Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Ninjas (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. Ninjas are totally awesome. They're silent, they can turn invisible, and they can totally flip out and kill people, especially their mortal enemies, pirates. Or at least that is what popular culture would like you to believe. Were ninjas really as powerful as they're made out to be? Were they the ultimate silent assassins? Learn more about ninjas, the real ninjas, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Starting point is 00:00:30 What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. If the only thing you know about Ninjas comes from movies and television, then what you know about ninjas is almost certainly wrong.

Starting point is 00:01:17 The first thing you need to know about ninjas is that they weren't even called ninjas. The Japanese actually called them Shinobi, which was short for Shinobi no-mono. Shinobi no-mono would mean a person who hides. The word ninja actually came from a Chinese pronunciation of the Japanese conja characters, which make Shinobi. For the rest of this episode, I'm just going to use the term ninja because that is what everyone is used to. The origin of ninjas is shrouded in history. There are stories that go back quite far, but it's impossible to tell if they're real.

Starting point is 00:01:51 There is one tale that says ninjas came from a demon that was a half man and a half crow. The development of the skill that made up the art of ninjutsu, the martial art practiced by ninjas, originated between the 7th and 10th centuries. A major change in Japanese military strategy started at the beginning of the 10th century when the Tang dynasty in China collapsed, and many of the Tang generals fled to Japan. They brought a more realistic philosophy of war to Japan, which was heavily centered around actually winning at any cost rather than more traditional Japanese ideas of honor. This blending of Chinese and Japanese tactics led to the development of ninjutsu.

Starting point is 00:02:29 For several centuries, it was an underground culture without any written rules of conduct. The formal development of ninjutsu was created by a former samurai by the name of Daiskei Tokakure. Dyske was on the losing side of a conflict and lost his lance in title. Normally, according to the Bishito Code, Diceke would have had to have committed Sepaku and taken his life. Instead, in 1162, he wandered into the mountains and renounced the Bishito Code. It was in the mountains that he came across a Chinese warrior monk by the name of Cain Doshi. Together, they created the discipline known as ninjutsu. Ninjitsu isn't a martial art in the same way that karate, judo, or taekwondo are martial arts.

Starting point is 00:03:10 Ninjutsu was designed to be more of a type of unconventional guerrishu. Rilla Warfare. Ninja too covers a wide variety of subjects. It encompasses espionage, infiltration, stealth, poisoning, along with training in weapons such as swords, knives, and staves. So why ninjas did engage in assassinations, that was not their primary function. It was mostly spying, sabotage, and planting false information with enemies. The closest modern example I can think of would be a CIA agent. Ninjas were very different than the samurai class. The samurai class came from the upper class of society. They were the Japanese equivalent of medieval European knights. They had a coat of honor and were part of the Japanese elite. Ninjas did not

Starting point is 00:03:53 come from the elite. They were often quite poor. The ninjas didn't particularly care who you were or where you came from. Women were often employed as ninjas. The women were known as Kunoichi and made for excellent spies if they posed as dancers or concubines. The samurai's looked down on ninjas. To the samurai, the ninjas were not honorable. The samurai fought in the open and with honor, whereas the ninjas fought in the shadows and hid themselves from sight. Even though the samurai class looked down in the ninjas, they needed the ninjas. When engaged in a war, sometimes you needed to do things that were dishonorable and underhanded. When a situation called for such activity, the samurai relied on ninjas. Even though the ninjas were looked down on and

Starting point is 00:04:36 came from a lower class of society, they became an indispensable part of warfell. in medieval Japan. The golden age of ninjas was between 1336 and 1600. This was a tumultuous period in Japan, with constant warfare between various warlords known as Daimaux. Most Daimaux hired ninjas as mercenaries, and ninjas could be found on both sides of almost every conflict. The ninja eventually organized into two primary clans, the Igga and the Koga. Igga and Koga were two separate adjacent regions of Japan that specialized in the training of ninjas. The regions were hard to access, which increased the secrecy and legend of the ninjas. There were entire villages in these areas that were dedicated just to ninja training.

Starting point is 00:05:20 Training ninjas was a good business. Ninses were mercenaries and were hired by all parties. Skilled ninjas could make a lot of money, and it was one of the best opportunities for someone who was poor to improve their status in life. The Ega and Koga clans produced professional ninjas that were in much higher demand than run-of-the-mill spies that could be recruited from anywhere. Within the ninja clans there was a hierarchy. At the top was a Jonin. Below that were Chunin, and then below then were Geenan. These three ranks primarily held administrative and organizational roles.

Starting point is 00:05:51 They were responsible for hiring and assigning ninjas to missions. This golden age of ninjas was the period that produced the most famous ninjas. For example, Ishikawa Goimann was a ninja thief who robbed other warlords. He was often called the Ninja Robin Hood, well, there isn't much to suggest that he actually gave his spoils to the poor. Hattori Hanzo is the name that might ring a bell. His name was used as a character in the Kill Bill movies. In reality, he was a leader of the Eager clan, but stories about him having mystical power circulated for centuries.

