A Symphony of Colors — The Samurai Museum of Kyoto on the Ninja
The fantastic tour at the Samurai Museum presents visitors with a brief history lesson of feudal Japan. The young and knowledgeable tour guides shed light on the hierarchy of Japan’s ruling power during the Shogunate period, which lasted for roughly 7 centuries between 1192 and 1867 A.D. During this time, Japan alternated between the unnerving peace under military dictatorships and the destructive chaos of civil wars before the Meiji Restoration ushered in the modern era for the nation.
The Samurai Museum is certainly a top activity for a trip in Kyoto. It balances history learning with quite a bit of fun. It is especially suitable for family with children. Even as an adult, I enjoyed participating in the game of throwing shuriken, a typical distraction device of the ninjas. English tours are available.
At the Samurai Museum, the Samurai and the Ninja were the stars of the show. Their origins, identities, history and culture expressed the defining traits of Japanese society during the medieval times. I have discussed the samurai in the last entry, and I will go through some basics of the ninja here.
Ninja Explained
In Japanese, the word ninja is consisted of the characters bearing the meaning of “invisible / hidden person.” This itself expresses the essential qualities of a ninja. They were coveted agents that engaged mostly in spying missions. In the feudal hierarchy of Japan during the Shogunate period, this somewhat odd profession arose as mercenary agents for both the Shogun, the Daimyo and the samurai.
Ninja as Coveted Agents
Despite having known of the ninjas from children’s cartoons since a young age, I had never actually fully understood what they did. All that I knew was that their black outfits covered all over their bodies except the eyes. They carried a short, single-edged sword, wore straw sandals and had superpowers like gliding on water and throwing shurikens at their enemies.
I garnered some real sense of the ninja phenomenon at the Samurai Museum, finally moving beyond the popular representation of the ninjas in children’s comics. The ninjas were the covet spies for hire and they came mostly from the peasant class. As mercenary fighters they often conducted intelligence and ambush missions, as well as irregular fighting against the enemy of their hirers and bodyguarding. During the Ashikaga Shogunate, the Daimyo, which had become increasingly powerful then, actively hired the ninjas for their agile skills to conduct missions.
The village clans of Iga and Koka were known to have trained professional ninjas. It is said that the Iga and Koka ninjas played a critical part in securing the Tokugawa shogunate. After the assassination of the powerful Daimyo Oda Nobunaga, the Koka Ninjas accompanied Togukawa Ieyasu on a long journey. Tokugawa Ieyasu reached a friendly territory by the escort of the Koka ninjas.
Finally, the ninjas also participated in the besieging of the Osaka Castle in the Osaka siege of 1614. They fought alongside the Tokugawa regular army. These incidents were critical in solidifying the Tokugawa Shogunate’s eventual power in the very last Shogunate in Japanese history.
The Ninja Weaponry
The shuriken is a star shaped metal plate with sharp edges. The ninjas would throw these or place them on the ground as a way to distract their enemies. Sometimes the edges of the shuriken were coated with poison. A common source of poison is the blowfish.
The shuriken was but one of the many devices that a ninja would carry with him on missions. However, they were actually quite heavy and so each ninja would only carry a few of those. The chief weapon is the single edged short sword, which they would use to harm their enemies. The sickle and chain could disarm the enemy by dislodging their swords, as well as attacking them with the sharp blade. The grappling hook was a device for besieging the Japanese castles at night.
A Game of Shuriken
At the Samurai Museum we had a shuriken throwing session and the visitors had a competition. We each had a chance to throw different numbers of shrikens at one time. The ones who won would take home the shuriken. Someone did actually manage to strike the Styrofoam board with all 5 shurikens in one throw. That is not easy to do. The best I could do was the get one in at one throw.
The Infamous Kamikaze Reference Explained
Finally, at the Samurai Museum I have learned something incredibly interesting about the Kamikaze. As we all know, the Kamikaze were the infamous suicide mission jets of the Imperial Japanese Navy during WWII. They were the terrifying jet fighters that menaced the allied forces. Officially “Divine Wind Special Attack Unit,” these jets aimed at destroying the Allied naval fleets with agility and effectiveness.
According to the Wikipedia, “About 3,800 kamikaze pilots died during the war in attacks that killed more than 7,000 Allied naval personnel, sank several dozen warships, and damaged scores more.” (The Wikipedia on Kamikaze).
Meaning “divine wind,” the word kamikaze was always associated with the war history of Japan. I learned in the Samurai Museum that it was a reference to the failed invasion of Japan by the Chinese Mongols of the Yuan dynasty. In 1274 and 1281, the Mongols of Kublai Khan attempted to invade Japan by sea in two separate occasions. But both of their attempts were stalled due to typhoons.
To the Japanese people, it was the “divine wind” that protected them in face of invasion by foreign forces.
Sources
Descriptions on site at the Samurai Museum.
The Wikipedia on Ninja.
The Wikipedia on Kamikaze.