Were fruity Asian weapons like sickles ever actually chosen as weapons in real life besides as weapons of opportunity, or is it just martial arts larp crap? I don't know why you'd choose shit like this over a knife or axe.
Were fruity Asian weapons like sickles ever actually chosen as weapons in real life besides as weapons of opportunity, or is it just martial arts larp crap? I don't know why you'd choose shit like this over a knife or axe.
farm tools you could reasonably own without nobles having you hanged as a bandit or insurrectionist.
basicly britgay tier
Knives and axes are stuff that farmers would have though.
Realistically a farmer family would probably need a sickle for everyone but only a single axe
Fighting with a rice sickle (Kamas, as they're often called) was I'm sure a useful skill for people who had some cause to believe they'd be fighting with random bullshit you'd have on hand in a society where said tools were a very common tool. They also trained with various lengths and shapes of sticks and knives, with the general idea being you could kill with whatever you happened to lay hands on.
knives are shit weapons, I would rather have a sturdy walking stick (Jo) than a knife.
Distance is a big part of combat and a knife creates almost none.
Kama and Tonfa were common weapons since carrying them as a peasant or laborer could easily be explained, and provided defense against bandits. Carrying a sword was both expensive and reserved for the professional men at arms and nobility. As such, the common man’s self defense was the knife and the farm tool, mostly the farm tool. Medival Europe was very similar. Wrestling, staff fighting, and knife play were all semi-commonly taught among peasants for self defense.
In Europe it was common for the civilian class to carry at least a large dagger, such as a bullocks or sometimes a Rondel dagger, and as time went on, and swords became cheaper, in most areas of Europe it was common for all classes to carry a sword of some sort, with a few geographical exceptions, up till full bans started in the 19th century.
'There be no man worth a leek, be he mild or be he meek, but he bear a basilard.'
>As such, the common man’s self defense was the knife and the farm tool, mostly the farm tool. Medival Europe was very similar.
lmao, keep believing that medieval Euro peasants were noswords, nospears, nobows and nogunz like hiveminded rice bugmen. Feudal states in Europe have nowhere no power to effectively ban weapons for commoners. They only got to do this in 1650s after the rise of professional armies and bureaucracy and even then with utmost diffuculty. In middle ages bans were introduced locally, mostly by the cities, which otherwise had their own self governments backed or contested by the guilds that formed very well armed militias. Enforceable nation wide gun bans started to be a thing only, when the state broke the local government using their own well organized police and military forces.
>Feudal states in Europe have nowhere no power to effectively ban weapons for commoners
Well, supposedly in the Bible, the Israelites didn't have many actual weapons because smithing was a forbidden trade and they had to have their farm tools sharpened by the Philistines, who were their overlords at the time. That's one workable way to do it.
Similarly in medieval times, baking and milling were industries monopolised by the barons. Probably one COULD bake their own bread but it would be cost-ineffective and inferior in quality.
So there are probably ways to effectively reduce the ownership of weapons at least.
>in medieval times, baking and milling were industries monopolised by the barons.
You cant generalize like that even in relation to a single country. Regions and even single settlements varied greatly whe it comes to rights and obligations betweeen the nobility and commoners. They had centuries old privileges, grants given by this or that senior, the settlements were founded on certain written privileges or in accordance with certain laws (Roman, Imperial, local etc). Then there was the actual balance of power, especially after the wars and famines that caused shortages of labour. Nobles most often could not afford to extort or restrict their villeins too much, fear of abandonment of estate or rebellion was always looming over them. This only changed after Kings coopted the nobles by granting and enforcing them privileges in exchange for political allegiance. And that only happened in earnest after the Rennaissance - and even then not everywhere and not to the same degree.
True, an I agree with all that. My knowledge is only of late-medieval England, my preferred time period. But it's an illustration of how arms (or anything) control can be made possible.
