Kamayari

The kamayari (鎌槍, sickle spear) is similar to the jumonji yari. While it also had two protrusions shooting off the base of a main spear tip, in yari the offshoots were hooked back downward. The kamayari essentially is a yari with kama at the base of the blade to assist in hooking things. Generally the hooks are large enough to hold the head, neck or jaw (when in a tree) or to hook limbs of a swordsman on the ground, thus it is different in function in this respect from other types of yari. Also the kamayari was used to hook horsemen and dismount them.[1]

Historically it also had a non-military use, where it was employed by Japanese firemen to pull down the roofs of burning buildings to slow a fire much the same way firemen of today would topple buildings to create a firebreak.

There is also a single hooked variety of the kamayari called the katakamayari.

References

  1. Ratti, Oscar; Adele Westbrook (1991). Secrets of the Samurai: The Martial Arts of Feudal Japan. Tuttle Publishing. p. 484. ISBN 978-0-8048-1684-7.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/23/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.