The History of the History of the Image of the Ninja, Part One, Enter the Concept and the Image of the Ninja
Housekeeping information below.
An image of a ninja using a parachute to escape from a castle sometime during the 15th to 17th Century long before parachutes are believed to have existed. The image comes from Fujita Seiko’s book “What is Ninjutsu?” ( 忍術とは? “Ninjutsu to wa?") which is believed to have been published some time before 1938, a period after parachutes were known to have existed. Logically, it seems that either parachutes were invented, then forgotten, in Japan centuries before aircraft existed, or there may be a flaw in this book and the author’s claims.
Read on. Explore the controversy.
Quick Ninja Time Line
A history of the history of reports of Ninja -how very, very meta
Last time I wrote on ninja, in my piece, The Ninja Articles Begin -Enter the Ninja! , I defined the term “ninja,” and did so using a description found in Andrew Adam’s book, “Ninja, the Invisible Assassin,” a very popular, non-scholarly book from 1970. Most credit it as the first English language, non-fiction book on ninja and who they allegedly were and what they did. As noted, according to Adams the ninja were superhuman assassins and spies who lived in the 15th to 17th Century. According to Adams, the ninja were born into ninja clains and trained from birth in the multi-faceted art of ninjutsu. While I think I described Adams’ descriptions fairly, I was clearly skeptical .
Which begs the question, if this description is so silly, where did Andrew Adams get it from? And where and when did this description of ninja come from and how did it arise? Is it historically sound or pseudo-history? Are these wonderful descriptions of 15th to 17th Century black clad assassins capable of amazing superhuman feats true history? Or are they a false claim about history that has entered the public record?
Here, we present a rough historical outline of Japanese history of the last few centuries, how it’s been reported, and how this relates to claims about ninja and the history of the ninja.
The Era of the Last Great Samurai Wars -1467 to 1603 more or less
First, although no real historian of Japan calls this period, “the era of the last great samurai wars,” that’s what they basically were. For over two centuries, Japan was rocked and tormented with long series of intermittent internal warfare. Different factions with large armies fought each other. Of course, these armies were not entirely samurai, the samurai being a social class like European knights who were trained from an early age to fight and to follow a warrior code. The armies included many other warrior types and social classes, including ronin, ashigaru, warrior monks, and others, some claiming that ninja were an auxiliary part of such armies. Aside from a failed attempt to invade Korea, occasional forays by Japanese pirates to other shores, or Japanese samurai or other warriors serving overseas as mercenaries in South East Asia, this fighting was entirely internal and took place within the borders of modern Japan and involved Japanese fighting each other for control of the Japanese islands.
Sharing this History
First, getting into the relevant historiography, the history of this history, who is it that shares this history with others? Basically, two categories of people.
The first are scholars who make their living teaching for colleges and universities and who generally write primarily to communicate with their peers, other scholars within their field. The second are popular historians who write books aimed at a general audience of interested, non-scholars. The former category often write in a style that’s difficult or impossible for a non-scholar to follow, leaving out fascinating background information and important context that they and their peers already know. They also tend to write small quantities of papers or books. If they make a mistake in their facts, their peers will often rip them apart.
By contrast, the popular historians write more and include the background and context but are often pressured to answer questions that a scholar might hesitate to put a direct answer on. For instance, what exactly did a specific type of warrior look like at such and such a battle? Or how large were the armies? Or why did one side win a battle or war instead of the other? Which means their books often jump a bit ahead of what is really known with certainty about a specific period in order to try and provide the information and answers that the public really wants to know about. Also if a popular historian is trying to make a living writing books full time, and is paid by the number of books they write and how many copies sell, they tend to try to write books quickly and as fast as they can.
Stephen Turnbull
Which brings us to the name Stephen Turnbull. Stephen Turnbull is a very prolific author of books on Asian history and what I called “the era of the last great samurai wars” as well as other, primarily East Asian military subjects. His books are quite interesting, packed with useful information, and tend to have beautiful illustrations. They tend to be published by companies that have large lines of military history books aimed at hobbyists and the popular audience. While I would question for many reasons if the number is exactly correct, the Goodreads website says Turnbull has written 164 books. Even if this number is a little high or a little low, he has still written a huge number of books, many of them on what I referred to above as The Era of the Last Great Samurai Wars.
Decades ago, I had developed a large collection of Turnbull’s books on Samurai and Japanese warriors of this period and their battles, but sold or donated almost all of them after an emergency move. I had to movie suddenly, realized I was overburdened, and decided to cull my personal library. Not having any real plans to research or study the Japanese wars of this period, I decided I had no need of these colorful books.
I enjoyed reading them, but, honestly, as for their accuracy, I, probably like most of Turnbull’s readers, was not able to judge. If he said it in his books, I tended to simply assume it was correct and read on to the next part.
