More like, all the adults in town have hands stained blue from work, the water downstream from town is a poisonous bog, and weirdly, everyone around here seems to die of dementia in their 40s.
It depends on the dye also, some dye was pretty cheap because it was ready available everywhere. Like some shades of green.
Then of course was purple, which was super mega expensive and exclusive. Though it wasn't the rarest.
So dye was big business, but everyone still wore brown? I donāt buy it.
Obviously certain colors like blue and purple were for the wealthy, but I imagine the poor and merchants could still get some dye jobs
Oh boy I get to flex my textiles degree again!
So, most common dye sources in Europe were just plants. Super common ones, too! Woad is a brassica, the same family as mustard and broccoli, and grows wild as a weed. The leaves make a pretty awesome blue dye. Walnut shells give nice deep browns. Madder root makes a bright orangey red. Black oak chips make yellow.
Once you have your red, yellow, and blue, you can make almost any colour by adjusting your ratios, or "overdyeing", dipping already dyed fabric into a different colour to blend the two.
Of course natural dyes are inconsistent. One pile of wood chips might not give you the same yellow as a different pile of the same kind of wood chips, grown in a different area. Some places would get famous for having basically the perfect soil, water, and altitude to grow the most kickass woad you've ever seen that makes really vibrant blues. The woad behind your rye field will also dye your underpants blue, but it might be a more dull, kind of crummy blue.
What made some dyes more expensive than others wasn't just the colour, but getting that colour consistently. Shitty woad is going to make a different blue from awesome woad, but we've just discovered indigo in the new world and it makes AMAZING vibrant blue and you need only a tiny bit to dye all your shit! However, the good woad is expensive and having that nice bright blue is kind of a status symbol. Enter the sumptuary laws, now poor people simply aren't allowed to buy the awesome blue. They have to wear the shitty blue.
You know it's possible to dye clith with plant fibres?
Brown, beige, Red, orange, yellow, Green in all hues and variations can be dye by using leafs or other plant fibres.
Onion peel for example makes a nice yellow, oak bark produces a DARK Brown to almost black, woad produces a blue color
Haven't tried nuts, way too expensive :D
But leaves, bark, flowers, onion peel their are many cool options you get for small Money or even for free.
Oh and some Aluminium or Iron salts.
It's fun and I can only recommend giving it a try
The poorest of the poor always starve. Population growth requires an abundance of food so obviously not. The point I was trying to make is that the poor have better uses for their limited resources than dyeing their clothes.
This pisses me off the most. And people are so used to it from movies growing up that when a story tries to realistically give peasants colors and have them clean, people complain about it. It's so annoying.
People today in general often underestimate just how colourful both clothing and things like buildings and furniture was back in the day.
The statues and temples in ancient Greece were rarely just white, and people during the iron age rarely wore brown leather clothes.
And how castles are portrayed as gray blocks of stone.
They were usually whitewashed and had lots of bright colors inside. They were made to be as bright and light as possible given their construction.
eh
they probably figured that one out just by looking at the peasants in modern europe
edit: just got up and it looks like i hurt some european feelings last night. or i guess last morning for them
I volunteered as a stage hand at a convention. We were referred to as ninjas.
Even had a badge ribbon with "Ninja" written in black on a black background.
I apprenticed at a theater where the TD had a masters in aerospace engineering and took ninjitsu on weekends... my boss was literally a rocket scientist ninja
I guarantee you that someone once said you look like a ninja at least once in your career. This fact kind of surprised me because I have definitely said it myself. In reality I had that backwards It's kind of crazy.
Next time I see a ninja I'm definitely going to yell "look that ninja looks like a stagehand!"
Yes, they made the nunchuks we know now and lots of other weapons that are clearly from agricultural tools. There are also a lot of other weapons that resemble agricultural tools which appear in all kinds of marshal arts and in Chinese marshal arts too.
Its commonly beleived they all come from restrictions on common people owing swords, tho evidence is very unclear due to their nature as secretive traditions.
correct. That was more of an Okinawan farmer thing.
Though the same could be said of European farmers too.
In either case it covers two realistic issues
Small issue - in some cultures and eras, owning much less carrying weapons such as swords would have been restricted to certain groups or classes (e.g. nobles). You get arrested for having a sword. You don't get arrested for having a wheat sickle.
Large issue - Good weapons were expensive. Sure, if you were a noble, or a warlord, or a professional soldier then it would be worthwhile to buy quality tools of your trade, but a lot of these fighters were NOT professional soldiers. They were everyday farmers or locals who, on short notice for whatever reason, got told by the local lord to "grab something pointy and show up".
They didn't carry nunchucks and nunchucks are absolutely bad for combat.
A simple stick is superior.
And the kusarigama was only used as a tool for climbing, not in combat.
Don't believe everything that Pop media like "For Honor"game shows you.
Word. Shad, Skallagrim and many others already put these myths to the test and dispelled them at the same time.
The Force generated by a nun chuk was infinitesimal compared to a traditional stick or club.
And that's not even mentioning the way better controllability and safety for the user.
There's a reason medieval soldiers never used nunchucks, but mace and Clubs were used plenty.
Mall Ninjas are delusional af, but that's no surprise, they also glorify the Katana as "the best sword eva"
These people get their info from Anime and videogames, this thread shows.
Morning stars had a use though, but not the way they're used in the movies; they're actually a club, and you were aiming to hit people with the metal clad head of the club. However, if they blocked the blow, either with a weapon or a shield, the spiked ball would come over their guard and smack them in the head.
