WEBVTT - What Were Samurai and Ninja Really Like? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.560 Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:11.200 brain Stuff, Lauren Bogelbaum here. Japanese samurai movies are a 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.520 century old tradition, and their tropes have been picked up 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.680 in stories all over the world. George Lucas has said 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.120 that one of his inspirations for the original Star Wars 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.520 movie was at eight samurai film called The Hidden Fortress. 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.880 Another classic samurai picture, Jimbo, was loosely adapted into Sergio 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:33.840 Leone Western a fistful of dollars. Pop culture frames samurai 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.040 as near mythic figures. We're told samurai belonged to an 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.960 elite class of Japanese warriors who always fought fair, loyally 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.600 defended their medieval lords, and hued to a unifying honor 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:50.880 code known as bushido. Filmmakers sometimes pit them against dark 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:56.040 robed ninja assassins fearsome mercenary. The classic movie Ninja carries 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:58.800 razor sharp throwing stars and has mastered a martial art 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:03.000 called ninjatsu. Many more modern tellings even give one or 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:07.360 both of these characters supernatural powers like flight or invisibility, 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.920 but magical talents aside. Just how accurate is our modern 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:15.680 outlook on samurai and ninja. To find out, we interviewed 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:21.160 three historians. Japanese history is broken down into eras and periods. 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.960 Particularly relevant to our discussion here are the Sengoku period 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.280 of fourteen sixty seven to sixteen o three c and 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.559 the successive Tokugawa period or Edo period that lasted until 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:37.399 eighteen sixty eight. The ladder Tokugawa period takes its name 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.039 from a shogun family that assumed control of Japan in 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:45.160 sixteen o three. Shogun were hereditary military dictators who had 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:47.760 been running the country since eleven ninety two c E. 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:53.120 On paper, they served Japan's emperors, but in practice these 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.960 figures were far more powerful, and it was they who 0:01:56.040 --> 0:02:00.360 truly called the shots. Earlier centuries had been played by 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.640 constant warfare, but things stayed calm under the Tokugawa regime. 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.840 International trade was tightly regulated, and the shogun took pains 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:13.240 to discourage political squabbles. This was also a time when 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:17.400 Japan redefined its relationship with samurai. But we spoke with 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.880 Thomas Conlin, a professor of East Asian history at Princeton University, 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:25.880 via email. He explained the samurai became an identifiable social 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.560 status only in the fifteen nineties. Before then, all of 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.959 society was militarized and there was no distinction between peasants 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:37.720 and warriors. Such ambiguity didn't sit well with one game 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:43.480 changing warlord, General Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He issued a nationwide sword 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:48.200 hunt edict in eight during these Angoku period. This prohibited 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.800 farmers from owning weapons of any sort. Under these new rules, 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:56.640 only samurai and samurai alone could bear arms. We also 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:00.200 spoke with historian Nick Kapoor of Rutgers University via al. 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.040 He said, basically, people who were known to have fought 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.360 in battles recently were considered samurai and were forbidden to 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:09.720 go back to farming, and people who were known to 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.840 be currently farming land had to surrender their weapons. In 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.440 a lot of cases, it was self reported and people 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:20.000 basically got to choose. Toyotomi's reforms carried over into the 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:24.280 Tokugawa period. In effect, they laid the groundwork for a rigid, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:29.000 hereditary caste like system that put samurai above artisans, merchants 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:33.079 and peasants. By then, the feudal wars that defined the 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.880 single Ku period had long passed, with no battles to wage. 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:42.400 The samurai were given bureaucratic and administrative roles. Hindsight sometimes 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.840 has a way of glamorizing warfare. We also spoke by 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.920 email with Sarah Paul, a historian of early modern and 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.360 modern Japan who teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.040 She said, during the long piece of the Tokugawa era, 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.520 when samurai came to work more as administrators than as fighters, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.960 any romanticized the earlier times of war in the twelfth 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:07.600 to sixteenth centuries, for instance, when samurai actually fought. The 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.400 last showgun was overthrown in eighteen sixty eight, ending the 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:16.479 Tokugawa period. Afterward, Japan entered its reformative Meiji period, which 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:21.560 embraced industry and centralized governance. Historically, the samurai had served 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.919 feudal lords and enjoyed special privileges, but all that soon changed. 