June 17, 2010 • 34 mins
The Samurai were legendary Japanese swordsmen and warriors, known for their loyalty and adherence to a strict code of honor. Josh and Chuck tackle the Samurai in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
actually canichi Wa and welcome to the podcast. Yeah. I
(00:22):
had no idea what samurai we're all about. Um. Yeah,
I knew that they were excellent swordsman. I vaguely had
some sort of conception from Kill Bill Volumes one and two. Um,
And of course there was like the whole Wu Tang
clan phase that I went through for a while. But
that's really about the the limits of my understanding of
(00:43):
samurai until now. Because we've been meaning to do this
for about seventeen nineteen months now, and uh, we've researched
it just about every week. So if we fail on
this one, it's it's sappuko for us, exactly. Nice one,
Thank you, Chuck. Let's talk about the history of the samurai. Okay, Josh,
(01:04):
I have a prepared joke, should I say it? Yeah?
No one is quite sure who the first samurai was, Josh,
but we all know who the last one was. That's
pretty good. And he was short, Yeah, he was real short.
And still I didn't like that movie Uh. In the fifth,
six and seven centuries, Josh, there were a bunch of
rivalries going in UH in Japan and a bunch of wars.
(01:26):
It's not a very good place to be in a
lot of these wars, most of them, in fact, were
against the islands, the people who inhabited the islands of Japan,
which the Imperial Japanese called Imishi, which means barbarians. And yeah,
they were tough dudes, apparently, yes they were. And they
were pretty good at riding horses, right, Yeah, were they
the ones that were the riding archers? They were, and
(01:49):
so were another group um from the plans called the
Canto people and the Canto tribe. Um. Actually, we're kind
of in charge of fighting the Amishi and the Canto
and the Amishi were really good at riding a horse
shooting a bow and arrow at the same time. No,
it's nineties and actually, um, the earliest samurai did this.
(02:13):
This is what they were modeled on. They were horse
back archers. Uh. And that whole school of discipline that
you identify with with samurai grew out of the kind
of training it takes to be able to ride a
horse and accurately shoot someone in the throat with an arrow, right,
And if to practice shooting someone in the throat with
(02:34):
an arrow while you're galloping past them, what did they
used to use, chuck? This is a bad and good
They bad was they used dogs running dogs, which was awful.
The good news is even way back then, the showgun
came along and said, no more dogs. Right he said,
he's cruel thing? And oh did he really? And yeah,
(02:58):
they didn't used to target practice anymore animal rights way
back then. Um. And so originally the samurai was, like
we said, based out of these horse horseback archers, but
horses played a big role in the lives of the samurai. Um.
And this this code that will get two more in depth,
(03:19):
it's called bushito. Um was grown out of another kind
of code or a way of living called Cuba Cuba
Cuba no michi. Man. Do you know how many times
I've said that in my head and I say it
out loud. It's Cuba no michi, right, which means the
(03:41):
way of the horse in the bow, which basically, if
you were dedicating yourself to being a horseback archer, um,
that was your life. That's all you did. You lived
eight and breathed it. Right. So that kind of disciplined
formed the foundation of the samurai outlook, samurai way of life,
the samurai super toughness. Yeah, nice work. They're also an
(04:06):
elite warrior and that sprung. That status sprung from the
fact that they were powerful families that lived way out
a far far away from the capital and they would
like pass their land down, uh in their prestige from
one generation to the next over hundreds of years. So
they were these warrior houses and they attamed noble status.
You combine that with the Amishi barbarian and the code
(04:29):
the what was it, uh, the Cuba nomici right, the
warrior code, and basically that was the formation for the
early samurai. Right. And um, the reason that you had
all these warrior clans was because, like you said, the
UM I guess, the early millennia, the first half of
the first millennia, UM was a really dangerous place. Lots
(04:52):
of civil war, lots of land grabs, um, lots of
just general butchery, yeah, powerships and sure. Um. So these
powerful clans grew out of this and um they started
basically cultivating samurai and one of the key aspects, key
characteristics of samurai is pretty much the opposite of ninja.
(05:12):
Do you remember when we did the Ninja podcast, they
kind of they turned on whoever hired him, if you know,
somebody came along and offered him more money. Not so
with the samurai. No, they serve their master, the daimio.
Is that you pronounced it, I believe, so, okay, they
served their daimio with absolute loyalty, even uh if that
meant death. And didn't you already say it means one
(05:32):
who serves I didn't, did you? Maybe? I just imagine
that samurai means one who serves right, um, And that
was actually funny enough originally applied to bureaucrats. Yeah, interesting,
and then it was ultimately applied to samurai, which little
by little, there's all these different foundations that finally come together.
(05:54):
And I think the twelfth century when these two clans,
these two warrior clans that we're vying for power, the
Tyra Tyra t A I R A. We're gonna go
ahead and say, the Tyra cran and the Minamoto clan
um basically came together and clashed. And in eleven ninety two,
(06:16):
the Minamotos one and this uh, the the the head
of the household, Minamoto, your atomo. How do you like
my Japanese now? Yeah? Um, he said, okay, you know what,
we now run Japan. The emperor said, hey, way to go.
I'm going to make you shogun, which is essentially the
(06:37):
the head of the joint chiefs, the head of the military.
That kind of backfired on him. What did Minamoto do?
He said, hey, thanks for making me showgun. I'm going
to take over and strip you off all your power
and if you say one word, I'll cut your head
right off of your body. And so what happened was
the Minamoto clan set the samurai up for this elite
status that they never had before. Words before exactly they
(07:00):
served the daimio and there was still a a an
entire class of lower echelon samurai who served the daimio,
but then the daimio, these feudal lords served the showgun.
So when shogun, daimio samurai and then everybody else and um,
the Minamoto clan who set up the showgun. Uh, the
(07:24):
government that they ran was the Bukufu. Yeah, that was
a dictatorship basically, right, and uh that that was the
last time the samurai really changed from that point on
the modern samurai was born, right, Yes, so, Josh, we've
talked about how they formed. Yes, should we talk a
little bit about the just the nuts and bolts of
(07:46):
what makes the samurai? I think we should. If you're
talking samurai, you cannot skip the armor, the lamellar armor
it's called and you've probably seen it before. It's that's
it's made by binding metals scales together on a plate
and then they they cover it with lacquered waterproof it.
And then all these little light plates are fashioned together
(08:07):
by like, um, leather strapping, and that's the that's the
armor that distinctively you've seen on a samurai. You know,
it's weird. I just wrote in an article about skin
disorders and um, there is a skin disorder called lamb
lammelar theosis, which is basically like fish scale skin disorder.
So you have it full circle. Uh. There were two kinds.
(08:31):
Early on the Yori, which was mounted samurai, it was
a lot heavier with the heavy helmets and shoulder pads
and stuff than the domaru, which was lighter obviously for
the foot soldiers. And then later on the Goosoku in
the sixteenth century and that's what this dude is wearing
right there. Yeah, that's a pretty cool picture that you
(08:51):
got by Wan cal Call. Yeah, I didn't even see
there was a credit there. Yeah, there's a pretty cool
It was strach And. And did you see that moment
link I sent you or the picture from the moment exhibit.
