Maybe because Google doesn't necessarily know that a Samurai could also have been a ninja? The two aren't necessarily exclusive of one another.
Ninja did have armour, there are extant examples in several castles, the Iga museum, and elsewhere. That's why the Deadliest Warrior got it wrong and gave the win to the Spartans. Ninjas had guns and explosives too but anyhoo. There are pics of an original student of Hatsumi sensei in chain mail in Andy Adam's old book if I am not mistaken. Sometimes Seno sensei does demos with a cowl also. I doubt they would've used full body chain mail but would determine which parts of their body needed the most protection and adjust accordingly. I would think you wouldn't want to scale a castle wall in a full suit of mail but who knows, maybe they did.
Kuntaoer, We've already asked a couple of posters (in this "zero tolerance" subforum) NOT to go down this detour. And to stick to the topic. This goes for everyone. Thanks.
Hey man neat thread, here's what I associated what you inquired about with the ninja anime/manga stuff and yes chain or scale mail that seems about right, not fishnet per se where the skin is actually exposed which I personally attribute to Shanghai cinema, but what did you mean regarding "black jack"? Anyway the first image is what I think you're referring to more or less a 20th century fad and definitely seen in the pop culture of ninjutsu, but the second is a real depiction from the early 19th century but note, no fishnet or visible armor (who knows what weapons, armor, or magic he's hiding in that garb, kind of of the point of the depiction, mysterious, dangerous, and effective in the face of adversity and so forth, according to the ninja's namesake). The third and fourth I think are the ultimate source of the pop culture element, the Shaw Brother's 1982 classic "Five Element Ninjas AKA Chinese Super Ninjas" which in my opinion is a great movie.
Quick question which I hope is not off topic. Whenever I have spoken to reenactors, museum curators, or even read books on the subject here in the west chain mail is very rarely termed "Chain Mail" just "Mail". I have noticed that the term Kusari Gusoku is used for Japanese armour of this type. Now was the armour originally called Kusari Gusoku i.e. "Chain Armour" in Japan or is the term "Kusari Guroku" a Japanese rendering of the western term "Chain Mail"?
Bump. Tbf I usually hear chainmail, while re-enactors may just shorten it off hand. On the other hand an exact translation of the japanese terminology would be welcome.
why do you wear ninja black uniform if you are not a ninja? Found you out didn't i ?! If Ninja were meant to spy, infiltrate,etc, then a predetermined uniform does not make much sense does it? If the chances for fighting were very high, then they would wear some chain to protect but still hidden enough under whatever clothing was natural. If we are talking about a full on attack on an province, then they would wear what was logical to wear. Colors that would camouflage them as best as possible.
It could be that the term "Chain mail" is a relatively modern term popularised by Sir Walter Scott in 1822. You remember Scott, the guy that gave us "The Wars of the Roses" when it was actually called "The war of the cousins" The two finger salute which we know is completely false as well as men in armour not being able to recover to their feet once unhorsed (Ivanhoe). Its possible the term originated a few years earlier in 1796. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm Now Botta Dritta you seem quite knowledgable in this area so just wondering if you can point to a source for the term "Chain Mail" in the Medieval period, Sorry if I sound pedantic but i'm just wondering if the Japanese copied the term, or they had it at an earlier date.Like to hear on this or be proved wrong. Been looking at a few books of my own today and can only find the term "Mail" or Maille" being used.