Wat da goose sippin tho
Wine. It's a referance to the leader of the Hussites, Jan Hus. "Hus" means "goose" in Czech, hence the goose. And the chalice is a reference to communion. One of the Hussite's beliefs was in Consubstantiation, rather than transubstantiation like the Catholics believed. So basically the goose is getting loaded on a wienertail of wine and Christ's blood.
It actually started as a heraldic swan of one of the Hussite affiliated nobles, but then got memed into a goose with chalice, which refences to both Jan Hus and mass communion served sub utraque specie: with bread and wine instead solely with the bread as Catholic church does. Plus goose is generally a symbol of vigilance, presumably in defense of ones country and rights as Hussites viewed their movement`s goals.
Coustille short swords were somewhat common for medieval peasants to own.
Put a chain on them, and swing them around. It would be anime as frick.
They did that occasionally. You’d attach a chain or rope with a weight on the end of it so you could trip someone up.
There were one-edged swords that were legal for civilians, but I forget what they were called or what time frame.
As the other anons said, normal folk made do with what they had.
Grossmesser - literally big knife in german
These were the pistol braces of their time. Sub par weapons that are better than nothing that you can legally have.
Half of the famous ninja weapons were repurposed farm equipment that was the whole point. They were basically guerillas, it was so they could look like they werent a threat to get close, or to not be imprisoned after being searched
Ninjas were never really a "thing" anyway. It's just a made-up term for mercenaries who worked in covert warfare. The stuff about ninjutsu and ninja cults is all a modern fabrication.
>Ninjas were never really a "thing" anyway
Mythical ones, obviously not, but the real-life versions of them, yes they were
>It's just a made-up term
No
>for mercenaries
Samurai are also technically mercenaries, did you know?
>who worked in covert warfare
Yes, and? That's what ninjas are about.
>The stuff about ninjutsu
Simply a set of specialised techniques and equipment more suited to infiltration, assassination and espionage than the open battlefield
>and ninja cults is all a modern fabrication
At least two ninja tribes are very well-attested, and it makes sense; skills and trades in medieval eras were passed down in the family, why not martial skills as well
>Samurai are also technically mercenaries, did you know?
No. They were akin to knights. They generally had sworn fealty to a domain and performed various civic roles, like as police or magistrates. They were not usually acting as soldiers of fortune.
>At least two ninja tribes are very well-attested, and it makes sense; skills and trades in medieval eras were passed down in the family, why not martial skills as well
Not "at least two." Just two. Two tribes in a tiny region of Japan in the 1500s. Everything outside of their activities is poorly supported by historical evidence.
>Samurai are also technically mercenaries, did you know?
To the degree that everyone who expects to be paid is a mercenary.
>They were akin to knights
Until they lost their landholds and then would have to work as mercs, particularly in the Sengoku Period.
Kurosawa's Seven Samurai are literally wandering samurai fighting for pay.
>Just two. Two tribes in a tiny region of Japan in the 1500s. Everything outside of their activities is poorly supported by historical evidence
Two that we know of and can safely rely on due to the multiple attestations. It's a no-brainer that there would be more, that have passed out of history without leaving a paper trail.
>Until they lost their landholds and then would have to work as mercs, particularly in the Sengoku Period.
>Kurosawa's Seven Samurai are literally wandering samurai fighting for pay.
Have you never heard of a hedge knight? Does the existence of hedge knights mean that knights were simply mercenaries?
Those were the exception. Generally speaking, samurai were government workers. They were tasked with bureaucratic and civic duties as well as military ones.
>Two that we know of and can safely rely on due to the multiple attestations. It's a no-brainer that there would be more, that have passed out of history without leaving a paper trail.
Bad historical reasoning. I could say that there would be more of anything by your standards.
>I could say that there would be more of anything
Honestly, don't you think so?
So much has been lost, we only know what we know based on the records that did survive
Is it likely that only two villages supplied the ninja needs of all of Japan and literally nobody else was a ninja and literally nobody else passed down their knowledge father to son like everybody else did with their trades, or is it likely that there are some ninja families out there we'll never know about cause they got wiped with no written record?
