MLARTC_FM.part 1.qxp

(Chris Devlin) #1

scriptions of the Korean martial arts. Unsurprisingly, the
book emphasized fighting with weapons rather than fists
and feet.
1594 China’s Wan Li emperor canonizes a third-century A.D. soldier-
saint named Guan Yu. This converts the latter into Guan Di,
the Chinese God of War, whose likeness graces the entries of
many modern martial art schools.
About 1595 Dutch Republican soldiers develop the marching and musketry
drills that eventually become military close-order drill.
About 1600 The members of a Hindu religious cult known as the thugi
(pronounced “tug-ee,” and meaning “sly deceivers”) become
notorious throughout India for strangling unsuspecting mer-
chants, then dancing around their bodies. Although loot was
behind the cult’s popularity, cult leaders claimed that the Indian
death goddess Kali provided occult powers when offered hu-
man sacrifices.
About 1605 The Tokugawa court of Japan patronizes the Go In(Go Acad-
emy) of a master called Honinbo Sansha, leading to the intro-
duction of Honinbo’s method of classifying players (shôdanfor
the first degree, nidanfor the second degree, and so on) to the
samurai class.
1610 The Spanish create the name arnis de mano(harness of the
hands) to describe the ritual hand movements used during Fil-
ipino folk theatricals.
1612 Tokugawa soldiers hunt down gangs of armed peasants unwill-
ing to resume their status as serfs. This process is pronounced
complete in 1686, when 300 members of the All-God Gang are
arrested and their leaders executed. As usual, this was more a
case of the government declaring victory than an accurate rep-
resentation of the facts, as the modern Japanese crime syndi-
cates known as the yakuza date their origin to the officially
sanctioned guilds of peddlers, gamblers, and strong-arm men
formed in the wake of this repression.
1613 Some Beothuk Indians kill a couple of Basque cod fishers dur-
ing a fishing dispute off Newfoundland, encouraging the angry
Basques to sell large quantities of weapons, including a few old
muskets, to the Micmacs, the Beothuks’ traditional enemies,
and to offer bounties for Beothuk scalps. Although this offer
led to the first known scalping in North America, the practice
did not become widespread until the Massachusetts Bay Colony
began offering scalp bounties in 1675.
1617 English merchants carry Japanese matchlocks into Thailand
“three or four at a Tyme” so that the government “would not
take notice thereof” (Perrin 1979, 11, 18, 64). Japanese
firearms were preferred partly because they were better made
than European weapons, and mainly because the Christian
samurai in the Siamese king’s bodyguard preferred them.
1621 The last chapter of a Chinese military manual called Wu Bei
Zhi(Account of Military Arts and Science) includes illustra-
tions of some unarmed martial arts exercises. According to tra-
dition, these descriptions subsequently influence the develop-
ment of Shuri-di karate.


Chronological History of the Martial Arts 809
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