Now there's a moment exhibit of Yes, yes, the of
the guy who had like the black lacquered like deer
(09:11):
antlers coming out of his helmet. Basically, if you saw
this guy coming at you with the sword, you would
probably die of fright, at the very least you would run. Um,
And I think that's kind of what is intended for.
You know. They had iron masks that went with the
iron helmets. Yes, well, the helmets called the cabudo and um,
like you said, they would often add like the devil
(09:32):
face and they would add like horsehair mustaches, uh, and
little beards made out of horsehair on the front of
the mask as well, yes, which makes them even more
even scarier. Yeah, and they're they're riveted together. You see
the ribbts and does this I got a picture of
one here I'm showing Josh. Does this look like anyone familiar. Uh.
It looks kind of like the parawel Nder Powell pearl
(09:54):
to skateboard from the Dune Dune Vader. Yes. Nice, This
helmet is absolutely well. Actually, George Lucas absolutely modeled the
Darth Vader look in helmet after the Samurai kobuto. Isn't
jedi a Japanese word? Yeah? And then the sword, you know,
the lightsaber was um And we might as well talk
(10:16):
about the swords since we're there. The katana, Yeah, the
katana and the wakizashi, which together is called the dice
show which die is large, show is small and the
katana is a larger show. Was sword longer? Uh? In
thinner blade? And the was it kashi? Yes? Or wakazashi
(10:36):
wakazashi thank you? Um is shorter with a broader blade,
but you're you never saw a samurai without both. And
actually you know where the katana is curved? Uh? Because
of the process of making it. No, No, it's purposefully curved.
Remember we talked about how horses played a pretty big
role in Samurai Unsung roll Um. The curved blade made
(11:01):
for a deeper slashing wound which was inflicted by a
horseback swordsman got you pretty cool? Did you hold one
that day? At the meeting we took people are like
you guys took a meeting where there was a samurai sword.
Remember at the School of Humans deal, I didn't see
that they had a samurai So yeah, this guy brought
in a Samurai sword at the end for one of
(11:21):
their little jobs coming up, And um, I held it.
Where was I in my hand? You might have been
in the bathroom or smoking before you quit smoking, and
I held this thing in my hand and I've never
held Have you ever held a real samurai sword? I
was messing with a couple in Japan, But yeah, I
mean it's it's like way heavier than I thought. And
when you hold it, and when you feel how sharp
it is, you're like this, I could literally cut you
(11:44):
in half right now if I wanted. All the ones
that I were messing with were in like, um, tourists,
they're a little plastic key chain ones, they were wood.
Got you. Well, it's really intimidating. It's extremely heavy, and
you feel like the power of the sword when you
hold it right. And the smiths who made samurai swords
are generally recognized as the greatest sword makers in the
(12:07):
history of humanity as h And one of the reasons
why is not just because of these gorgeous, really heavy,
perfect swords that they made again and again. Yeah, um,
that you could actually cut someone's head right off with
one slice. Um. But they actually came. They created a
technology or a method, a technique for an age old problem,
(12:31):
which was, you wanna sword with a sharp blade that
won't break. You can use a hard metal to keep
a blade that will keep its edge, but it makes
it a very brittle sword, so it'll break easily. Right,
So what did they do, Josh? They made a sword
with a core made out of soft metal that wouldn't break,
(12:52):
and then covered it with layers of hard metal that
were folded in hammer. They hammer it to squeeze out impurities,
and they keep folding it repeatedly until there's all these
layers laminated together, right, like literally millions of layers. Well, actually,
this this article has a slight mistake in it, because
that's lower Um. I looked this up that that when
(13:12):
they fold a blade, they hammered out and there have
been lord that they folded them hundreds of times and
thousands of times to create millions of layers Apparently after
anything over twenty folds adds no more layers. That's what
they said. So a twentyfold sword would have one million,
forty thousand, five hundred and seventy six layers, which is
(13:34):
I mean, so it's kind of like hammering a chicken
that's been shot by a horseback archer. You just can't
make it anymore dead. It's yeah, right, yeah, okay, So
you talked about kill Bill though, Yeah, you know, you
can buy a hat Tori Hanzo sword on the internet,
autographed by David Karneen for six hundred bucks. I can't
believe he's dead. Still hung himself in the bankok hotel room.
(13:58):
It was fitting somehow though, the odd But yeah, you
can buy one of those for six entred bucks. Or
if you don't want to spend that kind of dough,
I think you can get like a functional katana for
about two bucks online, or you can get a wood
one from a tourist trap in Japan. Yeah. Well that's
what the used for training, you know, yeah, back in
the day. Yes, um, you know the whole uh, the
(14:18):
cruel tutelage of master pay from kill Bill, and it's
certainly Quentin Tarantino wasn't the first one to um come
up with the idea that samurai masters taught their students
through you know, rigid and brutal methods. Yes, Um, that's
that's been a recurring theme through samurai stories all along.
(14:39):
And the reason why it's because it's true. It really happened. Um.
There was one sword training master who used to walk
around with a wooden katana day or night, completely unprovoked
and without warning, would smack his students pretty hard. Those
things are hard. They hurt, like just holding it and
like tapping it in your hand, your hand starts to hurt.
So actually getting hit by one of these swords hurts bad.
(15:01):
And if you get hit by one m randomly and
you learned pretty quickly never to let your guard down,
which is what he was trying to impart. Yeah, you
could be like a sleep and a sword upside the head.
You can be you know, using the bathroom and right anything,
eating gruel. Yeah, hammering a chicken that's been shot by
a horseback archery. Good point, uh josh. They also used
(15:24):
things called pole arms, which was a long pole with
like a blade on the end of it that was
good for, um, stabbing it at dudes on horseback. It
gives you a little more reach obviously. And they even
had guns, is what something I didn't know. In the
sixteenth century they started trading with Europe, Japan did, and
they bought these matchlock guns and kind of kept them
as backup though the same ware. I was like, I'll
(15:45):
put a gun on my horse, but I'm not going
to use it. I'm still gonna use the katana unless
I really needed it. Turns out the they got those
guns from European missionaries. Oh really, yeah, look at that
who were kind of infiltrating Japan to try to start trade.
They were missionaries. Relaxed, We're just missionaries. But interesting, have
you seen a gun before? Chick? This is my boomstick,
(16:08):
so chuck um. One of the other characteristics of the
samurai's is this idea of a very noble, loyal life.
And we said that the Cuba Nomici was the foundation
for bushito, which means way of the warrior. Boushi is warrior,
and doe is the way right, So this is the
(16:30):
way of the warrior. And essentially it's just this code,
this guide that was kind of put up by one
samurai or another and Uh, it was. It formed the
legend of the samurai, but it also informed the way
they lived their lives, right, Yeah, and it's um. A
lot of people hear this and they think it's like
a formal set of rules that everyone followed, but it
was actually different depending on who you were and where
(16:52):
you had passed it down or gotten it from. And
it wasn't even written down until the seventeenth century. So, right,
there was a there was a samurai um named Yamamoto Sunnitomo,
and he was a he turned into his en monk,
and he had a follower who he just basically dictated
the tenants of bushido to and he wrote them down
(17:12):
right he uh. And actually some of the some of
the high points of bushido, well, it covers everything from
um like life and death situations. If you're presented with
the choice to choose death and you can't ever go wrong,
you will never be afraid because you're always prepared for
death for that reason. Right. It's a little you know, um,
and then to to really kind of trivial matters like
(17:35):
you should never sneeze in front of somebody because it
makes you look foolish. Uh. And then my favorite is
the lesson of the downpour, where you know, like when
you're being rained on, you're just so uncomfortable and you're
running you can't get wet, and oh we gotta can't
get wet. So there's this Bushido tenant that says, if
you remind yourself that it is natural to get soaked
(17:55):
in a rainstorm, that's what's supposed to happen in a rainstorm.
