YOU CAN’T SEE ME, I’M A NINJA!

Ninjas or Shinobi were serious warriors in ancient Japan, with skills that were obtained through long years of serious, dificult training and discipline. They were reviled and loved by their peers. They are no more, though Ninjitsu is taught as a serious martial art around the world.

But, they have also become huge pop culture icons, especially in America, a place where shinobi never were. There are videos:




Ninja Parade



How to be Ninja



Mythbusters - Ask A Ninja!

There are pictures:

Ninja inspired crafts like this felt ninja:

This one is crocheted:






And there are hundreds of movies, video games:







Anime and Manga such as Rurouni Kenshin, Basilisk, Naruto, Ninja Scroll, Ninja Nonsense, and Puppet Princess that feature ninja or they are the main characters. There are shirts, pants costumes:





Everyone wants to be a ninja!!


There is even a debate in the anime internet community about who is better—Pirates or Ninja?







Silly though all of this maybe, I still think it is carried out with a modicum of respect for what these highly trained man and women were capable of.

I am a ninja.

DAILY LIFE OF NINJAS

The two most famous locations for shinobi were Iga and Koga regions of central Japan. The two provinces shared a common border and they prospered until Oda Nobunaga’s attack in 1581. But what about the daily grind for a shinobi you might ask? What was a typical day like—get up, sharpen your throwing stars, kiss the wife and kids, assassinate a few people and come home to a hot meal? Well, no not quite.

THE NINJA VILLAGE

The average shinobi village had a ridged hierarchical structure. At the top were the Jounin, who depending on their wealth could live like a minor daimyo or an upper-class village headman. Some of the most famous jounin were Hattori Hanzo, said to be one of the handsomest men of his day, Momochi Sandayu, and Fujibayshi Nagato no kami, who some suspect to be Sandayu.

Either way, these were the big guys, who sent other people out on assignments. The next rung on the shinobi social ladder were the chunin, who were the executive officers and leaders. They were also in charge of hiring mercenary shinobi for temporary duty assignments. On the final rung were the genin, not to be confused with gaijin. The first one is your work-a-day shinobi, and the other is a foreigner.

The houses that the shinobi lived in were small, typical Japanese style houses. The shinobi jounin’s house may have had special “ninja upgrades” to make it difficult to attack him in his home, such as “disappearing” staircases and secret room with double entrances. One leads to the stairs, the other to a horrible death on spikes embedded into the floor.

The children went through the rigorous training I mention in the last ninja post, but they also had to farm to feed the village, care for life stock and the other daily activities of a typical Japanese village.



NEXT: NINJAS IN POPULAR CULTURE or YOU CAN’T SEE ME, I’M A NINJA!

Shinobi 忍者

This is most peoples' idea of a ninja. A man dressed in black, scaling castle walls, silent as the night.

And they are partly right. This image is proably closer to what a real ninja looked like.

Many Ninja or Shinobi as they are properly called belonged to the lower classes and were despised by the samurai nobles for their low birth and secretive and underhanded methods.

ORIGINS

Many of the shinobi originated in the Iga and Koga areas of central Japan. Shinobi really got their start during the Sengoku Jidai—or Warring States Era. This was a time of great civil war in Japan and the spying skills that the shinobi brought to the various factions was often exploited. It should be noted that there were two kinds of shinobi—the experts who trained and passed their skill on to their descendants like those of Iga and Koga, and the ones who were little more than brigands or ordinary samurai who were hired for temporary secret operations.

The famous Iga and Koga shinobi were active between 1485-1581. They were hired by rival lords or daimyo for spying operations and assignations. Oda Nobunaga attacked them in 1581 and the survivors scattered into other provinces, including Mikawa where they found refuge with Nobunaga’s enemy, Ieyasu Tokugawa. Tokugawa became the shogun in 1603 and the Iga and Koga shinobi fell under the auspices of the new shogunate.

TRAINING

A boy of a noble samurai family will begin training early in his childhood to be a warrior. They learn to ride, swim, use a sword, spear, and bow. Before the closing of Japan in the early 1600’s, they learned to use a gun as well. A child born into a shinobi tribe, boy or girl also began martial arts training. Besides learning the same skills as a samurai child, they also learn to make explosives, blend poisons, and fieldcraft and survival techniques. They may also need to learn to read, write, and pull off a convincing disguise or alternate personality.

NEXT: THE DAILY LIFE OF A NINJA