Word: wakizashi
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...helmet's role as a sign of authority was backed up by other samurai artifacts: body armor, which turned its wearer into a bizarrely plated red lobster, and, of course, the weapons, the long sword known as a katana and the shorter wakizashi, together with their elaborate hilts, scabbards and other fittings, to which a large body of lore and connoisseurship attached. The figure who most vividly expressed the relation between culture and the samurai ethos remained a legend long after his death. He was Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), who wrote a famous text on swordplay (A Book of Five...
...police headquarters, the assassin calmly identified himself as Otoya Yamaguchi, 17, told detectives his only regret was failing to kill Communist Sanzo Nosaka and Japan Teachers' Union Chairman Takeshi Kobayashi as well as Asanuma. He had planned to bag all three. The sword, he explained, was a wakizashi, the kind worn by samurai until 1876, when the government forbade people to carry them. He had found it only the week before in the bottom of his father's closet...
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