Stuff You Should Know - How Samurai Work

Episode Date: June 17, 2010

The Samurai were legendary Japanese swordsmen and warriors, known for their loyalty and adherence to a strict code of honor. Josh and Chuck tackle the Samurai in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to actually, Konichiwa, and welcome to the podcast. Yeah, I had no idea what Samurai were all about. I didn't either. Yeah, I knew that they were excellent swordsmen. Sure.

I vaguely had some sort of conception from Kill Bill, Vol. 1 and 2. Yeah. And of course, there was like the whole Wu Tang Clan phase that I went through for a while. Sure. But that's really about the limits of my understanding of Samurai until now, because we've been meaning to do this for about 17, 19 months now. Not true. And we've researched it just about every week.

So if we fail on this one, it's seppuku for us. Exactly. Nice one. Thank you. Chuck, let's talk about the history of the Samurai. Okay, Josh. I have a prepared joke, should I say it? Yeah.

No one is quite sure who the first Samurai was, Josh, but we all know who the last one was. That was pretty good. And he was short. Yeah, he was real short and is still. I didn't like that movie. In the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, Josh, there were a bunch of rivalries going in Japan and a bunch of wars. Yeah. It was not a very good place to be.

And a lot of these wars, most of them, in fact, were against the islands, the people who inhabited the islands of Japan, which the imperial Japanese called Imishi. Which means barbarians. And yeah, they were tough dudes, apparently. Yes, they were. And they were pretty good at riding horses, right? Yeah, were they the ones that were the riding archers? They were, and so were another group from the plains called the Kanto people.

And the Kanto tribe actually were kind of in charge of fighting the Imishi. And the Kanto and the Imishi were really good at riding a horse, shooting a bow and arrow at the same time. Not easy. No, it's not easy. Not at all. And actually, the earliest Samurai did this. This is what they were modeled on. They were horseback archers.

Right. And that whole school of discipline that you identify with Samurai grew out of the kind of training it takes to be able to ride a horse and accurately shoot someone in the throat with an arrow. Right. Right? Yeah. And to practice shooting someone in the throat with an arrow while you're galloping past them, what did they used to use, Chuck? This is bad and good.

Bad was they used dogs, running dogs, which was awful. The good news is even way back then, the shogun came along and said, no more dogs. Right. He said it's a cruel thing. And oh, did he really? And yeah, they didn't use the dogs as target practice anymore. Right. Animal rights way back then.

Yeah. Pretty cool. And so originally the Samurai was, like we said, based out of these horseback archers, but horses played a big role in the lives of the Samurai. And this code that we'll get to more in depth, it's called Bushido, was grown out of another kind of code or a way of living called Kyuba? Kyuba? Kyuba? No Michi. Man, do you know how many times I've said that in my head and now that I say it out loud, it's Kyuba no Michi, right?

Yeah. Which means the way of the horse and the bow, which basically if you were dedicating yourself to being a horseback archer, that was your life. That's all you did. You lived, ate, and breathed it. Right. Right? So that kind of discipline formed the foundation of the Samurai outlook, the Samurai way of life, the Samurai super toughness. Yeah.

Yeah. Nice work. They're also an elite warrior and that sprung, that status sprung from the fact that they were powerful families that lived way out far, far away from the capital. And they would like pass their land down in their prestige from one generation to the next over hundreds of years. So they were these warrior houses and they attain noble status. You combine that with the Amishi Barbarian and the code, the, what was it? The Kyuba no Michi. Right.

The warrior code. Right. And basically that was the formation for the early Samurai. Right. And the reason that you had all these warrior clans was because like you said, the, I guess the early millennia, the first half of the first millennia was a really dangerous place. Lots of civil war, lots of land grabs, lots of just general butchery. Yeah. Power shifts.

Sure. All the clans grew out of this and they started basically cultivating Samurai. And one of the key aspects, key characteristics of Samurai is pretty much the opposite of Ninja. You remember when we did the Ninja podcast? Yeah. They kind of, they turned on whoever hired them if you know somebody came along and offered them more money. Not so with the Samurai. No, they serve their master, the Daimyo.

