Before the term “bushido” (literally “the way of the warrior”) was ever invented, samurai warriors used the term “kyuba no michi” to describe their way of life. The meaning of this phrase is “the way of the bow and the horse,” reflecting the fact that the early samurai were elite mounted archers rather than swordsmen. Spearmen and musketeers came to dominate the Japanese battlefield, with the sword in a largely symbolic role as “the soul of the samurai.” But the early importance of the bow was never quite forgotten, and archery is still one of the surviving Japanese martial arts.
