Hidden Weapon

The ninja's concealed throwing weapon

The shuriken is a small Japanese throwing weapon, and as its name, meaning a blade hidden in the hand, suggests, it was an auxiliary weapon carried in secret and thrown. It falls into two broad families: the bo-shuriken, a thin spike or needle form about 15 to 25 cm long thrown point-first, and the shaken, the flat, multi-pointed star form widely known as the ninja's throwing star, about 10 to 15 cm across. Although popular culture portrays it as the ninja's main weapon, it was in fact not a main arm but an auxiliary tool of distraction and deterrence that scattered the enemy's attention. Several were carried hidden in the clothing or the sash, and they were made of iron or steel.

A multipurpose ninja tool and throwing weapon

The kunai was originally a Japanese multipurpose tool used by masons and gardeners — a thick, leaf-shaped iron blade with a ring pommel at the end of the grip. About 20–30 cm long and 200–400 g, it was first a tool for digging into earth and walls, prying open gaps, or working plaster. It became famous when the ninja (shinobi) adapted it as an all-purpose tool and weapon: driven into a wall or the ground as a foothold, tied through the ring to a rope for use as a grapple or anchor, or wielded as a close-quarters dagger in a pinch. Popular culture shows it as a thrown weapon like a shuriken, but in reality it was heavy and unaerodynamic, so it threw poorly. It is the classic example not of a purpose-built weapon but of an everyday tool turned to military use.

A silent tube weapon firing poison darts

The blowgun (or blowpipe) is a projectile weapon: a long, narrow tube, roughly 100–300 cm, through which a dart is launched by the breath. With no powder or bowstring, it sends only a light dart by lung power, so the weapon itself does little harm — the plant poison smeared on the dart tip is the real killing agent. Its great strength is silence: the shot makes almost no sound and has no recoil, letting a hunter hit the mark before the quarry takes alarm. Its effective range is short, about 10–30 m, but its accuracy is high. The hunting peoples of the tropics — the Amazon, the Dayak of Borneo, the practitioners of the Japanese fukiya — each developed it independently as the archetypal silent, poison-tipped hunting tool.