Starting point is 00:06:24 Mochizuki Chiyomi was one of the famous female ninjas. She was responsible for recruiting and training over 300 female ninjas, and she usually found her recruits from the ranks of orphans, prostitutes, and refugees. The golden age of the ninja came to a dramatic end in the late 16th century. The warlord, Oda Nabunaga, began to unify all of Japan. He managed to co-op the Koga Ninja clan, but couldn't subdue the Iga clan. So he attacked the Iga province with overwhelming force. He used a six-pronged attack with over 40,000 men to end the Iga Ninja clan.

Starting point is 00:06:58 The ninjas were not accustomed to open warfare like the samurai were, and they were easily routed. The ninjas who were not killed fled to the mountains. Many of the surviving ninjasu went into the employment of Tokugawa Iyasu, who established the Tokugawa Shogunate and ended the period of civil wars that had plagued Japan. Ninjas didn't die out after the 17th century, but their role certainly changed. Ninjutsu was still taught, but ninjas were hired more as bodyguards and spies, not so much as warriors. Other ninjas, not being able to find employment, were reduced to becoming bandits. The unification of Japan didn't require trained guerrilla fighters, and as Japan close its doors to the rest of the world, it didn't need the ninja skills to fight foreign threats either.

Starting point is 00:07:42 Ninjutsu never totally died out. It was passed along from person to person, even as Japan modernized. Today, 73-year-old Jinichi Kawakami is considered to be the last ninja and the last practitioner of authentic traditional ninjutsu. He was trained by a man named Masado Ishida, who claimed to be one of the last ninjitsu present. practitioners. He had one student who taught ninjutsu, but no longer takes any new students. Kawakwami has said that no one will replace him in the role of ninja master. He said, quote, In the age of civil wars, or during the Edo period, ninja's abilities to spy and kill or mixed medicine may have been useful. But now we have guns, the internet, and much better medicines. So the art of ninjutsu has no place in the modern age, end quote. So how much of the legend of

Starting point is 00:08:30 ninjas is actually true, what is fact and what is fiction? For starters, did ninjas really wear black? And the answer is, sometimes. Black was used for camouflage and concealment when conducting infiltration at night. Commandos and special operations units today will also wear black for the same reason. However, it was not a ninja uniform, as it's portrayed in the media today. A ninja was more than likely to wear normal civilian clothes as it allowed them to blend in. The next is did ninjas use throwing stars? And the answer is yes, but so did the samurai. A shirkin in Japanese wasn't just a throwing star, but could also be a dagger or some other similar weapon. A throwing star is not a lethal weapon. Killing some with it would be extremely difficult.

Starting point is 00:09:19 Many online videos demonstrate these weapons being used on meat or ballistic gel. More often than not, they actually just bounce off, and if they do stick, it will only be a small wound. A throwing star was primarily used as a distraction to open a fight. A fighter would throw it at their opponent's face to distract them so they could get in an opening attack. One way that a throwing star could be lethal is if it was poisoned. Sometimes a ninja would also dip it in animal dung so that when it struck an opponent, it would crave an infection in the wound. Did ninjas use ninja swords? And by ninja sword, these are the straight swords seen in movies like Kill Bill. And the answer is, no. This is a modern invention that seems to have been created in the 1960s. While ninjas would use a variety of weapons, including

Starting point is 00:10:05 swords, whatever swords they had were similar to the curved katanas found in the rest of Japan. Could ninjas disappear in a puff of smoke? No, but they did have techniques that sort of did the same thing. Instead of some flash powder that made smoke, and could probably burn down a Japanese building made of paper and wood, they would probably throw pepper into their enemy's eyes, which could temporarily blind them. That being said, when gunpowder became available, ninjas would have availed themselves of it. They didn't limit themselves to any particular weapons. Despite Janichi Kawakami's decision not to have anyone follow him in his footsteps, the ninjutsu tradition might still carry on in some form. In 2017, Mia University established the

Starting point is 00:10:49 world's first ninja research center and now offers a master's degree in ninja studies. Their first student graduated in 2020. In June of 2022, the discovery of a lost book titled Conrin Seo was announced. The book was a compendium written by hand in 1748, and it covers 48 different types of ninjutsu. So, ninjas were real, but they were far from the mystical super warriors portrayed in TV and movies. While they were sometimes assassins, They were mostly spies, saboteurs, and propagandists. Most of all, however, they were just given the jobs that the samurai didn't want to dirty their hands with. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel.

Starting point is 00:11:35 The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place where Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise is available to the top tier of supporters. If you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and members of the Completionist Club,

Starting point is 00:11:58 you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Ninjas (Encore)

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