10 ways your image of the samurai is wrong 10. skill in archery was prized more than skillwith the sword samurais are the iconic warriors of japan’spast and as they have been mythologized around the world, they have been constantly associatedwith the katana.
Meiji Shrine, it is an incredibly popular weapon aroundthe world, and many kids think of sword fighting with the iconic weapon to be one of the ultimatetests of skill. many people are under the impression thatsamurai fought most of their battles with a sword, and prized their ability to beatpeople in honor duels with katanas over other
skills. recently however, in an olympic interview,a japanese contender in the archery competition explained that in japan’s past, archeryhad been much more prized than skill with a sword. this actually makes perfect sense, as longranged combat will always be better than close range melee. samurai would rain arrows down on their foesfrom a distance, shooting them up at an angle to get their proper range and damage thatthey wanted. this skill was considered far more importantthan sword fighting, as that was the last
result if ranged battle had already failed. of course a samurai would train in all skills,but being able to properly hit a target from a long distance was more important than beingable to hurt someone with your sword. if you were to talk to an ancient samuraiso fervently about the importance of the katana, he would probably be very confused. 9. the bushido code as most people know it isa modern invention the complex and ever changing history of thebushido code is far too long to explain even in a single article, but there are some clearmisconceptions about it that are important
to clear up. the code itself has been mythologized overthe years and twisted for many different purposes, and this has led many people, especially thosein the western world, with a completely confused picture of what it was supposed to be. while we don’t know the exact details, asmuch has been lost to time and propaganda, many believe the original code was once muchmore militaristic, and while it certainly had some noble principles, they were not nearlyas based on modern western ideas of chivalry as the code we know of today. there is strong evidence that most of whatthe west knows about bushido comes from a
book at the turn of the 1800s that was clearlywritten in a way that was meant to appeal to western philosophy. this confusion however, also caused peoplewithin japan to get a improper idea of what bushido was, making the entire subject harderto understand. japanese people have never had a clear picturethemselves, due to all the changes to the code. for example, over time it was revised so thatwhat was originally loyalty to one’s lord, became loyalty to the emperor, and then inlater years, to japan itself. there is also reason to believe that the codehas been changed many times throughout japanese
history by various rulers and leaders, wheneverit suited their convenience. it was often used as a propaganda tool bothto better control samurai behavior, and also to better control the mythos of the samuraiin the minds of the people. the history of the bushido code is so confusedand purposely twisted that we may never have the full truth of the matter, or even closeto it. 8. the ancient samurai used other sword-likeweapons most people assume that when the samurai wentinto battle, they charged in with their katana’s and cut their enemies to pieces in droves.
while we already explained that samurai wouldfirst start by raining arrows down upon their enemies, most would think that when the battlereally got down to the nitty gritty, then the katanas would come out. however, in serious engagements, just likein historical european battles, when it came time for large amounts of people to face offin melee combat, spear-like weapons were the first line of attack and defense. in particular, the ancient japanese had aweapon that was a cross between a sword and a gigantic spear. it consisted of a long shaft, with a sword-likeblade at the end.
while the blade was smaller than a sword,it was larger a typical spearhead, and provided more ability to slash and parry than a typicalspear, which is better suited for throwing or jabbing attacks. these were common weapons for foot soldiers,as they could provide distance between a group of soldiers and the enemy, provide a strongwall of defense, and do serious damage. in a frantic melee battle, a weapon like akatana with shorter range and a larger more brittle blade would not be as practical achoice. katanas certainly had their uses, but theywould likely not be a particularly common weapon in a large scale engagement on a battlefield.