You'll never run for cover again, you just get soaked
to the problem. And this can be applied to all
aspects of life. That's my favorite one. Yeah. I used
to play in the rain like up until you know
what you're trying to set fires. No, I mean as
an adult sometimes it's fun. Yeah, highly recommend it. Okay,
(18:18):
I didn't know I was following some samurai. Yeah, you're
right there. If you would be willing to die, chuck,
you would be a samurai. No. I come from the
Wham Choose life school. That's my code tiny running shorts
and choosing life. I guess we have to talk about suppuku. Well, yeah,
I mean if you were dishonored um then yeah, you
(18:40):
had to kill yourself. Yes, otherwise known as I didn't
know it was a vulgar phrase, but hara kari, Yeah,
it essentially means gut cut. No wonder if that is vulgar. Well,
vulgar also means common. God, you're right. I feel like
an idiot, now, don't. I still am trying to figure
out the way I'm reference. Yeah. When I think vulgar,
I think of nasty words. I know what you mean.
(19:02):
But that's again, it's common, right, you know what I mean?
So this is what you you know, when you have
seen the person thrust the sword into their gut, it's
sort of doesn't really happen that way. What happens is
you got to wear the right garments, very ritualized. Oh
is it white? And they present you with a ritual
knife wrapped in paper right to to give you a
better grip. Normally, you're gonna do this in a garden
(19:25):
or a Buddhist temple, never a Shinto temple, because a
Shinto temple is not to be tainted with death. I
would choose a garden. Yeah, that'd be my pick. And
you insert the knife first, First, you write a little
death poem, okay, and you take four steps of saki
for being she she meaning remember the Friday thirteenth Podcast
(19:47):
Japanese four and death are the same kanji character. So
Flour is kind of like a pawn on I'm about
to kill myself, okay, go ahead, uh, And then you
just kinda plunge the sword into myself and please go
ahead and chuck. So you plunge a sword into your
ballet and you go from left to right. It's very important,
and you do a little final upward cut at the end,
(20:08):
and if you're lucky, and usually you're lucky, there was
another samurai behind you with their sword to cut your
head off really quick, so you're not like writhing in
agonizing pain, right, and that was what's what's that samurai called? Uh?
The second in command is called the kashuku nin. Right,
And if you were kashaku nin, if you were forced
(20:31):
to commit sappuku, right, which was you know kind of routine,
you choose to though, right, No, you could be forced to,
okay um, the kesha ku nin would be assigned by
the bakufu, right, the military dictatorship, right to end it quickly.
If you decided to do it yourself, then yeah, it
was up to you to come up with the kasha
(20:51):
ku nin. And what probably who you would want would
be a friend, right or And I've never heard of
this before, and I I ju suca. This is somebody
who had practiced drawing a sword, slashing it and returning
it to its Oh no, drawing a sword slashing, wiping
it off and returning it to its sheath, and one
(21:13):
fluid motion and the aa ju suca succa could Um,
they could cut your head right off with one slash. No,
you know it's bad news for the um the the
second samurai. Oh, but that's what you want, is as
the you want to be killed the media and that
was the point. But um, you didn't cut somebody's head
(21:35):
right off. You you would leave the throat, it's the
skin attached to the throat, because it was bad form
to cut somebody's head right off, because you don't want
it rolling all around on the floor. I wonder how
those conversations went down, Like, hey man, you want to
give me a solid this afternoon, I gotta kill myself
and you could be there to cut my head almost
all the way off. I would really appreciate that. And um, there,
(21:59):
let's see what else was Oh, if you were young,
or if they didn't think you could be trusted with
a wazukashi. Wakuzashi, are you serious? Oh yeah, yeah, the
second sword? Yes, sorry, if you if you, if you
couldn't be if like they were afraid you'd get up
and kill everybody in the room rather than kill yourself.
(22:21):
They give you a paper fan and then the moment
you touch the fan or touched the fan to your belly, right. See,
I thought I didn't know that was because the lack
of trust. I thought it was just like a tamer version.
It's both okay yeah um. And then one last thing
can I really was like, I want to understand spuku.
There's this type called jumanji geary and that was where
(22:44):
you committed sepuku and you bled to death that sword, right,
And the last guy to do this was a general
Nogi who did it in nineteen twelve, remember the Mesgi Emperor.
That's after it was outlawed. Interesting, somebody's committed as recently.
It's nineteen seventy, but they had the samurai, the backup samurai.
This guy did it himself. He cut himself in the
(23:06):
ritual cut and then put his shirt on afterward and
just set kneel there and bled to death. After the
death of the emperor, and the shirt just held all
his his guts in. I guess it's for like the
horse diaper. Yeah. Yeah, it was officially abolished though in
eighteen seventy three, although, like you said, Japanese like to
stick to their traditions, So it has happened as recently
(23:27):
as like the two thousand's right. Oh is that right?
At last? I saw it, but yeah, or maybe it
started to make a resurgence in nineteen seventy and it's
still going on. Yeah. I seemed to think there was
ahead of some corporation that did it recently, but really
I can't confirm that. It's pretty it's a way to go. Yeah,
it's hardcore. So, Chuck, we should probably talk about what
happened to the samurai, right, Yeah, where they went? Well,
(23:50):
let me talk about this one guy first. Um, remember
we're talking about warring clans and power struggles and everything. Um,
there was a huge civil war called a Sengoku, which
was a civil war period in Japan. Right, It was
from like thirteen thirty eight to sixteen o three, and
in that year Takagawa ai Yasu grabbed control and this guy,
(24:12):
he was a minimoti ascendant. So he took the showgun
title and he kept the piece. His family kept the
piece for two d and fifty years. He kept a
complete stranglehold on the other samurai, the damio. Um. He
made it so that your family had to live in
the capital. That's that guy and you, right, and you
lived like way out in the provinces. He basically helped
(24:34):
family's hostage right to keep to keep the other the
the other samurai, um, yeah, the other daimyo under control. Right.
He also had a castle called Nijo Joe and I've
been in that castle and we've talked about it. Yes,
remember in the Ninja podcast we talked about a guy
who had a castle that had squeaky floors. I've walked
(24:56):
down those floors. They sound like nightingales are called nightingale
wars come down. And I tried walking on it. I
got like two steps without making a sound. Really, so
I could see a ninja possibly doing it. But it
was random, like wherever you stepped like it was gonna
make the sound. It was pretty amazing stuff. I don't
think you and I would be candidates for ninja or samurai.
(25:18):
Maybe Sumo possibly. That's where that's where I'm headed. So,
like you're saying, we got to talk about where they went.