No it's been buzzing round my head all day, and its a fair question. Initially I thought the the 'mail' part of the word referred to Italian word maglia (English jersey) as in a garmet you wear. But after little digging, actually 'mail' apparently comes from the Middle English (Norman?) Maille, which was the word to describe the single rings. In French Maille translates as a stitch. Infact in Italian chain mail is 'Cotta Di Maglia' and in French 'Cotte de Maille' , which would have Meant - Coat of stitched (metal rings) However the curious part is,as you quite correctly say, that it only really appears in the English language in the first part of the 19th centuary at least from what I've read no futher than 1815. It may be that English authors raided continental novels for expressions and simply translated Cotte de Maille as chainmail coat. Even so a contemporary historical expression to describe the armour may have existed, I'm going to (like a stubborn sucker) look into this a bit more but we must beware in looking for expressions that may not exist, as categorisation for historical was a particular late European phenomen. For example example in England a rapier sword was described as a rapier (because it was a sword dissimilar to the ones the English carried). In Italy a rapier, being more closely tied to the nation, is described as spada - the simple word for sword. They never invented a separate word for a rapier until the 19th centuary, when they started to refer to a rapier as 'striscia' to differentiate it. It's very likely that chainmail is a modern term, and that in the Middle Ages they just called it armour or even 'mailled armour'. Will double check However yeah it's sucks. It may be that Japanese antiquarians borrowed the same European mania and translated it over from another language to classify it better. Unfortunately I don't know enough Japanese to know what Kusari Gusoku actually borrows its meaning from exactly. Edit - it looked like in England different variations of the Anglo- Norman wor Maille/Maiylle/Malle etc were used to describe chainmail armour The wiki article is well sourced and quite comprehensive. The Japanese article on chainmail armour makes reference to the Japanese terms in a book on Japanese armour from 1800. Might be a good springboard for anyone who wants to delve in it futher.
nice reply, and your post is a most welcome one and much appreciated. Its funny how words, phrases, and ideas end up in a language, and we believe them to be much older. And then those ideas became an established history. Until of course you look into it a bit more. For years I thought (Like many people including many historians) that the Sherman tank was nicknamed the Ronson during WW2 because it burned so easily. The nickname being used because Ronson had the catch phrase "Lights First Time". Then a few days ago I found out that the catch phrase used by Ronson was not used in advertising till the 1950s so we have to enquire further if the Sherman was indeed called the Ronson in WW2 or its something that a bad historian stated and every other historian copied it as fact. This also makes it less likely when you realise that most GIs carried Zippos.
My Japanese is not that great either but I checked into the etymologies of this term a bit. Kusari (鎖) means locked together, similar to kusaro (link together), just as in kusarigama (chained sickle) or kusarifundo (chained weight), and it originally comes from Middle Chinese (鎻) of the first millennium AD. In modern Mandarin, it'd be 'locked' (锁) or something similar. To get to the point, these terms in Chinese and Japanese don't necessarily imply metal chains, but chaining in the sequential sense (interlocking), so it's entirely possible kusari gusoku would be a natural linguistic way of describing any sort of 'interlocking' armor pattern, be it chains of metal, or scales, or even interlocking leather pieces, and even those pieces of mail from outside of Japan. The terms don't refer to the materials used, but more on how the bits are linked together. From that perspective, kusari is definitely one way to describe a fishnet (as a pattern of interlocking cords or rope). But gusoku doesn't fit, because fishnet is not armor. So kusarigusoku couldn't describe fishnet clothing, unless the clothing it offered some form of protection. Does that make sense?
So a bit like how people describe the Roman Lorica Hamata as "Chain Mail" yet the meaning of Hamata (Relating to the mail) means something like "Rivetted Together or Hooked" Lorica Hamated = Hooked together breast plate Yet of course the layman would call it chain mail.
Exactly brother, hamata/'hooked', squamata/'scaled' or the lorica segmentata (the Latin is a little more clear to native English speakers).