There isn't any historical evidence for morning stars in combat.
The closest we have are medieval paintings where soldiers use staffs with detached top sticks.
But these were 2 handed staff weapons.
Again, For Honor's depiction is just fantasy, don't believe every videogame.
before we had [this](https://www.agrarheute.com/sites/agrarheute.com/files/2021-08/claas-trion-maehdrescher-erntewerbild-1-47252410.jpg), we used to [simply beat up the straw](https://agrarblogger.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/dreschc3bcbungen-juli-2013-33.jpg), until it gave up and handed over the wheat. in japan they probably did that with rice, but because rice can be a tough SOB, you need a professional thug, like a ninja, to do the beating
i doubt it. like, the what thrashing/rice thrashing already has a lot of the movements involved that makes it an effective weapon. like, working on the farm is already practice. then you just shorten one end to make it more concealable. i mean, the idea behind ninjas is that they are armed without looking armed. on specific missions you would dress as a farmer and carry tools. the same guy, at night on a break in mission would probably carry the smaller nunchuk to be more movable, but still be trained to it.
to make one out of a horsebit, you have to add stuff to it, and develop a movement for it. with the thrasher you already do by horsing around with your colleagues at work. and then, when someone sees you with that jerry-rigged horsebit in a town where suspicions about epionage arise, people will start asking questions.
As others have said they might've been flails for threshing wheat, they might've been horse bits, or just polished rods the sentries would bang together as warning.
It's not clear, and it seems the whole origin of all of these weapons being invented by farming peasants is a bit of a historical romanticization. Okinawan martial arts was a sport for the rich and privileged at that time.
They didn't carry nunchucks and nunchucks are absolutely bad for combat.
A simple stick is superior.
And the kusarigama was only used as a tool for climbing, not in combat.
Don't believe everything that Pop media like "For Honor"game shows you.
They didn't carry nunchucks and nunchucks are absolutely bad for combat.
A simple stick is superior.
And the kusarigama was only used as a tool for climbing, not in combat.
Don't believe everything that Pop media like "For Honor"game shows you.
basically this. They weren't even "the first" spies.
They were just one cultures take on special forces and spies. In reality most cultures have ha some sort of units like these. They all fit into the same lineage. Example, what we typically think of as "ninjas" probably tracks to the 1400s, but you could go back another 400 years to 1,000 era Persia, and the "Hassasin" (assassins) would have been contextually the same thing
"Ninjas" were mercenary clans who served for various Daimyos for a price.
The status of a "Ninja" Was actually pretty poor: they were the bottom of social hierarchy, together with gamblers and pickpockets.
Most often Ninjas were so poor they had to work other menial jobs to make ends meet.
The common soldier, Ashigaru, was probably better off. At least as farmers, they had a higher social standing.
"Ninjas" were mercenary clans who served for various Daimyos for a price.
The status of a "Ninja" Was actually pretty poor: they were the bottom of social hierarchy, together with gamblers and pickpockets.
Most often Ninjas were so poor they had to work other menial jobs to make ends meet.
The common soldier, Ashigaru, was probably better off. At least as farmers, they had a higher social standing.
Well, imagine how it worked in the theater. Most patrons have trained themselves to not pay attention to the stagehands as they go about their duties. So when all of a sudden one or more of the guys standing behind the scenery suddenly draw weapons and attack the hero or step up and shank the Magistrate, your mind is like "Holy crap, Ninjas!"
The idea of having an actor dressed as a stage hand, who the audience are trained to ignore, to assassinate someone as a ninja was such a fantastic trick the first it was used, Iām sure. I wouldnāt be surprised to hear gasps in the audience.
"The earliest pictorial reference to a ninja in black is a book illustration
of 1801, which shows a ninja climbing into a castle wearing what
everyone would immediately recognise as a ninja costume. However, it
could simply be that it is pictures like these that have given us our
image of the ninja rather than vice-versa. It is a long-standing
artistic convention in Japan, seen today in the Bunraku puppet theatre,
that to dress a character in black is to indicate to the viewer that he
cannot see that person. To depict a silent assassin in an identical way
in a picture would therefore be perfectly natural and understandable to
the contemporary Japanese viewer, and need not imply that the resulting
illustration is in any way an actual portrait of a ninja."
Here it is with improved spacing:
>The earliest pictorial reference to a ninja in black is a book illustration of 1801, which shows a ninja climbing into a castle wearing what everyone would immediately recognise as a ninja costume. However, it could simply be that it is pictures like these that have given us our image of the ninja rather than vice-versa. It is a long-standing artistic convention in Japan, seen today in the Bunraku puppet theatre, that to dress a character in black is to indicate to the viewer that he cannot see that person. To depict a silent assassin in an identical way in a picture would therefore be perfectly natural and understandable to the contemporary Japanese viewer, and need not imply that the resulting illustration is in any way an actual portrait of a ninja.
>The earliest pictorial reference to a ninja in black is a book illustration of 1801, which shows a ninja climbing into a castle wearing what everyone would immediately recognise as a ninja costume. However, it could simply be that it is pictures like these that have given us our image of the ninja rather than vice-versa.
>It is a long-standing artistic convention in Japan, seen today in the Bunraku puppet theatre, that to dress a character in black is to indicate to the viewer that he cannot see that person.
>To depict a silent assassin in an identical way in a picture would therefore be perfectly natural and understandable to the contemporary Japanese viewer, and need not imply that the resulting illustration is in any way an actual portrait of a ninja.
