Description
War fans varied in size, materials, shape and use. One of the most significant uses was as a signalling device. Signalling fans came in two varieties:
- a real fan that has wood or metal ribs with lacquered paper attached to the ribs and a metal outer cover
- a solid open fan made from metal and/or wood, very similar to the gunbai used today by sumo referees.
The commander would raise or lower his fan and point in different ways to issue commands to the soldiers, which would then be passed on by other forms of visible and audible signalling.
War fans could also be used as weapons, The art of fighting with war fans is tessenjutsu.
Read more about this topic: Japanese War Fan
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The type of fig leaf which each culture employs to cover its social taboos offers a twofold description of its morality. It reveals that certain unacknowledged behavior exists and it suggests the form that such behavior takes.”
—Freda Adler (b. 1934)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)