In Search of the Niinja (3 page)

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.

The people of the Qi dynasty trained themselves with these skills [of ninjutsu], and Xu Fu
8
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

W
hile 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.

Separating the ninja from a Chinese
10
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
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 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 the
Emperor 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 Hiden
11
manual, 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.

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 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: