight.

Tonfa also weren't threshing tools; they were generally made from handles originally, either for a gristmill or a well. They would be terrible for threshing, because they're too short for the job (compare to flails, which actually *were* threshing tools). Also, traditional Japanese rice harvesting techniques actually didn't use "striking" as a threshing method; that wouldn't show up until the 19th century. They used a device called a kokibashi to separate out grains from the straw.

Finally, there was never any law in Okinawa that barred peasants from owning weapons but permitted nobles to bear them. That is based off of laws from the Japanese mainland (which were never rigorously enforced anyways) controlling the ownership of "longswords" and a Ryukyu law that briefly banned peasants from owning firearms in the 1600s, but that never actually affected the melee weapons most people talk about when they're referring to a weapons ban. Japan did have laws in all its territories (including Okinawa, following its establishment as a Japanese protectorate after the Satsuma Clan's invasion at the end of the Sengoku Jidai) controlling weapons ownership, but again they're not nearly as strict as the urban legends say. The idea that the Satsuma Clan banned the Okinawans from bearing traditional weapons like swords and spears and therefore they came up with stealthy workarounds is largely fiction with zero historical evidence behind it. Most of the weapon arts of Okinawa were developed by Pechin (who were nobles), rather than commoners, either for law enforcement, dueling, or training.

Also worth noting - Japan (and the Ryukyu Kingdom, for that matter) had guns at this point. The idea of banning melee weapons and the Okinawans deciding they needed a workaround was kind of silly when the weapon du jour was the tanegashima matchlock rifle. The Japanese, along with the Ryukyu nobility, had little to fear from peasantry with swords (those who could afford them, that is - steel wasn't exactly cheap in Japan, and nor were the services of a weaponsmith) when they could just shoot them.

Lokarin posted...

Treatises on nunchucks are simply due to the ninja life style, it's a farming implement and they had treatises for every single thing they used no matter how mundane... doesn't mean it's a good weapon, just means they knew how to use it if they had to.

The nunchaku were not a ninja weapon. They came from Okinawa, which had nothing to do with the ninja, and there is no evidence the ninja ever used them (though modern ninjitsu schools - the overwhelming majority of which are more Hollywood than history - have adopted it).

Rotpar posted...

Never understood the nunchuck. Even when I was younger with a limited understanding of physics, it always seemed obvious that it would bounce off whoever got hit and back to you.

It will if you use it badly. If you pull it through target, it works fine.

There are contact targets (makiwara) you can use for practice in order to make sure you're actually doing things correctly and one of the signs of a novice nunchaku user is exactly what you've observed - they strike *at* target, rather than *through* target and you will 100% get the nunchaku bouncing back at you if you do that.

That's not actually that unique, though. Beginners at empty hand arts do the same thing. If you watch someone kick a bag for the first time, they often bounce off of it because they don't realize that you don't just aim at the surface of the bag, you have to aim through it like you're kicking the person holding it or else you'll suffer the effects of Sensei Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion.