WEBVTT - The Ninja, Part 2 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.560 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:16.200 is Robert. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:18.840 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:22.960 And we are back with our second episode on the Ninja. 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:25.680 If you didn't listen to part one, go back and 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.640 start with that one. We talked about the modern pop 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:32.120 culture idea of the ninja a bit we didn't cover everything. 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:34.839 We're going to continue to throw in some mentions here 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.040 and there. And we've been getting some great listener mail 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:39.920 from folks writing in about their own first exposure to 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:44.440 ninja media, either you know, Japanese media or international media, 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.279 and so just keep that kind of stuff rolling in. 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.080 And when we get around to doing another listener mail episode, 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:54.720 which we're currently experimenting with a return to the old 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.880 format of having our listener mail episodes occur on a 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.400 Tuesday or Thursday, when we get around to that will 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.520 definitely dive into the ninja portion of the mail bag. 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.160 We talked about how the idea of the ninja entered 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.720 the global mainstream. We discussed a little bit the scarcity 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.800 of historical accounts of the ninja, basic ideas concerning the 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.720 reality of what we refer to as a ninja, the 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.160 origin of the word, other colloquial names for the ninja, 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:26.520 and what sorts of activities they engaged in and are 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.479 said to have engaged in. And we also discussed how 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.320 the pop culture transformation of the ninja was not a 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.000 Western or even a modern thing, but began in Japan 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:37.840 centuries ago. And so we're going to jump back in 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:42.600 here talking about some more ninja history and sort of 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:45.679 like continuing to sort of tease apart, like what is history, 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:50.440 what is probably accurate from a historical standpoint, and then 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.200 then what are the additional layers of legend and fiction 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.880 that also lead to this modern idea of what the 0:01:57.960 --> 0:01:58.560 ninja is. 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:03.520 Right Before we get into more individual anecdotes and investigations, 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.840 I wanted to start with a brief way of looking 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.360 at the historical basis of the ninja myth. As we 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:15.240 mentioned in the last episode, this is a really complicated subject. 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.560 There are serious questions among scholars about to what extent 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:24.600 the historical ninja actually existed at all. It certainly is 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.440 the case that there are lots of historical records of 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.240 activities during warfare that were referred to as shinobi. This 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.320 is a synonym for ninja shenoby no mono shinoby activities 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:40.280 during warfare, especially during a particular historical period that we're 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.080 going to talk about in a bit. So it's not 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:47.640 like a scarcity of historical sources referring to ninja type 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:51.560 activities or shnobi activities. Instead, it seems to me the 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.880 historicity question is more about how accurate these sources are, 0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:00.800 how to understand what they're talking about within its historical context, 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.800 and whether what they're talking about matches the idea of 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:06.800 the ninja that has come down to us. 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.240 That's right. Like in the last episode we talked about 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:13.639 how the basic idea, the image that instantly infiltrates your 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:18.840 mind concerning the ninja, of the black clad individual with 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.440 swords and so forth. This is largely a fiction. This 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:26.000 is largely are a creation of fiction and legend making. 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.120 But there is something lying underneath it, and we're going 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:30.840 to try to take a look at what that might be. 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.520 Right now, I want to mention again a major source 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:35.680 that I brought up in the last episode. This is 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.800 a book by Stephen Turnbull, who is a British historian 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.360 who's written a lot on the history of the ninja 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.040 and on Japanese history. The book is called Ninja Unmasking 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:50.560 the Myth from twenty seventeen, and specifically, in this section 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:52.920 we're about to do, I'm sort of relying on a 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.760 chapter of his book that's trying to trace the elusive, 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.680 underlying nature of what the ninja was and how that 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.000 relates to the ninja lore that came down. So to 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.440 refresh from last time, ninja or shinobi no mono are 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.080 two different ways of expressing the same idea. The core 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:17.719 idea is a person who sneaks, one who practices stealth, secrecy, 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.840 or hiddenness, or also, in one alternate reading of the word, 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:25.960 one who practices endurance or patience, which is an interesting 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.880 double loading of meaning on the term. While this term 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.040 can apply to a number of different activities in warfare, 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:37.800 a commonly cited equivalent in English would be something like 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.920 spy or secret agent. Now, as classically understood, ninja or 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:47.960 shinobi would be engaged in activities like spying across enemy lines, 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:54.560 infiltrating enemy strongholds, engaging in trickery and deception, sneak attacks 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.839 by night. Psychological warfare attempts to sew division within enemy 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:04.320 ranks like that. So it's actually a rather diverse set 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:08.400 of activities or duties that would fall to the ninja 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.080 or shnobi. But they're all in some way related to 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.240 some kind of hiddenness or deception or surprise. 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:17.280 Yeah, not all of them translate into the pop cultural 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:19.719 idea of the ninja. Like, I've never seen a ninja 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.880 movie where the ninja's main mission is to infiltrate the 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.800 enemy barracks and start bad talking the rice rations, you know, 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:29.480 being like, man, they really don't give us good rice, 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:31.680 and they'd give us a little of it. I can't 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.400 believe these guys. We should probably, you know, think twice 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:35.440 about fighting for them. 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.760 Oh but this, actually, yeah, this is perfectly in line 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.240 with what some historical uses of shnobi would refer to. Yeah, 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.880 the use of trying to sew division within enemy ranks 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.279 by using a double agent or a secret agent. Now, 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:52.520 one really important point is that when looking to our 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.440 earliest sources on the real shnobi of history, there is 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:00.640 a linguistic complication, which is that, as Steven Turnbull talks 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:04.919 about in his book in Historical Documents, Shinobi is not 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.640 only used as a noun, it can also be and 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:13.640 very often is, an adverb, meaning it's describing an action, 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.880 not a type of person, and the adverb form means 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:23.160 that a person, maybe anyone, not just a specialist, can 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.760 carry out an activity in a shinobi manner. So we 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:32.120 often understand ninja or its equivalent shinobi shinobi nomono as 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.040 a person who is specialized by training. It's a type 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.720 of person. But you do have lots of records of 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.080 groups of regular soldiers or other people carrying out a 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.280 shinobi attack on a castle or fortress, usually meaning a 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:50.120 sneak attack by night, or some of their secretive approach, 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.000 and this creates issues for historians. When you see a 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.520 story of somebody doing some kind of shinobi attack in 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.960 the adverb sense, do you count that as a story 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.200 of a shnoby as a noun as like a did 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.800 a ninja necessarily do that? Or is this the case 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.800 where we're using the equivalent of ninja to describe just 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.360 a way of doing something in secret, even if they're 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:14.360 not a specialist. 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.320 Yeah, you know, this reminds me of a moment in 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.000 the recent adaptation of Showgun the excellent FX adaptation that 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:26.000 I have to recommend. In the pivotal scene where these 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:30.040 shanoby attack, if memory serves and I've only seen it once, 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:33.800 I believe the characters just exclaim like shnoby, and it's 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:35.720 maybe left a little vague that like they're just saying 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.960 like something shinoby is occurring, like sound the alarm shnobi 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:41.680 actions in progress. 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.480 Oh yeah, that's interesting, And so that could refer to 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:49.200 any kind of like deception or surprise or hiddenness. Yeah, 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:51.920 But to come back to the idea of shinobi nomono, 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.440 the people who practice shinoby or hiddenness, we can again 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.920 just call them shinoby for short. To the extent that 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:03.000 they were historical specialists in spying and undercover warfare, when 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.040 did they flourish. There's a bit of complication here also 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:09.760 because you get some claims of earlier precedents. We're going 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.480 to talk about some of these later in this episode. 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:17.240 But the classical ninja, the classical shinobi are primarily associated 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.840 with the Singoku period, also known as the Warring States 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.320 period of Japanese history. This was a turbulent age of 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.360 roughly one hundred years, with fuzzy boundaries from the mid 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:32.839 fifteenth to the mid to late sixteenth century, characterized by 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:37.600 civil wars, rebellions, and revolts throughout Japan, and this time 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.439 came to a close as the country fell under the 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:46.320 central control of the Tokugawa Shogunate beginning around the seventeenth century. 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.800 So this time the Singoku period, the time of civil 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.240 wars in the fourteen hundreds to the fifteen hundreds, this 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.960 was the heyday of the historical ninja, and it's in 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.959 records of this time period that we'll find the history 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.240 basis of the ninja myth, if there is one. Now. 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:08.360 Turnbull raises a few very interesting questions about the historical 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:13.040 ninja from the Singoku period and how they relate to 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.240 received facts about the ninja that we've sort of gotten 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:21.080 from the tradition and lore that emerged over time. One 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:26.160 question that comes up is are the ninja uniquely Japanese? 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:31.439 Ninja are sometimes represented as a totally unique Japanese innovation 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:35.880 in secret warfare, but Turnbull disputes this, saying that if 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.559 you look at the types of activities that are attributed 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:40.960 to them in the sources that have some chance of 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.240 being historically accurate. They're similar to activities we see recorded 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:49.240 in all kinds of societies, in all large war fighting societies. 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:54.040 You might find similar records of activities in China, Mesopotamia, 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:55.080 and the Roman Empire. 0:09:55.440 --> 0:10:00.480 Yeah. Absolutely. This is something that the author's hero Yoda 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.720 and Matt All talk about in Ninja Attack True Tales 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.160 of Assassin Samuraian Outlaws, which is a book that I've 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.960 been turning to in research for this episode, and they 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.880 point out that you see shnobi like activities in such 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.360 cases as the Odyssey, you know, which of course is 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.280 a is a literary work, but still like the most 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.520 one of the more believable aspects of the Odyssey is, 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.680 say the example of Odysseus dresses as a beggar to 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:30.200 sneak into the walls of Troy. 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.080 Oh, yeah, you include the Iliad. I would also say, 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.040 like the Trojan Horse seems like a very ninja or 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:37.520 Shanobi type ploy. 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.360 Absolutely. They also point to the episode in the Bible 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.160 where Joshuason's a pair of secret agents into the walled 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.080 city of Jericho, and you know, just looking around, there 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.160 are also accounts of espionage under King Hammurabi of the 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:55.680 Second millennium BCE Babylon. They're apparently accounts from ancient Egypt. 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.360 And we've already mentioned the art of war, but the third, 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.800 the ancient third century BCE to third century CE Sanskrit 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:08.320 text the Arastra, also speaks of it. So again, yeah, 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.720 the Japanese didn't invent secrecy, assassination, espionage, and all these 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:18.000 other related activities. It just emerges universally as just part 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:19.520 of human conflict. 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.960 But there are some i think cultural details that will 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.319 attach themselves to the Ninja myth as it develops that 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:29.840 are more unique, and we'll talk about those as we 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.640 go on. Another thing Turnbull points out is that there 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:37.360 are references to spying during warfare in Japanese texts from 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:42.160 before the Singoku period. One example is a text called 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.480 the Shomunkey, which is from the tenth century, and it 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:50.280 tells the story of a rebel named Taira Masakato, and 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:54.960 in this record, his enemy hires a spy named Koha Rumaru, 0:11:55.600 --> 0:12:01.079 who infiltrates Masakado's stronghold with one companion, makes notes of 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:05.040 its layout and defensive capabilities, and then sends the companion 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.200 back to their employer with the information. But in this 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.640 story the dangers of spying are made clear because the 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:16.079 spy's employer uses the information, the information acquired by the 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:20.720 spy to launch a night attack, which fails. Masakado and 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.440 his rebels fight off the attack, and this leads to 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:27.400 