>Generally speaking, samurai were government workers. They were tasked with bureaucratic and civic duties as well as military ones
In general I agree, which is why I said "technically". My point was that there's little functional difference between ninjas and samurai; ninjas were simply "covert ops samurai". Ninjas would have had to be landholders and probably even landlords because no way they could have survived all their lives soldiering, and no way they would have reverted to subsistence farming alone between wars. So they don't deserve to be called mere "mercenaries".
I'm not the guy you're replying to, but IMHO the most likely scenaro with "ninjas" is that it's really just a fancy word for guerilla fighters of that particular place and time. I don't think that there were only two clans who supplied all of Japan's "ninja needs". I think there were likely a great many farmers who tried to pull of sneaky shit simply because they weren't members of the warrior class, they couldn't win in a straight-up fight so they use sneaky guerilla tactics instead. I think the case of the Koga and the Iga were coincidences where you had big established clans who kept good records happened to be involved in ninja activities. There were likely tons of others that didn't bother to write anything down, or it was long lost to history. Look at WWII for example. We can read records about how groups like the OSS or the SOE supported resistance activities in occupied Europe during WWII, but even though those are among the few examples of documented, organized, secret resistance techniques, codes, tools, etc, there were countless more resistance fighters who fricked with the Nazis who weren't part of those two formal organizations.
>it's really just a fancy word for guerilla fighters of that particular place and time
Yup
Some samurai are referred to as ninjas just because they did sneaky shit.
This. Iga and Koga tribes were basically tourist trap larp. Only the Bansen Shukai and various field reports are really real.
Ninja basically just means "sneak", it'd be like if in two hundred years aliens were having debates about whether "thieves" ever really existed in America and, if they did, if they all really dressed up as sexy cats and whipped people to death, because that's what Thief had come to mean in their movies and video games.
>ninjas aren't ninjas
>they're just sneaky fighters who didn't want their identity blown
so they're ninjas. Only children and weebs believe in their teleport magic power dragon summon bullshit
>Until they lost their landholds and then would have to work as mercs, particularly in the Sengoku Period.
That was true of knights also, that doesn't mean it's fair to say "knights were actually mercenaries" as a blanket expression.
They definitely existed, yes they are way overhyped by media as assassins creed magic death squads but shinobi irl did act as spies and on occasion assassins and combatants
Obviously they weren’t supersoldiers
Ninjas that would conduct assassinations would just dress like farmers, merchants and priests and couldnt carry their katana without blowing cover so they did sometimes have some of these "civilian legal" options. Most Ninja were just Samurai with office jobs though Ill give you that.
>Ninjas
Most of the fruity Asian weapons only came from 2 places:
-Japan because the Warrior Caste Samurai forbade civilians (especially in conquered Okinawa) to own weapons so they had to be creative in making unconventional weapons to defend from bandits (or bad samurai) to evade the law.
-India where you have tons of weirdass warrior-cults and tribes with very autistic ritualistic ideas about warfare (that often got them BTFOs).
For most of premodern Asia they didn't have strict civilian weapons bans or a wealth of autistic warrior cults. If a Ming Dynasty Chink peasant or Vietnamese/Korean militiaman wanted a weapon he just went to the blacksmith and had one made or bought one from the market.
There were plenty of fruity weapons in established martial arts traditions in China
Funnily by Taoists & Buddhist Influenced groups like the Shaolin. But not exactly dominant unlike how they're depicted in Kung Fu films. The average peasant & commoner martial artist was happy with a spear or a cheap short sword.
Medieval monasteries have always been centres of power. Functionally they were fortresses of knowledge, that had to be defended against raiders. Same deal whether it be a priory, a mosque, or a temple.
Except for one English monastery during the Dark Ages who got permission from the Pope to arm themselves with crappy little bows to defend against Viking raids, I know of no examples of fortified priories, and certainly no examples of armed monks outside of the Templars and Hospitallers, whose mandate was fighting in the Holy Land.
