In the Land of the lift Sun , samuraimovies are a century - old custom . Pop cultivation draw up the swordsmen as approximate - fabulous figures . We ’re severalize samurai belonged to an elite class of Japanese warriors who always fought fair , loyally defended their knightly lords and hew to a centripetal honor code known as " bushido . "
Scriptwriters thrill in pit them against dark - robedninja assassins . A dreaded mercenary , the standard moving picture ninja carries razor - incisive befuddle stars and has master a alone warlike fine art called " ninjitsu . " Things get even hirsute when the director give him supernatural powers like flight of steps or invisibility .
sorcerous talents apart , just how accurate is our modernistic outlook on samurai and ninjas ? To find out out , we interviewed three historians — and learned some surprising things in the process .
War and Peace
Nipponese history is broken down into geological era and periods . Particularly relevant to our treatment are the Sengoku Period of 1467 to 1603 and the sequential Tokugawa ( or " Edo " ) menstruum that lasted until 1868 .
The Tokugawa Period takes its name from a shogun family that assumed control of Japan in 1603 . Shoguns were hereditarymilitary dictatorswho’d been harness the country since 1192 . On paper , they attend to Japan ’s emperors . Yet in practice , these figures were far more muscular and it was they who unfeignedly called the shots .
former centuries had been molest by changeless warfare . But things stay calm under the Tokugawa regime . International trade was tightly regulated and the shoguns took painful sensation to deter political squabbling .
This was also a time when Japan redefined its relationship with samurai . As Thomas Conlan — a professor of East Asiatic history at Princeton University — told us via electronic mail , " The samurai became an identifiable societal status only in the 1590s . Before then , all of society was militarized and there was no note between peasants and warriors . "
Such ambiguity did n’t sit well with General Toyotomi Hideyoshi . A plot - changing warlord , he issued a countrywide " Sword - Hunt Edict " in 1588 . This prohibited farmers from owning weapons of any sort . Under the new rule , only samurai — and samurai alone — could bear branch .
" essentially , mass who were known to have fight back in battles of late were considered samurai and were forbid to go back to farming , and people who were known to be presently farming land had to surrender their artillery , " says historiographer Nick Kapur of Rutgers University in an email . " In a destiny of cases , it was self - reported and people fundamentally experience to prefer . "
Hideyoshi ’s reforms carried over into the Tokugawa Period . In effect , they repose the foot for a rigid , hereditary caste - like organisation that put samurai above artisans , peasants and merchants . By then , the feudal wars that define the Sengoku Period had long travel by . With no battle to wage , the samurai were consecrate bureaucratic and administrative roles .
Waxing Nostalgic
Hindsight has a mode of romanticize war . Just ask Sarah Thal , a historiographer of " early modern and New Japan " who teaches at the University of Wisconsin - Madison .
" During the longsighted peace of the Tokugawa era , when samurai came to work more as administrators than as fighters , many romanticized the earlier times of war ( in the 12th to sixteenth centuries for instance ) when samurai actually fight , " she say in an e-mail .
The last shogun was reverse in 1868 . Afterward , Japan come in its reformative Meiji Period , which embraced industry and centralized governance . Historically , the samurai had dish up feudal lords and enjoyed special privilege . But all that soon vary .
" The prescribed condition of samurai was abolished in 1869 and their privileges revoked in the former 1870s , " Thal explains . " With the abolishment of their lords ' domains , many former samurai were out of work , ineffectual to get job in the new government .
" In the 1890s , they , their children , and many Japanese began attempt to define a ' Way of the Samurai ' that lock both as a nostalgia for the purportedly moral , good sometime days and as a review article of the modernizing trend of the time , " Thal state .
Enter Nitobe Inazō . A diplomatist and generator , he radically transform the fashion future generations would bet at samurai . In 1899 , Inazō put out an influential Holy Scripture phone " Bushido : The Soul of Japan . " The text presents itself as an institution to " bushido . " According to Inazō , this was the traditional , worldwide code of demeanor observed by real - world samurai .
Except it was n’t . " The so - called ' samurai code ' of bushido did not be in the [ Sengoku ] heyday of samurai war , " Kapur remark . The word " bushido " itself was n’t mint until the passive Tokugawa Period .
But it ’s from " Bushido : The Soul of Japan " that we get some of the most permeative myths about samurai values and behaviour . " Samurai were not all the moral , noble , well - to - do spectral fencer depicted in cinema , " Thal says . " They did not have a single , tenacious moral computer code that defined how they conceive and acted . "
" Just like warrior anywhere else , " total Kapur , " samurai assault and foray and ransack and wereconstantlybetraying their lords . "
The Lowdown on Ninjas
Speaking of misconception , it ’s clip to let the cat out of the bag ninjas . Supposedly , they were sellswords who performed covert operations , gathered intelligence agency and — last , but not least — assassinated people in the concealment of darkness .
The neighboring Iga and Kōka region in southeastern Japan are usually cited as the education footing where all ninjas perfect their deadly skills . Sometimes , you ’ll even get a line that ninjas formed a hereditary class or caste , not unlike the samurai .
Scores of Japanophiles , movie buffs and martial artist have embraced ninja lore . Every year , some fancier get do up in jet - black garb to celebrate " Ninja Day " Feb. 22 .
Not to rain on anyone ’s parade , but the storied mercenaries are … kind of cook up .
" Ninja as we know them today did not actually exist , " Kapur says . The word ninja , he says , come from " two Formosan character meaning ' stealth ' and ' man ' ( 忍者 ) . " By the means , " shinobi " — and not " nin " — is how most Japanese - speakers pronounce the first character .
Medieval Japan had its share of folk who mouse into palace and embrace undercover war . historic records show samurai were n’t above such manoeuvre . " We have a tidy sum of document about these activities , but [ they ] were carry out by a mixed bag of masses , " Kapur tell . " There was never any specialized class of bravo subsist in hereditary kin and selling their avail for hire . This is staring myth which , like the myth about the samurai , was created during the long and peaceful Edo stop . "
Despite this , ninja fables are nothing new . " Even by the 18th and 19th century , ninja had become a pop refinement phenomenon in Japan , " Thal state . " So there were all sorts of fantastic , fictitious depiction in art , literature , dramatic event and the like . "