Is that how you pronounce it? I believe so. Okay, they serve their Daimyo with absolute loyalty even if that meant death. And didn't you already say it means one who serves? I didn't. Did you? Maybe I'll just imagine that. No.

Samurai means one who serves. Right. And that was actually funny enough originally applied to bureaucrats. Yeah. Interesting. And then it was ultimately applied to Samurai which little by little there's all these different foundations that finally come together. And I think the 12th century when these two clans, these two warrior clans that were vying for power, the Taira, Taira, T-A-I-R-A, we're going to go ahead and say the Taira clan. Right.

And the Minamoto clan basically came together and clashed. And in 1192, the Minamoto's won. How do you like my Japanese now? It's really good. Yeah. He said, okay, you know what? We now run Japan. The emperor said, hey, way to go.

I'm going to make you shogun, which is essentially the head of the joint chiefs, the head of the military. Yeah, that kind of backfired on him. What did Minamoto do? Hey, thanks for making me shogun. I'm going to take over and strip you of all your power. And if you say one word, I'll cut your head right off of your body. Right. And so what happened was the Minamoto clans set the samurai up for this elite status that they never had before.

Yeah, they were servants before. Exactly. They served the Daimyo. And there was still an entire class of lower echelon samurai who served the Daimyo. Right. So in Daimyo, these feudal lords served the shogun. Right. So in shogun, Daimyo, samurai.

Right. And then everybody else. Right. And the Minamoto clan who set up the shogun, the government that they ran was the Bakufu. Yeah, that was a dictatorship, basically. Right. And that was the last time the samurai really changed. From that point on, the modern samurai was born.

Right. Yes. So Josh, we've talked about how they formed. Yes. Should we talk a little bit about just the nuts and bolts of what makes a samurai? I think we should. If you're talking samurai, you cannot skip the armor. The lamellar armor, it's called.

And you've probably seen it before. It's made by binding metal scales together on a plate. And then they cover it with lacquer to waterproof it. And then all these little light plates are fashioned together by leather strapping. And that's the armor that distinctively you've seen on a samurai. You know, it's weird. I just wrote an article about skin disorders. And there is a skin disorder called lamellar ichthyosis, which is basically like fish scale skin disorder.

There you have it. Yeah. Full circle. Yes. And then on the yori, which was mounted samurai, it was a lot heavier with the heavy helmets and shoulder pads and stuff. Right. Then the domaru, which was lighter obviously for the foot soldiers. And then later on the gusoku in the 16th century.

And that's what this dude is wearing right there. Yeah. That's a pretty cool picture that you got by Juan Cal. Yeah. C-A-L-L-E. I didn't even see there was a credit there. Yeah. That is a pretty cool illustration.

And did you see that moma link I sent you? Or the picture from the moma exhibit? No. There is a moma exhibit of... I did, yes. Yes. Of the guy who had the black lacquered deer antlers coming out of his helmet. Basically, if you saw this guy coming at you with the sword, you would probably die of fright.

Right. At the very least, you would run. Sure. And I think that's kind of what it was intended for. They had iron masks that went with the iron helmets. Yes. They had a cabuto. Like you said, they would often add the devil face and they would add horsehair mustaches

and little beards made out of horsehair on the front of the mask as well. Yes. Which makes them even scarier. Yeah. And they're riveted together. You see the rivets. I got a picture of one here. I'm showing Josh.

Does this look like anyone familiar? It looks kind of like the pair well-ender Powell Peralta skateboard from the 80s. No, no, no. Jesus. Here. Darth Vader, yes. Nice. This helmet is absolutely, well actually George Lucas absolutely modeled the Darth Vader look

and helmet after the samurai cabuto. Yeah. Isn't Jedi a Japanese word? Yeah. And then the sword, you know, the lightsaber was, I don't know if you might as well talk about the swords since we're there. The katana? Yeah.