There are bajillions of fortified churches, abbeys and monasteries across Europe. As common as towerhouses were. Simply a fact of the times; if you had any kind of above average wealth, you had to protect it.
Many abbots hailed from noble families, sometimes taking vows after years of knightly career. They didnt have to personally take part in battles, they acted as seniors of the knights and sergerants that held fiefs or some tangible privileges within abbey`s lands, their wealth also allowed to hire mercenaries. Up until the end of middle ages lay clergyman that held high offices and huge estates on behalf of church had considerable forces at their disposal and often led them directly on campaigns. In many cases their main occupation were politics and war, many did not even reside in their dioceses or perform masses, they had vicars to do that. Which is no wonder in period, when Church and Pope were a temporal powers and the most lucrative church careers were reserved for the noblemen that were always parts of their power networks. You had teeneagers and old widowed soldiers appointed as bishops, because of their family connections and political affiliations. These people had to be active because their patrons, families and retainers demanded that.
Yeah, its all smiles and sunshine until Private Kazahkov frags you for being a drunken blasphemer, and Private Ivanov leaves you carcass in the pigpen out of spite for all the assrapes.
>Medieval monasteries have always been centres of power.
Not in China lol. They didn't have a powerful clergy running around like the Catholic Church (or even the concept of a Priest even, just Monks). Plus when Monasteries go bonkers the Imperial state put them down like rabid dogs.
>or even the concept of a Priest
You know nothing about chinese religion or China
Obviously Kung Fu films, video games like Dynasty Warriors and the like, etc, exaggerate the importance of those oddball weapons, it's not like the average rice farmer was walking around his fields with a cicada-wing blade, but those weapons didn't originate in India or Japan. And there are a LOT of them. Many are just some minor variation of a common weapon like a spear or sword but there's a lot more strange ones in Chinese martial arts compared to Japanese
to be fair, only like half of the things in that picture are that exotic
This shit it is what happens when you design weapons during peacetime.
No, they were not.
Even the peasantry were allowed to carry a large tanto or wakisashi.
The bullshido weapons were maybe used rarely, in a small portion of time, in a small area.
I don't recall the participants but I liked the samurai who went around being offended by untrained easants and making them fight him with a wakizashi while he used a katana
Those sickles were improvised weapons of rebelling peasants who were unable to get their hands on other things and assassins who would pretend to be peasants until they can kill you with those things. We have European martial texts about fighting with these things too. Never a chosen weapon but always a good impromptu weapon.
Why bother with a sickle when you have a knive the size of a machete on your person 24/7
In Japan they would take knives too often. Also a sickle is deceptively effective and you can have a guy going down the road with a bunch of "farmers" sowing wheat or something and as he goes between them they just start hacking into him. No delay for drawing a knife. Also I guess people just enjoy hacking into each other with different things.
Big difference between Japan and Europe. They had a lot less iron in Japan, a large blade like that would have been mad expensive in Japan, no farmer peasant could have afforded a knife the size of a German "messer". There's a lot less steel in those sickles, that's what a peasant could afford.
Now in Europe? Sure, they had messers, daggers, "long knives", you name it.
Anything with a longer handle has more leverage and thus more force and more stunning power, not to mention reach. The sickle could BTFO that knife.
Consider this we have texts today on all sorts of bullshit that no one actually does or uses that are written by people who know very little about the subject but are just knocking out a book for cash. Soldiering has always been an occupation for the expendable lower rungs of society and none of them wrote about it. Everyone will scream about Silver, but his favourite sword was a spadroon and apparently the ponces on YouTube don't like that because they don't realise that 90% of the time they were for use on horseback
>just martial arts larp crap?
Its martial arts larp crap. I will say there is some merit to boxing, the basics of Shotokan and boxing and western fencing. The rest can get fricked. When you realise the Hight of combat knife fighting against an aware opponent is to just go into a stabbing frenzy on their upper face and torso until they stop moving you realise it is all mostly a load of shit. Shotokan itself really own starts in the 1960s, the vat majority of other forms of karate for example come about after the Bruce lee movies created a market for infinite sub variations. There is nothing natural, peasant or marital about raising one of your legs above knee Hight in a fight and that's your clue on the 'top end' of MMA being a load of ponce like Mexican wrestling as well.
