In Japanese history, a Ninja is an elite warrior, highly trained in all aspects of combat martial arts,

and specializing in a variety of unorthodox arts of war. The methods used by ninja included assassination, espionage, stealth, camouflage, unconventional warfare, specialized weapons, and a vast array of martial arts.

Their exact origins are still unknown. Their roles may have included sabotage, espionage, scouting and

assassination missions as a way to destabilize and cause social chaos in enemy territory or against an

opposing ruler, perhaps in the service of their feudal rulers (daimyo, shogun), or an underground

ninja organization waging guerilla warfare.


Etymology

Ninja is the on'yomi reading of the two kanji 忍者 used to write shinobi-no-mono (忍の者), which is the native

Japanese word for people who practice

ninjutsu (忍術, sometimes erroneously transliterated as ninjitsu).

The term shinobi (historically sinobi written with the Man'yōgana 志能備), has been

traced as far back as the late 8th century when Heguri Uji no Iratsume wrote a poem to Ōtomo no Yakamochi.

The underlying connotation of shinob means "to steal away" and—by extension—"to forbear", hence its

association with stealth and invisibility. Mono ( likewise pronounced sha or ja) means a "person."


The word "ninja" in Sino-Japanese kanji script became popular in the post-World War II culture.

The nin of ninjutsu is the same as that in ninja, whereas jutsu means skill or art, so ninjutsu means

"the skill of going unperceived" or "the art of stealth"; hence, ninja and shinobi-no-mono (as well as shinobi)

may be translated as "one skilled in the art of stealth." Similarly, the pre-war word ninjutsu-zukai means

"one who uses the art of remaining unperceived."

Other terms which may be used include oniwaban (お庭番 "one in the garden"), suppa, rappa, mitsumono,

kusa (草 grass) and Iga-mono ("one from Iga").

In English, the plural of ninja can be either unchanged as ninja,

reflecting the Japanese language's lack of grammatical number, or the regular English plural ninjas

Historical organization

In their history, ninja groups were small and structured around families and villages, later developing a more martial hierarchy that was able to mesh more closely with samurai and the daimyo. These certain ninjutsu trained groups were set in these villages for protection against raiders and robbers.

"Ninja museums" in Japan declare women to have been ninjas as well. A female ninja may be kunoichi;

the characters are derived from the strokes that make up the kanji for female (女).

They were sometimes depicted as spies who learned the secrets of an enemy by seduction;

though it's just as likely they were employed as household servants, putting them in a position to overhear

potentially valuable information.

As a martial organization, ninja would have had many rules,

and keeping secret the ninja's clan and the daimyo who gave them their

orders would have been one of the most important ones.






Historical garb, technique, and image

There is no evidence historical ninja limited themselves to all-black suits.

In modern times, camouflage based upon dark colors such as dark red and dark blue

is known to give better concealment at night.

Some cloaks may have been reversible: dark colored on the outside for concealment during the night,

and white colored on the inside for concealment in the snow. Some ninja may have worn the same armor or

clothing as samurai or Japanese peasants.

The stereotypical ninja that continually wears

easily identifiable black outfits (shinobi shozoku) comes from the Kabuki theater.

Prop handlers would dress in black and move props around on the stage.

The audience would obviously see the prop handlers, but would pretend they were invisible.

Building on suspension of disbelief, ninja characters also came to be portrayed in the theater as wearing similar

all-black suits. This either implied to the audience the ninja were also invisible, or simply made the audience unable to

tell a ninja character from many prop handlers until the ninja character distinguished himself from the other

stagehands with a scripted attack or assassination.

Ninja boots (jika-tabi),

like much of the rest of Japanese footwear from the time,

have a split-toe design that improves gripping and wall/rope climbing.

They are soft enough to be virtually silent. Ninja also attached special spikes to the bottoms of the boots called ashiko.

The actual head covering suggested by Sōke Masaaki Hatsumi (in his book The Way of the Ninja: Secret Techniques)

utilizes what is referred to as sanjaku-tenugui, (three-foot cloths).

It involves the tying of two three-foot cloths around the head in such a way as to make the mask

flexible in configuration but securely bound.

Some wear a long robe, most of the time dark blue (紺色 kon'iro) for stealth.


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