The katana and the wakizashi. Which together is called the daisho. Yeah. The katana is a large, show is small, and the katana is a larger sword longer in thinner blade. Right. And the wakizashi? Yes.

Or wakizashi? Wakizashi. Thank you. Is shorter with a broader blade, but you never saw a samurai without both. Right. And actually, you know where the katana is curved? Because of the process of making it? No.

No. It was purposefully curved. You talked about how horses played a pretty big role in samurai, an unsung role. The curved blade made for a deeper slashing wound, which was inflicted by a horseback swordsman. Gotcha. Yeah. Pretty cool.

Did you hold one that day at the meeting we took? People were like, you guys took a meeting where there was a samurai sword? Yeah. Remember at the School of Humans deal? I didn't see that they had a samurai sword. Yeah, this guy brought in a samurai sword at the end for one of their little jobs coming up and I held it. Where was I?

In my hand. You might have been in the bathroom or smoking. Before you quit smoking. Huh. Okay. And I held this thing in my hand and I've never held, have you ever held a real samurai sword? I was messing with a couple in Japan, but yeah.

I mean, it's like way heavier than I thought. And when you hold it and when you feel how sharp it is, you're like, this, I could literally cut you in half right now if I wanted to. All the ones that I was messing with were in like tourist shops. Oh, they're little plastic key chain ones. They were wood. Gotcha. Yeah.

Well, it's really intimidating. It's extremely heavy and you feel like the power of the sword when you hold it. Right. And the Smiths who made samurai swords are generally recognized as the greatest sword makers in the history of humanity. Absolutely. And one of the reasons why is not just because of these gorgeous, really heavy, perfect swords that they made.

Killing machines. Again and again. Yeah. You can literally cut someone's head right off with one slice easily. But they actually came, they created a technology or a method, a technique for an age old problem which was you want a sword with a sharp blade that won't break. Right. You can use a hard metal to keep a blade that will keep its edge.

But it makes it a very brittle sword. So it'll break easily. Right. Yeah. So what did they do? They made a sword with a core made out of soft metal that wouldn't break and then covered it with layers of hard metal that were folded and hammered. They hammered it to squeeze out impurities and they keep folding it repeatedly until

there's all these layers laminated together. Right. Like literally millions of layers. Well, actually this article has a slight mistake in it. Does it? That's lore. I look this up. When they fold a blade, they hammer it out and there have been lore that they folded

them hundreds of times and thousands of times to create millions of layers. Apparently after anything over 20 folds adds no more layers. Really? That's what they said. So a 20 fold sword would have 1,048,576 layers. Wow. Which is, I mean. So it's kind of like hammering a chicken that's been shot by a horseback archer.

You just can't make it anymore dead. It just, yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. So you talked about Kill Bill though? Yeah. You can buy a Hattori Hanzo sword on the internet, autographed by David Carradine for

600 bucks. I can't believe he's dead still. I know. Hung himself in a Bangkok hotel room. It was fitting somehow though. Yeah. An odd. Yeah.

But yeah, you can buy one of those for 600 bucks or if you don't want to spend that kind of dough, I think you can get like a functional katana for about 200 bucks online. Yeah. Or you can get a wood one from a tourist trap in Japan. Yeah. Well, that's what these for training, you know. Yeah. Okay.

Yes. You know, the whole, the cruel tutelage of master pay from Kill Bill. Yeah. Oh yeah. And it's certainly, Quentin Tarantino wasn't the first one to come up with the idea that samurai masters taught their students through, you know, rigid and brutal methods. Yes. That's been a recurring theme through samurai stories all along.

And the reason why is because it's true. It really happened. There was one sword training master who used to walk around with a wooden katana day or night, completely unprovoked and without warning, would smack his students. Pretty hard. Those things are hard. They hurt. Oh, sure.

