In Search of the Ninja E-Book

Antony Cummins

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 417

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Lost in modern myth, false history and general misinterpretation, the Ninja have been misrepresented for many years. More recently, a desire for a more historical view of the ninja has become a popular theme in the history/martial arts community and Antony Cummins is the primary driving force behind that movement. In Search of the Ninja is based upon the Historical Ninjutsu Research Team's translations of the major ninja manuals and consists of genuinely new material. Little historical research has been done on the Ninja of Japan. Here for the first time the connection of the famous Hattori family warriors with the Ninja is explained. The Samurai versus Ninja myth is dispelled. The realities of Ninja skills are analysed. How did a Ninja work underwater when mining castle walls? How can a bird be used to set fire to the enemy's camp? The book explores newly discovered connections to ancient Chinese manuals, lost skills and the 'hidden' Zen philosophy that the Ninja followed. In Search of the Ninja is the first and only historical look at the shinobi of ancient Japan.

Leseprobe

This book is dedicated to my MotherJudith Wilkinson.

Acknowledgements

The following people have given their time and help and I would like to thank them all for their hard work.

All Japanese translation by Yoshie Minami and the Historical Ninjutsu Research Team. Her translations of ninjutsu documents provide the backbone to this work and the entire foundation of my research is based on her kindness. Research into ninjutsu’s connection to Kusunoki Masashige was aided by Steven Nojiri, who was a huge help in all aspects of Japanese history and Buddhism. I thank Jayson Kane for his wizardry in the area of graphic design and endless help with covers and jacket designs. All chemical analysis was undertaken by Alex Allera of the Chemistry Department of Turin University, whose help has brought clarification to the provenance of some of the art.Also, a thank you to Christa Jacobson, for her help in relation to the Koka Shinobi no Den Miraikai and the KokaRyu Ninjutsu Densho scrolls. Thanks to Peter Brown of Brighton, England, for allowing the use of his copies of the Rodanshu transcription.

Thank you to Mieko Koizumi for her hard work transcribing documents from very difficult ‘Grass-style’ into something readable. Also, to Masako (Natori) Asakawa and Yasuko (Natori) Hine, who are the last of the Natori line and to monk Juho Yamamoto for his continuing care of the Natori clan graves. I am grateful to Mr Yoshida Shigeo for his help in authenticating scrolls.

All Chinese translations are quoted from the work of Ralph D. Sawyer unless otherwise stated. His work has been chosen for its academic excellence and to give a uniform translation of the Chinese Classics.

Contents

Title

Acknowledgements

Quote

Introduction

Notes on the Text

  1    What Is a Ninja?

  2    The Origin of the Ninja

  3    Naming the Ninja

  4    Putting the in Ninja

  5    The Samurai v. Ninja Myth

  6    Medieval Japanese Scouting

  7    Bandits, Thieves and Criminals

  8    The Chinese Connection

  9    Unknown Ninja Skills

10    Similar yet Dissimilar

11    Ninja Magic

12    Oral Traditions – The Ninja Way of Kuden

13    The Famous Ninja Families of Hattori and Natori

14    The Prowess of the Men of Iga and Koka

15    The Female Ninja

16    The Gateless Gate

17    The Fringes of Ninjutsu

18    The Death of the Ninja

19    The Ninja Found

20    Historical Ninja Manuals

Bibliography

Copyright

This scroll should be passed down to one person. That person should train as a Musha-warrior and be familiar with the mountains and fields, the forests and the oceans and he should understand the tactics of war, how to form military camps, understand castle planning, topography and travel around the provinces. Master Matsumoto [Jirozaemon] did this for a long time without stopping and he trained for years on end. These are the secrets of Koka.

Iga-ryu Koka-ryu Shinobi Hiden

Introduction

You should build watch fires in front of your position, close all the gates and allow no one to come or go without questioning, this is done to block the enemy’s shinobi.

Heiho Nukigaki Hippu No Sho Gunshi No Maki, 1689

Finding the Ninja is a task that is harder today than it ever has been in history. Whilst the contemporaries of the ninja had to search moonlit thickets and windy bamboo forests with only the shadows of the night to contend with, a modern searcher for the illusive shinobi has to hunt through dusty libraries and negotiate with collectors who guard their treasures with ferocity.

The first step in this quest is to emphasise that there has never been any authoritative form of academic research conducted into these Japanese figures, even though they are one of the most popular Japanese exports; no one has ever really explored the question, who are the ninja? Many think that they know the answer and that the ninja figure is well defined, however, most of their information comes from films, comics, hearsay and a splash of fantasy, mixed with a little faith. In truth, the medieval documents that describe the actions of the ninja – sometimes written by the actual agents themselves or by those around them, or by those defending against them – have never actually been seen in full in the west and are rarely seen outside of certain circles in Japan.

You are about to venture deep into the history of the ninja, hopefully your preconceptions will be torn away as we unmask the shinobi and break him down into his component parts, stripping away the fantasy and arriving at the truth.

