History
Before its arrival on Okinawa, the sai was already being used in other Asian countries including India, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The Indonesian form of the sai is called chabang or tjabang, which is used in the Indonesian fighting art known as pentjak-silat. Early evidence from Java in the form of art work is said to show that the chabang predates the sai's use in Okinawa and China. The chabang is said to have been developed from the trisula. The word trisula itself can refer to both a long or short-handled trident. Because the trisula was created in South Asia, another theory is that the sai originated in India and spread along with Hinduism and Buddhism. This is supported by the fact that the trisula is important as a Hindu-Buddhist symbol.
In Okinawa the sai was used by domestic police (ufuchiku) to arrest criminals and for crowd control, the use of the sai was perfected in 1668 by Moto Chohei, an Okinawan prince.
The sai eventually reached Japan in the form of the jutte (jitte), which usually has only a single prong although some jutte have two prongs like a sai. Both are truncheon-like weapons, used for striking and bludgeoning.
Read more about this topic: Sai (weapon)
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