What came first: bunkai or two person kata or kata; kobudo or empty hand; chicken or the egg?

An excellent questions from Matt Jones at the Ryukyu Martial Arts (Research and General Discussion) Facebook group. The question goes like this:

"What came first, bunkai or two person kata drills or kata? Then he asks, what came first, kobudo or empty hand? Then, as a jest he asks what came first, the chicken or egg?" So, I answered with the following:

Last question first, actually a one cell type split, then along with evolution, created the creature that one day would soon be the chicken who then laid eggs.

Second question next, empty hand is first simply because humans didn’t survive using weapons until a time came to discover ways to be superior to other tribes for survival. Weapons came second and it is believed that empty hand training was the prerequisite to kobudo training in those early years.

First question next, bunkai because kata were created to pass along those combatives that Okinawans found to be useful, they worked. They took those techniques, tactics and strategies and created kata to teach those who were like recruits of today, no combat or experience so they developed kata from the bunkai to teach and pass on leaving the recruit to test and validate when they entered into combat.

I cannot for the life of me determine why those questions were important except maybe as a historical fact but it was asked and the reason I started this particular blog was to provide an answer to such questions with the caveat that the answers provided are mine from my perceptions, my perspectives and my experiences.