Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren
Speaker 1: Bolebaum here answer the door on Halloween, and no matter
Speaker 1: what else is going on in pop culture, every fifth
Speaker 1: hit or so will be dressed as some iteration of
Speaker 1: a ninja. There's just something about the legend of these silent,
Speaker 1: secretive assassins that captures our imagination, like Pirates or robin Hood.
Speaker 1: But just like those other legendary figures, our image of
Speaker 1: these stealthy Japanese warriors is based largely on nuggets of
Speaker 1: historical truth buried under mountains of myth. However, there is
Speaker 1: a research center devoted to teasing out those nuggets of truth.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, Miya University in Ida, Japan, established the
Speaker 1: world's first international Ninja research center. The center is located
Speaker 1: about forty miles or sixty four kilometers west of Kyoto,
Speaker 1: where as of the fifteen hundreds, the first and most
Speaker 1: famous Ninja school may have existed. The research center houses
Speaker 1: not only historical documents related to the ninja, but also
Speaker 1: hundreds of novels, movies, and cartoons that have helped forge
Speaker 1: the modern image of the black clad assassin. For the article,
Speaker 1: this episode is based on how stuffworks. Spoke with Stephen Turnbull,
Speaker 1: a historian of Japanese military history who gave the inaugural
Speaker 1: lecture at the opening of the research center in Ega.
Speaker 1: He's written more than seventy five books on samurai and
Speaker 1: Japanese warfare, including the Ninja Unmasking the Myth. He explained
Speaker 1: that everything we associate with the character of the ninja,
Speaker 1: the black costume, the weapons, the spycraft and secrecy is
Speaker 1: all based on historical truth. He said, what's made up
Speaker 1: is to give it to the ninja. Alike any good legend,
Speaker 1: the image of the ninja is crafted over centuries of story,
Speaker 1: time telling, and colorful exaggeration. A Starting more than three
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, Japanese people in the Ego region began
Speaker 1: taking elements of traditional warfare that exist in all cultures,
Speaker 1: a spying, subterfuge, and assassination, and assigning them to a
Speaker 1: secretive brotherhood of Japanese warriors called Shinobi. The logographic characters
Speaker 1: for Shnobi can also be read and pronounced as ninja.
Speaker 1: The origin of the word itself reveals a lot about
Speaker 1: ninja mythmaking. In Japanese. Shinobi means in secret, and the
Speaker 1: earliest known historical account of ninja like activities in IgA
Speaker 1: from fifteen forty one specifically uses that word. A local
Speaker 1: monk wrote up a brief crime report describing an attack
Speaker 1: on a castle by a band of criminals who entered
Speaker 1: in secret and set fire to a few things. In
Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds, the word shinobi was used as an adverb
Speaker 1: to describe any activity carried out in secret. In the
Speaker 1: monk's account, the invaders could have been ercenaries, common thieves,
Speaker 1: or highly trained warriors. All we know was that they
Speaker 1: acted in secret. But as early as the sixteen hundreds
Speaker 1: you start seeing exaggerated stories about ego warriors in which
Speaker 1: shanoby the adverb becomes shanoby the noun. Turnbull said, instead
Speaker 1: of saying that it was done in a shanoby way,
Speaker 1: in a secret way, you say it was done by
Speaker 1: a shanoby. They're taking something that's real, these things that
Speaker 1: really happened, but instead of them being done in secret,
Speaker 1: the stories say they're being done by these special secret people.
Speaker 1: The biggest challenge in separating ninja truth from myth is
Speaker 1: a lack of reliable primary sources. When the research center opened,
Speaker 1: it housed only five total documents, similar to the Monk's account.
Speaker 1: What's most remarkable about that handful of documents isn't so
Speaker 1: much the content of the original texts, but how they've
Speaker 1: been transformed into these tales. The mission of the research
Speaker 1: center is to trace the path from a few garden
Speaker 1: variety nighttime attacks in the sixteenth century to what became
Speaker 1: a global cultural phenomenon. The birth of the ninja myth
Speaker 1: starts with those exaggerated shinobi stories of the early Ato
Speaker 1: period in the sixteen hundreds, spread by members of the
Speaker 1: Japanese warrior class who were feeling a little underappreciated because
Speaker 1: they'd been largely out of a job since a time
Speaker 1: of widespread peace kicked off in sixteen fifteen. Then in
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds came a series of military manuals concerned
Speaker 1: with spying techniques, which mentioned the importance of operating in disguise.
Speaker 1: Around the same time, Japanese artists created some famous woodblock
Speaker 1: prints of people dressed in black carrying out assassinations. That's
Speaker 1: where Turnbull believes the idea of the black ninja robe
Speaker 1: took hold, even though the prints weren't specifically about Ninja
Speaker 1: at all grid of attacks. People were employed for clandestine
Speaker 1: work around Japan at the time, but a specific image
Speaker 1: was starting to develop in popular books. In theater. The
Speaker 1: throwing stars, known as shadikan have an even less founded origin.
Speaker 1: They started as novelty weapons of the eighteen hundreds that
Speaker 1: bored Japanese gentlemen dabbling in the martial arts would play
Speaker 1: around with. It took a pair of enterprising Ega enthusiasts
Speaker 1: to put these spiky stars in the hands of ninja.
Speaker 1: Starting in the nineteen thirties, a Japanese martial arts historian
Speaker 1: and military advisor named Seko Fujita began writing about Ninja.
Speaker 1: He teamed up with the mayor of IgA to promote
Speaker 1: the region as the heartland of the Ninja. One of
Speaker 1: their ingenious moves was to find old illustrations of throwing
Speaker 1: stars in eighteen hundreds martial arts manuals and revive them
Speaker 1: as Ninja weapons. The two men built the first Ninja
Speaker 1: museum in Ega in the nineteen fifties. Around the same time,
Speaker 1: they started collaborating with novelists and filmmakers to forge the
Speaker 1: image of what, in their minds, at least Ninja should
Speaker 1: have been like the modern ninja legend was sealed by
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty two film Shinobi Nomono, which depicted everything
Speaker 1: we associate with the ninja myth, the black robes and
Speaker 1: specialized weapons, a strict code of secrecy, almost superhuman martial
Speaker 1: arts skills, and selfless sacrifice. Turnbull said, that's really where
Speaker 1: it all started. These two guys took these genuine historical
Speaker 1: episodes and other elements from Japanese history and culture, stuck
Speaker 1: them all in a big pot and gave it a stir,
Speaker 1: and the rest is history. If you're interested in learning
Speaker 1: more but not quite ready to sign up for a
Speaker 1: master's program yet, the town of Ega holds a Ninja
Speaker 1: Festival every April. On the weekends, you can participate in
Speaker 1: ninja activities, a costume competition, and tours of the castle.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article Research Center seeks
Speaker 1: to Separate Ninja Fact from Fiction on how Stuffworks dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by Dave Ruse. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows,