Samurai and Ninja: The Real Story Behind the Japanese Warrior Myth That Shatters the Bushido Mystique

by Antony Cummins

  A sample of a Naganuma-Ryu manual, all of which is in mock Chinese.

  Teachings inside a school could be divided into many different formats and normally followed a rising pattern of levels; there are multiple ways to divide the inner teachings of a school, so the following is a sampler to get the feel of how it would work.

  The shinobi arts of Yoshitune-Ryu are divided into the following levels or gradients:

  1. 法 Ho

  2. 配 Hai

  3. 術 Jutsu

  Some of the shinobi arts that were transmitted by Chikamatsu Shigenori are not divided into sections; instead, each individual skill is divided into three, starting with the most basic teachings of that skill and moving to the highest level of achievement in that specific skill:

  1. 初 Sho

  2. 中 Chu

  3. 後 Go

  A similar concept is to have skills divided into three levels known as shuhari:

  1. 守 Shu – The form, the structure of a skill, and to follow the basics.

  2. 破 Ha – To break from the form, to start to allow the form to fall away, and the teaching to be used freely.

  3. 離 Ri – To be free of the form and to create using principles.

  Remember, we must not imagine that the samurai is simply a brute, yet we must not see him as incapable of horrific acts; so to help to show the complexities of samurai thinking the following are examples of just how deep samurai thought could be:

  本末

  The concept of Honmatsu

  Hon 本—Meaning “source” or “origin,” this is the root of things, the focus and the center; an analogy would be the trunk of a tree and could be seen as internal.

  Matsu 末—Meaning “secondary,” this is the surface of all things, the outside; an analogy would be the leaves of a tree and it could be seen as things external.

  The concept of honmatsu is to identify and discern between that which is an internal truth and the periphery, the reality of what is happening on the inside of a situation and that which is external—i.e., to identify if information is directly from the source or if it is secondhand, or to know a person’s true feelings above the feelings that they display publicly.

  利 & 道理

  Ri and Dori

  Ri 利 – Constructed logic

  Dori 道理 – Truth

  A samurai and shinobi need to identify that which is a truth and that which is constructed logic. Ri is the false, the man-made information and the arguments constructed with an agenda, while Dori is the truth of a matter, the reality.

  虚実

  Kyojitsu

  Kyo 虚 – Insubstantial

  Jitsu 実 – Substantial

  This term is heavily used in samurai and shinobi records; it is equated to solid and weak, presence and the illusion of presence, a true attack or a feint. The idea is that in warfare a strategic move is either a real and serious move or it is a feint. This is found in all warfare: the movement of troops, the positioning of forces, the outward structure of a fortress, etc. One of the main tasks of the shinobi is to discover if something is kyo or if it is jitsu, i.e., if it is fake or true.

  There are numerous examples like the above, but only a few have been outlined here to show that the samurai followed the intellectual and the philosophical—yet at the same time, their primary aim was war.

  Samurai and Shinobi Scrolls

  When the period of the great wars came to an end, the samurai were concerned with the skills of their schools becoming useless and a massive increase in written scrolls erupted with the aim to preserve their teachings. At a basic level, samurai manuals are written to preserve the teachings when those teachings cannot be tested in warfare.

  Samurai and shinobi skills are often given names and are collated together. This has led to the belief that samurai and shinobi scrolls are written in code, which is erroneous. Normally the name of a skill is poetic or has a visual trigger and the contents are taught by word of mouth—kuden. This means that often some samurai and shinobi scrolls are in the format of a mokuroku—a list. This list is unintelligible to a normal reader, not because it is in code, but because it is a list of skill names that the reader has not had the opportunity to have explained to them. For example, the Bansenshukai ninja scroll—The Book of Ninja in English—lists the following skills:

  ♦ Six points on preparations

  ♦ Three points of Katsuraotoko no jutsu (planting an undercover agent within a possible enemy)

  ♦ Three points of Jokei jutsu (planning an undercover attack in a tense or urgent situation)

  ♦ Two points of Kunoichi no jutsu when using Kunoichi (female agents)

  ♦ Two points of Satobito no jutsu (utilizing local people)

  ♦ Two point of Minomushi no jutsu (making a spy out of a local inhabitant)

  ♦ Two points on Fukurogaeshi no jutsu—the skill of reversing a bag (serving the enemy and then betraying them in the end)

  ♦ Three points on Hotarubi no jutsu—the skill of fireflies (the skill of writing a false letter to make an enemy’s retainer look like a betrayer)

  ♦ Two points on Tenda no jutsu—spitting with your face skyward (making the enemy shinobi convert to your side)

  ♦ Two points on Shikyu no jutsu—the skill of relaxing a bowstring (falsely defecting to the enemy’s side when you have been captured but in truth betraying them in the end)

  ♦ Two points on Yamabiko no jutsu—the skill of echoes (the relation between the commander and the shinobi and how they should have a good accord)

  ♦ Three points of Mukaeire no jutsu (infiltrating into the enemy long before they get close)