the spy being exposed and executed. And there are plenty 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.440 of other early examples of stories of people who go 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.000 into enemy terrain or inside an enemy castle or fortification, 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.040 make a note of the layout, and then report back 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:41.440 to outside conspirators. So this is a common form of spying, 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.719 a very important thing in warfare. That's a little bit 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.440 less what you imagine if you know, you're thinking of 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.200 the ninja as like a martial artist, someone who goes 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.880 in and sort of does daring individual violence. A lot 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.800 of spying is just making note of information and getting 0:12:57.800 --> 0:12:58.640 it back outside. 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.560 Yeah, in this reminds me of one thing we talked 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.640 about in the last episode about the different classifications according 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.000 to sun Zoo of the spy and how there are 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.400 different things you dare ask of your different level of 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:16.400 espionage operative. And so it's a much I mean, it's 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.160 still highly dangerous, but it's one thing to say, I 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.320 need you to make a small map and report back, 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:24.640 as opposed to I need you to switch out a 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.360 drink or stab someone in the back with a dag 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:28.200 or that sort of thing. 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:42.960 Right, So, spying both within and outside Japan predates any 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.839 concept of specialized ninja training, and it would have been 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.800 influenced by literature such as the Chinese classic The Art 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.800 of War, which you just brought up. I mentioned The 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.079 Art of War in the previous episode because of this 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.120 section about the five different kinds of secret agents. But 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:02.120 there is plenty of evidence that Japanese political and military leaders, 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:06.839 including the Samurai aristocracy, were widely familiar with this work 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:10.439 and others like it. Just one interesting example that stood 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.760 out to me that Turnbull sites there's a story about 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:18.800 an eleventh century Samurai hero named Minimoto Yoshi who used 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.360 a clue he had learned from reading the Art of 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.160 War to anticipate in ambush. The clue was that he 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.400 noticed birds rising startled from a thicket of forest, and 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.280 he knew that this meant his enemies were settling into 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.320 hiding there to launch a trap. So, therefore, Turnbull says, 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.560 there's ample evidence that Japan's long history of spying and 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:45.920 undercover warfare techniques are not uniquely Japanese, as some sources 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.960 have claimed, but was in part at least influenced by 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.920 Chinese military wisdom already in print for centuries, and the 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.040 fact that it goes back so far means that of 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.640 course people were spying before there was a concept of 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:03.240 the new ninja that emerges in the Singoku period. Now 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.440 there's another thing this chapter addresses that I think is interesting, 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.040 and that's the idea of ninja or shanobi as a 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:14.000 hereditary elite. Part of the received ninja mythology is about 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:19.680 specialization and lineage. It's the idea that undercover warfare techniques 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:24.440 in Japan were practiced exclusively by quote a highly skilled, 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:30.200 hereditary core of elite warriors called shinobi, and that ninjutsu, 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.240 the practices of the ninja, were the exclusive domain of 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:38.120 these warrior elites. They were sort of medieval commandos with 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:43.400 a hereditary component. And this vision of shinobi also implies 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:47.440 that they may have had some kind of social elite 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.040 status as well, that they were a kind of super samurai, 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:57.160 surpassing ordinary samurai warrior elites in the techniques of covert warfare, 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:02.080 like infiltrating secure locations and causing disruption inside enemy ranks, 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.640 and all the other stuff we've already mentioned. But as 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.360 we brought up in the last episode, there are some 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:11.560 serious reasons for doubting the idea of shinobi as these 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:15.840 hereditary elites. The accounts of shnobi activities taking place during 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.760 the Japanese Civil Wars generally do not make any reference 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.840 to the idea of specialized elite warriors, certainly not from 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:27.160 a social elite, and so shnobi activities may be carried 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.560 out by regular samurai or by soldiers, but in other 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:35.680 cases by people who are quite clearly associated with the 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.960 