To begin with, this will be done by exposing what is believed to be the origin of the ninja and then replacing it with the facts. Like Hansel and Gretel we will then trace the breadcrumbs into the darkness, through the grammatical gore and the slippery surface of syntax. We will fully investigate the issues, trying to identify if an ideogram in the historical record means ‘ninja’ or ‘in secret’ or even ‘to persevere’, as a slight change in grammatical form can radically alter a document’s meaning.

We shall cut through the ninja versus samurai mythology and find the stark reality that there never was a struggle between the samurai and the shinobi. The myth of the ninja underdog fades to reveal the reality of the highly trained samurai-spy, who is well known and utilised by the Japanese generals of old. From this point, we will survey the evolution of the Japanese scout and his deep connection with the ninja and the subtle differences between the two.

Having found who the ninja are, the quest will turn to where they came from, a query that ends in the Japanese ‘Dark Ages’, where literature for the ninja is non-existent and all trails fade away. But the shape of the ninja footprint can be discerned hundreds of years earlier in China, where we find a series of highly interesting connections to the shinobi and a collection of undeniable ninja skills being used on mainland Asia, centuries before the ninja.

These Chinese elements of ninjutsu are rarely touched upon, but all are fascinating – and all are screened here by academic investigation and even chemical analysis. These skills are then cross-referenced to many original Japanese manuals to find that the ninja did have common themes and skills, similar enough to show a central curriculum shared by all the old ninja of Japan, but different enough to show that evolution had occurred within the clans. The text will then analyse the secret oral traditions and concentrate on two of the most famous ninja families, the Hattori and the Natori clans, who have left us documents to follow. This will explain why the people from the provinces of Iga and Koka became legendary in their own time, being hired out and recognised as the premier ninja of the day and retaining that pre-eminence for generation after generation. The myth of the female ninja is then explored.

At this point, we consider 1603 as the date of the sowing of the seed of destruction for the ninja and one which means over 200 years of decay; gradually the core of the ninja arts weakens and eventually dies – the headstone reads ‘Killed by the abolition of the samurai class and the Meiji Restoration in 1868’. In this ninja graveyard we can view the ghost of ninjutsu as it briefly reappears in the Second World War. The investigation will touch upon what is best described as ‘ninja tomb robbery’, as pretenders and frauds feed off the modern ninja boom and change the once devastatingly effective, practical arts of the ninja into a global brand, manipulating the ninja into a dark hero figure for profit.

With the revelation that the ninja have long been dead and their arts only to be found on library shelves, the manuals and documents pertaining to the ninja as translated by the Historical Ninjutsu Research Team finally give an all-round understanding of the path of the ninja. The evidence of the true skills and the manuals that record the decline of the ninja during a shift towards the mythical are examined for the first time in the English language.

For some this book will shake their long-held beliefs about ninjutsu, for those who are new to the ninja, it will be as a scribe inking on fresh paper. It may even offend some. For all, it should lay the foundation for future ninja research, destroying the false and promoting the real.

Notes on the Text

Any ideas or statements that do not appear in the original text but are assumed from the context are in square brackets. All measurements are given in their Japanese form, such as Bu, Momme, Sun, etc and their equivalent can easily be obtained from various sources; however, a select table of measurements is supplied here.

The small selection of notes that follows has been written for those readers who are new to the world of the ninja. I will describe certain points that need to be understood to avoid confusion when reading the Japanese terms.

A ninja or shinobi is a mixture of spy, guerrilla tactician, night time infiltration agent, explosives expert, thief and arsonist. The ninja have been named in various ways in many parts of Japan, however, historically they were known as ‘shinobi’ before they became ninja. Both of the names ‘shinobi’ (also shinobi no mono) and ninja come, in the main, from the same combination of Chinese ideograms , which can be read in the two ways described above.

It is a misconception that the ninja are a separate force outside of the samurai, as they are in fact a subgroup of the samurai with some members being from the foot soldier or Ashigaru class; this will be discussed in depth later in this volume. A ninja could come from any class in Japan but many were low level samurai retainers.

We are concerned with two main time periods. The Sengoku period – translated as the ‘period of the Warring States’ – which began in the mid-fifteenth century, followed by the Edo or ‘peace period’, which began in 1603 and ended in 1868. In short and unsurprisingly, the Warring States period was an age of bloodshed, where ninjutsu (also shinobi no jutsu) was at its height, whilst the Edo saw the steady decline of the ninja skills but at the same time an increase in the recording of ninjutsu.

In the mid-twentieth century a Japanese enthusiast (and mayor of Iga) named Okuse described a ninja hierarchy, which in his work consisted of three levels: Jo-nin, Chu-nin and Ge-nin, or high, middle and low level ninja;this is incorrect. In truth, a person’s social class was dictated by many factors but skill in the arts of the ninja had no bearing on social or political standing. Jo, Chu and Ge describe a ninja’s level of skill, high, middle and low, but historically they never referred to his social position. Examples include: Jozu no ninja (good ninja); Joko no ninja (skilful ninja); Chukichi no ninja(ninja of middle level skills); Yo-nin (ordinary ninja); and In-nin no jozu (a skilful performer of night-time infiltration skills). This mistranslation by the enthusiast Okuse has affected academic work, such as that of Professor S. Turnbull and the popular author Steven K. Hayes, which has led to a widespread misunderstanding. The misprision is seen in immensely popular television shows such as the Japanese anime Naruto and the cult Japanese film Shinobi no mono.

