Talk:Nikana/@comment-25176211-20140725192110/@comment-88.113.178.17-20140727172331

So did every other Japanese with a violent bent before Hideyoshi's edicts. And quite a few outside the hereditary warrior classes proper even after those, as the Japanese were just as creative with legal loopholes and weaseling special permissions as anyone else.

Nevermind now that the whole sword type (and the associated horseback riding, sabres being first and foremost cavalry weapons) was adopted from the indigenous "northern barbarians" back when the Yamato were still in the process of taking over the main island.