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"Ninja"
Definition:
Ninja or Shinobi (literally, "One who is concealed, or one that endures") were assassins and agents of espionage. Ninja, like samurai, followed their own special code of conduct, called ninpo. Some modern practitioners of budo ninjutsu argue that ninja were hardly ever used as assassins, but rather for espionage.
It is popularly believed that the ancient ninja were peasants, who were forbidden under law from studying the samurai swordplay techniques because of the caste structure of their society. This was not necessarily true as most ninja were also samurai, operating as spies in an underground intelligence network.
History
Due to the fact that ninja rarely left anything in writing or boasted of their achievements, the history of the ninja is shrouded in secrecy, so the great majority of stories circulating about them are difficult to prove. Minamoto no Yoshitsune, who employed surprise as a major weapon in his victories, is said in a popular folktale to have been educated by a Tengu to learn the tactic and became a ninja. In truth, he was taught by Buddhist monks who educated him with Chinese books like The Art of War.
One of the earliest roots of ninja, Togakure-ryu, reportedly originated in the late Heian era. Iga and Koga are two of the most famous ninja styles, and are often pitted against each other in fiction. In reality, they were allies and worked together in mutual defense pacts. Both of these claim that they originate in Heian period.
Only a few records remain from the Kamakura period. Kusunoki Masashige used some clever tactics against enemies that remotely resemble ninja tactics. From the Muromachi period there are even fewer records. Both of these times were generally peaceful, and many battles had tournament-like aspects that barred a surprise attack. Somewhere in these time periods, bushido began to form as the proper and honorable way a samurai must follow. It would be well into Edo period that bushido was finally formalized and until then ninpo was not well separated from bushido.
Culture of Ninja
A ninja organization would be headed by a jonin literally high ninja. Under jonin would be several chunin lit. middle ninja. Under chunin would be several genin lit. low ninja. Upon receiving a mission from daimyo, the jonin would use the chunin to select necessary personnel from among the genin. Some ninja groups would be smaller and may have been less structured. Other groups may have been structured more like an army and the leader may instead have been called sho or general.
While ninja are often depicted as male, females were often ninja as well. A female ninja may be called kunoichi; the characters are supposedly derived from the strokes that make up the kanji for woman. Though sometimes depicted as experienced prostitutes who learned the secrets of an enemy by seduction, they rarely used that method. Most prostitutes in medieval Japan were in brothels and few would take their chance with a freelance prostitute; in many places, it was illegal to do so.
The ninpo lit. "laws of ninja", or simply okite lit. "rule", is the law that ninja followed. It had many rules and the most important rule is of keeping the secret of ninja themselves and of the daimyo who gave them the order. The severest crime is leaving a ninja family without authorization and never coming back. He or she would be called nukenin and his or her family members would be tasked to bring him back, dead or alive.
© This article ist based on the article Ninja from the free Enzyclopedia
Wikipedia and is under the GNU Free Documentation License.
There is a list of authors in Wikipedia.
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