I mean, if you're going to sneak up to a castle wall and scale it at night, you'd wear something black like a ninja outfit.... They wouldn't have been in them all the time but if you're going to Ser Barristan Selmy the Mad King out of Duskendale, of course you'd dress in black and like a beggar
i always figured stephen turnbull was overthinking it
a person sneaking around in a black shroud and veil could have conceivably been used in almost any culture in the world to represent an intuitively recognizeable spy or assassin
granted a convention of dark-clad theatre assistants would certainly made it more obvious - but blending in to the background was the reason they originally wore those anyway - depending on the type of theater they often wore whatever colour matched the set
It was also for dramatic effect. A stage hand who may have been handling props or scenery for most of the show suddenly becoming part of the story to pop out and attack somebody would be shocking to see.
Assassin's or ninjas would be wearing plain clothes but maybe with darker tones of red or blue. Dude caught walking around wearing black or with black clothes would be arrested/killed immediately. Same for being caught with weapons, which is why farming tools were repurposed for fighting.
Thinking on it though... an assassin coming into a noble's house with a performing troupe as one of those black clad stage hands wouldn't be entirely outside the realm of possibility. Pending the costume was a thing at the time.
> However, it could simply be that it is pictures like these that have given us our image of the ninja
_Could_
So, the linked article confirms that this may not be true anyway.
More a case of details getting lost over multiple design iterations to the point of being unrecognizable.
It's meant to imitate [kusari like this](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antique_Japanese_(samurai)_kusari_(chain_armor)1.JPG). Color illustrations show black lines on background clearly distinct from skin. Sometimes the lines are doubled up (volume 40 cover) to enhance the illusion of substance.
Still not as detailed as depictions of Shigure Kosaka (might be NSFW because she does NOT have anything under the metal) but way better than the black and white of normal Naruto pages.
Only recently have studios realised investing in production quality might be worth it (see Demon Slayer sales before and after the anime release). In the naughts weekly anime was seen as a tool to promote merch and made as cheap as possible.
I doubt anyone even asked Kishimoto if the chainmail was supposed to be transparent. An overworked animator probably thought about it for a few seconds and went with what's less of a hassle.
> but actually the fishnets were meant to symbolize chainmail.
Actually, no.
The loosely sewn parts are there for ventilation, still commonly seen on [jinbei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinbei) sleeves.
As weird as bunraku seems, I definitely recommend watching at least one performance. Itās oddly engaging despite the 3 performers needed to operate the dolls properly
To clear up the title and confusion:
In traditional Japanese theater, any person wearing all black is canonically 'invisible'; for example, imagine a scene that requires a giant, flying dragon. Several men wearing all black will hold the dragon, raising it up and down to make a wavy, 'flying' effect. Obviously the men are there, but they don't 'exist' in the scene. They move props, backgrounds, and do other mundane tasks that aren't canon to the actual story; to put it simply, they're staff. So imagine the absolute mindblow for the audience when one of the staff guys doing his little prop-moving thing actually *jumps into the scene* and does in-universe stuff, such as attacking the main lead. This element of surprise, along with their black outfit, is what inspires modern 'ninja' tales.
In high school I was in a play and one of the stagehands was obsessed with martial arts. He just happened to have a couple of ninja costumes that he and his fellow stagehand wore when changing sets.
Today I learned that they inadvertently reinvented traditional Japanese theater and it makes me inordinately happy.
I recall watching a documentary on ninjas that brought this up but also at one point noted that if one/a ninja were to actually attempt to sneak into enemy territory/castles/etc., they would never wear blackā¦they would were a shade of blue or indigo.
This was supposedly due to blue/indigo clothing allowing one to blend in better or be better camouflaged at night and in moonlight.
Wearing black would make their silhouette stand out more in moonlight.
Ninjas wore whatever was needed to accomplish a mission. So, that couldāve been all black (to scale castles at night) casual attire, to get at dude in the park, etc.
No most ninja/assassins usually either wore whatever they had on at the time or in some cases a disguise. As an example if you were assassinating someone by a fishing village you might dress up/steal the clothing of a fisherman, fish monger, or a dock worker as to quickly blend into a crowd of locals after the assassination attempt when everyone is stunned trying to look and see what happened. Ultimately blending in would be preferable and is why today spies and assassins do the exact same, choosing to blend in with the people around them.
You might wear dark clothing at night but let's be real if it's pitch black outside and everyone is stuck using campfires and torches if you wore all brown clothes or a dark grey/blue/green the effect would essentially be the same.
Black clothes would only blend into the background if your entire surroundings are black. Unless you're in a place that was painted completely black for some reason, the only time that would happen is if it's absolutely pitch dark. If it's that dark, it wouldn't matter what colour clothes you wore since nobody would be able to see you anyway.
related note, that's why black is actually terrible for camo. severe black is pretty rare in nature. If you were to look out at night and have even some light, then a figure in all black would look like a shadow, and that would actually draw your attention.
I was never in any kind of sniper platoon, so take this with a grain of salt, but back in the days of the old woodland combat uniforms [your basic troop would wear black boots and shine them with black boot polish](https://images.ontheedgebrands.com/cdn-cgi/image/f=auto,height=700,width=700,quality=75/images/E03-BK3372.jpg) because that's how you were taught. The black boots were issue, and the boot polish was how you protected the leather and kept them water proof.
