Day of the Ninja
Day of the Ninja is held on December 5. Unofficial. This event in the first decade of the month December is annual. Help us
Modern Ninjutsu is Nothing Like the Medieval Form. Ninjas Were Actually Called Shinobi. The first records of ninjas are from 1375. The word ninja comes from how the Japanese kanji characters were read in Chinese and were not used until much later in the 21st century. The most professional ninjas came from one of two clans. In the 15th century, villages in two regions, Iga and Kōga, began to specialize in the ninja ways.
Ninjas were hired to perform a wide range of tasks, ranging from spying and surveillance to raiding and arson, infiltration, deception, ambush, bodyguarding. They did anything that would strike terror into their enemies, including psychological warfare. The wider their range of skills, the easier they could infiltrate enemy lines.
Female Ninjas Had Unique Weapons. Kunoichi, also known as female ninjas, often turned what they had at their discretion into weapons. One example of this was their ornate hairpins, or kanzashi, which they could sharpen to a point or dip in poison. They also used neko-te (which means cat hand), which were nail accessories that acted as metal claws. Samurai and Ninjas Often Worked Together.
Throwing stars, or shuriken, were certainly used during the period that ninjas were more historically active, but there’s little to no evidence they were even used by ninjas – at least according to surviving ninja manuals.
Similar holidays and events, festivals and interesting facts
Shogi Day in Japan on November 17 (将棋 is literally a “general’s chess game” celebrated in the tenth month of Kanazuki 神無月, the traditional Japanese calendar);
Bermuda Triangle Challenge Marathon Weekend on January 17 (Spend from Friday to Sunday of the second full week of January. Bermuda is the perfect place for active travelers);
International Women's Sports Day on January 24 (initiated by the French CSA Audiovisual High Council in 2014);