Talk:Naginata

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Japan To-do:

I removed the sentence "During the Edo Period all Japanese women were required to master the naginata by age 18."; perhaps some segment such as samurai women in some geographic location or women in the Ōoku were required to master it?

Contents

[edit] Naginatakas

This page previously read:

Naginatakas were often used to create space at the battlefield.

User:66.195.118.2 has changed the first word of that sentence to "naginatas" under the assumption it was a misspelling. My assumption however is that this is the Japanese suffix -ka as in karateka "practicioner of Karate." So it is probably not a misspelling.

That said, I'm not sure if I should revert it or not: the term naginataka was not explained elsewhere in the article (making it easy to assume it was just a misspelling) and the sentence still makes fairly good sense with the change.

So should we leave it as it is, revert it, or perhaps go a third way and change it to "Soldiers armed with naginatas..."?

--Iustinus 17:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

  • As a naginata practicioner myself, the term "naginatika" is not commonly used to describe naginata practicioners. The Southern California Naginata Federation's web glossary does include the term, although I have never heard it or seen it in print outside of that glossary, so I wouln't consider it to be a final authoritative source, it may have arisen only in Western practice. Many of the Japanese martial arts, do not use the -ka suffix.
  • I do think we should revert it, as the term, even if relevant is being used improperly. Soldiers in a battlefield context would not be referred to as "naginatikas", they would be referred to by their rank or position on the battlefield (sohei, samurai, etc...). The sentence is intended to show that the naginata, in a battlefield situation, was significant because, like other pole arms, it could distance the user from their attacker, putting attackers with hand to hand weapons at a disadvatage. The weapon's role is what is being described, not the training of the user. Glowimperial 19:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Excellent points. However I cannot understand the text as you have ammended it: "Naginatas were often used by both foot soldiers to create space on the battlefield." What do you mean by "both foot soldiers"? Surely this is some sort of error. --Iustinus 06:37, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
It was an error. It originally was going to read Naginatas were often used by both foot soldiers and cavalry to create space on the battlefield., but I removed the cavalry reference, as the naginata wouldn't have been used by cavalry as a space clearing or crowd control weapon, the cavalry use of the naginata is not well documented, and I can't speak directly to it's function, other than as a weapon, when used by cavalry. I'll fix the entry now. Glowimperial 14:28, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Appearance in fiction

It seems to me that in an article like this, having a pop-culture list is particularly senseless. I mean, the naginata is a fairly well-know weapon, so of course it's going to appear all over. It seems like having a list of movies in which swords or spears have appeared. --Iustinus 20:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I've had the same thought. I think there is room for the section, though It should be for notable apperances in fiction only. What is a notable apperance? Using the sword as an example Excalibur's apperance in the Grail stories would be good example of notable. I'm not sure what notable apperances the naginata makes in historical Japanese fiction, and research into the subject would be difficult, as naginatas and spears are often confused in both original versions and moreso in translations of Japanese literature, both historical and fictional.
A catalog of every anime, video game or manga giving as little as a brief glimpse of the naginata is not helpful to the end user. In those narratives, the naginata is often depicted as a much more dynamic/showy weapon than it is in those fictions, and they provide no real information as to it's real world practice or forms. That's not to say that there shouldn't be mention of it's interpretation in fiction - swords are portrayed in fiction just as unrealistically. Glowimperial 01:15, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree that an exhaustive listing of every appearance of naginata or naginata-like weapons would not be productive, since, as previously mentioned, the actual construction and usage of the weapon differ significantly from how it is often portrayed. Many of the references given are not of naginata at all, but of other polearm weapons such as the Chinese Kwan Dao, or entirely fictional weapons, such as the reference to Matt Cauthon's polearm in The Wheel of Time. I haved removed a number of erroneous references, however, I do believe the list should stay as a helpful supplement to the photos provided. I have to disagree with the original statement that the naginata is a "well-known weapon". Prior to when I took up the study of the naginata, I had never heard of it, and I have never once encountered someone other than a kendo practicioner who had heard of it. ReMarkAble 02:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
It certainly seems to be "well known" in the East: pretty much every period movie or anime shows someone using a naginata (or attempts to: as you say the construction might not be right). Even in the West it shows up in a lot of movies that take place in Japan or the greater Orient. Not to mention the slew of video games still listed. It still seems to me that this is a waste of engergy: it's too commonly depicted a weapon, and fans of this-or-that video game or movie are going to keep adding every little reference to the list. --Iustinus 04:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Real naginata

Properly constructed functional naginata are available for sale in the United States. Hanwei makes a naginata with a forged carbon steel blade with a full tang and a solid one piece shaft with a tear drop shaped cross section (http://www.casiberia.com/cas/product_details.asp?id=SH1020). This weapon was constructed specifically for martial arts practitioners.

[edit] Contradiction

The article on the nagamaki says the naginata can trace its origins back to the BCs.

  • The article on nagamaki is incorrect. The early origins of the naginata are still murky. I'll try to sort it out. Glowimperial 12:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)