The explosion of the ‘ninja martial art’ phenomenon has muddied the historical waters more than anything else. From around the mid-twentieth century a small selection of individuals arrived on the ninja scene, claiming to be heirs to full ninja lineages and shinobi schools. A few of these individuals have gone further and promoted the idea that ninjutsu contains a specialised form of hand-to-hand combat skills that were used solely by the ninja and were kept secret for hundreds of years, including from their samurai ‘opponents’. This ‘specialised combat system’ is not only without basis but also goes against the grain of Japanese history and how ninjutsu was used in war. No ninja lineage claimant has ever supplied any form of historical record or documentation that predates the 1950s to help solidify the claim and in Japan, no one is considered a true heir of ninjutsu with certainty. The popularity of this new martial art took the world by storm in the mid 1980s and has gained a considerable following since. No form of ninja martial art exists that has come down through any recognised school of Japanese warfare and it must be considered purely as a modern invention.

The modern idea of a suit worn by the ninja is historically incorrect, though it does have some details right. Modern ninja suits are based on traditional Japanese clothing. A ninja would, of course wear contemporary garb, cut in the same way as the ‘ninja suits’ that are on the market. Also, the ninja would have had access to masks, which were were worn (especially by husbands visiting brothels!) and there are even historical records of the ninja dressing in black, mainly on a night without moonlight. So the image of a ninja all in black and masked is one that was historically recorded. However, it appears to be more correctly identified as the image of Nusubito, or thieves, who were active in the period of peace and who wished to hide their identity. This concept of the ‘Nusubito thief’ is intermingled with the history of the ninja and the two have become one in modern understanding. During the Sengoku period of Japan, when ninjas were truly active, this image of the black masked ninja is without foundation, there is no record from this time of any such garb. Why bother to wear a mask when anyone sneaking around at night in time of war was automatically considered to be the enemy? Ninja manuals seldom talk of covering the face and in fact describe groups of ninja wearing white head bands during night raids, so that they could identify each other in the dark.

Lastly, ninja manuals; during the Sengoku period, few ninja manuals were written and fewer survived and it is only with the adoption of peace that the recording of ninjutsu begins to take place. Throughout this book you will find references to a selection of shinobi scrolls and other literature. The four major sources for ninjutsu at present and their authors – in date order – are these:1

•    The Shinobi Hiden (commonly known as the Ninpiden) by Hattori (Yasunaga) Hanzo and various authors. Dated 1560 with only a few transcripts surviving and the original lost.

•    The Gunpo Jiyoshu by Ogasawara Saku’un Katsuzo, c.1612, of which three inner scrolls are dedicated to the arts of the ninja.

•    The Bansenshukai by Fujibayashi Yasutake, dated 1676, of which various transcriptions exist; considered by most to be the premier ninja manual in existence.

•    The Shoninki by Natori Masazumi(sometimes Masatake), dated 1681, of which various transcripts exist.

It is advisable to familiarise yourself with this list, as many references within this book are to these four manuals or name their authors as a source. All quotations are attributed to the relevant scroll.

Notes

1      The Gunpo Jiyoshu and the Shinobi Hiden have been translated into English under the name The Secret Traditions of the Shinobi; the Shoninki manual has been published in True Path of the Ninja.

1

What Is a Ninja?

Shinobi are also called Suppa or Rappa. These are people who hide themselves and infiltrate an enemy position and observe and listen to the status of the enemy and then bring this information back to their allies. For these shinobi, there are various teachings and they are called; the ‘tradition for a moonlit night’, the ‘tradition for a night with a hazy moon’ and the ‘tradition for a moonless night’. In the area of Koshu they were called Suppa and in Bando (Kanto) they were known as Rappa. These days they are known as Iga no mono or Koka no mono and they are well trained in the arts of the shinobi.

The writings of Arisawa Nagasada, 1689

To discover the historical truth behind the ninja, one must negotiate a network of dead ends, fabrications (both historical and modern), geographical differences, varying terminology and an evolution of skills which change with the political climate.

Often the word ninja comes with two main suffixes, ‘ninja assassins’ and ‘ninja spies’ both of which have a claim to correctness, yet fall short of the reality. Ninja were used as assassins, but evidence for this is scant and represents a minor part of their role. Ninja were spies; secret agents have existed throughout history and yet ninja remain the most enigmatic and most complex. In truth, the terms ‘assassin’ and ‘spy’ do not do the ninja justice, nor do they describe fully the arts of shinobi no jutsu, the way of theninja.