Like just holding it and like tapping it in your hand. Your hand starts to hurt. So actually getting hit by one of these swords hurts bad. And if you get hit by one randomly, you learn pretty quickly never to let your guard down, which is what he was trying to impart. Yeah. You could be like a sleep and a sword upside the head. You can be, you know, using the bathroom and anything, eating gruel, hammering a chicken

that's been shot by a horseback archer. Yeah. Good point. Josh, they also used things called pole arms, which was a long pole with like a blade on the end of it. That was good for stabbing it at dudes on horseback. It gives you a little more reach, obviously. And they even had guns.

This is something I didn't know. In the 16th century, they started trading with Europe, Japan did, and they bought these matchlock guns and kind of kept them as backup though. The same where I was like, I'll put a gun on my horse, but I'm not going to use it. I'm still going to use a katana. Right. Unless I really need it. It turns out the, they got those guns from European missionaries.

Oh, really? Yeah. Look at that. Yeah. Who were kind of infiltrating Japan to try to start trade. Right. They were missionaries. Sure.

Sure. But relax, we're just missionaries. Interesting. Have you seen a gun before? Check this out. This is my boomstick. So Chuck, one of the other characteristics of the Samurai is this idea of a very noble, loyal life.

And we said that the Cuba Nomichi is the foundation for Bushido, which means way of the warrior. Bushi is warrior, and dou is the way. Right? So this is the way of the warrior. And essentially it's just this code, this guide that was kind of put up by one Samurai or another, and it formed the legend of the Samurai, but it also informed the way they lived their lives.

Right? Yeah. And it's, a lot of people hear this, and they think it's like a formal set of rules that everyone followed, but it was actually different depending on who you were and where you had passed it down or gotten it from. And it wasn't even written down until the 17th century. So. Right.

There was a Samurai named Yamamoto Tsunitomo, and he was a, he turned into a Zen monk. And he had a follower who he just basically dictated the tenets of Bushido to you, and he wrote them down. Darth Maul. Right? Right? And actually some of the high points of Bushido, well it covers everything from like life and death situations.

Right. If you're presented with a choice, choose death, and you can't ever go wrong. You'll never be afraid because you're always prepared for death. I don't like the Bushido for that reason. Right. It's a little, you know. And then to really kind of trivial matters, like you should never sneeze in front of somebody because it makes you look foolish.

Right. And then my favorite is the lesson of the downpour where, you know, like when you're being rained on, you're just so uncomfortable and you're running, you can't get wet. No, we gotta can't get wet. So there's a Bushido tenet that says if you remind yourself that it is natural to get soaked in a rainstorm, that's what's supposed to happen in a rainstorm, you'll never run for cover again. You just get soaked.

What's the problem? Right. And this can be applied to all aspects of life. That's my favorite one. Yeah. I used to play in the rain, like up until, you know, it's what you're trying to set fires. No.

I mean, as an adult, sometimes it's fun. Yeah. Not how you recommend it. Okay. I didn't know I was following some Samurai code. Yeah, you were like right there. If you would be willing to die, Chuck, you would be a Samurai. No.

I come from the Wham Choose Life School. That's my code. Thanks. It's Wham Choose Life. Nice. I guess we have to talk about seppuku. Well, yeah. I mean, if you were dishonored, then yeah, you had to kill yourself.

Yes. Otherwise known as, I didn't know it was a vulgar phrase, but harakiri. Yeah. It essentially means gut cut. No wonder. That is vulgar. Well, vulgar also means common. Yeah.

You're right. I feel like an idiot now. Don't. I still am trying to figure out the Wham reference. Yeah. When I think vulgar, I think of nasty words. I know what you mean. But that's, again, it's common.

Right. You know what I mean? You're right. Yeah. So this is what you, you know, when you have seen the person thrust the sword into their gut, it's sort of doesn't really happen that way. What happens is you got to wear the right garment. It's very ritualized.

White. Oh, is it white? Mm-hmm. And they present you with a ritual knife wrapped in paper. Right. To give you a better grip. Sure. Normally you're going to do this in a garden or a Buddhist temple, never a Shinto temple

because a Shinto temple is not to be tainted with death. I would choose a garden. Yeah. That would be my pick. And you insert the knife into your... Wait, wait. First, first, you write a little death poem. Okay.

And you take four sips of sake. Four being shi, shi, meaning remember the Friday the 13th podcast in Japanese? Right. Yeah, yeah. Four and death are the same kanji character. Right. So four is kind of like a pun on, I'm about to kill myself. Gotcha.

Okay, go ahead. And you, is this, can I plunge the sword into myself at the point? Please go ahead, Chuck. So you plunge the sword into your belly and you go from left to right. It's very important. And you do a little final upward cut at the end. And if you're lucky, and usually you're lucky, there was another samurai behind you with their sword to cut your head off really quick so you're not like writhing in agonizing pain.

Right. And that was, what's that samurai called? The second in command is called the kashuku nin. Right. And if you were... Kashaku nin. If you were forced to commit seppuku, right, which was, you know, kind of routine. You choose to though, right?

No, you could be forced to. Okay. The kashaku nin would be assigned by the bakufu, right? The military dictatorship, right? To end it quickly. If you decided to do it yourself, then yeah, it was up to you to come up with a kashaku nin, and probably who you would want would be a friend, right? Or, and I've never heard of this before, an aiaijutsuka.

This is somebody who had practiced drawing a sword, slashing it, and returning it to its... Oh, no. Drawing a sword, slashing, wiping it off, and returning it to its sheath in one fluid motion. Wow. And the aiaijutsuka, tsuka, they could cut your head right off. That's what you want.

With one slice. No. You don't? It's bad news for the second samurai. Oh, but that's what you want as the... You want to be killed immediately. Yeah, yeah. And that was the point.

But you didn't cut somebody's head right off. You would leave the throat, the skin attached to the throat, because it was bad form to cut somebody's head right off. Because you don't want it rolling all around on the floor. I wonder how those conversations went down. Like, hey man, you want to give me a solid this afternoon? I got to kill myself, and if you could be there to cut my head almost all the way off, I would really appreciate that.

And there, let's see, what else was there? Oh, if you were young, or if they didn't think you could be trusted with a wazukashi, Wakuzashi... Are you serious? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. The second sword. Yes.

Sorry. If you... If you... If you couldn't be... If you were afraid you'd get up and kill everybody in the room rather than kill yourself, they give you a paper fan. Right. And then the moment you touch the fan or touch the fan to your belly, whee, right?

See, I thought... I didn't know that was because of lack of trust. I thought it was just a, like, a tamer version. It's both. Oh, okay. Yeah. And then one last thing. Can I...

I really was like... I want to understand seppuku. Sure. There's this type called Jumanji-Giri. Jumanji. Yeah. And that was where you committed seppuku, and you bled to death. That was no backup sword.

Right. And the last guy to do this was General Nogi, who did it in 1912. Remember the Meji Emperor? That's after it was outlawed. Interesting. Somebody's committed it as recently as 1970, but they had the samurai, the backup samurai. Right. This guy did it himself.

He cut himself in the ritual cut and then put his shirt on afterward and just sat and kneeled there and bled to death after the death of the emperor. And the shirt just held all his guts in? I guess. Like the horse diaper? Yeah. Yeah, it was officially abolished though in 1873, although like you said, Japanese like to stick to their tradition, so it has happened as recently as like the 2000s, right?

Oh, is that right? I think so. The last I saw was 1970, but yeah. Oh, really? Or maybe it started to make a resurgence in 1970, and it's still going on. Yeah. Well, I seem to think there was a head of some corporation that did it recently, but I can't confirm that.

Really? That's pretty... That's a way to go. Yeah, it's hardcore. Hey, Doc, we should probably talk about what happened to the samurai, right? Yeah, where they went? Well, let me talk about this one guy first. Okay.