What happened in the samurai um There was a what
would you say, two and a half centuries a peaceful rule, Yeah,
under the Takugawa family. Right, So during that time, obviously,
if you've got peaceful rules, samurai are gonna decline gradually
(25:41):
just because there's no one to fight. And then the
main two things Josh are urbanization and the end of
their isolationism. Right, that's what really drove them out of business. Yeah,
because Takagawa and his descendants didn't like the Europeans very much,
and we're like, you guys need to beat it, because
we know how to cut someone's off and just leave
a flap of skin of the throat, right you know. So, yeah,
(26:04):
they were isolationists, and then all of a sudden, the
Americans started going, you know, we'd like to trade with Japan. Yes,
we get people who get shipwrecked around there somewhere, and
we want to make sure they're taking care of and
we want to use his place as a supply port,
so we're gonna sail over there. Yeah. So in the
in eighteen fifty three, They Commander Chandler Bang sailed into
Ato Bay. Is that not his name? Yeah? Oh, I'm sorry,
(26:27):
Commander Matthew Perry had that wrong. He sailed over there
to chat with the Millard Fillmore sent him to chat
with the emperor, who was a figurehead. But that's who
you know. You can't go talk to the show gun.
You gotta go talk to the emperor, right, So he
went and said, just what you said. We want to
open trade, and we want if we get guys that
are shipwrecked here, please take care of them and open
(26:51):
your ports so we can like dock here and resupply. Right.
And apparently when he showed up, he said, I'll be
back in a couple of months. You guys talk it
over right, talking amongst yourself. But when he showed up,
he showed up with you know, full cannons out like guns.
Everybody was basically strapped to the teeth. He's like to
think about it, but that I guess that kind of
(27:13):
intimidation really struck a chord with the Japanese or the
Japanese who are like, WHOA, what's what's been going on
outside the borders of Japan while we haven't been paying attention.
Um And so there was a split in the samurai
class where some wanted to go ahead and open up
Japan and modernized Japan, and this is the people in charge.
(27:35):
The lesser samurai didn't like that at all, so they
actually went and staged a revolt, and the lesser samurai
actually won. It was because they beat the shogun it,
which is kind of a big deal. Although they had
gotten kind of fat and lazy in the in the
two and a half centuries of peace. Um. So the
lesser samurai, who hadn't gotten quite as fat and lazy
(27:57):
and comfortable over through the shogun it took the the
emperor and restored them to power. The Mesgi restoration. Yeah,
and that was it was actually a boy emperor. Emperor
Meiji was I think like a teenager at the time. Yeah,
I'm not quite sure, but he was young. He was
boy king. And now he makes a really good yogurt drink.
You should try what's it called meggie really well, I
(28:21):
mean that's the brain. They're like nestly. So they overthrew
they That was called the nest Le restoration, right, and
the power of the daimios was taken away the government
sees their land. Um, there was no way to pay
the samurai, so they basically started paying them off with
bonds depending on what their rank was. Right. But it
was like, here's your settlement, yeah, you know, and go
(28:44):
and don't be samurai anymore. Right. They had basically turned
into the modern the equivalent of what in the modern
era is somebody who falls in the in the grocery
store and laze around watching Jerry Springer waiting for their
settlement to come through. Yes, that was kind of what
happened at the end of the Samurai. It's pretty sad
and uh. In eighteen seventy six, it finally culminated with
(29:05):
the final blow, which was the emperor said you cannot
wear your swords anymore and we're going to draft an army.
So that was kind of like no more, no more
used for you, right, And so there were some rebellions
here there. Tom Cruise shows up, um and the rebellions
in the outlying areas are crushed, and uh, that was
(29:26):
the end of the samurai. Japan became modernized, but it
wasn't the end of the samurai spirit. As Chuck said,
there's a CEO that recently killed himself maybe suppuku probably, um,
but also that it kind of informs Japan. There's that
whole keep a stiff upper lip, don't complain, uh kind
of tradition and culture. And you can argue that the
(29:49):
history of the Samurai is the history of Japanese culture, right, um.
But also in World War Two, the Bushito was resurrected
and kind of perver hearted by the Japanese government and
sold to the Japanese military who would go crazy and
kill everybody before they were killed. The Kama Kazee pilots, Yeah,
(30:09):
that was part of it. There was the Bondsai guys,
yeah and um yeah, just basically their their whole death
before dishonor because it's like a suicide bomber today. If
you're facing somebody who would rather die than lose, that's
the most dangerous foe you have, as opposed to the
(30:32):
American way, which is do anything you can to save
your butt, right or fall into the grocery store, right somebody.
As we would be remissed, Josh before we leave if
we didn't mention a few movies, notably The Seven Samurai
or and The Magnificent Seven, The Awesome Western with you'll
(30:57):
Brenner was based on the Seventh Samurai, but a Western version.
There's also a Ghost Dog, which I've been meaning to see,
but well you haven't seen that. Yeah. I was about
to say that's my favorite all time maybe favorite Jim
Jarmish movie. Definitely top two, more than Dead Man. Huh.
I think it's probably in a dead heat with Dead Man.
It's awesome. You gotta see Ghost Dog. That's where Forest
(31:19):
Whittaker is like sort of a modern day Samurai living
in New York, in Brooklyn, I think even does anybody's pigeons. Yeah,
he's very peaceful. He's just the heat. It's full of
the bushito like it's broken up with him reading passages
from the Samurai Code. Pretty cool. Nice, Okay, Well it's
about it. If you want to see some pretty cool
(31:39):
images of samurai armor, uh and learn more about the Samurai,
including what a ronin is and what happened to the
forty seven ronan, you just want to type in Samurai
to the handy search bart how stuff works dot com.
So now I guess then it's time for listener man. Yes, Josh,
I'm gonna call this the cute kid in New Zealand. Hey, dudes,
(32:02):
Chuck and Josh. This email comes to you from Felix
from Wellington, New Zealand. Oh yeah, he's a cool kid.
I'm nine years old and I've listened to pretty much
all your podcasts. Dad usually plays them in the car
on long drives. The recent one on taxidermy I thought
was seriously gross. I wish I could do a keiy accent.
I'm not gonna try it, though I wouldn't. I had
a thought that you guys might want to do an
(32:23):
episode on really long place names around the world and
how that came about and what do they mean. We
have one in New Zealand called and I won't even
bother to say it because it's it looks like the
alphabet or has just been written down in random order.
I dared to try and say it in your podcast,
but Felix, I will not. But I did attach an
(32:44):
MP three of me saying it to impress you with
my skills that Felix, Yes, you guys are cool and funny.
And by the way, it translates roughly as the summit
where Tomatilla, the man with the big knees, the climber
of mountains, the land swallow who traveled about played his
nose flute to his loved one. That's what this name
(33:05):
translates to. That's crazy. So we got permission from Felix's
dad since he's a little kid, and he said go
ahead and play it. So without further ado, here is
Felix from New Zealand. Hi, this is Felix here. I
listened to this tom with Tony Hanka Tia tutti Poka
copy game. That is awesome. I'm glad we finally got
(33:28):
around to playing that clip. I think it is cool,
very cute little kid there. Well, um, I don't think
we should make a call for audio files see you. No, no,
I think that one belongs to Felix pretty much. He
is his numbers being retired in the Stuff You Should
Know Hall of Fame. If you want to come with
something cool and interesting and clever and have your number retired,
(33:50):
you should put it in an email send it to
Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
our blogs on the how stuff works dot com home page.
