nagikama (sickle-weapon) (薙鎌)

Nagikama is a weapon which has an approximately 210 cm-long columnar wooden stick as a handle, to the upper part of which a short straight sword with its edge facing toward is orthogonally attached. It is used as to mow down, to thrust, to cut, to defeat opponents by hooking with the blade, or to cut their heads. It is also called, nagaegama or yaegama, depending on schools.

It is considered as a derivative of a long-handled sickle for cutting algae entangling boats.

It's considered as one of the furnishing goods for samurai as well as "naginata" (Japanese halberd) or spears, and already used during the Genpei War, but after the civilization and enlightenment, it hardly existed and also there are few schools which teach its techniques.

Existing schools which use nagikama are, such as "Fusen ryu jujutsu" (Fusen school of classical Japanese martial art). There are also schools which use "kusarigama" (a chain-sickle) which consists of nagikama with a chain weight, in the art of kusarigama of the combined swordplay.

[Original Japanese]