A ninja or shinobi no mono is a person with a specific set of skills and the term has no connection to their level of ability. Also, the term shinobi can be used for a person who is undertaking any form of stealthy mission, even if they have not been trained in any arts. However, it is considered that most shinobi no mono were at least trained to some level in the ways of the ninja. These skills include the arts of spying and working as an undercover agent, the ability to scout in extreme proximity to the enemy – scouting inside enemy castles and defensive positions or even temporarily acting as a member of an enemy force to gain information before returning to one’s own side. A ninja was also a person involved in the making and the use of explosives in a clandestine military capacity, including arson, and who could use the skills of breaking and entering to gain entrance to a fortified household in order to steal. He would gather information through eavesdropping, would take documentation and valuables and on occasion would murder the residents and set fire to the buildings. A shinobi was a person who acted as a guide in no-man’s-land for attacking units, normally under the cover of darkness. Alongside this, they acted as messengers and utilised secret codes via horns, drums, symbols and the written word to transfer information. In short, the ninja was a spy-scout-arsonist-thief-killer.2

The following is from the 1656 Bukyo Zensho military manual and outlines the requirements and uses of the ninja.

Those who should be chosen as Ninja3

1    Those who look stupid but are resourceful and talented in speech or are witty.

2    Those who are capable and act quickly and who are stout [and can endure]. Also those who do not succumb to illness.

3    Those who are brave and open-minded and those who know much about certain districts and people all over the country, with the addition of being eloquent.

Items you should be aware of in order not to allow a spy or Shinobi to infiltrate your position

1    Strictly guard the gates and checkpoints and arrange for signal fires and signal flags and also ‘dual section’ tallies,4 identifying marks and passwords.

2    Examine merchant travellers or travelling monks who are training or collecting for their home temple.

3    If any of your allies have relatives within the enemy, they should declare this immediately.

4    If you receive an offer [from one of the enemy] to spy for you, then you should report this immediately.

5    Understand the difference between truth and untruth.5

6    If the enemy offer reconciliation and they say they are sincere, then be careful not to be deceived by them.

7    Do your best to defend against double agents.

Of Shinobi Scouts

Shinobi6 – Scouts have people called shinobi who go to and come from the enemy provinces and they acquire information. There are traditions and skills exclusive to them and they spy on and ascertain the status of the enemy.

Tasks Assigned to the Shinobi

1    To take advantage of enemy gaps, in reference to both information and [the enemy] position.

2    Getting through doors.

3    Body warming device (Donohi) and ignition tools.

4    Signal fires and passwords.

5    The art of quickly changing appearance.

6    Tools used to climb fences, stone walls, earth walls or to cross over rivers.

7    The carrying of various tools.

8    To hide that which is hidden and to display that which should be shown.7

9    Attaining [a certain] mindset.

Two major categories of ninja begin to emerge through historical analysis. The categories are not distinguished grammatically.

Firstly, a ninja can be a man or woman with no training whatsoever, who is simply exploited for their innate abilities, even if only minor. For example, a man with a good memory may be used as a shinobi to go forward into an area and gather a mental record, simply because he has the ability to recall information. Or a man who has knowledge of a local area (Kyodo) may be called on to act as a ninjaand go into that area and gain information. This untrained individual is considered a shinobi by the tacticians of medieval Japan and is not what we would consider a ninja from our modern prospective.

The second category is the archetypal ninja figure, that is a man trained in the arts first outlined above (to any skill level) and who is used as required by a general. Documentation is often vague in distinguishing between these two. The only way to identify each is to understand the context of each historical reference.

Therefore, remember that at times we may be considering a relatively incompetent person, sent out at the whim of the lord, but at other times, the ninja are a group of individuals who were highly trained specialists, who took part in actions that have made them the legends they are today; creeping into castles, passing armed guards as they slip through the shadows, leaving a trail of destruction or silence behind them. Before we can investigate their skills, we have to understand where they came from.

Notes

2      The word ‘killer’ is used here to avoid the connotations of ‘assassin’. A shinobi was not a trained assassin, his role was information gatherer in the main and if opportunity presented itself or it was required, they were used as assassins. However, the evidence often points to the destruction of whole families and their homes as opposed to single targets. On the rare occasion, direct assassination does appear in historical documentation, such as the Bansenshukai.

3      It is important to note here that the term shinobi as a military function has been recorded since the fourteenth century, whilst the word shinobi no mono or ninja is first found here in this document, making the first recorded use (to date) 1656. However, the term shinobi no mono with the radical ‘no’ does appear as early as 1639. There is no difference between the jobs or connotations between shinobi and shinobi no mono. Also, it must be understood that more and more documentation is being found and examined and only time will tell if this remains the earliest record.

4      A symbol broken into two sections so that when they meet they match and identification is confirmed.

5      The original text is ambiguous, however by cross referencing this point the translation given appears to be the best option.

6      The word ‘shinobi’ is used twice here, once to mean ‘stealthy’ and second to mean ‘ninja’ as a person.

7      The text is ambiguous.

2

The Origin of the Ninja

The people of the Qi dynasty trained themselves with these skills [of ninjutsu], and Xu Fu8 inherited the traditions and brought them to Japan.9 He went to the Kumano Mountains and tried to find [the elixir of life,] however, he could not find what he was looking for in the land of Japan but he did not return to China. From here, he then went into the mountains in Iga province and passed down these subtle secrets of military skills to two of the children he brought with him.