(34:11):
M HM brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand
twelve camera, it's ready. Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
actually canichi Wa and welcome to the podcast. Yeah. I
(00:22):
had no idea what samurai we're all about. Um. Yeah,
I knew that they were excellent swordsman. I vaguely had
some sort of conception from Kill Bill Volumes one and two. Um,
And of course there was like the whole Wu Tang
clan phase that I went through for a while. But
that's really about the the limits of my understanding of
(00:43):
samurai until now. Because we've been meaning to do this
for about seventeen nineteen months now, and uh, we've researched
it just about every week. So if we fail on
this one, it's it's sappuko for us, exactly. Nice one,
Thank you, Chuck. Let's talk about the history of the samurai. Okay, Josh,
(01:04):
I have a prepared joke, should I say it? Yeah?
No one is quite sure who the first samurai was, Josh,
but we all know who the last one was. That's
pretty good. And he was short, Yeah, he was real short.
And still I didn't like that movie Uh. In the fifth,
six and seven centuries, Josh, there were a bunch of
rivalries going in UH in Japan and a bunch of wars.
(01:26):
It's not a very good place to be in a
lot of these wars, most of them, in fact, were
against the islands, the people who inhabited the islands of Japan,
which the Imperial Japanese called Imishi, which means barbarians. And yeah,
they were tough dudes, apparently, yes they were. And they
were pretty good at riding horses, right, Yeah, were they
the ones that were the riding archers? They were, and
(01:49):
so were another group um from the plans called the
Canto people and the Canto tribe. Um. Actually, we're kind
of in charge of fighting the Amishi and the Canto
and the Amishi were really good at riding a horse
shooting a bow and arrow at the same time. No,
it's nineties and actually, um, the earliest samurai did this.
(02:13):
This is what they were modeled on. They were horse
back archers. Uh. And that whole school of discipline that
you identify with with samurai grew out of the kind
of training it takes to be able to ride a
horse and accurately shoot someone in the throat with an arrow, right,
And if to practice shooting someone in the throat with
(02:34):
an arrow while you're galloping past them, what did they
used to use, chuck? This is a bad and good
They bad was they used dogs running dogs, which was awful.
The good news is even way back then, the showgun
came along and said, no more dogs. Right he said,
he's cruel thing? And oh did he really? And yeah,
(02:58):
they didn't used to target practice anymore animal rights way
back then. Um. And so originally the samurai was, like
we said, based out of these horse horseback archers, but
horses played a big role in the lives of the samurai. Um.
And this this code that will get two more in depth,
(03:19):
it's called bushito. Um was grown out of another kind
of code or a way of living called Cuba Cuba
Cuba no michi. Man. Do you know how many times
I've said that in my head and I say it
out loud. It's Cuba no michi, right, which means the
(03:41):
way of the horse in the bow, which basically, if
you were dedicating yourself to being a horseback archer, um,
that was your life. That's all you did. You lived
eight and breathed it. Right. So that kind of disciplined
formed the foundation of the samurai outlook, samurai way of life,
the samurai super toughness. Yeah, nice work. They're also an
(04:06):
elite warrior and that sprung. That status sprung from the
fact that they were powerful families that lived way out
a far far away from the capital and they would
like pass their land down, uh in their prestige from
one generation to the next over hundreds of years. So
they were these warrior houses and they attamed noble status.
You combine that with the Amishi barbarian and the code
(04:29):
the what was it, uh, the Cuba nomici right, the
warrior code, and basically that was the formation for the
early samurai. Right. And um, the reason that you had
all these warrior clans was because, like you said, the
UM I guess, the early millennia, the first half of
the first millennia, UM was a really dangerous place. Lots
(04:52):
of civil war, lots of land grabs, um, lots of
just general butchery, yeah, powerships and sure. Um. So these
powerful clans grew out of this and um they started
basically cultivating samurai and one of the key aspects, key
characteristics of samurai is pretty much the opposite of ninja.
(05:12):
Do you remember when we did the Ninja podcast, they
kind of they turned on whoever hired him, if you know,
somebody came along and offered him more money. Not so
with the samurai. No, they serve their master, the daimio.
Is that you pronounced it, I believe, so, okay, they
served their daimio with absolute loyalty, even uh if that
meant death. And didn't you already say it means one
(05:32):
who serves I didn't, did you? Maybe? I just imagine
that samurai means one who serves right, um, And that
was actually funny enough originally applied to bureaucrats. Yeah, interesting,
and then it was ultimately applied to samurai, which little
by little, there's all these different foundations that finally come together.
(05:54):
And I think the twelfth century when these two clans,
these two warrior clans that we're vying for power, the
Tyra Tyra t A I R A. We're gonna go
ahead and say, the Tyra cran and the Minamoto clan
um basically came together and clashed. And in eleven ninety two,
(06:16):
the Minamotos one and this uh, the the the head
of the household, Minamoto, your atomo. How do you like
my Japanese now? Yeah? Um, he said, okay, you know what,
we now run Japan. The emperor said, hey, way to go.
I'm going to make you shogun, which is essentially the
(06:37):
the head of the joint chiefs, the head of the military.
That kind of backfired on him. What did Minamoto do?
He said, hey, thanks for making me showgun. I'm going
to take over and strip you off all your power
and if you say one word, I'll cut your head
right off of your body. And so what happened was
the Minamoto clan set the samurai up for this elite
status that they never had before. Words before exactly they
(07:00):
served the daimio and there was still a a an
entire class of lower echelon samurai who served the daimio,
but then the daimio, these feudal lords served the showgun.
So when shogun, daimio samurai and then everybody else and um,
the Minamoto clan who set up the showgun. Uh, the
(07:24):
government that they ran was the Bukufu. Yeah, that was
a dictatorship basically, right, and uh that that was the
last time the samurai really changed from that point on
the modern samurai was born, right, Yes, so, Josh, we've
talked about how they formed. Yes, should we talk a
little bit about the just the nuts and bolts of
(07:46):
what makes the samurai? I think we should. If you're
talking samurai, you cannot skip the armor, the lamellar armor
it's called and you've probably seen it before. It's that's
it's made by binding metals scales together on a plate
and then they they cover it with lacquered waterproof it.
And then all these little light plates are fashioned together
(08:07):
by like, um, leather strapping, and that's the that's the
armor that distinctively you've seen on a samurai. You know,
it's weird. I just wrote in an article about skin
disorders and um, there is a skin disorder called lamb
lammelar theosis, which is basically like fish scale skin disorder.
So you have it full circle. Uh. There were two kinds.
(08:31):
Early on the Yori, which was mounted samurai, it was
a lot heavier with the heavy helmets and shoulder pads
and stuff than the domaru, which was lighter obviously for
the foot soldiers. And then later on the Goosoku in
the sixteenth century and that's what this dude is wearing
right there. Yeah, that's a pretty cool picture that you
(08:51):
got by Wan cal Call. Yeah, I didn't even see
there was a credit there. Yeah, there's a pretty cool
It was strach And. And did you see that moment
link I sent you or the picture from the moment exhibit.
Now there's a moment exhibit of Yes, yes, the of
the guy who had like the black lacquered like deer
(09:11):
antlers coming out of his helmet. Basically, if you saw
this guy coming at you with the sword, you would
probably die of fright, at the very least you would run. Um,
And I think that's kind of what is intended for.
