Today's article is on who or what were the ninja or shinobi really?
Many ninja or shinobi were also samurai. Not all ninja were mercenary assassins that you see in the movies & media. The word Samurai means "to serve" this means that as a samurai, you did whatever your lord commanded you to do. If he asked you to spy on someone, then you did, if he asked you to steal something, you did, if he asked you to duel someone, you did, if he asked you to assassinate someone you did.
Any lord who was worth serving knew better than to send samurai out in the middle of the day in colorful armor waving his banner to do tasks such as these. He would send them at night so as to retain his own personal honor. For if his samurai were discovered then the lord's honor would be affected. This is why a great many samurai were trained as ninja. Since ninja had to be able to infiltrate enemy samurai camps, they too, often (not always) had to be trained in the ways of the samurai.
Not all ninja were samurai though. Some were in-fact assassins, some were thieves, some were mercenaries. The thing to remember here is that though many were one thing or another, not all were. These days we have this innate desire to be able to lump people, places or things into small overly definitive categories and you simply cannot do that with the shinobi. They were as diverse as any other group or organization if not more so. They had to be able to adapt and overcome any situation that was presented to them.
In short, the ninja were many things. If you've heard of the ninja being a certain way, chances are good that some or many were but just as many were also something else.
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