Kaburaya?

[Brian]

I don't think there is enough material to warrant a new section. Just take a look at the last 10 years here and see how much has been posted. Even the armour section is much slower than the rest, and that is a HUGE field.

[rematron]

Fair enough.  I see your point.

[ROKUJURO]

Well, in the last 10 years there was not much interest on the 'surface', but now we see that there is a lot of it and quite some members are (or were) practicing KYUDO. In my understanding, archery is much closer to the SAMURAI culture than the military section. 

Brian, I have no idea if another sub-forum would mean more work for you?

[sabiji]

16 hours ago, rematron said:

Were Japanese hunting bows made in a similar way as the yumi, as a composite of bamboo and hard wood?

In some cases, even only hardwood. Historical hunting bows are very rare. This has several reasons. 

Firstly, the hunting of mammals and the consumption of their meat for religious reasons is not as common as in, for example, historical Europe. Only with the massive population growth did the meat of wild animals become increasingly interesting.

Another very important point, however, is firearms. With their appearance, the bow was soon replaced for hunting purposes.
What hardly anyone knows: although the peasants were systematically disarmed from the Momoyama onwards. Firearms for hunting purposes remained with the peasants in not insignificant numbers.
The reason for this is the actual purpose of hunting, which was not primarily the procurement of food, but rather the protection of agricultural land. Securing the food supply of the population by protecting it from damage caused by wild animals was very important to the shogunate. Funnily enough, firearms were considered agricultural implements in this context.

By the way, the importance of this point can also be seen in the various orders to disarm the civilian population after World War II - which we are particularly concerned about because of the swords. Hunting rifles were specifically excluded.
When my daughter worked on a farm in southern Kyushu, the main problem had been monkeys, which could destroy entire peanut crops in no time at all. But the farmers usually used firecrackers or dogs.

Long story short. Handling firearms requires less knowledge and skill, and is therefore more effective.  The training of an archer is lengthy and requires much more practice, and played less and less of an important role even in the Edo period among the samurai. But at least in this area, the tradition persisted in the form of Kyudo or Kyujutsu and Yabusame. In many other areas, the importance of other types of bows in Japan disappeared, but they existed.

[rematron]

@sabijiThank you, Thomas!  Fascinating.  I love learning this history.  It's very interesting that the sword/weapon hunt in the Momayama period and then later the U.S. occupation didn't include firearms.  I had no idea.  So basically, only weapons whose sole purposes were for the taking of human life were confiscated.