Shinobi BecomeNinja
According to the medievalist Yamada Yuji from Mie University—a core member of the Japan Ninja Council, which seeks to sort fiction from historical fact and publishes corresponding ninja guidebooks—the use of covert agents, spies, and saboteurs by feudal lords is documented beginning in the 14th century (Yamada, 2016).
Historically, these agents were called shinobi no mono or just shinobi, which means someone sneaking or hiding. Many regional names also existed, such as rappa (ruffian), toppa (penetrator), or Iga-mono (person from Iga). The word or pronunciation “ninja” did not appear until the 1950s (Yamada, 2016, Kindle Loc 146) and is believed to be an attempt to appeal to non-Japanese speakers. The Japanese kanji characters for both are the same (see Figure 8.2), with shinobi and mono being the so-called kun or Japanese reading, nin and sha or ja the on or Chinese reading.Many shinobi were lower-class samurai (military nobles), but distinct clans specializing in espionage, sabotage, and guerrilla warfare also existed in regions like Iga and the neighboring Kδka, offering their martial prowess as mercenaries. Their remote location factors in their independence and self-government.
Figure 8.2 Shinobi and ninja are different readings of the same kanji characters.
This would change during Tokugawa Ieyasu,s unification campaign when his armies moved from Osaka in the west through today’s Mie and Aichi to the east. Fighting as his vanguard, Tokugawa took the shinobi from Iga and Kδka with him to his new capital, Edo (Tokyo), where they would take on roles as secret police or guards of the inner palace, ranking above other such agents.
During the increasingly peaceful Edo period (1603-1868), shinobi fought less and less as saboteurs and arsonists behind enemy lines, working instead as information gatherers. With the demand for their military services in decline, the specialized martial artist clans in Iga and Kδka fell into poverty and could not sustain the training of new recruits. Thus, they took to writing in the 17th century to preserve their martial and survival arts and sought employment by presenting the scripts to magistrates in the capital. The most famous such collection is known as the Bansenshukai (Cummins and Minami, 2013; Tohyama, 2017). Existing in several versions owned by various institutions, this collection is a major source for current research. With a clear link to Iga and Kδka clans and translations into modern Japanese, this collection is also believed to have directed the current attention to these regions instead of a general ninja image.