Of Reddish Purple Bandages

One of the ninja’s most ingenious pieces of equipment was a reddish-purple colored piece of cloth which had all kinds of uses. It could, for example, be used to cover the face, as a headband, or instead of a rope for climbing walls. In this respect it differed little from any other piece of cloth. What marked it out as a special ninja tool was the dye the cloth was dyed in. It was dyed in a kind of pulse called sappanwood, which gave it disinfecting properties. It could then be used to filter water or bandage light cuts and grazes. Only the ninja, knowing of sappanwood’s disinfecting properties, could have thought of inventing such a thing.

[filtering water]