Quote Originally Posted by Pauly View Post
Tassels on spears are not a uniquely Chinese thing.

They were widely used in cultures that had no direct or indirect contact with the Chinese. Incas in the Americas and in Sub Saharan Africa in many different cultures.

What that tells you is that the tassels had a real battlefield use.
It really doesn't. You see plenty of various items across the cultures that appear without any practical use whatsoever. The best example is probably carving reliefs into stone - sure, sometimes they are there to tell a story, but most often, they serve as a status symbol or a simple decoration.

Warfare is no different - give a soldier a partially wooden weapon, and he will soon carve stuff into the wood.

Spoiler: 4th century Roman
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Spoiler: WW1
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Rank insignia is a possibility, but placing that on the business end of a spear has its problems, and Occam's razor says we should lean towards the simplest explanation - soldiers wanted to make their stabby stick look nice. And that sometimes makes you do wildly impractical things:

Spoiler: Germany, 1560
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