The Yari & Naginata
Ancient warriors carrying a naginata
In the Ancient times, the Holy God Izanagi, come within reach of the archaic soup that shaped the world. He took his spear and dipped it into the soup forming droplets onto its blade. It was believed that these were the similar droplets that created the islands of Japan. By then, the spear was considered a holy weapon as they owed it to the structure of their land of birth.
In a different place, during the time of the cave men, the spear was used to hunt and made war. For centuries, it was the primary weapon of the warriors. There were different structures and advantages of each item but the Japanese had their version.
In the 9th century, the strategy of many spearmen was useful in the battles against the Ainu, the indigenous people or groups in Japan. As sword fabrication from different continents of Asia had been completely absorbed, they were easily customized in the production of yari (Japanese term for spear). Basically, the blades of these yari were straight but parallel sides were sharp. This shows that aside from thrusting, the sharpened sides could be used for cutting, adding an extra range of techniques to the spearman.
Hamon was considered in the construction of yari. It was to retain a hard and sharpened cutting-edge with less risk of breaking. The style of forging of a yari was a unique characteristic of the sword smiths at Nara in Yamato province where the original yari-makers came. The yari was rarely the favored weapon of dignified samurais but the ancient capital of Nara in early days attracted militant warrior monks and many monasteries were built there due to the introduction of Buddhism.
The Sohei (warrior monks) were found to be wearing swords and complete armor at all times and they were greatly skillful at the martial arts. They employed expert sword smiths and almost all those of Yamato-den (a school of sword making) were retained by the monastic organization. Because of their expertise at fighting, samurai lords would employ these fearsome warriors.
In the late 12th century, legendary wars amid Minamoto and the Taira (two opposing clans) were the highlight. The preferential weapon of these gentlemen was called the naginata. It was a glaive like weapon with a large curved blade, and is more like a sword than most yari. Naginata was derived from an agricultural implement called “nata” and the adjective “nagi” or “long”.
Mounted on poles with metal fixtures, refined naginata may also be found in shira-saya (“white scabbard”). They are also occasionally shortened and reshaped to be mounted as a sword. On the creation of yari and naginata, the most common embellishment is family mon (crest) for identification. These could be found on both scabbards and poles.
Today, there are only few yari or naginata with extraordinary quality and majority of it were carried by the retainers of the great samurai lords. The Mon on their pole arms shows to all which tribe they came from and so the yari carrier (yari-moche) was a significant position in the chain of command.
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