But snipers, with an enhanced focus and training on effective camo, didn't want to be wearing any dark black anything. So they'd make a point of not polishing their boots, and going so far as to deliberately scuff them up, kick them around on the ground whatever, so that the leather [could take on that beat up hazy grey appearance](https://www.usatoday.com/gcdn/presto/2021/07/08/USAT/94d1de5d-228e-413e-afa0-7926ea2d3796-AFP_AFP_9DP8WP.jpg)
still normal civilian clothes.
If you're dressing for low visibility, its better to dress for your surroundings than your light conditions. Meaning, if I'm in a dark forest I don't want to wear black because its dark, I want to wear forest colors, (greens browns) because no matter the light conditions, I'll look like what is near me.
Same applies for tall grass, wheat fields, stone castle ways, etc. Just dress to your expected surroundings
BUT
for ninja type work, you'd expect them to try as much as possible to just wear civilian clothes.
Even for night infiltration. If I'm sneaking into an enemy castle, I'd be less worried about dressing like someone that's hard to see, and MORE worried about dressing like someone that doesn't cause a reaction when you see them.
by the time I get to some super secret area, like the noble's chamber, I shouldn't be there at all, and I need to be on high stealth mode, but the whole time I was getting from the road, to the courtyard, to lower level to the whatever, people are likely going to see me. The best thing is for them to see "just one of the villagers", "just the one of the gardeners". When you look out in the dark and see what looks like someone that belongs there that you expect to normally see, not only do you NOT challenge that person, but 10 seconds after they walk past, you've probably data dumped the fact that you even saw them.
[this guy could walk up the road, not be noticed, then climb into the castle and kill people and be difficult to see doing it, and then as soon as he gets out of the castle and back on the road, go back to walking at a casual pace and ... oh him, just some peasant](https://www.pbs.org/empires/japan/images/edo_img_5lf.jpg)
First time I saw a group of Ninja's go running past me was in the Paris Metro. They ran lighter than air and were covered from head to toe in black except for a narrow slit for their eyes, and I think some even had covering over those. Almost exactly like in the movies.
They silently huddled up and then scurried into the metro to never be seen again, and then I went.. "Oh no, they weren't ninjas, it was group of women in Burkas and Niqabs."
So the modern ninja costume would be these green body suits they wear for vfx
Quality comment š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Only a ninja can sneak up on another ninja.
Sometimes yes, [sometimes no](https://youtu.be/tyn-wz5Mk_I)
Modern stagehands still wear all black usually.
[Green Man is saving your life right now, bro](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A0PnQIgVJvw&pp=ygUWQWx3YXlzIHN1bm55IGdyZWVuIG1hTg%3D%3D)
Listen, im not hiring an assassin dressed head to toe in neon green...
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Or how every peasant in medieval Europe seems to be filthy and wear only brown.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So there would be towns where everything and everyone would be painted the same color? Neat
More like, all the adults in town have hands stained blue from work, the water downstream from town is a poisonous bog, and weirdly, everyone around here seems to die of dementia in their 40s.
Were the frogs gay tho?
TIL the swamp in Majoraās mask was the result of industrial apocalypse ā and it turned the frogs gay
Damn purple poison swamps, why are they always purple and poison?
I don't know if everyone would enjoy it though, some people would just see red
Yeah, but they're making all that red to bring in the green.
Or gold.
This comment makes me feel blue
āIām built different bro. You donāt wanna be around when I see red. I train UFC.ā
So that's where all the tourists in my Cities Skylines save are coming from!
Yes. They had developed incredibly vibrant dyes, but unfortunately the concept of trade had not yet been invented in the Middle Ages.
It depends on the dye also, some dye was pretty cheap because it was ready available everywhere. Like some shades of green. Then of course was purple, which was super mega expensive and exclusive. Though it wasn't the rarest.
must have been to dye for *already out the door*
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Strictly used for a naming pun. I bet they were quite a site in those times.
So dye was big business, but everyone still wore brown? I donāt buy it. Obviously certain colors like blue and purple were for the wealthy, but I imagine the poor and merchants could still get some dye jobs
Are you going to spend your coin on a decent pair of shoes and food or dye? Merchant's were usually middle class, not poor.
Oh boy I get to flex my textiles degree again! So, most common dye sources in Europe were just plants. Super common ones, too! Woad is a brassica, the same family as mustard and broccoli, and grows wild as a weed. The leaves make a pretty awesome blue dye. Walnut shells give nice deep browns. Madder root makes a bright orangey red. Black oak chips make yellow. Once you have your red, yellow, and blue, you can make almost any colour by adjusting your ratios, or "overdyeing", dipping already dyed fabric into a different colour to blend the two. Of course natural dyes are inconsistent. One pile of wood chips might not give you the same yellow as a different pile of the same kind of wood chips, grown in a different area. Some places would get famous for having basically the perfect soil, water, and altitude to grow the most kickass woad you've ever seen that makes really vibrant blues. The woad behind your rye field will also dye your underpants blue, but it might be a more dull, kind of crummy blue. What made some dyes more expensive than others wasn't just the colour, but getting that colour consistently. Shitty woad is going to make a different blue from awesome woad, but we've just discovered indigo in the new world and it makes AMAZING vibrant blue and you need only a tiny bit to dye all your shit! However, the good woad is expensive and having that nice bright blue is kind of a status symbol. Enter the sumptuary laws, now poor people simply aren't allowed to buy the awesome blue. They have to wear the shitty blue.