  ♦ Two points of Bakemono jutsu (disguise and transformation)

  ♦ Three points of Katatagae no jutsu (infiltrating the enemy when they attack at night)

  ♦ Three points of Minazuki no jutsu (infiltrating the enemy when they retreat from a night attack)

  ♦ Five points on the skill of Taniiri no jutsu (infiltrating the enemy sporadically)

  ♦ Two points on Ryohen no jutsu (using a prisoner)

  ♦ Two points on Fukurogaeshi no jutsu (making the enemy’s commander or retainer look like a betrayer by forging letters to his family or relatives)

  The above skill list has had explanations added in brackets, but the original terms still remain poetic or cryptic. For example, the skill Bakemono jutsu means “the skill of the shape-shifter” and includes the idea of a ghost shape-shifter, making the skill sound supernatural to the uninitiated. This is while Fukurogaeshi no jutsu means “the skill of reversing a bag.” As can be seen, if there was no explanation to these teachings, it would be impossible to decipher what the skills actually were, some of which are extremely ambiguous. Of course, if the scroll is simply a mokuroku, or list, then the teachings are missing. Yet it is extremely important to understand that many scrolls were written down to capture and record these skills. For example, the above skills are all explained in detail in the actual Bansenshukai manual. Therefore, the first question when looking at a scroll is if it contains a full explanation or simply a list.

  Something that is very much a staple part of Japanese life is to make a “Way” out of a subject, to give it an identity. Inside that identity the Japanese love to give names to skills. These names have various suffixes attached to them; the following is a selection of the most common, with their respective translations. However, these are normally considered less strong than the intention of the English word. It sometimes can be generally seen as “things to do with X” or “points and items to discuss about X.” So you often find that the Japanese themselves will swap between them even within the same manual:

  ♦ …ノ傳 – no Tsutae can be translated as “Tradition of ”

  ♦ …之事 – no Koto can be translated as “Art of ”

  ♦ …大事 – no Daiji can be translated as “Principle of ”

  ♦ …ノ術 – no Jutsu can be translated as “Skill of ”

  The schools of the sh
inobi are much harder to pinpoint than straight samurai schools. There is an extremely difficult line to identify between a samurai school with a shinobi syllabus and a pure shinobi school, if such a thing ever existed. There are of course samurai schools with zero shinobi skill sets. However, many of them have some form of shinobi teachings. For example, Sekiguchi-Ryu Battojutsu—headed by the seventeenth inheritor Yamada Toshiyasu—have scrolls with a small selection of points on shinobi ways. These include poisons, sleeping powders, and shinobi torches. Even while smaller than other schools, they still are shinobi related.

  Yamada Toshiyasu, the seventeenth inheritor of Sekiguchi-Ryu Battojutsu.

  Other schools, such as Chikamatsu Shigenori’s Ichizen-Ryu and Natori-Masazumi’s Natori-Ryu, contained high levels of shinobi arts. Yet schools like Fujibayashi-Ryu,* Iga-Ryu, and Koka-Ryu appear to have taught only, or predominantly, shinobi arts. However, in the main, military schools have a headquarters with a lineage that connects their students to the past. The two schools that seem to fall outside of this theme are predominantly shinobi schools, which only add to the confusion. Iga-Ryu and Koka-Ryu are famous for being shinobi schools; however, they have no central organization and no unified direct lineage. They do not share the same teachings between their incarnations. That means that the terms Iga-Ryu and Koka-Ryu appear to be used in the literal sense, that is, they are considered “flows of tradition from Iga and from Koka.” In most cases their teachings are passed on from master to student and attached to another school of military arts. It is likely that a samurai would study a “standard” school and then study the teachings of Iga and Koka, which would add shinobi expertise to their skill set. These two schools have varying lineages and histories, and appear to be branches of Iga and Koka shinobi skill sets.

  People in Samurai Life

  Samurai is a generic term for a thousand years of history and a very stratified social system. When dealing with samurai history there are certain words that continue to appear and certain subsections start to form. The classification of samurai and samurai life is a vast subject; therefore, the following is a basic outline of some of the elements found within it. Each title can have many variations depending on dialect and the ideograms used, and even the geographical location, but most importantly, chronology has a drastic effect on samurai terminology—therefore not all terms existed at the same time.

  侍

  Samurai

  Generic term for the warrior class.

  武士

  Bushi

  Alternative name for samurai.

  武者

  Musha

  A term used to mean warriors in general.

  武士

  Mononofu

  Alternative name for samurai used in poetry.

  大将

  Taisho

  The lord-commander, or commander-in-chief, of a state or army.

  旗本

  Hatamoto

  A samurai group around the lord. Normally sons from fudai families, which have served the same clan for generations, securing loyalty. However, the use of Hatomoto does have variations throughout history but should be seen as the command group or inner circle around a samurai lord.

  母衣武者

  Horomusha

  High-ranking samurai who wear a horo, which is a form of arrow-catching cape; they are normally mounted.