The ‘lost’ chapter of the Nagata version of the Shinobi Hiden, 1646

While the true origin of the ninja has been lost, this chapter will record for the first time in English their appearance in accordance with the actual historical record.

No reference to date of the word ninja or shinobi no mono, in any of its forms, has been discovered earlier than the end of the fourteenth century. As research stands, nothing is written describing the act of espionage or infiltration using the ideogram as a name for the agent before this date. This sets the base point for the entry of ninja into written history.

The Chinese Idea

Separating the ninja from a Chinese10 ancestry is almost impossible, as much of what the ninja stands for has some connection to Chinese skills in one way or another and as will be shown in a later chapter, the ninja or their skills most likely did originate from the Asian mainland. The evidence for this Chinese connection is immense, yet still myths and misnomers proliferate within the ninja enthusiast communities around the world. One such unfounded (yet maybe not wholly incorrect) story is that, under oppression from the harsh Chinese totalitarian system, Chinese refugees fled to Japan and found their way to the soon-to-be ninja homeland provinces of Iga and Koka, where in the mountains they taught the locals the way of the ninja. This is a modern construct and has no historical record, and whilst it is undeniable that Chinese immigrants came to Japan in many waves and at various points – including the Chinese origins of the famous ‘ninja family’ Hattori – there is only one piece of ‘evidence’ to connect Chinese migration with ninjutsu, which comes from the Nagata version of the Shinobi Hiden manual (quoted above) but any attempt at constructing theories based on this is impossible as the document was written over 1000 years after the event and is only a family tradition based on a famous ancestor – a common thing in the manuals – and results in pure speculation.

What we do know is that in Japan around the end of the fourteenth century the word shinobi appears, and then begins to appear more frequently until it becomes known all over the world today. When written evidence cannot be found, speculation is our only recourse.

The Mythological Origin

The Igamondo Ninjutsu Kazamurai no Makoto scroll of the Edo period states that ninjutsu originated at the time of the Emperor Jimmu and was transmitted by a man named Doushin No Mikoto, who was a descendant of the god Amatsu-shinobi, who achieved a great success in a place called Shinobi-kaza.

This myth is not shared by the three major works of ninjutsu and is probably an Edo period historical fantasy. The use of the ideogram for ninja appears in the name of the god and in the place name. These place names or names of gods were inscribed well after any period of importance for the ninja and must be ignored in any attempt to find the origin of the ninja, as they seem more wishful than historically verified.

The Ninjas’ Origin Beliefs

The shinobi themselves did possess origin myths or origin theories. Whilst these stories can be found in credible manuals, it does not mean they are correct. Just as the Spartans claimed to be ‘descended from Hercules’ and the Nazis from pure white Aryan ancestors, the ninja did not necessarily descend from the ‘historical’ persons they mention. The Shoninki manual states: ‘Shinobi have existed in Japan since ancient times’; the Shinobi Hiden states: ‘In our country these skills [of ninjutsu] are found as late as in the era of theEmperor who was called Tenchi (626-672).’ The Bansenshukai explains:

Question: When did this way [of ninjutsu] come into use in our country [of Japan]?

Answer: A brother of the 38th Emperor Tenchi was Emperor Temmu. In this period when Prince Seiko plotted treason against him and holed up in a castle that he had constructed in Atago of Yamashiro Province, the Emperor Temmu had a shinobi named Takoya and he infiltrated the fortress. Takoya got into the castle and set fire to it, as a result the emperor penetrated its defences and the castle fell without difficulty. This is the first time that ninjutsu was used in our country. This is written in the Chronicles of Japan. Since then no general has not used this skill. It is also said that those generals who fully exploited ninjutsu were Ise no Saburo Yoshimori, Kusunoki Masashige and his son, Takeda Shingen, Mori Motonari, Echigo Kenshin, and Lord Oda Nobunaga. Of them, Yoshimori produced 100 poems about the shinobi and they have been passed down to this day.

As can be seen, the ninja themselves believed in a history which stretched back well before the actual period that ninjutsu appears in the historical record, predating that appearance by hundreds of years. It can be argued that the Bansenshukai’s origin story was based on Fujibayashi consulting the Shinobi Hiden11manual, as he may have had access to it. If that is the case it helps to support the idea of a unified and well connected ninja community, which possibly shared a common origin story. However, the problems are compounded by the fact that after the Bansenshukai, many documents simply copy the latter manual’s information and origin story.

It can be stated that the ninja believed that their skills had an origin in China and that at some point, by an unknown medium, the arts of the ninja were brought to the shores of Japan, where they were then perfected, altered or honed by the warriors of Japan and that the people in the regions of Iga and Koka were the exemplars of the skills of the ninja. With the Chinese immigrant origin not based on historical records, we need to look at the documents we have.

The Seventh-Century Myth

One recurring myth is that of a seventh-century use of the word shinobi. This myth has its foundation in the scroll the Ninjutsu Ogiden (1840) where it says that the origin of the name shinobi was established in the seventh century; Otomo no Sahito, who was a retainer of Prince Shotoku, worked as his agent and was called a ‘shinobi’ .