7. samurai sometimes used crude flintlock rifles while it may already surprise some peoplethat samurai relied more on bows and spears than their famous katanas, most people wouldstill be convinced that someone in full samurai regalia would never be using weapons thatcould be considered more high tech — it doesn’t fit with the mythology most peoplehave of the time period. however, people were experimenting with gunsseveral hundred years before they were as popular or prevalent as they are now, andjapan was no exception. in the mid 1500s guns were introduced to japan,and they started experimenting with crude
flintlock rifles known as tanegashima. the guns were not particularly amazing piecesof technology at that time, but japan wanted to be on the cutting edge, and while tryingthem out, produced somewhere around 300,000 of them in the few decades after they wereintroduced. the japanese quickly started using riflesconstantly, despite them arguably not being as good as other weapons due to how primitivegun technology was at that time. guns quickly became decisive in many importantbattles, and became a fairly important part of warfare, until the edo period began. there were not nearly as many large scalebattles, and guns were simply not the most
practical option, so they fell out of standarduse for a few hundred years. however, the japanese never forgot the craft. even during this period of low gun use, historiansestimate there were hundreds of active gunsmiths in the country. 6. samurai were used as tax collectors we have mentioned before that the governmentof japan throughout the years, whether it was the modern government, an emperor, orvarious feudal systems, have all subverted the bushido code, the philosophy and the entireexistence of the samurai as they have seen
fit to fulfill whatever purpose they thoughtthey needed. while most people are under the impressionthat these purposes were always to be sent in some way into battle, or to go fight enemiesof japan, this wasn’t always the case either. samurai were almost always high ranking noblejapanese of birth before they ever became samurai. it was natural that these same people wereusually high up within the government. while not all samurai were tax collectors,it can be said that the vast majority, if not all tax collectors, would have hailedfrom the samurai class. some historians believe that one of the reasonsthe rulers of japan worked so hard over the
years to turn samurai into mythological heroesin the eyes of the people, was to make it easier for them to do work like tax collectingwithout facing serious resistance from the commoners. considering japan at the time was an extremelyclass based system and often had great unrest, this is a completely plausible theory. 5. samurai men considered managing money beneaththem it has always been a popular trope for theman to work all day in a sitcom, and then come home and find out that his wife blewthe money on dresses or something equally
comedic. while these are played for cheap laughs, it’snot uncommon for couples to have arguments about the budget, and often whichever personis the one making the majority of the money (whether it is the husband or wife), usuallyargues that they should have the most say in monetary decisions. these arguments often don’t end well, asthe other person states what they contribute non monetarily, and how it is supposed tobe an equal partnership. while we are all familiar with the dynamicsof such an argument, it may surprise you that this was not only an argument that samuraihad no desire to have with their wives, but
in fact they had no desire to be the one dealingwith money at all. many samurai in early feudal japan felt thatdealing with money was beneath them and would only handle it if it was part of their officialduties — in this case they still tried to avoid it by dealing with notes regarding theexchange instead of the actual money itself when possible. they left handling the money to their wives,who they believed should be suited to lower tasks such as managing the purse strings. while this may seem strange, it likely hadpractical origins — they probably convinced themselves it was beneath them because theydidn’t feel like they had the time along
with their other duties. 4. many samurai were deeply in debt to the emergingmerchant class samurai were always more of an important socialclass than just a group of elite warriors, and were usually not only well respected insociety, but also quite wealthy — as those of high class often are. however, the wealthy can also end up poorwith the wrong decisions, and as the class based system solidified, it only made thingsworse for the samurai warriors. it was during the edo period, that the governmentintroduced a new and stricter class based
system. samurai were the top class, and then therewere those in agriculture, the artisans and the merchants. some who were of extremely noble birth, andcertain criminals or other undesirables were considered outside this system. samurai quickly found that despite their classand power, they had to rely on the townsfolk for financial deals. what this means is that the emerging merchantclass quickly became successful and the samurai found themselves in a situation where theyneeded to borrow money from the lower class
in order to survive. while this may sound good for those merchants,it isn’t always beneficial to loan money to those who may never pay you back. the samurai were part of the highest classorder and very militaristic, which means that many loans were simply never repaid and themerchant had to take a huge loss. however, while they may not have always paidoff their debts, this began a period where many samurai simply could no longer affordthe luxuries they once did, and hard to start living simpler lifestyles. 3.
samurai hakama pants were probably not wornto hide footwork you may not have heard the name “hakamapants†before, but you have likely seen them in media many times. they are worn today by students of the disciplineof kendo — the japanese way of the sword — and are also seen prominently worn bysamurai or those supposed to be like them in most movies, cartoons or other depictionsof feudal japan. while they are worn as a matter of traditionin the martial art of kendo, the reason for why they were worn in ancient japan has becomesomewhat misunderstood. some people say it was to disguise a samurai’sfootwork, but this may have been little more
than a fringe benefit that some people pointedout later. the fact is that these type of pants wereoriginally designed for horse riding, and were once popular among women in japan forthat reason, before they even became men’s wear. even then, the evidence is that they weremost popular for the comfort they provided while spending a long time on horseback — somethingmany samurai most definitely had to deal with. there was also a special version of hakamapants with exceptionally long front and back legs, designed to create a train kind of likea dress. sometimes samurai would be forced to wearthese when visiting an emperor or other important
lord to discourage assassination attempts. the pants would make the samurai much lessmobile, making the lord he was visiting feel safer. 2. they trained in hand to hand combat, but itwas a last resort it’s also important to talk about the samuraiand how they approached hand to hand combat, in order to better understand how they foughtas warriors. today, the most popular export from japan— apart from cutesy anime and manga — are the various types of martial arts that developedover the years.