Actually ....just to keep with thread going with some ideas/theories. Japanese chain mail has a number of different configurations which differ from the European typology. It was also much more common in Japan (according to what I have been reading at least) to put chainmail between cloth layers. Something about the chainmail look never sat right with me. The sketches had them all dressed in typical black, presumedly as they were infiltratiing. But if you were infiltrating would you really wear chainmail with the possibility of metal scraping on stone or wood? Chainmail isn't clumsy or noisy by any means, but it wouldn't be my first choice or armour for infiltration. Something like leather hide would be much more stealthy and adequate enough. Could it be that they wore a armoured undergarment with minimal chainmail strips in a criss cross fashion layered beneath cloth or leather. Or even padded leather undergarment similar to what fencing masters used to wear with diamond sections? Also last request to people out there: I have been trying to find the earliest known image of the stereotypical black clad ninja, I think it was either a woodcut print or a sketch. It was a ninja climbing across a rope over a castle moat. I definetly have seen this before and I think it was middle to late 18th centuary, but have been unable to find an image on Google. Can anybody find a version Of it? The reason is to see if the earliest stereotypical image has the fishnet design, or if it appears much later.
It just so happens I have a keen interest in prints and found what I think you are referring to before. I think you mean the one I posted up above, this is early 19th century. This my friend is an amazing piece of history, a wood block print from 1817 crafted by Katsushika Hokusai, a very famous Edo-era artist. Most of the references to ninja in history are written, so this is a very illuminating piece in my humble opinion. I've often wondered if this wood block image helped solidify the modern 'pop' version of what shinobi are supposed to look like. Except that I think this is a specific reference to that kind of 'castle infiltrator' you speak of, and during that kind of thing, zero metal and nothing but black makes a lot of sense. The earliest picture I can find of 'ninja fishet' was actually from the 1980's Shaw Brothers' movies with ninjas, which, being made in Shanghai in the 1980's, might have been almost punk rock in style, now that I think about it, since fishnet was also being seen in the various rock and roll styles in the West (punk rock, Madonna, and so on).
The earliest televised I can think of is the Shintaro the Samurai (On Kenshin) 1962, which came out the same year as the Shinobi No Mono film For a video on YouTube check [ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Wx7wps1cM[/ame] At 2:44 when the first ninja appears you can see the fishnet design,this look is what I think influences much of Ninja media through the last half the the 20th century (Christ just saying that makes me feel old...) I might be wrong but there may have been a number of Japanese comic books from the 1950's with the fishnet design. As for the prints... thanks, but these are not the one I was thinking of. They are pretty old so it's going in the right direction, but the one I'm thinking of is 17??? and has only one figure in.....Ah you have just reminded me where I saw it published! Osprey warrior series ninja book. Ok... Gotta go and Google!!!! Edit: no images on Google, but Tracked a version of the book and took a screen shot Image is apparently from a Japanese book 1801 (not mentioned which Japanese book) So not 18th centuary after all, but it is the oldest image depiction of the ninja in black. And guess what... No fishnets, chainmail or otherwise, which makes the whole fishnet string suspicious.
How funny is this you got me looking through my otherwise non-ninja related Japanese woodblock lore and lo and behold I found another really interesting piece. Bear with me brothers but this one is by Utagawa Hiroshige II and is part of an early 19th century set depicting the Chushingura (set in 1701). Could that be another depiction of a ninja? I won't lie when I saw this and realized there was a spy with a mask (and possibly what looks like 'fishnet' camouflage in the artwork!!), I immediately thought he looked like a 'ninja turtle'. LOL Sorry for the joke...anyway this is an almost 200 year old print of a 300 year old story, so it's pretty cool history nonetheless But if that's a ninja there behind the lantern, then there may be something to this whole "criss-cross" pattern after all, in this example, there's a clear visual effect of sort, it helps the spy blend into the background and he fades very ninja-like into the pattern of stonework and river behind him (I didn't see him at first and almost completely missed it!!! Glad I stopped to admire the block for an extra moment).
Here's a picture of the book itself, I took a look at Dr. Turnbull's work as well and oddly enough, there doesn't appear to be a source or citation for the image in his 2003 work. He does mention some of his older books (from the 1990's) so it's possible the original citation is in one of those and it's just not on the Net. Really interested in figuring out what I am looking at there If I get a moment of free time I might try to translate the script but I am slow as molasses at that.