Remember, we were talking about warring clans and power struggles and everything? There was a huge civil war called the Sengoku, which was a civil war period in Japan, right? It was from like 1338 to 1603. And in that year, Takagawa Aiyasu grabbed control, and this guy, he was a Minamoto descendant, so he took the Shogun title. And he kept the piece, his family kept the piece for 250 years. He kept a complete stranglehold on the other samurai, the daimyo. He made it so that your family had to live in the capital.

Oh, that's that guy. Right. And you lived way out in the provinces. He basically helped families hostage. Right. To keep the other samurai, the other daimyo, under control, right? He also had a castle called Nijojo, and I've been in that castle, and we've talked about it before.

What? Yes. Remember in the Ninja podcast, we talked about a guy who had a castle that had squeaky floors? Yeah, yeah. I've walked down those floors. Did they squeak? They sound like nightingales.

They're called nightingale floors. Did the ninja come down and kill you? I tried walking on it. I got like two steps without making a sound. Really? So I could see a ninja possibly doing it, but it was random, like wherever you stepped, like it was going to make the sound, it was pretty amazing stuff. I don't think you and I would be candidates for ninja or samurai.

Maybe Sumo. Possibly. That's where I'm headed. Or Geisha. So like you're saying, we got to talk about where they went, what happened in the samurai. There was a, what'd you say, two and a half centuries of peaceful rule? Yeah, under the Takugawa family. Right.

So during that time, obviously, if you got peaceful rules, samurai are going to decline gradually just because there's no one to fight. And then the main two things, Josh, are urbanization and the end of their isolationism. Right. That's what really drove them out of business. Yeah. Because Takugawa and his descendants didn't like the Europeans very much and were like, you guys need to beat it because we know how to cut someone's head off and just leave

a flap of skin at the throat. Right. You know? Sure. So yeah, they were isolationist and then all of a sudden the Americans started going, you know, we'd like to trade with Japan. Yes. We get people who get shipwrecked around there somewhere and we want to make sure they're

taken care of and we want to use this place as a supply port. So we're going to sail over there. Yeah. So in 1853, they, Commander Chandler Bing sailed into Ito Bay. Was that not his name? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Commander Matthew Perry.

Right. I had that wrong. He sailed over there to chat with the, Millard Fillmore sent him to chat with the emperor who was a figurehead, but that's who, you know, you can't go talk to the show gun. You got to go talk to the emperor. Right. So he went and said, just what you said, we want to open trade and we want, if we get guys that are shipwrecked here, please take care of them and open your port so we can

like dock here and resupply. Right. And apparently when he showed up, he said, I'll be back in a couple of months. You guys talk it over, right? Talk amongst yourselves. And when he showed up, he showed up with, you know, full cannons out like guns. Everybody was basically strapped to the teeth. He's like, think about it.

See what you want to do. But that, I guess that kind of intimidation really struck a chord with the Japanese, the Japanese who were like, whoa, what's been going on outside the borders of Japan while we haven't been paying attention. And so there was a split in the samurai class where some wanted to go ahead and open up Japan and modernize Japan. This is the people in charge. The lesser samurai didn't like that at all.

So they actually went and staged a revolt. And the lesser samurai actually won. Yeah, that was a surprise. It was because they beat the Shogunate, which is kind of a big deal, although they had gotten kind of fat and lazy in the two and a half centuries apiece. So the lesser samurai who hadn't gotten quite as fat and lazy and comfortable overthrew the Shogunate and took the emperor and restored him to power, the Meiji Restoration. Yeah.

And that was actually a boy emperor, emperor Meiji was, I think like a teenager at the time. Yeah. I'm not quite sure. But he was young. Yeah. He was boy king. Yes.

And now he makes a really good yogurt drink. Oh, really? You should try it. What's it called? Meiji. Really? Well, I mean, that's the brand. They're like Nestle.

Gotcha. Yeah. They were called the Nestle Restoration. And the power of the Dymios was taken away. The government seized their land. There was no way to pay the samurai. So they basically started paying them off with bonds, depending on what their rank was. Right.

