The word karate itself literally means "empty hand" (kara-empty, te-hand). Althougn many of the earlier origins of the art are traced to China, it owes its development to the inhabitants of Okinawa in the Ryukya islands, some 200 mites to the southwest of Japan. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the islands were conquered by the Japanese under the Daimyo of Satsuma. Like their Chinese predecessors, the Japanese would not allow the natives to carry weapons of any kind. But for their self-protection against their conquerers, the natives devised and elaborated the system of bare-hand fighting now known as karate.