Origin of the Emei Piercers?

[AlamoRemebered]

Maybe some of the incredibly knowledgeable people here can explain something about Emei Daggers.

You can buy Emei Piercers aka Emei "Thorns" (Emeici, 峨嵋刺) from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Claw-Eme.../dp/B0000C7CD9

The Wikipedia entries (both English and Chinese through Google Translate) describe these as traditional weapons developed at Mt Emei, and the Chinese article cites a demonstration by female practitioners:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeici
• http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/峨嵋刺

However Emei Sect is just a literary invention, right? Otherwise Emei is a holy Buddhist mountain, not particularly associated with female martial artists. So why are these attributed to Mt. Emei? Did someone just decide they were a cool idea after reading about them and start making and using them, or were they a real thing which has just mistakenly become associated with Emei because of JY's writings? Were there Emei daggers beforehand which motivated JY's putting a women's martial arts sect there?

What I can make out on the origin of Emeiquan, it sounds like these "piercers" really were from Emei, and that because they have been attributed to nuns it may have influenced the literary decision to make those practitioners female:

http://www.baike.com/wiki/峨嵋刺
http://www.baike.com/wiki/峨嵋派
http://www.baike.com/wiki/峨嵋拳