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:30.120 Paul explained. The official status of samurai was abolished in 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.960 eighteen sixty nine, and their privileges were voked in the 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.359 early eighteen seventies. With the abolition of their lord's domains, 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.240 many former samurai were out of work, unable to get 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.240 jobs in the new government. In the eighteen nineties, they 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.919 their children, and many Japanese began trying to define a 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:49.320 way of the samurai. The operated both as a nostalgia 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.720 for the supposedly moral good old days and as a 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:58.279 critique of the modernizing trends of the time. Enter nicobay Idazo, 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.599 a diplomat and author. He radically transformed the way future 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.640 generations would look at samurai. In eight nine, nat the 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.960 Bay published an influential book called Bushido The Soul of Japan. 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.880 The text presents itself as an introduction to bushido. According 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:19.279 to nitle Bay, this was the traditional universal code of 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:24.880 conduct observed by real world samurai, except it wasn't. Kapor 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.400 noted the so called samurai code of Bushido did not 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:32.640 exist in the single co hey day of samurai warfare. Indeed, 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:36.520 the word bushido itself wasn't coined until the peaceful Tokugawa period. 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.480 But it is from Bushido the Soul of Japan that 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.360 we get some of the most pervasive myths about samurai 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:48.840 values and behavior. Thal said Samurai were not all the moral, noble, 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.520 well to do spiritual swordsmen depicted in film. They did 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.480 not have a single coherent moral code that defined how 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.960 they thought and acted, and Kapoor said, just like warrior, 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.279 as anywhere else, samurai raped and looted and pillaged, and 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:08.640 we're constantly betraying their lords. Speaking of misconceptions, it's time 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:12.640 to talk Ninja. Supposedly, they were cell swords who performed 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.480 covert operations, gathered intelligence, and assassinated people in the cover 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:22.000 of darkness. Ega and Coca, two neighboring regions in southeastern Japan, 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.680 are usually cited as the training grounds where Ninja honed 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.440 their deadly skills. Sometimes you'll even hear that Ninja formed 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:33.800 a hereditary class or cast not unlike the samurai. The 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.720 lore is pervasive in pop culture every year. Some enthusiasts 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:41.120 even dress up to celebrate Ninja Day on February twenty two. 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.600 Not to rain on anyone's parade, but these storied mercenaries 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:50.400 are kind of fabricated, Kapoor said, Ninja as we know 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.159 them today did not actually exist. He explained that the 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:58.520 word ninja comes from two Chinese characters meaning stealth and man, 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.360 which is pronounced shinobi by the way, by most Japanese 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:07.000 language speakers. Medieval Japan had its share of folks who 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.520 snuck into castles, and embraced undercover warfare. Historical records show 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.720 samurai weren't above such tactics, Kapor said, we have a 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.640 lot of documents about these activities, but they were carried 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.320 out by a variety of people. There was never any 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.120 specialized class of assassins living in hereditary clans and selling 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.720 their services for hire. This is pure myth, which, liked 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.600 the myths about the samurai, was created during the long 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:36.600 and peaceful Ido period. Despite this, ninja fables are nothing new, 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.760 Paul said. Even by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ninja 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:44.160 had become a pop culture phenomenon in Japan, so there 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:48.679 were all sorts of fantastic fictional depictions in art, literature, drama, 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:56.480 and the light. Today's episode was written by Mark Mancini 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:58.720 and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.560 lots of other mythical topics, visit how stuff works dot com. 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.280 Brainstuff is production off I Heart Radio. For more podcasts 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.160 from my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:08.920 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.