Stephen Turnbull has an interesting place in the history of ninja history, and I will discuss it more when we come to the end of the twentieth century in part two, next week’s article.
Reports of Ninja during the Era of the Great Samurai Wars (or lack thereof)
Basically, despite widespread claims to the contrary, I am going to argue that there were no reports or evidence of ninja existing during this era.
Now many people will argue that there were, but that the ninja of the time, did not dress or act like ninja of Adams’ book or the ninja of Hollywood, and that they were not called “ninja” but were instead called “shinobi.” Shinobi is a general Japanese word for spy that could include a ninja but doesn’t have to because it just means “spy.”
In other words, we have that same crazy thing that I talked about in the last piece on ninja that I wrote. ( See The Ninja Articles Begin -Enter the Ninja! ) I argue that if two things have different names and different descriptions, they are different things. If someone then claims they are the same thing, they are playing games, and they are still not the same thing. (My grandmother in Maine once told me a story about a four year old who once looked out a train window, pointed at an animal and said “Aunt Pearl, look at the lion that looks just like a dog.” Apparently the four year old wanted to see a lion so she decided she did. It’s kind of the same thing if you point at a shinobi and say “look at the ninja that looks and acts just like a shinobi.”)
More on this later. I am arguing that during this period, people were not talking about ninja at this time. During this era of history, ninja were not “a thing,” and nobody talked about them.
It’s like the ancient astronauts. People say they were there, but I don’t think they were, and despite widespread claims, when one digs deep enough the ancient astronaut reports fall apart one by one. I look forward to digging really deep into the history of claims of ninjas and the historiography inolved as time goes on.
The Era of the Japanese Ninja Pixies
Ultimately Japan became unified and ruled by an Emperor and a Shogun, an official who claimed to be working for the Emperor but who was actually making the decisions about important things. Internal warfare was very rare, foreign warfare involving Japan even rarer, and life was pretty stable. While of course there was some violence, violence being endemic to the human condition, it was small scale, interpersonal stuff.
During this period, there was a surprising amount of talk and writing about ninjas. Japanese people of the time, really enjoyed reading novels and stories about ninjas, and called them ninjas, but the term was, reportedly, used very differently from how we use it today.
Note that before I was talking about people trying to find something and deciding something else with a different name and a different description was the thing they were looking for. As we get closer to modern times, it seems we begin to find things with the right name, but a different description.
The reported ninjas of this time were supernatural beings who performed magical acts.
For instance, sometime prior to 1938, Fujita Seiko, a man we will discuss more later, described the descriptions of ninja and the view of many people in his past on ninjas by saying:
. . . the ninja can be seen using magical gestures, incanting magical words and curses, causing their form to suddenly disappear or turning into toads or snakes. No matter how they look at Ninjutsu people cannot help but feel that is something that transcends, even ignores, science. . . (Fujita, p. 8)
Again more on Fujita Seiko and his views and his role in creating the modern image of ninja later in this piece and more in future pieces. Regardless, during this era, ninja and ninjutsu were seen as magical, supernatural, sorcerous beings. Again more later.
I also have multiple sources from pre-World War Two Japan that describe ninja as magical, sorcerous things with the ability to do random acts of strangeness, such as, for instance, turning themselves into toads or snakes. I look forward to exploring and sharing some of these as time goes on.
The Post Meiji Era, the Twentieth Century, and the 1960s and Beyond in the World of Japanese Ninja Claims.
Around the time that the twentieth century rolled around, a small number of people emerged with a new image of ninjutsu. Fujita Seiko, one of the first and most important of these people who worked to change the image of ninja and ninjutsu claimed to be trying to create a more “scientific” image of the ninja and ninjutsu. Although it’s arguable as to whether or not Fujita’s image of ninja was more scientific, it is undeniable that in early twentieth century Japan, science was seen as a wonderful thing, a philosophy and a method for improving things and making them more efficient and powerful. Of all the Asian and non-Western nations, Japan was the one that had embraced science and “modernized” the most rapidly and effectively in a way that had impressed not just Westerners but also Asians. In that context, it makes sense that the term could be applied to something like ninja and ninjutsu and seen as a way to improve them.
Regardless, three big things happened in the twentieth century in the real of the image of the ninja. These were:
1. The ninja shifted from being magical and sorcerous beings able to accomplish superhuman effects magically to people who used life long training and unique devices and technologies (including, it seems, parachutes for instance) to achieve their superhuman effects.
2. People arose who claimed to be heirs and inheritors of the living tradition of the ninja and ninjutsu and who claimed to be able to perform and demonstrate these superhuman feats and teach them to others.
3. These ideas ultimately spread to the West and to the USA and entered the American and global pop-culture realm. (This part of the process will be discussed next week in Part Two of this article.)
