In the darkness lay an oasis of light.
The yellows and oranges of countless torches keep the black at bay, but the light does
not reach every corner of the camp.
A guard walks past a tent.
A glint of metal, and the guard disappears.
A man emerges from the shadows, wearing his enemy’s armor.
He cuts the restraints of a group of horses, then jabs his knife against the animals.
Silence breaks into horse screams and hoofbeats.
The intruder, on a newly stolen mount, storms the camp setting fires and howling the war
cries of his enemies.
The same scene is playing out in other parts of the camp.
Soldiers erupt from their tents and, in the confusion, clash swords with their own comrades,
believing traitors to be in their midst.
Samurai cut down their lords, sons cut down their fathers.
And away from the chaos, you can hear the intruders galloping back into the night.
We have many accounts of samurai engaging in clandestine activities, but most often,
these were people from the bottom of society.
Thieves and bandits.
First, we have the akuto.
During the chaotic Sengoku Period, there were independent bands of people who roamed around
robbing, raiding, pirating, overall being massive dicks.
They were commonly called akuto, which translates to something like “bandit gangs,”
but I like “massive dicks” better.
I mean--I don’t--as a translation, is what I’m saying.
Their sizes ranged anywhere from a handful to 100 men.
Most were common thieves and ruffians, but there were cases of akuto that had mounted
warriors clad in full armor.
These were likely warriors belonging to some small-time local lords.
The fact that they were put in the akuto category, along with thieves and pirates, shows you
what the upper class thought of these small local leaders.
Even Iga Province, where ninja supposedly came from, was said to be a den for akuto.
These gangs were experienced in guerilla tactics like sneak attacks.
They had to be to survive.
Warlords were known to employ these outlaws in their armies.
They didn’t fight alongside noble samurai, of course.
They were separate, inferior, low-class.
They were relegated to doing sneak attacks and attacks at night.
Most of them couldn’t have been that highly trained, being just bandits after all, and
were considered expendable.
In the Genko War, the famous samurai Kusunoki Masashige used akuto for guerilla warfare
in his campaign to return Emperor Go-Daigo to the throne.
Next, we have suppa.
These were mostly associated with the Takeda clan.
They were spies for the Takeda, though they were known to sneak into castles.
The famous daimyo Takeda Shingen had 500 suppa in his employ.
Again, these suppa were separate from samurai.
They were not trusted like normal troops.
For example, there was a case where Shingen sent 30 suppa on a spy mission, and held their
family members hostage to ensure they did their jobs.
Next up is rappa.
These were mostly associated with the Hojo clan.
They had a badass role: to sow chaos.
They didn’t do any of that spying or intelligence gathering.
The Hojo sent these guys into enemy territory and told them to let loose, rain down chaos
upon the enemy.
They performed kidnappings, burglary, piracy, murders, it was like throwing a wrench into
the enemy machine.
That earlier story about the intruders wreaking havoc upon an enemy camp?
That was a real account of a rappa mission.
And then we have the kusa.
These guys were used by the Hojo and many other clans.
Their main role was intelligence gathering.
They’re probably best described as scouts.
Kusa means grass in Japanese.
They were known for lying hidden in the grass for hours, keeping an eye on a castle or troop
movements.
There were even a few stories of kusa emerging from the grass to attack lone soldiers.
Imagine you’re riding your horse among the tall grass, and 8 kusa emerge ninja-like to
ambush you.
If you lived back in the day, you may have been tempted to believe they teleported out
of nowhere.
The term shinobi or shinobi no mono was sometimes used for these groups that we talked about.
Note that they all had defined roles.
Kusa mainly did scouting, they didn’t do assassinations.
These were jobs within an army, like an archer was a job.
Warlords often hired people from the lower class for these stealthy jobs.
Now Japan didn’t have mercenaries, among the samurai.
That is, they didn’t have armies that fought for different lords for payment.
What they did have were mercenaries among the lower class.
Warlords paid local thieves and criminals to do secret jobs.
This made sense, if you had to spy on someone or sneak into someplace, who had the best
skills for this?
Not your samurai, but your local thief or a friend of the person you’re spying on.
So some people may object to me saying ninjas didn’t exist, and may be coming to my house
right now with a ninja star.
By the way, ninja stars were mostly made up.
Don’t hurt me.
It really comes down to your definition of ninja.
I used Turnbull’s definition as laid out in the 3 criteria.
If your definition does not include any of the 3 criteria mentioned earlier, then we’re
talking about different things.
Particularly that first one.
To boil it down to one thing, my main objection is with the idea of the ninja as someone part
of a secret society of highly-skilled stealth warriors, with secret teachings passed down
through generations.
There doesn’t seem to be evidence for that.
Now if you define ninja as simply anyone who did secret warfare, then under that definition,
sure I would agree ninjas did exist.
Ninja and shinobi no mono mean the same thing, they are just different ways of reading the
same characters.
Before 1955, it was read as shinobi no mono rather than ninja.
Shinobi no mono seemed like a catch-all term to describe anyone who did something stealthy.
It also referred to a job, a profession, rather than an identity.
It could be used to describe anyone from a normal samurai who once went on a stealth
mission to a trained professional spy.
So if we say the definition of a ninja is a spy, or a scout, or an assassin, or anyone
doing secret warfare, then yes ninjas did exist.
My only problem is that this definition seems superfluous.
Why don’t we just call them spies, or scouts, or assassins?
Every country has them.
The word has baggage.
Like if you declare, “There are ninjas working in the CIA,” most people would say, “Whaat?”
and conjure up an image of a secret martial arts dude, not a spy.
Anyhoozles, the label doesn’t matter as much as the concept, and the concept of a
secret society that trained highly-skilled stealth warriors with secret teachings...
there's no evidence for that.
But it’s easy to see how people like kusa and rappa could have fed into the ninja mythos.
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And shoutout to our emperors Tyler and Trevor, who are still here.
Thanks a lot guys!