The Ninjutsu Ogiden, 1840.

The Ninjutsu Ogiden is the second scroll of that name, the first being from the Sengoku period, however the one used here is from 1840, near the end of the Edo period. The word shinobi was not only well established by this point but also at the end of its military significance. Therefore, this information appears to be highly dubious as there is no historical documentation to support this statement in any way, and it should be considered to be a fabrication of the author, which means that the actual first mention of shinobi is in the Taiheki war chronicle.

The Taiheiki War Chronicle

The first historically identifiable use of the ideogram for ninja as a definite name for a military role, dates to the late fourteenth century, where two descriptive segments discuss the shinobi and show their first confirmed usage, the document is the famous Taiheiki war chronicle. Volume 20 states:

One night, as it was windy and raining, Moronao took advantage of the weather and sent out an Itsu mono no shinobi [excellent ninja] to infiltrate Hatchiman Yama and to set fire to the buildings.

Volume 24 continues with the second use of shinobi:

The Shogunate’s military governor, Tsuzuki-nyudo, led 200 armed people on a night raid, and approached Shijomibu, from the direction where Kukkyo no shinobi (robust ninja) were hiding. Those soldiers [ninja] in the complex did not care for life or death and went to the top of a building and after spending all their arrows committed suicide11 (hara kaki yaburu).

This document of the late fourteenth century deals primarily with the Nanboku-cho, the period of war between the Northern Court of Ashikaga Takauji in Kyoto and the Southern Court of Emperor Go-Daigo in Yoshino. It features the tactics of the famous general, Kusunoki Masashige; only a few early copies survive. The manual viewed by the Research Team was the Seigenin Bon version at Tokyo University and dates to between 1520 and 1550. The Kanda Bon manual is the oldest but only a single chapter remains and unfortunately it contains neither of the above references.

This finding initiates some debate. Firstly, most ‘anti-ninja’ historians argue that the term shinobi was an invention of the Edo period, which is without doubt incorrect, as through this find (and others) we know the term shinobi predates the Edo period. The Seigenin version –viewed by the team – has the correct ideogram and as this was written in the early 1500s it shows that the ideogram shinobi is clearly recognised in the Sengoku period, putting the ninja in Japan well before the time of peace. Secondly, the fact that it comes with no explanation as to what a ‘shinobi’ is, proves that the word was in common usage and was accepted as a fact, implying that the shinobi as an entity was present in the early 1300s and possibly before.

Further shinobi-like skills are clearly displayed in other sections of the Taiheiki,12 such as the following episode concerning Kasagi Castle:

Under the cover of this night’s rain and wind, let us secretly enter the castle precincts to amaze the men of the realm with a night attack!

Thereupon all drew holy pictures to wear in preparation for death, since they were resolved not to return alive. They took two lead ropes for horses, 100 feet long, knotted them at intervals of a foot, and tied a grapnel at the end, that by hanging ropes from branches and boulders they might climb over the rocks.

On that night one could see nothing, however much one looked, for it was the last night of the lunar month. Moreover it was a night of furious rain and wind, when opposing armies would not go forth to clash in battle. With swords and daggers on their backs, the 50 men began to climb the northern rampart of the castle, a rock wall 1500 feet high, where even a bird could not fly so easily. In diverse ways they went up for 750 feet, until with perplexed hearts they beheld rocks like folding screens, rising up in layers above them in a place of smooth green moss and ancient pines with dropping limbs.

Thereupon Suyama Tozo ran up lightly over the rocks, hung the lead ropes [with grapnels] onto a branch of the tree, and lowered them from above the rocks, so that the warriors passed over the difficult place easily by laying hold of them. And there was no other great precipice above. Toiling sorely, they grasped Kuzu roots in their hands and walked over the moss with their toes, until with the passing of four hours they came to the edge of the [castle] wall. And when they had rested their bodies awhile, every man of them climbed over.

Then in stealth they spied upon the castle interior by following a sentry making his rounds. They saw that 1000 warriors of Iga13 and Ise guarded the front gate on the west side of the mountain…

…Could it be that the defenders trusted the steepness of the cliffs of the north side? No warriors watched there, but only two or three soldiers of low degree, who had lit a campfire and gone to sleep on straw matting spread below the tower.

When Suyama and Komiyama had gone around the castle to see the enemy positions on four sides, they turned their footsteps toward the main hall, thinking to search out the abode of the emperor. Hearing them, a man of the Battle Office asked a question saying:

‘It is strange indeed that many men pass thus stealthily in the night, who are you?’

Quickly Suyama Yoshitsugu answered him saying:

‘We are warriors of Yamato, guarding against attackers slipping in by night, for the wind and rain are very violent and there is much noise.’

‘To be sure’ said the voice and there was no other question [from him].

Thereafter they ascended calmly to the main hall without seeking concealment, shouting aloud ‘All positions be on the alert!’ When they beheld the hall, they saw that it was indeed the imperial abode, where candles burned in many places and a bell rang faintly. There were three or four men in high crowned caps and robes serving in an anteroom.

‘Which warrior-guards are you?’ they asked.

