Japanese whistling arrow not what ashigaru wanted to hear today

This video shows a kabura-ya (鏑矢), a turnip-headed whistling arrow, fired by a master kyudo archer at the Albert Park Sports Stadium in Melbourne on 13 February, 2010. Contrary to my jokey headline, they were used mostly in formal exchanges, as signals, or to carry messages, not as terror weapons like the Aztec Death Whistle.