Did Ninjas Really Wear Black?

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20135674

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ninja_AD_1460_1650/b9sbDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=ninja&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcovern

https://web-japan.org/kidsweb/explore/history/q4.html

https://www.worldhistory.org/Ninja/

https://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/nagano/atlas/a-5.html

https://www.natgeokids.com/za/discover/geography/countries/facts-about-japan/

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/geography/countries/article/japan

Tzeela: Hi I'm Tzeela and I'm 16

Rina: Hi I'm Rina and I'm 14

Dalia: Hey, I'm Dalia and I'm 10

Together: And this is Things You Thought You Knew About History!

Tzeela: Where we tell you the real story behind historical misconceptions.

Rina: Why are you dressed in black like that?

Dalia: I’m a ninja!

Tzeela: But that’s not what ninjas were like at all! They didn’t always wear black.

Rina: Really? So what were they like?

Tzeela: Ninjas were a special type of spy in Japan in the Middle Ages. They were trained in martial arts, disguises, and deception.

Rina: Ninjas snuck behind enemy lines to steal information or enemy resources and sometimes to secretly attack people. They were active from around the 1400s to the early 1600s, a period full of wars and battles.

Dalia: Wars and battles between who?

Tzeela: to answer those questions we have to learn a little bit about Japan's history

Dalia: For a long time Japan had no central government. That means people lived together with their extended family in groups and had no ruler.

Rina: In 645 CE after getting stronger and stronger one family became the imperial family and in 660 Jimmu Tenno became the emperor. The emperor made many changes to Japan government based on China’s government systems

Tzeela: But then the noble families got stronger and the emperor's power decreased. The government started giving land to religious leaders and then eventually to powerful people

Dalia: trained warriors called samurai worked for the government and the powerful noble families. During the next time period starting in the late 1100s, there were constant wars between different powerful families and samurai

Rina: And that’s when the ninjas worked!

Tzeela: Wait a minute? What’s the difference between the samurai and ninjas?

Dalia: Samurai were highly trained warriors who were very honored and fought in certain accepted ways

Rina: ninjas did secret work. Their jobs were considered too dishonorable for samurai

Tzeela: Were Ninjas trained too?

Dalia: yeah they were trained in secret mysterious schools where they learned what’s now called the art of ninjutsu. Ninjutsu refers to the tactics ninjas used to spy and fight secretly

Tzeela: They were often from a ninja family that was part of a clan. They started training at a young age from ninja masters and later became ninjas masters, too.

Rina: What happened to ninjas? Where did they go?

Tzeela: They weren’t as useful when the war period ended so fewer people were trained. Ninjas existed quietly until now. Japan’s last two ninja masters have announced they are not going to pick a student to train so soon there will be no ninjas left.
Dalia: Why did the warring period end?
Tzeela: When Europeans came to Japan they brought new weapons like explosives and guns. A nobleman in Japan named Oh da No boon aga took advantage of these weapons to take control.
Rina: By the 1560s he and his forces had taken over the capital Kyoto. His successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi continued trying to unite the country. He disarmed the peasants, took control of the samurai, and surveyed lots of land.
Dalia: next came Tokugawa Ieyasu became the shogun, the leader of the new semi-centralized Japanese government in Edo the shogun capital. This leadership brought order to Japan and stopped the constant warring

Rina: You still haven’t told us what they wore.

Dalia: yeah what did they wear if it wasn’t all black?

Tzeela: they usually wore disguises to fit in where they were going sometimes they’d look like farmers, sometimes beggars, sometimes even as the enemy

Rina: sometimes they had metal and armor sewn into the inside of their clothes to keep them protected. All their clothing was made to be silent and practical like their swords strapped across their back to allow them to move without bumping it and their soft shoes that muffled footsteps.

Tzeela: On certain nighttime missions they wore dark clothing to blend in

Dalia: Why do we think of them as always dressed in black now? I’ve never seen a ninja in a book or movie wearing anything else

Rina: The ninja was first drawn all in black in 1801. The artist may have been trying to show that the ninja was almost invisible. Because in traditional Japanese theater if a character wears black it shows that they’re invisible

Tzeela: Also people thought that because they were out in the dark they always wore black

Dalia: Ninjas are really cool! I get why we have lots of movies, books, and shows about them. When did that start?

Tzeela: In the late 1700s ninjas were popular characters for stories and dramas. Authors began giving them superpowers and different jobs. Now ninjas are commonly in comics, cartoons, and movies.

Rina: That’s a lot of ninjatastic information!

Dalia: And now for the trivia

Tzeela: We’ll ask some questions about Japan then count down from ten to give you time to answer
Ready? Here we go:

Dalia: What's the largest city in Japan- and the world?

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1

Tokyo

Tzeela: Japan is the only country in the world with a reigning what?

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1

A reigning Emperor (while the emperor doesn’t have power he serves as a symbolic ruler)

Rina: What are the four main islands of Japan?

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1

Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu.

Dalia: What is the currency in Japan?

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1

The Japanese Yen

Tzeela: What is the longest river in Japan?

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1

Shinano river

Dalia: Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoyed.

Tzeela: If you Have feedback let us know on our website

Rina: If you enjoyed, leave a review!

Dalia: We can’t wait to talk to you in a month!

BYE!