These lads would btfo Bruce Lee and then cum into the empty eyesocket of his mangled corpse.
>ebay zombie knife vs wish.com machete
>less effective than punching
any context for wtf happened here lol? dude with the zombie knife seemed to have the edge but towards the end he was fighting like an old lady, gets overwhelmed, I was sure he was fricked... then he manages to get the trip from the ground like a boss
Some places have sword fights. They go by Ghosts & Goblins rules, where on the first hit you take off your clothes, and on the second hit you 'die'.
Kids these days, am I right?
Drug dealers fighting over drug dealer things. Zombie knife got tired then got rocked by the first clean strike that hit him, after that he survived because the other guy got tired and his homosexual friend can't soccer kick despite being British.
Holy shit someone heard that doctor saying about knife fights "loser bleeds out in the streets, winner bleeds out in the ambulance) and really wanted to disprove both statements.
Japanese didn't care if their weapons were practical or not, they cared if people in the future would think they looked cool so they can make animated shows about turtle ninjas.
no, anybody would choose a real weapon over a sickle. there was no dude who was like "the sickle master" and would throw away a yari in favor of a kama.
The poor fricker told he needs to muster out at the lord's bequest in a week with his own polearm and his own food might
In China most of the weird shit like deerhorn knives, monk's spades and tiger head swords were either from Chinese carnies and mountebanks, but the vast majority of weapons (and they made millions) were sword, spear, and polearm, knives, maces, and etc.
Overall, motherfrickers in every time and every place have been using household implements to murk each other, nobody has a lock on it, the slopes are just better at the PR
>The poor fricker told he needs to muster out at the lord's bequest in a week with his own polearm and his own food might
Sickles and sythes are different.
You'll hammer whatever the frick you got to the top of a pole if His Lordship says you have to or he'll rape your children and burn your house down
Thats not the point, you said a scythe was a sickle, it's not.
Monk spade's were literally monk spades that just evolved into weapons. They were originally just carried to bury anybody dead they saw on the side of the road
>evolved into weapons. They were originally just carried to bury anybody dead
Kinda. There was a period when the Buddhists did charitable corpse duty and I'm sure at some point some monk had to body a dumbass with one, but the martial-arts-kung-fu monk's spade was pretty much an invention, either as a training device for fitness or for Chinese opera/acrobats, it was never carried into battle per se. all the accounts of it are fanciful and historical examples are hens teeth
It doesn't take rocket science for someone to look at a spade, hoe or adze and realise "hey this thing could do some proper damage if sharpened and all". Peasants probably did use them in uprisings and wars. The monk legend probably came later.
>sickles ever actually chosen as weapons in real life besides as weapons of opportunity
Yes.
Many people have hit on it being a farming tool that could be used as a weapon, but there were variants of them that were dedicated weapons. Some of them were even signed by the bladesmith that made them, much like swords were.
I mean the distinction between a chefs knife and a combat knife is pretty abstract.
Sure the blade designs are deliberate but at the end of the day they are so similar on a surface level you COULD say knife fighting skills are chef knife combat training.
It only sounds silly because western culture distinguishes the two but what if we didn’t?
Kamas as dedicated weapons would seem perfectly normal.
>inb4 someone misses the point entirely and goes on a autistic rant about how chef knives and combat knives are 100% distinct because muh edge design and nomenclature
Repeat after me.
Con-fig-ur-ation.
Even western medieval treatises exist on the use of sickles, scythes, grain flails and other farming implements as combat weapons. Even if a peasant may have a sword or large knife.
Presumably the idea is you might literally have the sickle or scythe in your hand, and it'd be more prudent to use it effectively over dropping it and drawing the knife or sword at your hip; potentially giving your attacker a chance to blow into you or strike you.