The Ways of the Samurai by Carol Gaskin

Author:Carol Gaskin [Carol Gaskin and Vince Hawkins]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ibooks, Inc.

The ninja.

7

THE SAMURAI’S SECRET WEAPON: NINJA

The samurai loved secret weapons. A favorite was a spear that looked like an innocent priest’s staff. In the days of the samurai, warriors and peasants alike learned to defend themselves with everyday objects, such as fans, smoking pipes, or hairpins. They also became expert with such tools as the sickle, ax, or whirling chain. Two tools that made excellent weapons, the tonfa and the nunchaku, were originally used to husk rice and to beat grain. Study of these weapons has recently been revived in Japanese martial arts schools.

One martial art from the days of the samurai is shrouded in mystery. This is ninjitsu,“the art of stealth,” or “the art of invisibility.”

The ninja, practitioners of ninjitsu, were a samurai warlord’s most formidable secret weapon. Ninja were expert at spying, sabotage, assassination, and escape. They used exotic weapons and trickery to accomplish their aims, methods that today seem to combine the skills of James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and Houdini. As masters of secrecy, the ninja represented the dark side of bujutsu. They were feared but not respected and were hired to do the “dirty work”—tasks an honorable samurai, who was expected to fight openly, could not do himself,

Ninja families lived in the most wild and remote regions of Japan. Each family had its secrets, which were never revealed to outsiders. There were three ranks of ninja: leaders, who contracted with outsiders for ninja services; their assistants, or middle men; and the agents who carried out the dangerous missions. These agents were despised in Japanese society, and were tortured and executed if captured. But they were the most feared and were believed to have magical powers.

Ninja training began in earliest childhood with practice in running, jumping and climbing, swimming and diving, balancing on railings, hanging from tree limbs, and standing as still as a statue. Children were taught to dislocate their joints so they could squirm under fences or escape from knotted ropes. By the time they reached adulthood, ninja were strong, agile, and nearly immune to pain, fatigue, and cold. They could run 100 miles without resting, could walk on their hands in the dark to avoid tripping or bumping the furniture, and were expert in walking sideways, swiftly and silently, leaving no footprints. A ninja could skirt a shaded wall and never be seen.

Ninja were masters of disguise and illusion. No one knew who they were. A ninja might live as a beggar in a city, a potter in a nearby village, and a traveling actor or priest in between. A man might dress as a woman, or a woman as a man. Ninja clothing was reversible, usually dark on one side and light on the other. Ninja practiced the art of camouflage, wearing all black at night and white in the snow. A ninja in a gray cloak could roll into a ball and take the form of a rock, staying motionless for hours. He could blend in with a tree limb or a wall or could hide underwater for hours on end, breathing through a bamboo reed.

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