Language: Japanese
Source: In common use
Description
Kusari is the Japanese word for "chain". It is used to describe mail armor as well.
The full description would be: Kusari gusoku (鎖具足), literally: "chain armor". The jackets are called kusari katabira (鎖帷子), and the hoods kusari zukin (鎖頭巾).
The rings are usually much smaller than that on the mail of other cultures and are almost invariably stiched to a fabric or leather undergarment, or sandwiched between two layers of fabric. According to George Cameron Stone, Japan had more variety of mail than all the other cultures combined and many combinations of patterns exist, some with plates in-between.1
It was worn by samurai and soldiers of feudal Japan, up to the late 1860s.2
A rare photo of a group of samurai, late 1800s.
Three of them are wearing mail armor.
Photographer unknown. Public Domain.
Notes
1. George Cameron Stone; A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor: In All Countries and in All Times, Courier Dover Publications, 1999. Page 403.
2. Ian Heath, Armies of the 19th Century: Asia, Japan and Korea. Foundry Books, 2011. Pages 77-78.