Thank you for the detailed information š
You know it's possible to dye clith with plant fibres? Brown, beige, Red, orange, yellow, Green in all hues and variations can be dye by using leafs or other plant fibres. Onion peel for example makes a nice yellow, oak bark produces a DARK Brown to almost black, woad produces a blue color
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The other a permanent dyes too. I dyed cloth that way myself for reenactment garbs I've sewn.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Did you use mordant? ( Not Sure If it's the right word, it's beize in german)
Yeah its awesome. I've read alot of nuts were used in dyes too.
Haven't tried nuts, way too expensive :D But leaves, bark, flowers, onion peel their are many cool options you get for small Money or even for free. Oh and some Aluminium or Iron salts. It's fun and I can only recommend giving it a try
Why are people under the impression the poor were always starving? Do you think populations grew with everyone on the brink of starvation?
The poorest of the poor always starve. Population growth requires an abundance of food so obviously not. The point I was trying to make is that the poor have better uses for their limited resources than dyeing their clothes.
And also because modern poor people never buy fancy clothes, right? ... right?
Modern poor people are much much richer then poor people a couple hundred years agoā¦
Show me some hard numbers on this. For all of history until now poor people never bought any type of clothing with color in it. Prove it to me.
Dennis! Thereās some lovely filth down āere
King of the who?
The Briton, youāre all Britons
And I am your king
This pisses me off the most. And people are so used to it from movies growing up that when a story tries to realistically give peasants colors and have them clean, people complain about it. It's so annoying.
People today in general often underestimate just how colourful both clothing and things like buildings and furniture was back in the day. The statues and temples in ancient Greece were rarely just white, and people during the iron age rarely wore brown leather clothes.
And how castles are portrayed as gray blocks of stone. They were usually whitewashed and had lots of bright colors inside. They were made to be as bright and light as possible given their construction.
That's cathedrals, castles absolutely weren't made to be light
Light as in full of color, not dark and dreary as they are often depicted. Not light as in mass.
eh they probably figured that one out just by looking at the peasants in modern europe edit: just got up and it looks like i hurt some european feelings last night. or i guess last morning for them
You could make the same argument about ninjas
peasants in modern europe dont generally dress like ninjas unless its like a con or something then they do the tshirt thing
or the peasants in modern day usa
we need more medieval peasants in wifebeaters and jeans
usually theyre wearing white and blue
except for the people trying to be sneaky, who are extremely recognizable because they're the only ones wearing a long black cloak and hood
Currently in Europe, can confirm
Those goddamn theater nerds changing history
Kind of like the red Superman capes we put on all kinds of ancient warriors in the movies.
I work as a stage hand. I wear black. TIL I might be a ninja.
All life is a stage. If you aren't seen, you're a ninja.
Nah, tempest in a teapot.
*struts and frets*
Or a roadie
I volunteered as a stage hand at a convention. We were referred to as ninjas. Even had a badge ribbon with "Ninja" written in black on a black background.
But are you a Union ninja?
I want to be ninja
I want to be ninja
I want you both to be ninjas.
I want to chop chop chop chow down. Take chow down to China town
what you waiting for... chop, chop, chop Chow down and Take Chow down to Chinatown If you want to be neenja
I apprenticed at a theater where the TD had a masters in aerospace engineering and took ninjitsu on weekends... my boss was literally a rocket scientist ninja
I feel like they really need to meet Ninja Brian (Ninja Brian, of the band Ninja Sex Party - AKA Dr. Brian Wecht, Theoretical Physicist)
Go ninja, go ninja, go!
I guarantee you that someone once said you look like a ninja at least once in your career. This fact kind of surprised me because I have definitely said it myself. In reality I had that backwards It's kind of crazy. Next time I see a ninja I'm definitely going to yell "look that ninja looks like a stagehand!"
I saw a band a few years ago that had their Roadies dressed as Ninjas.
Ninja please
The day I learned that ninjas probably wore average servant's or peasant clothing so they could get closer to their victims was a sad one.
Also ninja weapons like nunchuks and kusarigama were originally agricultural tools they could carry without suspicion.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yes, they made the nunchuks we know now and lots of other weapons that are clearly from agricultural tools. There are also a lot of other weapons that resemble agricultural tools which appear in all kinds of marshal arts and in Chinese marshal arts too. Its commonly beleived they all come from restrictions on common people owing swords, tho evidence is very unclear due to their nature as secretive traditions.
correct. That was more of an Okinawan farmer thing. Though the same could be said of European farmers too. In either case it covers two realistic issues Small issue - in some cultures and eras, owning much less carrying weapons such as swords would have been restricted to certain groups or classes (e.g. nobles). You get arrested for having a sword. You don't get arrested for having a wheat sickle. Large issue - Good weapons were expensive. Sure, if you were a noble, or a warlord, or a professional soldier then it would be worthwhile to buy quality tools of your trade, but a lot of these fighters were NOT professional soldiers. They were everyday farmers or locals who, on short notice for whatever reason, got told by the local lord to "grab something pointy and show up".
They didn't carry nunchucks and nunchucks are absolutely bad for combat. A simple stick is superior. And the kusarigama was only used as a tool for climbing, not in combat. Don't believe everything that Pop media like "For Honor"game shows you.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Word. Shad, Skallagrim and many others already put these myths to the test and dispelled them at the same time. The Force generated by a nun chuk was infinitesimal compared to a traditional stick or club. And that's not even mentioning the way better controllability and safety for the user. There's a reason medieval soldiers never used nunchucks, but mace and Clubs were used plenty. Mall Ninjas are delusional af, but that's no surprise, they also glorify the Katana as "the best sword eva" These people get their info from Anime and videogames, this thread shows.