And the warriors [who had just crept into the castle] lined up close together in the winding corridor, giving the names of such and such a person and from this and that province.

When Suyama and his men beheld everything, even to the imperial abode, they made their hearts strong, bowed down in front of the god of the mountain, climbed the peak above the main hall, lighted a fire in a deserted compound, and raised a battle cry together.

This fourteenth-century episode rings out with skills that can be seen in the major ninja manuals of the seventeenth century, such as the Bansenshukai, Shinobi Hiden and Shoninki. Using two apparently ‘specialised’ men to lead them on their night raid, they climb impossible cliffs or ‘difficult areas’ as ninja manuals state, then scale the castle wall and get into the main compound. Here they turn stealthy infiltration (In-nin) to open disguise (Yo-nin), using classic tricks such as claiming to be searching for enemies and giving false background stories, leaving them to wander freely around the castle, until they reach the required area, set it ablaze and attack. Of course, this is a classic stealthy night raid and should not be confused with a ‘pure’ shinobi infiltration. In the night raid, it is often the case that a shinobi will lead the warriors, as did the two figures in the story. A shinobi raid is by a group of trained infiltrators who creep in in a similar fashion and set fires, but remain hidden. Either way, the above extract shows classic ninja skills that are indisputably in the 1300s.

Two further points can be taken. Firstly, the men of Iga (a place famous for ninja) who were guarding the gate showed no signs of understanding these tactics and in fact were guarding the one place that a shinobi would not come from. This, combined with other references to the men of Iga in the Taiheiki, shows that the warriors of Iga province are not trained in shinobi ways at this point and it is not until the late 1400s, about 150 years after this attack, that the men of Iga and Koka are famed for their skills in such attacks. This shows that stealth and infiltration techniques were not born in Iga but were perfected there. Secondly, the translation claims that the warriors had ‘swords and daggers on their backs’, one of the earliest references of a ‘ninja’ style use of the samurai sword on an infiltrator’s back whilst climbing.

This period, between the time before the Taiheiki and the solid incarnation of the ninja in the Sengoku period, could be what most shinobi in their writings consider ‘Ancient Times’ one that the ninja authors of the early Edo period were reflecting back on. However, in this blind period before the Sengoku period, and before the example given above, there is one reference that that will spark the imagination of all ninja researchers.

The Strange Case of the Stealer-Samurai

In 1232 the Goseibai Shikimoku Shokai document or the ‘Formulary of Adjudications’ was written by the Kamakura Shogunate to help provide a fair basis of law and a regulated judicial system. It was aimed primarily at the samurai class and outlined the punishments for selected crimes. One of the 51 articles, Article 33, has a fascinating section which allows us to delve into the possible early years of the ninja in Japan:

The punishments administered to those who steal by force and by infiltration, including arsonists are well established [in our country]. Therefore, those thieves (Tozuku) should be decapitated and arsonists should be treated in the same way, this is done to exterminate this type of crime.

Article 33 of the Goseibai Shikimoku Shokai document from the 1300s.

The most vital point is that the word for shinobi does not appear in this text and the ideograms used are descriptions of crimes and are not used as titles to describe a task or a function. However, that being said, when put into context it gives an insight into shinobi-like activity in the early thirteenth century. Article 33, as translated above, mentions two forms of theft: ‘forced’ theft, such as street robbery and banditry and theft by ‘infiltration’ or ‘sneaking in’. The two forms are expressed in a complex way and need to be teased out of the text, but to a Japanese reader they are clear. The full term is and can be broken down as follows:

1

by force

2

by creeping

3

two of

4

thievery

The four ideograms.

As you can see, a literal translation would ‘by force, by creeping, two [ways] of stealing’. For a native Japanese speaker of the thirteenth century this would reference two methods of theft, terms still used in the Japanese language today. The first two single ideograms can be added to the last ideogram in the example. Here is how it would look:

•

force and stealing

•

creeping and stealing

It is the second example of (Setto orshinobi) that is of interest to us and whilst on its own the find is not significant, when it is combined with other elements it becomes hugely important.

The term , as explained above, has multiple interpretations in Japan, one of which is Setto and the other of course is shinobi.14 Remember that in this thirteenth-century case, it is not the name of a position or title, because the syntax demands ‘the art of stealing into a house by using creeping methods’. The amazing fact here is that it is samurai who were using the art of infiltration to break into domestic buildings and steal for profit. It refers to early shinobi-like activity by the military class in a time of relative peace. It shows that the samurai were ‘restless’ and using their skills for personal gain. We also see that 150 years later, the Taheiki war chronicle mentions samurai who have special infiltration skills and talks about them as ‘shinobi’ whose skills are identical, that is they ‘creep in’ and infiltrate, but this time it is for the purpose of destruction. So these ‘ninja’ skills are considered of military value in wartime but when in times of peace, such skills could be and were used for personal gain and were therefore classed as a crime.15 We see the ideograms being used to mean samurai who steal by stealth and later used to represent the military figure, the shinobi.

