OKINAWA: The largest of a group of islands located southwest of JAPAN. In the years of Chinese and Japanese occupation, during which the islanders were not allowed to carry weapons, the people of Okinawa developed various open-handed fighting techniques to defend themselves and adopted some common farming tools into lethal weapons. The open-handed techniques were introduced into JAPAN in the latter half of the nineteenth century, where they became KARATE. Possibly the most common Okinawan weapon is the rice flail, or NUNCHAKU. (See also Okinawa article).
