Ninjas are Japanese warriors that are skilled in the art of Ninjutsu. People think they know a lot about ninjas due to the way they’ve been portrayed in movies over the years, but the things you think you know are probably wrong!
1. Ninjas are always dressed in black
When you think of a ninja you probably have the image of a person clad head-to-toe in black, after all, this is how they’re shown in every ninja movie. However, this simply isn’t true – ninjas were supposed to blend in with the crowd; pretty hard to do when dressed fully in black!
Research has found that ninjas’ clothes were a variety of colors that were available in their time; reds, blues, browns, and grays.
2. Ninjas all came from poor farming families
Some people believe that a ninja was a type of class in society, lower working class and so on but this is not the case.
A ninja was a job, one which many warriors aspired to reach.
3. Ninjas used throwing stars to kill their enemies
Throwing stars, or shuriken, are often shown as being the ninja’s favorite choice of weapon – being thrown at their enemy with the intention to kill.
This is not the case, these weapons were more effective when used to slash at or stab a person or as a distraction.
4. Ninjas are all paid assassins
A ninja’s role was much more varied than simply assassinating people. They were primarily warriors, so were often hired to defend and protect property and important people, or infiltrate and take over other people’s property.
Ninjas were also very skilled at spying and were commonly used in this role.
5. Samurai Warriors were the ninjas’ chief enemy
This is probably one of the biggest myths surrounding ninjas.
Quite often ninjas were also Samurais – the most famous one being Hattori Hanzo.