perhaps because westerners are so enthralledby martial arts, we forget that hand to hand combat was not nearly as emphasized in theirculture as we may have led ourselves to believe. just like their western counterparts, thejapanese knew full well that weapons tended to be much more deadly, and less risky touse initially than charging into battle with just your hands to fight. despite this, many people might still imaginesamurai as having insane hand to hand fighting skills, but it simply wasn’t all that emphasized. like all things that you should train in,they certainly developed techniques in hand to hand combat, but many of the forms we knowof today were not in existence or being seriously
developed. the combat styles used by samurai were basedon movements in full armor, which decreased their range of motion. many of the holds used were designed to getthe opponent in position to use a small knife called a tanto on them as a finishing blow. in other words, even within their hand tohand combat system, mixing it with weapons was emphasized. samurai believed that you would end up intrue hand to hand combat in only the most desperate of circumstances, and emphasizedskills that would avoid you ending up that
situation in the first place. 1. the rivalry between ninja and samurai in popularlegend is inaccurate when many people think of ninjas they thinkof people clad all in black, with only their eye slits visible through their mask. we view them as stealthy assassins sneakinginto guarded palaces at night and killing important inhabits with a knife thrust ora quick dose of poison. this popular view of ninjas is very inaccurateand has given rise to people thinking of them as a kind of the opposite of the samurai.
they are usually believed to be from a muchlower class and are almost always viewed as the enemies of the samurai themselves. however, the truth is that the way of theninja was essentially just another part of samurai warfare. ninja were usually trained from families thatwere fairly high class, and usually for very specific traits, because it was a specializedwarrior style. ninjutsu itself was not specifically a styleof hand to hand combat, but would be better described as the training program used toteach warriors how to be stealthy and covert in general.
ninjas rarely wore all black and usually blendedin to spy on their enemies emplacements, or even pretended to be one of them for years. in other words, ninjas were not a specialgroup of people who fought in the shadows against the samurai — they were simply anotherbranch of the military in every feudal lords bag of tricks. in many cases those called samurai knew orwere trained in many of the tricks of the ninja trade and as such there was a good bitof overlap. many samurai were well trained in stealthand doubled as ninjas when needed. the two types of warriors are not the separate,warring factions many people understand them
to be.
10 ways your image of the samurai is wrong 10. skill in archery was prized more than skillwith the sword samurais are the iconic warriors of japan’spast and as they have been mythologized around the world, they have been constantly associatedwith the katana.
Meiji Shrine, it is an incredibly popular weapon aroundthe world, and many kids think of sword fighting with the iconic weapon to be one of the ultimatetests of skill. many people are under the impression thatsamurai fought most of their battles with a sword, and prized their ability to beatpeople in honor duels with katanas over other
skills. recently however, in an olympic interview,a japanese contender in the archery competition explained that in japan’s past, archeryhad been much more prized than skill with a sword. this actually makes perfect sense, as longranged combat will always be better than close range melee. samurai would rain arrows down on their foesfrom a distance, shooting them up at an angle to get their proper range and damage thatthey wanted. this skill was considered far more importantthan sword fighting, as that was the last
result if ranged battle had already failed. of course a samurai would train in all skills,but being able to properly hit a target from a long distance was more important than beingable to hurt someone with your sword. if you were to talk to an ancient samuraiso fervently about the importance of the katana, he would probably be very confused. 9. the bushido code as most people know it isa modern invention the complex and ever changing history of thebushido code is far too long to explain even in a single article, but there are some clearmisconceptions about it that are important
to clear up. the code itself has been mythologized overthe years and twisted for many different purposes, and this has led many people, especially thosein the western world, with a completely confused picture of what it was supposed to be. while we don’t know the exact details, asmuch has been lost to time and propaganda, many believe the original code was once muchmore militaristic, and while it certainly had some noble principles, they were not nearlyas based on modern western ideas of chivalry as the code we know of today. there is strong evidence that most of whatthe west knows about bushido comes from a
book at the turn of the 1800s that was clearlywritten in a way that was meant to appeal to western philosophy. this confusion however, also caused peoplewithin japan to get a improper idea of what bushido was, making the entire subject harderto understand. japanese people have never had a clear picturethemselves, due to all the changes to the code. for example, over time it was revised so thatwhat was originally loyalty to one’s lord, became loyalty to the emperor, and then inlater years, to japan itself. there is also reason to believe that the codehas been changed many times throughout japanese
history by various rulers and leaders, wheneverit suited their convenience. it was often used as a propaganda tool bothto better control samurai behavior, and also to better control the mythos of the samuraiin the minds of the people. the history of the bushido code is so confusedand purposely twisted that we may never have the full truth of the matter, or even closeto it. 8. the ancient samurai used other sword-likeweapons most people assume that when the samurai wentinto battle, they charged in with their katana’s and cut their enemies to pieces in droves.
