Traditional Japanese Horseback Archery
The history of Japanese horseback archery dates back to the 4th century. It became popular in Japan, attracting crowds. The Emperor found that the crowds were not appropriate to the solemn and sacred nature of the occasion, and banned public displays in 698. Horseback archery was a widely-used combat technique from the Heian Period to the Sengoku Period. Nasu no Yoichi, a samurai of the Kamakura Period is the most famous horseback archer in Japan. Three kinds of Japanese horseback archery (Kasagake, Yabusame, and Inuoumono (dog shooting)) were defined.
When the arquebus was introduced to Japan in the 16th century, archery became outdated. To maintain traditional Japanese horseback archery, Tokugawa Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa shogun, ordered the Ogasawara clan to found a school. Current Japanese horseback archery succeeds to the technique reformed by the Ogasawara clan.
Traditionally, women were barred from performing in yabusame, but in 1963 female archers participated in a yabusame demonstration for the first time.
Read more about this topic: Mounted Archery
Famous quotes containing the words traditional, japanese and/or horseback:
“There are two kinds of fathers in traditional households: the fathers of sons and the fathers of daughters. These two kinds of fathers sometimes co-exist in one and the same man. For instance, Daughter’s Father kisses his little girl goodnight, strokes her hair, hugs her warmly, then goes into the next room where he becomes Son’s Father, who says in a hearty voice, perhaps with a light punch on the boy’s shoulder: “Goodnight, Son, see ya in the morning.””
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.”
—Paul Theroux (b. 1941)
“What journeyings on foot and on horseback through the wilderness, to preach the gospel to these minks and muskrats! who first, no doubt, listened with their red ears out of a natural hospitality and courtesy, and afterward from curiosity or even interest, till at length there “were praying Indians,” and, as the General Court wrote to Cromwell, the “work is brought to this perfection that some of the Indians themselves can pray and prophesy in a comfortable manner.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)