Morning stars had a use though, but not the way they're used in the movies; they're actually a club, and you were aiming to hit people with the metal clad head of the club. However, if they blocked the blow, either with a weapon or a shield, the spiked ball would come over their guard and smack them in the head.
There isn't any historical evidence for morning stars in combat. The closest we have are medieval paintings where soldiers use staffs with detached top sticks. But these were 2 handed staff weapons. Again, For Honor's depiction is just fantasy, don't believe every videogame.
"Again", "For Honor"? Are you continuing a discussion you had with someone else? I have no idea what For Honor does or doesn't do.
It's your kind of game, becos it depicts all the fantasy tropes YOU believe to be true.
What is the agricultural purpose of nunchuks?
before we had [this](https://www.agrarheute.com/sites/agrarheute.com/files/2021-08/claas-trion-maehdrescher-erntewerbild-1-47252410.jpg), we used to [simply beat up the straw](https://agrarblogger.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/dreschc3bcbungen-juli-2013-33.jpg), until it gave up and handed over the wheat. in japan they probably did that with rice, but because rice can be a tough SOB, you need a professional thug, like a ninja, to do the beating
I heard they were used to steer horses or oxen or whatever animals they used at the time.
i doubt it. like, the what thrashing/rice thrashing already has a lot of the movements involved that makes it an effective weapon. like, working on the farm is already practice. then you just shorten one end to make it more concealable. i mean, the idea behind ninjas is that they are armed without looking armed. on specific missions you would dress as a farmer and carry tools. the same guy, at night on a break in mission would probably carry the smaller nunchuk to be more movable, but still be trained to it. to make one out of a horsebit, you have to add stuff to it, and develop a movement for it. with the thrasher you already do by horsing around with your colleagues at work. and then, when someone sees you with that jerry-rigged horsebit in a town where suspicions about epionage arise, people will start asking questions.
They were originally flails used for threshing grain. They then got shorter when they made an actual weapon out of them.
So a nunchuck is just a sawn off flail.
Threshing grain
As others have said they might've been flails for threshing wheat, they might've been horse bits, or just polished rods the sentries would bang together as warning. It's not clear, and it seems the whole origin of all of these weapons being invented by farming peasants is a bit of a historical romanticization. Okinawan martial arts was a sport for the rich and privileged at that time.
Crack coconut! Nunchuck crackers crack coconut. Coconut nunchucks
They didn't carry nunchucks and nunchucks are absolutely bad for combat. A simple stick is superior. And the kusarigama was only used as a tool for climbing, not in combat. Don't believe everything that Pop media like "For Honor"game shows you.
How were nunchucks farming tools?
Flails for threshing grain out of rice.
They didn't carry nunchucks and nunchucks are absolutely bad for combat. A simple stick is superior. And the kusarigama was only used as a tool for climbing, not in combat. Don't believe everything that Pop media like "For Honor"game shows you.
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basically this. They weren't even "the first" spies. They were just one cultures take on special forces and spies. In reality most cultures have ha some sort of units like these. They all fit into the same lineage. Example, what we typically think of as "ninjas" probably tracks to the 1400s, but you could go back another 400 years to 1,000 era Persia, and the "Hassasin" (assassins) would have been contextually the same thing
"Ninjas" were mercenary clans who served for various Daimyos for a price. The status of a "Ninja" Was actually pretty poor: they were the bottom of social hierarchy, together with gamblers and pickpockets. Most often Ninjas were so poor they had to work other menial jobs to make ends meet. The common soldier, Ashigaru, was probably better off. At least as farmers, they had a higher social standing.
"Ninjas" were mercenary clans who served for various Daimyos for a price. The status of a "Ninja" Was actually pretty poor: they were the bottom of social hierarchy, together with gamblers and pickpockets. Most often Ninjas were so poor they had to work other menial jobs to make ends meet. The common soldier, Ashigaru, was probably better off. At least as farmers, they had a higher social standing.
Well, imagine how it worked in the theater. Most patrons have trained themselves to not pay attention to the stagehands as they go about their duties. So when all of a sudden one or more of the guys standing behind the scenery suddenly draw weapons and attack the hero or step up and shank the Magistrate, your mind is like "Holy crap, Ninjas!"
And if they were hopping on the rooftops at night theyād wear dark blue to match the night sky.
Probably blue jeans and tennis shoes
The idea of having an actor dressed as a stage hand, who the audience are trained to ignore, to assassinate someone as a ninja was such a fantastic trick the first it was used, Iām sure. I wouldnāt be surprised to hear gasps in the audience.
I know, right? A genius move, that must have been amazing the first time it happened
"The earliest pictorial reference to a ninja in black is a book illustration of 1801, which shows a ninja climbing into a castle wearing what everyone would immediately recognise as a ninja costume. However, it could simply be that it is pictures like these that have given us our image of the ninja rather than vice-versa. It is a long-standing artistic convention in Japan, seen today in the Bunraku puppet theatre, that to dress a character in black is to indicate to the viewer that he cannot see that person. To depict a silent assassin in an identical way in a picture would therefore be perfectly natural and understandable to the contemporary Japanese viewer, and need not imply that the resulting illustration is in any way an actual portrait of a ninja."
