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| A Ninja in action |
Not a day goes by without I reading or hearing the word "
ninja". This extremely skilled secret warrior of Medieval Japan is today a contemporary Joe Bloke, who has some physical abilities and wants to prove it in front of the cameras. It is an American Twitch streamer, that is, an internet personality, who draws fourteen million followers. It is how four anthropomorphic turtles with Italian names are presented to lovers of cartoons, and one of the names most used by companies who want to associate their products with positive connotations.
Ninja are also analogised with modern-day secret agents, such as, James Bond and Jason Bourne.
Scanty extant records tell us that ninja, also known as "
shinobi" were initially farmers, who had to learn how to defend themselves in the very disturbed swath of Japanese history, called "
Sengoku Jidai" or Warring State Period (1467 – 1600). Therefore, many of their arsenals were farming tools that had been adapted for the purpose of fighting.
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A "kusarigama" (lit. sickle-chain) – a farm
tool adapted by the ninja as a weapon |
Ninja's iconic contemporary heroes were the "
Samurai". The samurai class was regulated by the "
Bushido" – an honorary code that forbid tactics of espionage, sneak attacks and poisoning, but these schemes were fair play for a ninja. Hence, where a samurai could not finish a job, a ninja was secretly hired by the
daimyo (warlord) and
shogun. Before long, the ninja got organised amongst themselves, developed and perfected their weapons, created sophisticated techniques and became masters of espionage and deceit. Apart from effective use of toxins extracted from plants and animals, one of their masterly techniques was "
hensojutsu" (the mutation technique), that is, they observed the nobles and emulated their demeanour, learned dialects, acquired accents to convince and play the part of another person and move amongst social groups to gather information and not be detected.
However, the high demand for their services was not only due to their arsenal of weapons, techniques and skills, ninjas were highly effective agents and would finish a job, even if it meant losing their own lives.
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| Kunoichi |
Their female counterparts – the "
Kunoichi" – are lesser known historical characters. Yet, like the ninja, the kunoichi were secret agents who subjected themselves to a strenuous and long training (~6 years). They conditioned their bodies to endure extreme heat or cold, dislocated bones to escape through narrow spaces and could sustain hunger and thirst for a length much longer than normal. They were also skilled martial artists, danced and sang to disguise themselves as
geisha, were highly literate to be able to play any role the occasion demanded and practised seducers.
The most acclaimed group of kunoichi were trained by
Mochizuki Chiyome. Chiyome was a kunoichi, turned aristocrat after marrying a samurai. She stemmed from the
Koga Ninja clan, the pioneers of "
kayakujutsu", the technique that used gunpowder to create explosives and smoke.
After the Second World War, the
Ninjutsu, or the ninja's techniques were divulged world-wildly and foreign military institutions and secret services agents flocked to Japan to learn these millenary techniques.
Please visit my
site to learn more about the history of the warriors of Medieval Japan–ninja, kunoichi, samurai, as well as the mythological Creation of the country and the long course of the legendary 2600 year old
Yamato Dynasty.
The romanticised history of Japan, covering its Creation to its modernisation in the Nineteen Century can be read in my book "
The Goddesses of Japan" sold on
Amazon.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/thegoddessesofjapan/
Website:
https://www.kazukonishimura.com/
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