The samurai used various weapons, but the
katana is the weapon that is synonymous with samurai.
Bushido teaches that the katana is the samurai's soul and sometimes a samurai is pictured as entirely dependent on the katana for fighting.
They believe that the katana was so precious that they often gave them names and considered them as part of the living. However the use of swords did not become common in battle until the
Kamakura period (1185–1333), where the
tachi and
uchigatana (the predecessor to the katana) became prevalent.
The katana itself did not become the primary weapon until the
Edo period.
After a male child of the bushi was born, he would receive his first sword in a ceremony called mamori-gatana. The sword, however, was merely a charm sword covered with brocade to which was attached a purse or wallet, worn by children under five. Upon reaching the age of thirteen, in a ceremony called Genbuku (元服), a male child was given his first real swords and armour, an adult name, and became a samurai. A katana and a wakizashi together are called a
daisho (lit. "big and small").
The
wakizashi itself was a samurai's "honour blade" and purportedly never left the samurai's side. He would sleep with it under his pillow and it would be taken with him when he entered a house and had to leave his main weapons outside.
The
Tantō was a small dagger sometimes worn with or instead of the Wakizashi in a daisho. The tanto or the wakizashi was used to commit
seppuku, a ritualized suicide.
Samurai helmet with a half-face mask, made of leather and iron,
Edo period,
17th century.
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
The samurai stressed skill with the
yumi (longbow), reflected in the art of
kyujutsu (lit. the skill of the bow). The bow would remain a critical component of the Japanese military even with the introduction of firearms during the
Sengoku Jidai period. The yumi, an asymmetric
composite bow made from
bamboo,
wood, rattan and
leather, was not as powerful as the Eurasian
reflex composite bow, having an effective range of 50 meters (about 164 feet) or less (100 meters [328 feet] if accuracy was not an issue).
It was usually used on foot behind a tedate (手盾), a large and mobile bamboo wall, but shorter versions (hankyu) could also be used from horseback. The practice of shooting from horseback became a Shinto ceremony of
Yabusame (流鏑馬).
In the 15th century, the
yari (spear) also became a popular weapon, displacing along with the
naginata from the battlefield as personal bravery became less of a factor and battles became more organized around massed, inexpensive foot troops
ashigaru. A charge, mounted or dismounted, was more effective when using a spear than a katana and it offered better than even odds against a samurai using a katana. In the
Battle of Shizugatake where
Shibata Katsuie was defeated by
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, then known as Hashiba Hideyoshi, the Seven Spearmen of Shizugatake (賤ヶ岳七本槍) played a crucial role in the victory.
The latter half of the 16th Century saw the introduction of the teppo or
arquebus in Japan through Portuguese trade, enabling warlords to raise effective armies from masses of peasants. The new weapons were highly controversial. Their ease of use and deadly effectiveness was perceived by many samurai as a dishonorable affront to Bushido tradition.
Oda Nobunaga made deadly use of the teppo at the
Battle of Nagashino in 1575, leading to the end of the
Takeda clan.
After their initial introduction by the Portuguese and the Dutch, the teppo, were produced on a large scale by Japanese gunsmiths.
By the end of the 16th Century, there were more firearms in Japan than in any European nation. Teppo, employed en masse largely by
ashigaru peasant foot troops were in many ways the antithesis of samurai valor. With the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate and an end to civil war, production of the guns declined sharply with prohibitions to ownership.
By the Tokugawa Shogunate most spear-based weapons had been phased out partly because they were suboptimal for the close-quarter combat common in the Edo period, this combined with the aforementioned restrictions on fire-arms resulted in the
Daisho being the only weapons typically carried by samurai.
In the 1570s cannons became a common part of the samurai's armory. They often were mounted in castles or on ships being used more as anti-personnel weapons though in the siege of Nagashino castle (1575) a cannon was used to good effect against an enemy siege-tower.
The first popular cannon in Japan were swivel-breech loaders nick-named kunikuzushi or "Destroyer of Provinces". Kunikuzushi weighed 264 lbs. and used 40 lb. chambers, firing a small shot of 10 oz. The Arima clan of Kyushu used guns like this at the battle of Okinawate against the Ryozoji clan.
By the time of the Osaka campaign (1614-1615) cannon technology had improved in Japan to the point where at Osaka, Ii Naotaka managed to fire an 18 lb. shot into the castle's keep.
Some other weapons used by samurai were
jō,
bō, and the Chinese
trebuchets (more as an anti-personnel weapon than a siege engine).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai#Kamakura_Bakufu_and_the_rise_of_samurai
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