But it was like, here's your settlement and go and don't be samurai anymore. Right. They had basically turned into the modern, the equivalent of what in the modern era is somebody who falls in the grocery store and lays around watching Jerry Springer waiting for their settlement to come through. Yes. That was kind of what happened at the end of the samurai. That's pretty sad.

Yeah. And in 1876, it finally culminated with the final blow, which was the emperor said, you cannot wear your swords anymore. And we're going to draft an army. So that was kind of like no more use for you. Right. And so there were some rebellions here and there. Some crews shows up and the rebellions in the outlying areas are crushed.

Top of gun. And that was the end of the samurai. Japan became modernized, but it wasn't the end of the samurai spirit. No, no. That lives on. As Chuck said, there is a CEO that recently killed himself. Maybe. You see the subpoeku probably.

But also it kind of informs Japan that whole keep a stiff upper lip, don't complain kind of tradition and culture. And you can argue that the history of the samurai is the history of Japanese culture. But also in World War II, the Bushido was resurrected and kind of perverted by the Japanese government and sold to the Japanese military who would go crazy and kill everybody before they were killed. Right. The kamikaze pilots.

Yeah. That was part of it. Sure. There was the Banzai guys. Yeah, the Banzai guys. And yeah, just basically their whole death before dishonor. Right. Because it's like a suicide bomber today.

If you're facing somebody who would rather die than lose, that's the most dangerous foe you have. Right. Yeah. As opposed to the American way, which is do anything you can to save your butt. Right. Or go fall into the grocery store. Right.

See what happens afterwards. We would be remiss, Josh, before we leave, if we didn't mention a few movies, notably The Seven Samurai, 1956. Right. Or The 37 Ronin. 47. 47 Ronin. The sequel, they added 10.

And The Magnificent Seven, the awesome Western with Yul Brenner, was based on The Seven Samurai, but a Western version. There's also Ghost Dog, which I've been meaning to see, but have not. Well, you haven't seen that? No. Well, I was about to say, that's my favorite all time, maybe favorite Jim Jarmusch movie, but definitely top two. More than Deadman, huh?

I think it's probably in a dead heat with Deadman. Nice. It's awesome. You got to see Ghost Dog. That's where Forrest Whitaker is like sort of a modern day samurai living in New York in Brooklyn, I think even. Does any raid pigeons? Yeah.

He's very peaceful. He's this, he, it's full of the Bushido, like it's broken up with him reading passages from the Samurai code. Right. Pretty cool. Nice. Okay. Well, it's about it.

It's some pretty cool images of Samurai armor and learn more about the Samurai, including what a Ronan is and what happened to the 47 Ronan. You just want to type in Samurai to the handysearchbarthowstuffworks.com. So now, I guess then it's time for listener man. Yes, Josh. I'm going to call this the cutest kid in New Zealand. Hey dudes, Chuck and Josh, this email comes to you from Felix from Wellington, New Zealand. Oh yeah.

He's a cool kid. I'm nine years old and I've listened to pretty much all your podcasts. Dad usually plays them in the car on long drives. The recent one on taxidermy I thought was seriously gross. I wish I could do a Kiwi accent. I'm not even going to try it though. No, I wouldn't if I were you. I had a thought that you guys might want to do an episode on really long place names

around the world and how that came about and what do they mean? We have one in New Zealand called, and I won't even bother to say it because it's, it looks like the alphabet or it's just been written down in random order. I dared to try and say it in your podcast, but Felix, I will not. But I did attach an MP3 of me saying it to impress you with my skills. That's Felix speaking, right? Yes. Okay.

You guys are cool and funny. And by the way, it translates roughly as the summit where Tomatea, the man with the big knees, the climber of mountains, the land swallower who traveled about, played his nose flute to his loved one. That's what this name translates to. That's crazy. So we get permission from Felix's dad since he's a little kid and he said, go ahead and play it.

So without further ado, here is Felix from New Zealand. Hi, this is Felix here. Listen to this. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea.

Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea.

Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea.

Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea.

Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea.

Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. Tomatea. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks?

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