Ninja (忍者) - An Introduction

Ninja (忍者) - An Introduction

An actor playing a farmer; this might have been a very common disguised utilized by Ninja. From "Actor Playing a Farmer - Utagawa Toyokuni III"

Ninja (忍者), also known as Shinobi (忍び) or Shinobi no mono (忍びの者) are among the most iconic characters in world culture, in a military history context as well inside a pop-cultural ones. There is no escape, everyone is aware of Ninja; but very few people know what Ninja actually were and were not.

Today my aim is to introduce this "figure" with a lot of emphasis on debunking some common misconceptions that, despite the efforts of many historians and amateur history buff like me, still exist nowadays.

It is not a novelty that such a mystique character as the Ninja would have developed a strong impact on people's imagination; Ninja were supposed to be magical even inside Japanese folklore. However, there are a lot of facts (that facts are not) which people believe to be true, even if there is plenty of literature that easily shows how wrong most of these facts are.

So without further introductions words, let's get to the topic.


What was a Ninja?

A Ninja, first and foremost, was a profession. As the name suggest, the kanji "-者" used as suffix could be translated as someone practicing something, like a musha ( 武者 - warrior) or gyousha (業者 - merchant).
In fact, a Ninja is neither a social class or a member of some sort of secret society. A Ninja could be a farmer, a merchant or indeed a samurai.
Beside this little linguistic note, a Ninja was a professional spy.
The key role of these people was spying, gather information for their "employers" and eventually perform sabotages on a large scale, scouting, working as body guards or mercenaries and sometimes even killing or assassinate important enemies.
Among the wide aforementioned actions a Ninja was supposed to perform, the assassination was likely the less practiced.

In fact Ninja were not specialized assassins in the first place as many people seems to believe nowadays; a Ninja could and would eventually kill but they were valued for their intelligence service.
A Ninja was supposed to be able to disguise himself among other people, scout the territory and survive behind enemy's line rather than learn sword fighting (unless the Ninja in question was also a samurai), which would have been incredibly useful to came back home in one piece, but it shouldn't have been used since a Ninja wasn't supposed to be caught in the first place.

A Ninja was also a highly trained commando especially when working inside an army; there were in fact famous warriors throughout Japanese history which worked as special troops well versed in the used of guerrilla tactics and asymmetric warfare, like Hattori Hanzou (服部半蔵), which often included the use of explosive devices.
So you could actually have specialized Samurai, trained in Ninjutsu (忍術), and this bring us to the next paragraph.



What was Ninjutsu (忍術) ?

This is an highly debated topic, especially in the modern days martial art community; it is also hard to pin point what kind of misconceptions the word ninjutsu could generate. A lot of people think that Ninjutsu is a martial art developed around the usage of exotic weapons or empty hands, others thinks that it was some sort of magic.

In reality Ninjutsu is an umbrella term to identify a big number of "arts", from martial ones like taijutsu (体術) but also espionage techniques, stealth, medical and chemistry concepts as well as explosive making.
It was a series of skill a Ninja was supposed to master to work effectively as a spy, a scout, a saboteur and a trained assassin as well.
A lot of this technique involved being able to disguise oneself inside a city.
There are many manuals, the majority of them written in the 17th century on these various skills that could be called Ninjutsu.
It is inside those old manuals that one could find many references to traditional Japanese magic called On'myo (陰陽); this is probably why and where the myth of Ninja being supernatural entities came from, even if there is no trace of "magic" inside ninjutsu manual before the mid Edo Period.
Although these techniques were surely practiced in some way, they were far from being effective.

A Ninja depicted while performing some form of  witchcraft to turn himself into a gigantic rat. From an ukiyo e of Utagawa Kunisada (歌川 国貞)

Ninjatou, Shuriken and Black suit

Since there is an entire section of my blog dedicated to weapons, you won't be disappointed to see in the near future articles dedicated to weapons also used by Ninja; but in this article, I want to specifically address these three things.

First and foremost, there was anything like the Ninja Sword (忍者刀). They didn't exist.As many as already pointed out, if the whole concept of being a Ninja is being anonymous, how can wearing something called Ninja sword being helpful? Is like having a big badge saying that the wearer is associated with espionage, stealing and sabotage.
The ninjatou is simply a fabrication of the modern Ninja figure.
There were straight Japanese swords, even in the feudal period, squared tsuba also existed but this is another topic; a Ninja would have likely worn small and easy to conceal blades like a wakizashi, a tantou or an uchigatana hidden inside a walking stick.

Beside that, the Ninja were quite famous of using tools as weapons, like a Kama ( 鎌 - a sickle) or indeed a Kunai (苦内), which were two agricultural tools.
This bring us to the next (in)famous Ninja weapon, the Shuriken (手裏剣).
Most likely this iconic throwing star was not developed to be used as a weapon; it was a tool used to cut, to distract and also to wound an unarmored opponent, but were never really meant to be used to fight, let alone kill someone.
There were several types of Shuriken which would be discussed in a dedicated articles, but what is important to highlight here is the usage of this tool.
The iconic black suit of Ninja is also an highly misunderstood characteristic of these spies; it should be clarified that Ninja also worn black clothes or at least extremely dark color. It is quite useful in the night, especially if the main task is to sneak inside the enemy camp and set something on fire. It is not a modern fabrication; the oldest depiction of a black ninja came from an Hokusai Manga and is quite famous.
That being said, the Ninja didn't wear only black suits; among the colors suggested there were navy blue, dark brown and also green.
The same goes for the famous Ninja mask; these types of head wear were quite common in Japan.
The same arguments could be used for the so called Ninja armor; there wasn't such a thing especially if it's meant to be opposed as something like samurai armor. The armors often associated with Ninja areof the Tatami types ( I hope to release an article on this topic as well), made of kusari, kikko or a combination of the two,which are light, easy to store and also easy to conceal under ordinary clothes; this last trait is the most important for someone who is meant to be undercover.
It is highly probable that the Ninja used this types of armors, yet they weren't the only ones.
Tatami armor were worn by Samurai too, especially policeman during the Edo period.
It is also fair to notice that if we are talking about a Samurai who is also a Ninja in the sengoku, he would have likely worn regular armors on the battlefield.

This is the aforementioned Black Ninja depicted by Hokusai; note the sword on the back: definitely the most iconic Ninja representation.

Ninja vs Samurai?

As I have already pointed out, a Samurai can be a Ninja as well as a farmer can be. A Ninja is not a social class, however it is a common thought that Ninja were the natural enemies of the Samurai, just like cat and dogs.
However, as it is with cat and dogs, this wasn't the case, since we have examples like the aforementioned Hattori Hanzou.
Although there is a bit of reality in this whole myth; in fact, the so called Ninja vs Samurai is a reference to a real historical fact: the Tenshou-Iga war.

In this particular war, the province of Iga was invaded by the warlord Oda Nobunaga (織田信長) and thanks to the nature of the terrain which was heavily mountainous and covered by forests, the people of Iga were able to repel the invasion thanks to guerrilla tactics often associated with the Ninja. In fact Iga, like Koga, was one of the richest provinces in terms of Ninja.
Again it is fair to notice that the Ninja in Iga who fought the war were also Samurai as well, but the way in which they fought was so striking for the troops of Nobunaga that the idea of Samurai against Ninja stand still even nowdays.

The Tensho Iga no ran (天正伊賀の乱), from an ukiyo-e made by an unknown artist.

I hope that this brief introduction dedicated to explain the most common myth (and their links with reality) around Ninja was interesting enough!
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Thank you for your time!

Gunbai