You know. They had iron masks that went with the
iron helmets. Yes, well, the helmets called the cabudo and um,
like you said, they would often add like the devil
(09:32):
face and they would add like horsehair mustaches, uh, and
little beards made out of horsehair on the front of
the mask as well, yes, which makes them even more
even scarier. Yeah, and they're they're riveted together. You see
the ribbts and does this I got a picture of
one here I'm showing Josh. Does this look like anyone familiar. Uh.
It looks kind of like the parawel Nder Powell pearl
(09:54):
to skateboard from the Dune Dune Vader. Yes. Nice, This
helmet is absolutely well. Actually, George Lucas absolutely modeled the
Darth Vader look in helmet after the Samurai kobuto. Isn't
jedi a Japanese word? Yeah? And then the sword, you know,
the lightsaber was um And we might as well talk
(10:16):
about the swords since we're there. The katana, Yeah, the
katana and the wakizashi, which together is called the dice
show which die is large, show is small and the
katana is a larger show. Was sword longer? Uh? In
thinner blade? And the was it kashi? Yes? Or wakazashi
(10:36):
wakazashi thank you? Um is shorter with a broader blade,
but you're you never saw a samurai without both. And
actually you know where the katana is curved? Uh? Because
of the process of making it. No, No, it's purposefully curved.
Remember we talked about how horses played a pretty big
role in Samurai Unsung roll Um. The curved blade made
(11:01):
for a deeper slashing wound which was inflicted by a
horseback swordsman got you pretty cool? Did you hold one
that day? At the meeting we took people are like
you guys took a meeting where there was a samurai sword.
Remember at the School of Humans deal, I didn't see
that they had a samurai So yeah, this guy brought
in a Samurai sword at the end for one of
(11:21):
their little jobs coming up, And um, I held it.
Where was I in my hand? You might have been
in the bathroom or smoking before you quit smoking, and
I held this thing in my hand and I've never
held Have you ever held a real samurai sword? I
was messing with a couple in Japan, But yeah, I
mean it's it's like way heavier than I thought. And
when you hold it, and when you feel how sharp
it is, you're like this, I could literally cut you
(11:44):
in half right now if I wanted. All the ones
that I were messing with were in like, um, tourists,
they're a little plastic key chain ones, they were wood.
Got you. Well, it's really intimidating. It's extremely heavy, and
you feel like the power of the sword when you
hold it right. And the smiths who made samurai swords
are generally recognized as the greatest sword makers in the
(12:07):
history of humanity as h And one of the reasons
why is not just because of these gorgeous, really heavy,
perfect swords that they made again and again. Yeah, um,
that you could actually cut someone's head right off with
one slice. Um. But they actually came. They created a
technology or a method, a technique for an age old problem,
(12:31):
which was, you wanna sword with a sharp blade that
won't break. You can use a hard metal to keep
a blade that will keep its edge, but it makes
it a very brittle sword, so it'll break easily. Right,
So what did they do, Josh? They made a sword
with a core made out of soft metal that wouldn't break,
(12:52):
and then covered it with layers of hard metal that
were folded in hammer. They hammer it to squeeze out impurities,
and they keep folding it repeatedly until there's all these
layers laminated together, right, like literally millions of layers. Well, actually,
this this article has a slight mistake in it, because
that's lower Um. I looked this up that that when
(13:12):
they fold a blade, they hammered out and there have
been lord that they folded them hundreds of times and
thousands of times to create millions of layers Apparently after
anything over twenty folds adds no more layers. That's what
they said. So a twentyfold sword would have one million,
forty thousand, five hundred and seventy six layers, which is
(13:34):
I mean, so it's kind of like hammering a chicken
that's been shot by a horseback archer. You just can't
make it anymore dead. It's yeah, right, yeah, okay, So
you talked about kill Bill though, Yeah, you know, you
can buy a hat Tori Hanzo sword on the internet,
autographed by David Karneen for six hundred bucks. I can't
believe he's dead. Still hung himself in the bankok hotel room.
(13:58):
It was fitting somehow though, the odd But yeah, you
can buy one of those for six entred bucks. Or
if you don't want to spend that kind of dough,
I think you can get like a functional katana for
about two bucks online, or you can get a wood
one from a tourist trap in Japan. Yeah. Well that's
what the used for training, you know, yeah, back in
the day. Yes, um, you know the whole uh, the
(14:18):
cruel tutelage of master pay from kill Bill, and it's
certainly Quentin Tarantino wasn't the first one to um come
up with the idea that samurai masters taught their students
through you know, rigid and brutal methods. Yes, Um, that's
that's been a recurring theme through samurai stories all along.
(14:39):
And the reason why it's because it's true. It really happened. Um.
There was one sword training master who used to walk
around with a wooden katana day or night, completely unprovoked
and without warning, would smack his students pretty hard. Those
things are hard. They hurt, like just holding it and
like tapping it in your hand, your hand starts to hurt.
So actually getting hit by one of these swords hurts bad.
(15:01):
And if you get hit by one m randomly and
you learned pretty quickly never to let your guard down,
which is what he was trying to impart. Yeah, you
could be like a sleep and a sword upside the head.
You can be you know, using the bathroom and right anything,
eating gruel. Yeah, hammering a chicken that's been shot by
a horseback archery. Good point, uh josh. They also used
(15:24):
things called pole arms, which was a long pole with
like a blade on the end of it that was
good for, um, stabbing it at dudes on horseback. It
gives you a little more reach obviously. And they even
had guns, is what something I didn't know. In the
sixteenth century they started trading with Europe, Japan did, and
they bought these matchlock guns and kind of kept them
as backup though the same ware. I was like, I'll
(15:45):
put a gun on my horse, but I'm not going
to use it. I'm still gonna use the katana unless
I really needed it. Turns out the they got those
guns from European missionaries. Oh really, yeah, look at that
who were kind of infiltrating Japan to try to start trade.
They were missionaries. Relaxed, We're just missionaries. But interesting, have
you seen a gun before? Chick? This is my boomstick,
(16:08):
so chuck um. One of the other characteristics of the
samurai's is this idea of a very noble, loyal life.
And we said that the Cuba Nomici was the foundation
for bushito, which means way of the warrior. Boushi is warrior,
and doe is the way right, So this is the
(16:30):
way of the warrior. And essentially it's just this code,
this guide that was kind of put up by one
samurai or another and Uh, it was. It formed the
legend of the samurai, but it also informed the way
they lived their lives, right, Yeah, and it's um. A
lot of people hear this and they think it's like
a formal set of rules that everyone followed, but it
was actually different depending on who you were and where
(16:52):
you had passed it down or gotten it from. And
it wasn't even written down until the seventeenth century. So, right,
there was a there was a samurai um named Yamamoto Sunnitomo,
and he was a he turned into his en monk,
and he had a follower who he just basically dictated
the tenants of bushido to and he wrote them down
(17:12):
right he uh. And actually some of the some of
the high points of bushido, well, it covers everything from
um like life and death situations. If you're presented with
the choice to choose death and you can't ever go wrong,
you will never be afraid because you're always prepared for
death for that reason. Right. It's a little you know, um,
and then to to really kind of trivial matters like
(17:35):
you should never sneeze in front of somebody because it
makes you look foolish. Uh. And then my favorite is
the lesson of the downpour, where you know, like when
you're being rained on, you're just so uncomfortable and you're
running you can't get wet, and oh we gotta can't
get wet. So there's this Bushido tenant that says, if
you remind yourself that it is natural to get soaked
(17:55):
in a rainstorm, that's what's supposed to happen in a rainstorm.
