A matter of cultural context

The Japanese had access to such technology as firearms and other fighting styles in the early renaissance when I believe it was the Portuguese. A short time later, Dutch explorers also visited.

The Japanese largely rejected the foreign influence, and closed the island to further contact with the West until the Americans in the 19th century.

With competition spurring technology, Europeans adopted a more pragmatic approach to killing each other. The Japanese did adopt the matchlock as both pistol and larger versions, but the technology didn't advance much from the time of their early adoption, and if I remember correctly, primarily used in large-scale conflicts, i.e. army vs. army.

You might also mention to your friend that Go Rin No Sho or "A Book of Five Rings", authored by Miyamoto Musashi in the 1560's during the time of European influence.

I have a deep respect for Japanese history and it's cultivation of Art and philosophy, but historically, their culture, looking inward became stagnant. Whereas in Europe and later, it’s influenced cultures like Filipino and Brazilian, evolved over time, because of conflict, competition, and to a lesser extent, collaboration.

That’s why In Europe, you see the descent with modifications of personal weapons over time to adapt to the new environments their use was placed. It’s a classic example of natural selection. Every time the cultural context changed, so did the personal weapons, and their uses, change. And at the beginning of each of these cultural shifts, you would have competition of a great diversity of methods (schools), eventually narrowing down to several primary methods.

That’s why we have the different swords throughout history, with similar uses, because the cultural environment had different influences but the underlying need was still there. While not direct lineage between them you could chart on a timeline a relationship between coustilles and later cinquedea, and you could even include large knives like the dirk, Bowie and Arkansas Toothpick.
Though unrelated to each other, they filled the same niche in their historical and cultural context. That niche being the need for a personal chunk of metal to kill others before the do the same to you.

I’m not going to even touch the Martial Arts of the different cultures, and how their change, or lack thereof is due to its cultural context.


I could be wrong.