It is my belief that during this time, three people were responsible for much of this. Two were primarily martial artists. The third was a novelist who became a politician interested in developing tourism in hisregion, but who also occasionally demonstrated martial arts.
Going in order of age, these three were:
1. Fujita Seiko 藤田 西湖 (1898-1966).
Fujita claimed to be the 14th and final heir to the Kōga-ryū Wada-ha Ninjutsu tradition and wrote several very influential books on ninjutsu. These shared images of alleged ninja techniques and technologies and how they were performed. (including the above parachute illustration) More on him later.
2. Okuse Heishichirou 奥瀬平七郎 ( 1911-1997).
Okuse was the so-called “ninjutsu mayor” of Iga City. Author of many novels about Ninja, he became very involved in promoting Iga City, a city in Japan, as the home of ninja and ninjutsu. Among his efforts were the creation of several ninja themed festivals and ninja history museums. Although the depictions of ninja in these festivals and museums was based more in popular imagery than actual history, including the images created and promoted by Fujita Seiko, they were very successful and became very popular. Today in Iga City, it is not uncommon to see tourists dressed in rented ninja costumes visiting the region’s several ninja tourism attractions. Okuse also claimed to be descended from ninja himself and wrote and gave talks on the alleged history of ninja.
Okuse first wrote of ninja in 1947 in the Iga City (then called “Ueno City”) directory where he was head of the city planning division. His piece, “Iga and Ninjutsu” ( 「伊賀と忍術」) argued that "ninjutsu is not fictitious, but real, and its real image is extremely rational and scientific," and therefore a worthy tourism resource. Around this same time, he also wrote the novels "Ninja Eye Opening" ( 「忍者開眼」) and "Sengoku Ninja Legend" ( 「戦国忍者伝」) which was serialized 27 times.
Okuse claimed to be descended from ninja himself and able to perform some ninja skills. ( See “奥瀬平七郎”Japanese language Wikipedia page which I autotranslated.)
3. Hatsumi Masaaki 初見 良昭 (1931- still living ).
Hatsumi claims to be the 34th Grandmaster of the Nine Schools of the Ninja Arts and Head of the Bushinkan Organization.
He is also a chiropractor and has written many books, some of which have been published in English. In the USA and the West, his most famous student is Stephen Hayes, prolific author of ninja books and well known martial artist who promoted ninjutsu study in the west for years.
Hatsumi Masaaki is a living person and author of several books in both Japanese and English. Two of his books are in my ninja book collection, but I confess to not having read them yet. I hope to write more about him and his views on ninja, ninjutsu, and where the art of ninjutsu allegedly originated 34 generations ago in the future. (One reason for this publication is it keeps me motivated to do Asian studies and Asian history research.)
While my research continues, it is my belief at this time that almost all reports of actual living ninjas in the West who claim descent from an “authentic” ninja lineage can be traced back to at least one of the above three people. Often more than one of them. This is an idea, I look forward to exploring, testing, and sharing with my readers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
English Sources.
Adams, Andrew. Ninja, the Invisible Assassins. Burbank, CA: Ohara Publications. 1970.
Draeger, Donn & Smith, Robert W. Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts. Tokyo, New York, & San Francisco: Kodansha International, Ltd. Copyright 1969, Fifth Printing, 1985.
Draeger, Donn. The Art of Invisibility: Ninjutsu. Tokyo, Japan: Simpson-Doyle & Company. 1971.
Hayes, Stephen K. Ninja, Spirit of the Shadow Warrior. Burbank CA: Ohara Publications. 1980.
Kim, Ashida. Secrets of the Ninja. Secaucus NJ: Citadel Press. 1981.
Serebriokova, Polina & Orbach, Danny. “Irregular Warfare in Late Medieval Japan: Towards a Historical Understanding of the ‘Ninja.’” The Journal of Military History. 84 (October 2020) PP. 997-1020.
Seward, Jack. Japanese in Action. New York, Tokyo: Weatherhill Books. 1968, 1976. Reprinted by Lucky Book Company, Taiwan, 1984.
Turnbull, Stephen. Ninja, the True Story of Japan’s Secret Warrior Cult. Dorset UK: Firebird Books. 1991.
Turnbull, Stephen. Ninja, AD 1450-1650. Oxford UK: Osprey Publishing. 2003.
Turnbull, Stephen. “The Ninja: An Invented Tradition?” Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective. Vol. 9, No. 1. PP. 9-26.
Turnbull, Stephen. Ninja, Unmasking the Myth. S.Yorkshire, UK: Frontline Books. 2017.
JAPANESE LANGUAGE RESOURCES
Wikipedia, 奥瀬平七郎 “Okuse Heishichiro.” https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/奥瀬平七郎b accessed April 19, 2024 (autotranslated with Google Translate).