Kama
Japanese agricultural sickle for harvesting, adopted into Okinawan te and karate; the weapon version has a notch where blade meets handle for catching a staff.
Quick Facts
JapanAbout the weapon
The kama is a traditional Japanese farming tool similar to a sickle, used at harvest. It reached Okinawa and became part of the martial art te and later karate. Sickle-bladed weapons such as the kamayari, a spear with a sickle blade, existed in Japan since the Kamakura period. Outside Japan the kama is especially widespread in the martial arts of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The weapon version usually has a notch at the point where the blade meets the handle, in which a staff can be caught. The kama is used singly and in pairs. In Matayoshi kobudō the kata Kama nu Ti is practised with it. Training with a sharp kama tends to cause injuries among inexperienced practitioners, so blunt training versions are made; kama with a deliberately blunt edge for performing kata are called kata kai. The use of the kusarigama and the kyoketsu-shoge developed out of the kama.
Related weapons
- Gave rise to: Kusarigama
- Gave rise to: Kyoketsu-shoge