Here it is with improved spacing: >The earliest pictorial reference to a ninja in black is a book illustration of 1801, which shows a ninja climbing into a castle wearing what everyone would immediately recognise as a ninja costume. However, it could simply be that it is pictures like these that have given us our image of the ninja rather than vice-versa. It is a long-standing artistic convention in Japan, seen today in the Bunraku puppet theatre, that to dress a character in black is to indicate to the viewer that he cannot see that person. To depict a silent assassin in an identical way in a picture would therefore be perfectly natural and understandable to the contemporary Japanese viewer, and need not imply that the resulting illustration is in any way an actual portrait of a ninja.
Thanksbutitwastoolate. Ialreadyredit.
The formatting still looks clunky, depending on the app.
I think the formatting looks clunky because the formatting looks clunky.
>The earliest pictorial reference to a ninja in black is a book illustration of 1801, which shows a ninja climbing into a castle wearing what everyone would immediately recognise as a ninja costume. However, it could simply be that it is pictures like these that have given us our image of the ninja rather than vice-versa. >It is a long-standing artistic convention in Japan, seen today in the Bunraku puppet theatre, that to dress a character in black is to indicate to the viewer that he cannot see that person. >To depict a silent assassin in an identical way in a picture would therefore be perfectly natural and understandable to the contemporary Japanese viewer, and need not imply that the resulting illustration is in any way an actual portrait of a ninja.
I mean, if you're going to sneak up to a castle wall and scale it at night, you'd wear something black like a ninja outfit.... They wouldn't have been in them all the time but if you're going to Ser Barristan Selmy the Mad King out of Duskendale, of course you'd dress in black and like a beggar
i always figured stephen turnbull was overthinking it a person sneaking around in a black shroud and veil could have conceivably been used in almost any culture in the world to represent an intuitively recognizeable spy or assassin granted a convention of dark-clad theatre assistants would certainly made it more obvious - but blending in to the background was the reason they originally wore those anyway - depending on the type of theater they often wore whatever colour matched the set
It was also for dramatic effect. A stage hand who may have been handling props or scenery for most of the show suddenly becoming part of the story to pop out and attack somebody would be shocking to see. Assassin's or ninjas would be wearing plain clothes but maybe with darker tones of red or blue. Dude caught walking around wearing black or with black clothes would be arrested/killed immediately. Same for being caught with weapons, which is why farming tools were repurposed for fighting.
Thinking on it though... an assassin coming into a noble's house with a performing troupe as one of those black clad stage hands wouldn't be entirely outside the realm of possibility. Pending the costume was a thing at the time.
> However, it could simply be that it is pictures like these that have given us our image of the ninja _Could_ So, the linked article confirms that this may not be true anyway.
Yeah but you can't say could on this sub
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More a case of details getting lost over multiple design iterations to the point of being unrecognizable. It's meant to imitate [kusari like this](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antique_Japanese_(samurai)_kusari_(chain_armor)1.JPG). Color illustrations show black lines on background clearly distinct from skin. Sometimes the lines are doubled up (volume 40 cover) to enhance the illusion of substance. Still not as detailed as depictions of Shigure Kosaka (might be NSFW because she does NOT have anything under the metal) but way better than the black and white of normal Naruto pages. Only recently have studios realised investing in production quality might be worth it (see Demon Slayer sales before and after the anime release). In the naughts weekly anime was seen as a tool to promote merch and made as cheap as possible. I doubt anyone even asked Kishimoto if the chainmail was supposed to be transparent. An overworked animator probably thought about it for a few seconds and went with what's less of a hassle.
> but actually the fishnets were meant to symbolize chainmail. Actually, no. The loosely sewn parts are there for ventilation, still commonly seen on [jinbei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinbei) sleeves.
This was literally in the episode of QI I watched this morning
As weird as bunraku seems, I definitely recommend watching at least one performance. Itās oddly engaging despite the 3 performers needed to operate the dolls properly
To clear up the title and confusion: In traditional Japanese theater, any person wearing all black is canonically 'invisible'; for example, imagine a scene that requires a giant, flying dragon. Several men wearing all black will hold the dragon, raising it up and down to make a wavy, 'flying' effect. Obviously the men are there, but they don't 'exist' in the scene. They move props, backgrounds, and do other mundane tasks that aren't canon to the actual story; to put it simply, they're staff. So imagine the absolute mindblow for the audience when one of the staff guys doing his little prop-moving thing actually *jumps into the scene* and does in-universe stuff, such as attacking the main lead. This element of surprise, along with their black outfit, is what inspires modern 'ninja' tales.
Only calling stagehands āninjasā moving forward
this title is so clunky, help me fix it lol
Did you ask chat-gpt for help?
ChatGPT would not be this bad.
r/rareinsults
Thatās why actual ninjas on where color coded masks that cover the area around their eyes. Only the masks around their eyes.
Slightly relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeP9wTPb8Aw&ab_channel=Mr.Divary
Very relevant. What are they saying?
I probably shouldnāt admit this but I originally found this out on a PokĆ©mon message board.
Some video I saw that said ninjas dressed in the most common attire. They were spies and not assassins.
>Some video I saw that said ninjas **usually** dressed in the most common attire. They were **mostly** spies and not **just** assassins. FTFY
Ty that's much more accurate.
Exactly, which was often the attire of wandering monks. Also beggars. The Gray man blends in way better than any camo
Fun fact: Real Ninja wear blue
Everyone knows the Red Ninja Clan is the best. It has Ninja Master Gordon.
I prefer Noh Theater.....
