Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

for ninja actions. For night work, ninja wore black clothing and a hood to
avoid detection; but in the daylight, they normally wore brown clothing
with reversible gray on the inside, which blended in with natural surroundings.
Naturally, they were often in disguise, as an itinerant priest, a
merchant, or the like.
Ninjutsu taught familiarity with natural elements as a means of concealing
one’s presence: using the shade of trees or rocks to hide; carrying
out operations at night; employing the confusion created by storms, fog, or
fires to sneak into a castle or house. Festivals, brawls, and other occasions
where crowds gathered could be utilized for similar purposes.
Ninja might pass a guard post by posing as comrades, calling out false
commands, or shouting “Fire.” Familiarity with the details of the enemy
territory, including knowledge of the local dialect, was also considered invaluable.
Naturally, not all contingencies could be covered, so above all,
ninja were expected to be inventive and not be limited by their training.
“Since secret techniques for necessary penetration (of the enemy’s camp)
are but temporary and expedient forms of deception, you need not always
follow old ninja techniques. Neither need you discard them” (Bansen
shûkai 1982, 481)
Ninja developed a bewildering variety of tools to assist them in accomplishing
their missions, including the “six utensils” normally carried by
ninja: sedge hat, rope, slate pencil, medicine, tenugui (a form of small
towel), and tsuketake (for lighting fires). For longer missions, a ninja
would carry drink and dried food. For certain tasks, there were specialized
tools of various kinds, divided in the Bansen shûkai into climbing tools,
water utensils (various means of crossing ponds and moats, or hiding in
them), opening tools for entering residences, and fire and explosive devices—smoke
bombs, fire arrows, and gunpowder for rifles and cannon.
The Bansen shûkai warns ninja not to be overloaded with equipment, but
to discern what is necessary for the mission and take only those tools.
“Thus a successful ninja is one who uses but one tool for multiple tasks”
(Bansen shûkai 1982, 535).
In order to carry out missions of spying, assassination, and ambush,
and even in order to fight in regular battle or defend himself against attack,
the ninja had to be well trained in martial skills and at the height of physical
and mental discipline. This required mastery of most of the major
weapons systems and martial skills of the day: sword, lance, bow and arrow
(ninja, however, used short bows), grappling, staff, gunnery, and
horsemanship. There were other weapons more likely to be employed by
ninja than by other warriors, such as throwing missiles (shuriken), which
ranged from simple short knives to three-, four-, six- or even eight-pointed
“stars.” Ninja practiced swimming, running to cover long distances with-
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