The relationship between military infiltration (shinobi) and theft (Nusubito/Tozoku) becomes more complicated as time progresses. By the mid 1500s the ideograms of explained above and the classic example of both have identical readings and both are recorded with the phonetics ‘shinobi’.

What does this mean? It means that by the end of the 1300s, people understood that a shinobi was a person who infiltrated camps or houses and that the word shinobi could be written in the two ways, that is and . It is only by considering the individual context of each example that a reader can determine if it is the name of a specialised person (a shinobi) or if it is the action of creeping in.

To compound the problem, ninjutsu manuals use both of the above versions (and more) in the same section of text and there appears to be no reason why they switch between the two. The Shinobi Hiden uses both versions, as does the Bansenshukai, whereas the Taiheiki war chronicle and the Gunpo Jiyoshu military arts manual only use one version each. The Gokuhi manual uses only phonetic markers or . However, the Koka Shinobi Den Mirakai manual dictated by the samurai-ninjanamedKimura Onosuke states that the tacticians of his time do not understand the difference between these two forms of ninja, so he differentiates between the two types of ninja agent. Cross-referencing with other documentation, it can be concluded that in the minds of some chroniclers the ninja can be separated into those who spy in a classic sense, that is, those included in Sun Tsu’s five spies, and those ninja who steal in by stealth alone.

In summary, the term shinobi was well established from the time of the Taiheiki in the late fourteenth century. It continued to be used through to the Sengoku period. The word shinobi as a title is by no means a modern invention, making the ninja at least 700 years old, if not older.

Ninja or Thief?

To understand the difference between the term Nusubito (thief) and shinobi we need to know what kind of stealing they were doing. First it must be understood that the term Nusubito is a generic word for thief. Which means that simply finding the word Nusubito in a document does not confirm a shinobi reference, however, further markers in the text will help prove if the form of stealing was similar to that of a ninjaor not. The following two examples are taken from the military writings of Todo Takatora, a distinguished Sengoku period general who was active at the height of the Japanese civil wars.

If you have been robbed by a Nusubito, do not investigate the issue, it may turn out that you will be ridiculed in the end for your carelessness [for allowing the theft to take place]. Furthermore, even if you identify who the thief is, do not pursue the acquisition because it may turn out that he is a part of a retainer’s group, therefore you should reduce any form of punishment [if the case arises]. Otherwise you will have to submit notice that these hired retainers are of the same ilk [as the associated thief]; and further, you should consider the stolen object to be lost and not pursue the criminal and also, you should restrain your greed.

The words are for the samurai class and imply that the thief in question is either of lower samurai status or an aide connected to a samurai retainer. By the context of this description we know that Todo is talking here of infiltration into a house. The idea that the victim does not know who the culprit is and the fact that he did not simply cut him down in the street implies this was not face-to-face banditry or street robbery. Also, the loss of an object precious to you would suggest it was contained in your living area. So the Nusubito here was using the arts of infiltration to gain entrance into a house or restricted area with the intent of stealing for profit.

Todo continues his message about the art of the Nusubito: ‘Whilst you are young, learn all kinds of arts, as it is easy to throw them away at a later point. You should even learn the art of the Nusubito thief, as it will teach you the ways of defence against thievery itself.’

So the samurai class is exhorted to learn the art of thievery, something that seems to have been more common than we thought. This perfectly matches the teachings of the Tenshin Katori Shinto Ryu sword school of Japan, a 600-year-old sword school that teach the arts of the ninja to their students to help them defend against ninja theft.

The following two quotations from the Jinkaishu statute imposed by the Date clan, probably around the year 1536, speak about the concept of Nusubito and indirectly the issue of arson, and show the way in which people thought about Nusubito thieves:

Setting ablaze to a person’s property is a serious crime which is equivalent to that of Nusubito thievery.

Those peasants who do not pay tax or the required dues to a Jito estate steward and who flee to another province should be charged with a seriousness equivalent to that of a Nusubito thief. Therefore, those who give them quarter should give notice and hand them over. If they do not and continue to give them shelter, then they too will be as guilty as the fugitives themselves.

Remembering that the skill of the shinobi is akin to that of the Nusubito and in truth are only separated by motive, then we can see where a negative opinion of shinobi may have come from.

Lord Kujo Masatomo (1445–1516) was a court noble who left behind the document Masatomo Ko Tabi Hikitsuke or Record of Masamoto’s Travels, in which we see more laws and punishments concerning the Nusubito thief.

The sixteenth day of the second month of 1504

It was raining when the headmen of Oki and Funabuchi Village reported to the Lord and they said:

‘Because of the drought of last year, a lot of peasants have died. So we have gathered bracken and barely managed to survive. However, someone is stealing our food from us and as we would die if our stocks run out, we decided to keep guard over it. Recently, some came to steal from the storehouse and we gave chase and found them running into the house of a woman fortune teller of Takimiya shrine. When we entered we found they were her two sons and because they were the Nusubito, we killed all three of them, the mother and her two sons. We have come to report this with respect.’

Lord Masatomo’s wrote about this case:

It is quite harsh that they killed them all, even their mother and that there are no witnesses left. However, accounts of Nusubito