while we already explained that samurai wouldfirst start by raining arrows down upon their enemies, most would think that when the battlereally got down to the nitty gritty, then the katanas would come out. however, in serious engagements, just likein historical european battles, when it came time for large amounts of people to face offin melee combat, spear-like weapons were the first line of attack and defense. in particular, the ancient japanese had aweapon that was a cross between a sword and a gigantic spear. it consisted of a long shaft, with a sword-likeblade at the end.
while the blade was smaller than a sword,it was larger a typical spearhead, and provided more ability to slash and parry than a typicalspear, which is better suited for throwing or jabbing attacks. these were common weapons for foot soldiers,as they could provide distance between a group of soldiers and the enemy, provide a strongwall of defense, and do serious damage. in a frantic melee battle, a weapon like akatana with shorter range and a larger more brittle blade would not be as practical achoice. katanas certainly had their uses, but theywould likely not be a particularly common weapon in a large scale engagement on a battlefield.
7. samurai sometimes used crude flintlock rifles while it may already surprise some peoplethat samurai relied more on bows and spears than their famous katanas, most people wouldstill be convinced that someone in full samurai regalia would never be using weapons thatcould be considered more high tech — it doesn’t fit with the mythology most peoplehave of the time period. however, people were experimenting with gunsseveral hundred years before they were as popular or prevalent as they are now, andjapan was no exception. in the mid 1500s guns were introduced to japan,and they started experimenting with crude
flintlock rifles known as tanegashima. the guns were not particularly amazing piecesof technology at that time, but japan wanted to be on the cutting edge, and while tryingthem out, produced somewhere around 300,000 of them in the few decades after they wereintroduced. the japanese quickly started using riflesconstantly, despite them arguably not being as good as other weapons due to how primitivegun technology was at that time. guns quickly became decisive in many importantbattles, and became a fairly important part of warfare, until the edo period began. there were not nearly as many large scalebattles, and guns were simply not the most
practical option, so they fell out of standarduse for a few hundred years. however, the japanese never forgot the craft. even during this period of low gun use, historiansestimate there were hundreds of active gunsmiths in the country. 6. samurai were used as tax collectors we have mentioned before that the governmentof japan throughout the years, whether it was the modern government, an emperor, orvarious feudal systems, have all subverted the bushido code, the philosophy and the entireexistence of the samurai as they have seen
fit to fulfill whatever purpose they thoughtthey needed. while most people are under the impressionthat these purposes were always to be sent in some way into battle, or to go fight enemiesof japan, this wasn’t always the case either. samurai were almost always high ranking noblejapanese of birth before they ever became samurai. it was natural that these same people wereusually high up within the government. while not all samurai were tax collectors,it can be said that the vast majority, if not all tax collectors, would have hailedfrom the samurai class. some historians believe that one of the reasonsthe rulers of japan worked so hard over the
years to turn samurai into mythological heroesin the eyes of the people, was to make it easier for them to do work like tax collectingwithout facing serious resistance from the commoners. considering japan at the time was an extremelyclass based system and often had great unrest, this is a completely plausible theory. 5. samurai men considered managing money beneaththem it has always been a popular trope for theman to work all day in a sitcom, and then come home and find out that his wife blewthe money on dresses or something equally
comedic. while these are played for cheap laughs, it’snot uncommon for couples to have arguments about the budget, and often whichever personis the one making the majority of the money (whether it is the husband or wife), usuallyargues that they should have the most say in monetary decisions. these arguments often don’t end well, asthe other person states what they contribute non monetarily, and how it is supposed tobe an equal partnership. while we are all familiar with the dynamicsof such an argument, it may surprise you that this was not only an argument that samuraihad no desire to have with their wives, but
in fact they had no desire to be the one dealingwith money at all. many samurai in early feudal japan felt thatdealing with money was beneath them and would only handle it if it was part of their officialduties — in this case they still tried to avoid it by dealing with notes regarding theexchange instead of the actual money itself when possible. they left handling the money to their wives,who they believed should be suited to lower tasks such as managing the purse strings. while this may seem strange, it likely hadpractical origins — they probably convinced themselves it was beneath them because theydidn’t feel like they had the time along
with their other duties. 4. many samurai were deeply in debt to the emergingmerchant class samurai were always more of an important socialclass than just a group of elite warriors, and were usually not only well respected insociety, but also quite wealthy — as those of high class often are. however, the wealthy can also end up poorwith the wrong decisions, and as the class based system solidified, it only made thingsworse for the samurai warriors. it was during the edo period, that the governmentintroduced a new and stricter class based
system. samurai were the top class, and then therewere those in agriculture, the artisans and the merchants. some who were of extremely noble birth, andcertain criminals or other undesirables were considered outside this system. samurai quickly found that despite their classand power, they had to rely on the townsfolk for financial deals. what this means is that the emerging merchantclass quickly became successful and the samurai found themselves in a situation where theyneeded to borrow money from the lower class
in order to survive. while this may sound good for those merchants,it isn’t always beneficial to loan money to those who may never pay you back. the samurai were part of the highest classorder and very militaristic, which means that many loans were simply never repaid and themerchant had to take a huge loss. however, while they may not have always paidoff their debts, this began a period where many samurai simply could no longer affordthe luxuries they once did, and hard to start living simpler lifestyles. 3.
