Yari

Origin

The yari appeared in the late Kamakura period (1185 to 1333) and reached its height in the Sengoku period. As mass infantry combat, rather than the personal valor of the samurai with bow and sword, came to decide the course of war, the straight spear, easy to handle and suited to mass use, rose to be the main weapon of the battlefield. In this course the yari pushed aside the naginata, the swung cutting glaive, and took the place of the infantry's standard weapon. The simple motion of a straight thrust could be learned quickly even by a freshly levied ashigaru, and a densely arrayed wall of points held back even the charge of mounted warriors.

Features

• A straight, double-edged blade, the hallmark of the Japanese spear
• Various forms such as the su-yari, the cross-shaped jumonji-yari, and the sickle kama-yari
• A blade of 15 to 90 cm, a total length of about 250 to 650 cm
• The main weapon of the ashigaru, the foot soldiers
• A weapon that decided the battles of the Sengoku period
• A lacquered shaft and a saya, a protective scabbard for the blade

Stories

The true worth of the yari showed in mass use. The ashigaru foot soldiers thrust the long nagae-yari out together in a dense formation to raise a wall of points that blocked the enemy's approach, and they also beat the long, springy shafts down from above onto the heads and shoulders of the enemy. This wall of points halted the charge of mounted warriors and at times, with a hooked blade, caught a mounted enemy and dragged him down. The individual samurai, meanwhile, met single combat with a shorter, more manageable yari, and variants such as the jumonji-yari allowed varied attacks, cutting and hooking with the side blades along with the thrust.

Weakness

The weakness of the yari arises from its length. In a narrow interior or a forest, where there is no room to wield it, the long shaft becomes a burden and cannot show its full power. Above all, once the mass formation breaks, the long, heavy spear is outmatched in the close press of melee by a sword or a dagger quickly drawn. A yari in one man's hand is strong only at a distance, and weakens once the enemy presses inside its reach, the typical limit of a long polearm.

Cultural Significance

The yari is a weapon symbolic of the mass warfare of the Sengoku period and of the rise of the ashigaru. To the warrior who first crossed spears with the enemy on the battlefield was given the great honor of the ichiban-yari, the first spear, and skill with the spear was a measure of a warrior's valor. The seven young warriors who won merit with the spear at the Battle of Shizugatake in 1583 were honored as the Seven Spears of Shizugatake and left their names to posterity. In this way the yari was more than a mere infantry weapon: it showed the very character of Sengoku warfare, in which the valor of the individual and the strength of the mass were decided together.

In Popular Culture

The yari is a weapon never missing from works about the Sengoku period. It appears as the spear formation of the ashigaru and as the prized spear of a commander in action games such as Samurai Warriors and Sengoku Basara and in Total War Shogun and Nioh. The cross-shaped jumonji-yari in particular is favored as the emblematic weapon of popular commanders such as Sanada Yukimura. In fiction, though, the focus falls on flashy personal valor, so the historical fact that the true element of the yari lay not in the individual skill of the samurai but in the dense formation of the ashigaru mass is treated relatively faintly.

Trivia

• The seven young warriors under Toyotomi Hideyoshi who won merit with the spear at the Battle of Shizugatake in 1583 are called the Seven Spears of Shizugatake, a representative tale that shows the honor the spear enjoyed in the Sengoku period.
• The blade of the yari was forged by swordsmiths in the same way as a sword, joined firmly by a very long tang driven deep into the lacquered shaft, and kept with a saya, a protective scabbard, over the blade.
• The prized spear Tonbogiri, the Dragonfly Cutter, of the Sengoku commander Honda Tadakatsu, one of the Three Great Spears of Japan, took its name from the legend that a dragonfly alighting on its edge was cut clean in two.