lower classes. There is good reason to believe that the 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.560 historical ninja were more likely from the lower classes, and 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.600 in some cases even thought of as criminals, and this 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.480 does raise a different kind of elite status that Turnbull 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.720 goes into depth about the idea of ninja as a 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:58.560 criminal elite, but this gets complicated too. Many accounts describing 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:02.280 covert military activity of the Singoku period use terms that 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:07.159 are also used to describe common crime. One example is 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:12.480 the Japanese term seto, which normally means thieves. Turnbull cites 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:16.600 a sixteen fifty three military manual called the Gunpo Geoshu, 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.359 which says quote, if a daimyo does not have a 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.840 seto serving under him, then no matter how good he is, 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.879 he will know nothing of his enemy's dispositions. So this 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.800 appears to be describing the work of a ninja as 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:35.440 a spy, but uses a common word for thief. Does 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.480 this indicate some kind of historical overlap. Perhaps, and there 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.040 are some good reasons for thinking that there is actual 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:47.679 direct overlap between ninja in warfare and criminal gangs. But 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:52.280 another possibility is that the idea of a thief or 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.080 a bandit is in the eye of the beholder, and 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:59.720 that designation is class related. So to illustrate that turnbul 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:04.520 inclincludes a text from the fourteenth century. This is the Minaiki, 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.520 compiled in thirteen forty eight, and this is a longer section, 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.919 but it reads as follows. Various kinds of disturbing events 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.840 occurred around the eras of Choan and Kingen, with rebellions, 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:21.000 coastal piracy, raids, robbery, mountain banditree pillaging, and so on 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:25.040 happening all over the place. They disguised themselves in an 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:29.680 unusual way by wearing yellowish brown clothes and a ropagassa 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.200 hat like a woman's instead of an aboshie, which is 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:36.280 a type of cap or hat, and not showing their faces. 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:40.040 Individuals who congregated in groups of between ten and twenty 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:44.160 men wore swords that had no ornamentation, with rough quivers 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.600 on their backs and bamboo poles for spears, and neither 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.159 helmet nor armor. They withdrew to castles and took on 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.439 their enemies there, or they won over an enemy but 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.000 then betrayed him, committing themselves to nothing. They were fond 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:02.280 of gaming and gambling, and the behaved like shinobi canusu, 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:04.080 meaning sneak thieves. 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:06.760 This reminds me of something we talked about in the 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:12.040 last episode, the idea that you have less historical accounts 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:17.600 of shanobi in part because you wanted your stories to 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:22.240 be about the aristocratic samurai, the brave exploits of the samurai, 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:26.640 not in the upper class samurai, as opposed to the 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:33.280 potentially shameful but necessary activities of essentially sneak thieves, as 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.040 we're saying here, bandits and pirates exactly. 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:37.840 And this could also give rise to the idea of 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:39.919 ninja as a kind of super samurai. 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.680 You know. Having mentioned piracy now in that quote you read, 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.879 this does make me see some strong similarities to what 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.000 has occurred with pirates as well in popular culture. Like 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:55.080 the modern pop culture idea of a pirate is rather 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.920 far removed from the reality of the pirate in many ways. 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.160 It is a romantic size them to a degree that 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.720 would not have matched up with the reality of living 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:06.720 during their heyday. 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.080 Oh yeah, certainly. But then I want to raise a question, 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:15.040 because this applies somewhat to piracy as well. What is 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.879 the difference between a pirate or a privateer and a 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:25.000 naval vessel that seizes other ships from an enemy country 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.080 and takes on their goods and takes prisoners and so forth. 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.280 Sometimes these boundaries might be a little blurrier than you 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:36.920 would think, And the same applies here. So in contemporary records, 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.080 these groups that I was just talking about in that 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:42.600 passage I read a second ago, they are referred to 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.240 with terms meaning thieves or bandits. You know, they're disreputable, 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.840 they're sneak thieves. But twenty years after the passage I 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:53.840 just read, Turnbull says that these gangs are described quite 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:59.200 differently as horsemen, wearing finely decorated armor and weapons inlaid 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.359 with gold or silk, organized and loyal to their leader. 