Edo Period. 40” length. Cane shaft with horn nock and red wrap to the brown fletching. Red wrapped and cord bound to tip. Rare karimata head of symmetrical swallow tail form with two points. See Art of the Samurai (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009) #187 for an archery set dedicated in 1662, of which two of eighteen arrows are of this type. That form has been described as a bowstring cutter in which capacity its use was probably restricted to archery exhibitions. It is, however a devastating flesh cutter and the wound it would produce would have little chance of healing compared to that of an armor-piercing arrow which made a small puncture that was survivable depending on the anatomy it encountered. Head crisp with storage patina. Shaft excellent. Fletching ruffled but with minor loss.