You'll never run for cover again, you just get soaked
to the problem. And this can be applied to all
aspects of life. That's my favorite one. Yeah. I used
to play in the rain like up until you know
what you're trying to set fires. No, I mean as
an adult sometimes it's fun. Yeah, highly recommend it. Okay,
(18:18):
I didn't know I was following some samurai. Yeah, you're
right there. If you would be willing to die, chuck,
you would be a samurai. No. I come from the
Wham Choose life school. That's my code tiny running shorts
and choosing life. I guess we have to talk about suppuku. Well, yeah,
I mean if you were dishonored um then yeah, you
(18:40):
had to kill yourself. Yes, otherwise known as I didn't
know it was a vulgar phrase, but hara kari, Yeah,
it essentially means gut cut. No wonder if that is vulgar. Well,
vulgar also means common. God, you're right. I feel like
an idiot, now, don't. I still am trying to figure
out the way I'm reference. Yeah. When I think vulgar,
I think of nasty words. I know what you mean.
(19:02):
But that's again, it's common, right, you know what I mean?
So this is what you you know, when you have
seen the person thrust the sword into their gut, it's
sort of doesn't really happen that way. What happens is
you got to wear the right garments, very ritualized. Oh
is it white? And they present you with a ritual
knife wrapped in paper right to to give you a
better grip. Normally, you're gonna do this in a garden
(19:25):
or a Buddhist temple, never a Shinto temple, because a
Shinto temple is not to be tainted with death. I
would choose a garden. Yeah, that'd be my pick. And
you insert the knife first, First, you write a little
death poem, okay, and you take four steps of saki
for being she she meaning remember the Friday thirteenth Podcast
(19:47):
Japanese four and death are the same kanji character. So
Flour is kind of like a pawn on I'm about
to kill myself, okay, go ahead, uh, And then you
just kinda plunge the sword into myself and please go
ahead and chuck. So you plunge a sword into your
ballet and you go from left to right. It's very important,
and you do a little final upward cut at the end,
(20:08):
and if you're lucky, and usually you're lucky, there was
another samurai behind you with their sword to cut your
head off really quick, so you're not like writhing in
agonizing pain, right, and that was what's what's that samurai called? Uh?
The second in command is called the kashuku nin. Right,
And if you were kashaku nin, if you were forced
(20:31):
to commit sappuku, right, which was you know kind of routine,
you choose to though, right, No, you could be forced to,
okay um, the kesha ku nin would be assigned by
the bakufu, right, the military dictatorship, right to end it quickly.
If you decided to do it yourself, then yeah, it
was up to you to come up with the kasha
(20:51):
ku nin. And what probably who you would want would
be a friend, right or And I've never heard of
this before, and I I ju suca. This is somebody
who had practiced drawing a sword, slashing it and returning
it to its Oh no, drawing a sword slashing, wiping
it off and returning it to its sheath, and one
(21:13):
fluid motion and the aa ju suca succa could Um,
they could cut your head right off with one slash. No,
you know it's bad news for the um the the
second samurai. Oh, but that's what you want, is as
the you want to be killed the media and that
was the point. But um, you didn't cut somebody's head
(21:35):
right off. You you would leave the throat, it's the
skin attached to the throat, because it was bad form
to cut somebody's head right off, because you don't want
it rolling all around on the floor. I wonder how
those conversations went down, Like, hey man, you want to
give me a solid this afternoon, I gotta kill myself
and you could be there to cut my head almost
all the way off. I would really appreciate that. And um, there,
(21:59):
let's see what else was Oh, if you were young,
or if they didn't think you could be trusted with
a wazukashi. Wakuzashi, are you serious? Oh yeah, yeah, the
second sword? Yes, sorry, if you if you, if you
couldn't be if like they were afraid you'd get up
and kill everybody in the room rather than kill yourself.
(22:21):
They give you a paper fan and then the moment
you touch the fan or touched the fan to your belly, right. See,
I thought I didn't know that was because the lack
of trust. I thought it was just like a tamer version.
It's both okay yeah um. And then one last thing
can I really was like, I want to understand spuku.
There's this type called jumanji geary and that was where
(22:44):
you committed sepuku and you bled to death that sword, right,
And the last guy to do this was a general
Nogi who did it in nineteen twelve, remember the Mesgi Emperor.
That's after it was outlawed. Interesting, somebody's committed as recently.
It's nineteen seventy, but they had the samurai, the backup samurai.
This guy did it himself. He cut himself in the
(23:06):
ritual cut and then put his shirt on afterward and
just set kneel there and bled to death. After the
death of the emperor, and the shirt just held all
his his guts in. I guess it's for like the
horse diaper. Yeah. Yeah, it was officially abolished though in
eighteen seventy three, although, like you said, Japanese like to
stick to their traditions, So it has happened as recently
(23:27):
as like the two thousand's right. Oh is that right?
At last? I saw it, but yeah, or maybe it
started to make a resurgence in nineteen seventy and it's
still going on. Yeah. I seemed to think there was
ahead of some corporation that did it recently, but really
I can't confirm that. It's pretty it's a way to go. Yeah,
it's hardcore. So, Chuck, we should probably talk about what
happened to the samurai, right, Yeah, where they went? Well,
(23:50):
let me talk about this one guy first. Um, remember
we're talking about warring clans and power struggles and everything. Um,
there was a huge civil war called a Sengoku, which
was a civil war period in Japan. Right, It was
from like thirteen thirty eight to sixteen o three, and
in that year Takagawa ai Yasu grabbed control and this guy,
(24:12):
he was a minimoti ascendant. So he took the showgun
title and he kept the piece. His family kept the
piece for two d and fifty years. He kept a
complete stranglehold on the other samurai, the damio. Um. He
made it so that your family had to live in
the capital. That's that guy and you, right, and you
lived like way out in the provinces. He basically helped
(24:34):
family's hostage right to keep to keep the other the
the other samurai, um, yeah, the other daimyo under control. Right.
He also had a castle called Nijo Joe and I've
been in that castle and we've talked about it. Yes,
remember in the Ninja podcast we talked about a guy
who had a castle that had squeaky floors. I've walked
(24:56):
down those floors. They sound like nightingales are called nightingale
wars come down. And I tried walking on it. I
got like two steps without making a sound. Really, so
I could see a ninja possibly doing it. But it
was random, like wherever you stepped like it was gonna
make the sound. It was pretty amazing stuff. I don't
think you and I would be candidates for ninja or samurai.
(25:18):
Maybe Sumo possibly. That's where that's where I'm headed. So,
like you're saying, we got to talk about where they went.