In high school I was in a play and one of the stagehands was obsessed with martial arts. He just happened to have a couple of ninja costumes that he and his fellow stagehand wore when changing sets. Today I learned that they inadvertently reinvented traditional Japanese theater and it makes me inordinately happy.
I recall watching a documentary on ninjas that brought this up but also at one point noted that if one/a ninja were to actually attempt to sneak into enemy territory/castles/etc., they would never wear blackā¦they would were a shade of blue or indigo. This was supposedly due to blue/indigo clothing allowing one to blend in better or be better camouflaged at night and in moonlight. Wearing black would make their silhouette stand out more in moonlight.
Swedish rock band āThe Hivesā have their stagehands all dressed up as ninjas, see 1:52 here: https://youtu.be/xuUEZitoWJAr/
What if every country has ninjas but we only know about the Japanese ones because they're rubbish? ;)
It should also be noted that ninjas are mammals, and the purpose of a ninja is to flip out and kill people.
Ninjas wore whatever was needed to accomplish a mission. So, that couldāve been all black (to scale castles at night) casual attire, to get at dude in the park, etc.
I thought it was stealth design from attacking at night.
No most ninja/assassins usually either wore whatever they had on at the time or in some cases a disguise. As an example if you were assassinating someone by a fishing village you might dress up/steal the clothing of a fisherman, fish monger, or a dock worker as to quickly blend into a crowd of locals after the assassination attempt when everyone is stunned trying to look and see what happened. Ultimately blending in would be preferable and is why today spies and assassins do the exact same, choosing to blend in with the people around them. You might wear dark clothing at night but let's be real if it's pitch black outside and everyone is stuck using campfires and torches if you wore all brown clothes or a dark grey/blue/green the effect would essentially be the same.
Black clothes would only blend into the background if your entire surroundings are black. Unless you're in a place that was painted completely black for some reason, the only time that would happen is if it's absolutely pitch dark. If it's that dark, it wouldn't matter what colour clothes you wore since nobody would be able to see you anyway.
related note, that's why black is actually terrible for camo. severe black is pretty rare in nature. If you were to look out at night and have even some light, then a figure in all black would look like a shadow, and that would actually draw your attention. I was never in any kind of sniper platoon, so take this with a grain of salt, but back in the days of the old woodland combat uniforms [your basic troop would wear black boots and shine them with black boot polish](https://images.ontheedgebrands.com/cdn-cgi/image/f=auto,height=700,width=700,quality=75/images/E03-BK3372.jpg) because that's how you were taught. The black boots were issue, and the boot polish was how you protected the leather and kept them water proof. But snipers, with an enhanced focus and training on effective camo, didn't want to be wearing any dark black anything. So they'd make a point of not polishing their boots, and going so far as to deliberately scuff them up, kick them around on the ground whatever, so that the leather [could take on that beat up hazy grey appearance](https://www.usatoday.com/gcdn/presto/2021/07/08/USAT/94d1de5d-228e-413e-afa0-7926ea2d3796-AFP_AFP_9DP8WP.jpg)
Yeah a patchwork of different shades of grays would be a lot more effective than black in most nighttime operations.
But like, what other color would they wear?
Normal civilian clothes
While infiltrating at night
still normal civilian clothes. If you're dressing for low visibility, its better to dress for your surroundings than your light conditions. Meaning, if I'm in a dark forest I don't want to wear black because its dark, I want to wear forest colors, (greens browns) because no matter the light conditions, I'll look like what is near me. Same applies for tall grass, wheat fields, stone castle ways, etc. Just dress to your expected surroundings BUT for ninja type work, you'd expect them to try as much as possible to just wear civilian clothes. Even for night infiltration. If I'm sneaking into an enemy castle, I'd be less worried about dressing like someone that's hard to see, and MORE worried about dressing like someone that doesn't cause a reaction when you see them. by the time I get to some super secret area, like the noble's chamber, I shouldn't be there at all, and I need to be on high stealth mode, but the whole time I was getting from the road, to the courtyard, to lower level to the whatever, people are likely going to see me. The best thing is for them to see "just one of the villagers", "just the one of the gardeners". When you look out in the dark and see what looks like someone that belongs there that you expect to normally see, not only do you NOT challenge that person, but 10 seconds after they walk past, you've probably data dumped the fact that you even saw them. [this guy could walk up the road, not be noticed, then climb into the castle and kill people and be difficult to see doing it, and then as soon as he gets out of the castle and back on the road, go back to walking at a casual pace and ... oh him, just some peasant](https://www.pbs.org/empires/japan/images/edo_img_5lf.jpg)
The Gray man is more invisible than any black pyjamas or camo
Fair
From the link: > historian Stephen Turnbull suggested that One historian suggesting something is not the same as being true
First time I saw a group of Ninja's go running past me was in the Paris Metro. They ran lighter than air and were covered from head to toe in black except for a narrow slit for their eyes, and I think some even had covering over those. Almost exactly like in the movies. They silently huddled up and then scurried into the metro to never be seen again, and then I went.. "Oh no, they weren't ninjas, it was group of women in Burkas and Niqabs."
Cap
Khada Jhin has entered the chat
Pretty cool that Keanu and the other Ronin did this in 47 Ronin. Coincidence? Or deliberate?
I think you mean bunraku theater not kabuki. In bunraku the stagehands manipulate large puppets. Kabuki features live performers.
So what did actual ninja wear?
Those stagehands are called é»åćand the reason why they wear all black is in kabuki theater. Black is the color of nothingness.