samurai hakama pants were probably not wornto hide footwork you may not have heard the name “hakamapants†before, but you have likely seen them in media many times. they are worn today by students of the disciplineof kendo — the japanese way of the sword — and are also seen prominently worn bysamurai or those supposed to be like them in most movies, cartoons or other depictionsof feudal japan. while they are worn as a matter of traditionin the martial art of kendo, the reason for why they were worn in ancient japan has becomesomewhat misunderstood. some people say it was to disguise a samurai’sfootwork, but this may have been little more
than a fringe benefit that some people pointedout later. the fact is that these type of pants wereoriginally designed for horse riding, and were once popular among women in japan forthat reason, before they even became men’s wear. even then, the evidence is that they weremost popular for the comfort they provided while spending a long time on horseback — somethingmany samurai most definitely had to deal with. there was also a special version of hakamapants with exceptionally long front and back legs, designed to create a train kind of likea dress. sometimes samurai would be forced to wearthese when visiting an emperor or other important
lord to discourage assassination attempts. the pants would make the samurai much lessmobile, making the lord he was visiting feel safer. 2. they trained in hand to hand combat, but itwas a last resort it’s also important to talk about the samuraiand how they approached hand to hand combat, in order to better understand how they foughtas warriors. today, the most popular export from japan— apart from cutesy anime and manga — are the various types of martial arts that developedover the years.
perhaps because westerners are so enthralledby martial arts, we forget that hand to hand combat was not nearly as emphasized in theirculture as we may have led ourselves to believe. just like their western counterparts, thejapanese knew full well that weapons tended to be much more deadly, and less risky touse initially than charging into battle with just your hands to fight. despite this, many people might still imaginesamurai as having insane hand to hand fighting skills, but it simply wasn’t all that emphasized. like all things that you should train in,they certainly developed techniques in hand to hand combat, but many of the forms we knowof today were not in existence or being seriously
developed. the combat styles used by samurai were basedon movements in full armor, which decreased their range of motion. many of the holds used were designed to getthe opponent in position to use a small knife called a tanto on them as a finishing blow. in other words, even within their hand tohand combat system, mixing it with weapons was emphasized. samurai believed that you would end up intrue hand to hand combat in only the most desperate of circumstances, and emphasizedskills that would avoid you ending up that
situation in the first place. 1. the rivalry between ninja and samurai in popularlegend is inaccurate when many people think of ninjas they thinkof people clad all in black, with only their eye slits visible through their mask. we view them as stealthy assassins sneakinginto guarded palaces at night and killing important inhabits with a knife thrust ora quick dose of poison. this popular view of ninjas is very inaccurateand has given rise to people thinking of them as a kind of the opposite of the samurai.
they are usually believed to be from a muchlower class and are almost always viewed as the enemies of the samurai themselves. however, the truth is that the way of theninja was essentially just another part of samurai warfare. ninja were usually trained from families thatwere fairly high class, and usually for very specific traits, because it was a specializedwarrior style. ninjutsu itself was not specifically a styleof hand to hand combat, but would be better described as the training program used toteach warriors how to be stealthy and covert in general.
ninjas rarely wore all black and usually blendedin to spy on their enemies emplacements, or even pretended to be one of them for years. in other words, ninjas were not a specialgroup of people who fought in the shadows against the samurai — they were simply anotherbranch of the military in every feudal lords bag of tricks. in many cases those called samurai knew orwere trained in many of the tricks of the ninja trade and as such there was a good bitof overlap. many samurai were well trained in stealthand doubled as ninjas when needed. the two types of warriors are not the separate,warring factions many people understand them
to be.