What happened in the samurai um There was a what
would you say, two and a half centuries a peaceful rule, Yeah,
under the Takugawa family. Right, So during that time, obviously,
if you've got peaceful rules, samurai are gonna decline gradually
(25:41):
just because there's no one to fight. And then the
main two things Josh are urbanization and the end of
their isolationism. Right, that's what really drove them out of business. Yeah,
because Takagawa and his descendants didn't like the Europeans very much,
and we're like, you guys need to beat it, because
we know how to cut someone's off and just leave
a flap of skin of the throat, right you know. So, yeah,
(26:04):
they were isolationists, and then all of a sudden, the
Americans started going, you know, we'd like to trade with Japan. Yes,
we get people who get shipwrecked around there somewhere, and
we want to make sure they're taking care of and
we want to use his place as a supply port,
so we're gonna sail over there. Yeah. So in the
in eighteen fifty three, They Commander Chandler Bang sailed into
Ato Bay. Is that not his name? Yeah? Oh, I'm sorry,
(26:27):
Commander Matthew Perry had that wrong. He sailed over there
to chat with the Millard Fillmore sent him to chat
with the emperor, who was a figurehead. But that's who
you know. You can't go talk to the show gun.
You gotta go talk to the emperor, right, So he
went and said, just what you said. We want to
open trade, and we want if we get guys that
are shipwrecked here, please take care of them and open
(26:51):
your ports so we can like dock here and resupply. Right.
And apparently when he showed up, he said, I'll be
back in a couple of months. You guys talk it
over right, talking amongst yourself. But when he showed up,
he showed up with you know, full cannons out like guns.
Everybody was basically strapped to the teeth. He's like to
think about it, but that I guess that kind of
(27:13):
intimidation really struck a chord with the Japanese or the
Japanese who are like, WHOA, what's what's been going on
outside the borders of Japan while we haven't been paying attention.
Um And so there was a split in the samurai
class where some wanted to go ahead and open up
Japan and modernized Japan, and this is the people in charge.
(27:35):
The lesser samurai didn't like that at all, so they
actually went and staged a revolt, and the lesser samurai
actually won. It was because they beat the shogun it,
which is kind of a big deal. Although they had
gotten kind of fat and lazy in the in the
two and a half centuries of peace. Um. So the
lesser samurai, who hadn't gotten quite as fat and lazy
(27:57):
and comfortable over through the shogun it took the the
emperor and restored them to power. The Mesgi restoration. Yeah,
and that was it was actually a boy emperor. Emperor
Meiji was I think like a teenager at the time. Yeah,
I'm not quite sure, but he was young. He was
boy king. And now he makes a really good yogurt drink.
You should try what's it called meggie really well, I
(28:21):
mean that's the brain. They're like nestly. So they overthrew
they That was called the nest Le restoration, right, and
the power of the daimios was taken away the government
sees their land. Um, there was no way to pay
the samurai, so they basically started paying them off with
bonds depending on what their rank was. Right. But it
was like, here's your settlement, yeah, you know, and go
(28:44):
and don't be samurai anymore. Right. They had basically turned
into the modern the equivalent of what in the modern
era is somebody who falls in the in the grocery
store and laze around watching Jerry Springer waiting for their
settlement to come through. Yes, that was kind of what
happened at the end of the Samurai. It's pretty sad
and uh. In eighteen seventy six, it finally culminated with
(29:05):
the final blow, which was the emperor said you cannot
wear your swords anymore and we're going to draft an army.
So that was kind of like no more, no more
used for you, right, And so there were some rebellions
here there. Tom Cruise shows up, um and the rebellions
in the outlying areas are crushed, and uh, that was
(29:26):
the end of the samurai. Japan became modernized, but it
wasn't the end of the samurai spirit. As Chuck said,
there's a CEO that recently killed himself maybe suppuku probably, um,
but also that it kind of informs Japan. There's that
whole keep a stiff upper lip, don't complain, uh kind
of tradition and culture. And you can argue that the
(29:49):
history of the Samurai is the history of Japanese culture, right, um.
But also in World War Two, the Bushito was resurrected
and kind of perver hearted by the Japanese government and
sold to the Japanese military who would go crazy and
kill everybody before they were killed. The Kama Kazee pilots, Yeah,
(30:09):
that was part of it. There was the Bondsai guys,
yeah and um yeah, just basically their their whole death
before dishonor because it's like a suicide bomber today. If
you're facing somebody who would rather die than lose, that's
the most dangerous foe you have, as opposed to the
(30:32):
American way, which is do anything you can to save
your butt, right or fall into the grocery store, right somebody.
As we would be remissed, Josh before we leave if
we didn't mention a few movies, notably The Seven Samurai
or and The Magnificent Seven, The Awesome Western with you'll
(30:57):
Brenner was based on the Seventh Samurai, but a Western version.
There's also a Ghost Dog, which I've been meaning to see,
but well you haven't seen that. Yeah. I was about
to say that's my favorite all time maybe favorite Jim
Jarmish movie. Definitely top two, more than Dead Man. Huh.
I think it's probably in a dead heat with Dead Man.
It's awesome. You gotta see Ghost Dog. That's where Forest
(31:19):
Whittaker is like sort of a modern day Samurai living
in New York, in Brooklyn, I think even does anybody's pigeons. Yeah,
he's very peaceful. He's just the heat. It's full of
the bushito like it's broken up with him reading passages
from the Samurai Code. Pretty cool. Nice, Okay, Well it's
about it. If you want to see some pretty cool
(31:39):
images of samurai armor, uh and learn more about the Samurai,
including what a ronin is and what happened to the
forty seven ronan, you just want to type in Samurai
to the handy search bart how stuff works dot com.
So now I guess then it's time for listener man. Yes, Josh,
I'm gonna call this the cute kid in New Zealand. Hey, dudes,
(32:02):
Chuck and Josh. This email comes to you from Felix
from Wellington, New Zealand. Oh yeah, he's a cool kid.
I'm nine years old and I've listened to pretty much
all your podcasts. Dad usually plays them in the car
on long drives. The recent one on taxidermy I thought
was seriously gross. I wish I could do a keiy accent.
I'm not gonna try it, though I wouldn't. I had
a thought that you guys might want to do an
(32:23):
episode on really long place names around the world and
how that came about and what do they mean. We
have one in New Zealand called and I won't even
bother to say it because it's it looks like the
alphabet or has just been written down in random order.
I dared to try and say it in your podcast,
but Felix, I will not. But I did attach an
(32:44):
MP three of me saying it to impress you with
my skills that Felix, Yes, you guys are cool and funny.
And by the way, it translates roughly as the summit
where Tomatilla, the man with the big knees, the climber
of mountains, the land swallow who traveled about played his
nose flute to his loved one. That's what this name
(33:05):
translates to. That's crazy. So we got permission from Felix's
dad since he's a little kid, and he said go
ahead and play it. So without further ado, here is
Felix from New Zealand. Hi, this is Felix here. I
listened to this tom with Tony Hanka Tia tutti Poka
copy game. That is awesome. I'm glad we finally got
(33:28):
around to playing that clip. I think it is cool,
very cute little kid there. Well, um, I don't think
we should make a call for audio files see you. No, no,
I think that one belongs to Felix pretty much. He
is his numbers being retired in the Stuff You Should
Know Hall of Fame. If you want to come with
something cool and interesting and clever and have your number retired,
(33:50):
you should put it in an email send it to
Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
our blogs on the how stuff works dot com home page.
(34:11):
M HM brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand
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Josh Clark
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