  軍法者

  Gunposha

  A samurai trained in military strategy.

  軍配者

  Gunbaisha

  A samurai trained in astrology, divination, the observation of chi and auspicious dates and days.

  騎馬武者

  Kibamusha

  A mounted samurai.

  徒士武者

  Kachizamurai

  A samurai on foot.

  譜代

  Fudai

  A fudai family is a family that has served the same clan for generations, giving loyalty generation after generation.

  外様

  Tozama

  A tozama is a samurai or family who is “new” to service, i.e. they have less than one generation of service to a lord. They may have served for an entire lifetime, or they may have served for only a short time; the issue is that they do not have a record of generational service and are therefore considered “outside” the “trust” of the lord, even though they may be loyal in actuality.

  小姓

  Kosho

  A kosho is a form of page or squire who serves a lord. The concept of squire is difficult to place in Japan. Samurai are born into the samurai class or are promoted through deeds of arms; there is no need for promotion from squire to knight as in the West and pages may be of any age, even though they are normally younger boys. They normally do not serve samurai themselves, mainly lords.

  浪人／牢人

  Rōnin

  A displaced samurai yet still of the samurai class. They are samurai without land or fief and have no official employment. Considered vagabonds, however, the story of the rōnin is deep and interesting and shall be discussed later.

  用心棒

  Yojimbo

  A personal bodyguard hired in times of peace to give close and personal protection.

  渡り侍

  Watari Zamurai

  Wandering mercenaries, a form of rōnin for hire who would rent their services to different sides in times of conflict.

  地侍

  Jizamurai

  Landed gentry as previously described, who later became half samurai.

  土豪

  Dogo

  The dogo class are similar to the jizamurai, being land-owning families. In the Edo Period these were half samurai, and according to Charles J. Dunn in his book Everyday Life in Traditional Japan, they wore a single sword, a jacket and had bare legs and served within the cities.

  徒膚者

  Suhadamono

  Half-dressed warriors, normally warriors on the field of battle who had bare legs and light armor.

  無足人

  Musokunin

  A term from the Edo Period given to ex-samurai who had fallen from samurai status yet who had been given the title of Musokunin, so as to differentiate them from the peasant class.

  古士

  Koshi

  Ex-samurai, similar to the above.

  野武士

  Nobushi, Yamadachi, and Sanzoku

  Bandit samurai, groups of bandits who lived from pillaging but yet are considered warriors.

  足軽

  Ashigaru

  Foot soldiers, just below samurai class but still considered military personnel.

  忍

  Shinobi

  A commando-spy employed by the military to act in covert operations; also known as shinobi no mono and ninja.

  間者

  Kanja

  A spy. The term is often interchangeable with shinobi no mono but has slight differences depending on the primary source used.

  盗人

  Nusubito

  A thief.

  盗賊

  Tozoku

  Thieves, normally in gangs, who break into property in organized teams but can be solitary; the term is often interchangeable with nusubito.

  The Rōnin

  By definition, a samurai either needed to be an independent landowner or employed by a lord. If the samurai were to lose either of these he would either drop in social class or become a rōnin. The term rōnin is thought to originally derive from furonin, which literally translates as “float-wave person.” This should be understood as “those people who float on the wave,” i.e., they have no fixed position. A different origin and use of ideogram has the same pronunciation as rōnin, but has the meaning of “imprisoned person.”

  Remembering that samurai status in the pre-Edo Period was transient and that people could flow between the samurai and non-samurai class; this meant that becoming a rōnin was not career threatening. However, in the late 1500s laws were passed that stopped rōnin from gaining e
mployment without the permission of their last employer. This created a dangerous mass of wandering rōnin who could not find employment for their military skills. In the Warring States Period, rōnin could hire their skills out to the next lord. However, on agreement of employment they would stop being a rōnin and become a samurai retainer—this means that a samurai was only a rōnin for the period he was not employed for. However, in the early Edo Period, a samurai had to remain as rōnin without the blessing of his previous lord. To make matters worse, in the early Edo Period some of the larger samurai clans fell and had their lands possessed, adding to the growing rōnin problem. From this emerged attempted coups, rebellions and incidents where the rōnin tried to force political matters and change. Eventually the ban on the re-hiring of rōnin was lifted and they could serve once more as samurai.

  To imagine the rōnin and place him in the overall spectrum of the samurai, think of the Warring States period and of a samurai who was dissatisfied with his lord, or of a lord dissatisfied with his vassal, or even that the lord had died. This samurai would take to the road, move in samurai circles and present his credentials to new lords where he may find new employment and join the ranks of a samurai army once more. As peace came over the horizon, the re-hiring of rōnin became rigidly controlled and masses of rōnin start appearing on the map of Japan. They started causing trouble and became a force unto themselves. In response, the Tokugawa shogunate relaxed the rules and they were reabsorbed into society—the story of the rōnin has given birth to the iconic wandering samurai of modern cinema, the vagabond killer.