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.840 So sounds a lot more like the way that local 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.240 warriors who are simply in rebellion against a distant feudal 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:13.119 authority would be described let more like warriors and an 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.919 organized political authority, and less just like a criminal gang. 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.560 And so Turnbull concludes that there is some blurring of 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:25.080 the lines between warriors and criminals depending on who is 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:29.440 writing the account. Higher class authors would look down on 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:34.360 warriors of a lower level local uprising and classify them 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.399 not as worthy warriors. You know, this is not a 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:41.840 political conflict. These are bandits or pirates, and so a 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.720 similar thing could be going on with later records from 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:48.760 the Singoku period, which sometimes refer to people who by 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.880 description are functioning as spies and secret agents, but are 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:57.959 referred to as thieves or criminals. So it's possible that 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.920 in some cases Shenoby warriors were perceived or described as 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:06.960 bandits by a contemptuous higher class authority. However, it's also 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.840 possible that in many cases actual bandits were recruited to 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:15.560 warfare and served as shnobi. So This also brings up 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:20.720 the question of shinobi as mercenaries. So a mercenary is 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.200 generally understood as a soldier who is hired to fight 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:28.320 for a land that is not their own, and records 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.000 of the use of mercenaries in this sense in the 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:36.439 Sengoku warfare are mostly limited to shnobi type activities. We 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:40.280 don't really read of hired mercenaries doing the work of 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:44.600 the samurai, you know, like supposedly honorable face to face warfare, 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.439 leading cavalry charges and so forth. Instead, it seems that 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:53.159 mercenaries were used for sneak attacks and dirty tricks. So 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:55.800 you might have a daimyo who has his own regular 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.760 soldiers that are fighting on the battlefield and defending fortresses, 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:04.000 but in addition to that, the daimyo might pay local 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:09.640 criminals to do high risk activities, including shnobi activities like spying, 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:14.160 sneak attacks, false flags, and psychological warfare, as well as 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:18.800 less shnoby coated high risk maneuvers like covering the retreat 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:23.680 of regular troops and Turnbull suggests that this also militates 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:28.679 against the super samurai interpretation of ninja, since records indicate 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:32.400 that these warriors were often seen as crude, low class, 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:36.880 and expendable, and these warriors were also implicated in very 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:41.119 sordid types of activities like slave harvesting, raiding villages, and 0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:45.680 kidnapping people into slavery. And so from all this Turnbull 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:50.080 concludes that the sort of super samurai hereditary elite interpretation 0:23:50.160 --> 0:23:53.160 of ninja's is not based in history. That they were 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:56.440 not from a social elite to the extent that they existed, 0:23:57.000 --> 0:24:01.000 but there clearly were people carrying out these activities at 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:04.240 the time, and that if we're trying to figure out 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:06.840 what their identity was, it may very well be that 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:11.480 there was significant overlap with crime, or at least that 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:15.399 many of them were lower class warriors who were looked 0:24:15.440 --> 0:24:18.680 down upon by the social elites and in some cases 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:22.359 had some criminal experience or criminal skills such as piracy 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:26.800 or burglary or banditry. Now another important note on the 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:32.399 changing meaning of shinobi after the Singoku period. Again, remember 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:35.399 so after this you get the Unification period under the 0:24:35.480 --> 0:24:38.159 Tokugawa Shogunate. This is also known as the Edo period. 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:43.840 During this time, there are lots of references to contemporary 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:47.800 people called shinobi, but in this time period they are 0:24:47.840 --> 0:24:49.800 not at all the ninja you have in mind, and 0:24:49.800 --> 0:24:52.240 they're also not the ninja we were just thinking we 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:56.760 were just talking about that are engaging in secrecy during warfare. Instead, 0:24:57.040 --> 0:25:01.120 the shanobi of the Tokugawa period were a official agents 0:25:01.280 --> 0:25:05.480 of the central government, which ruled the country by martial law, 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:08.800 and the duties of these agents included rooting out dissent 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:12.880 and disloyalty among the people. So in reality, their function 0:25:13.080 --> 0:25:16.600 at this time was more like a secret police than 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:20.120