Ninja (7 page)

4

HOW TO BE A SHADOW WARRIOR, PART 2: DECEPTION—AND CHARM

Ninjas should not be ashamed of falsifying, for it is their duty to outwit the enemy.

Ninja instructional poem

FOR
NATORI
,
DECEPTION
IS
THE
KEY
SKILL
,
TO
BE
PRACTICED
on several levels, not least by charming the information you seek out of the opposition. This is how you “analyze people's minds without letting them know that they have been analyzed”—by employing flattery to gain knowledge. “By using this technique, you can steal into the opponent's mind with great ease without drawing his attention in a way to make him wary; meanwhile he bleeds all the information that you need. Truly amazing.”

At the most basic level, however, you had better master the art of disguise. There are seven types of disguise a ninja should master.

1. Zen monk: useful because the big straw hat allows good visibility while hiding the face.

2. Buddhist monk: useful for getting close to people.

3.
Yamabushi
mountain priest: allows you to carry a sword without being questioned.

4. Merchant: for mixing freely with people.

5. Street entertainer: always traveling, and therefore arouses no suspicion.

6. Actor: Ditto.

7. Dress like those around you to blend in.

As a monk of any kind, you may also become a pilgrim, because that gives you a good reason to move around between temples and shrines. In this case, you may choose to join a small group.

You should also master the technique of
dakko
, which is to understand all the local customs and dialects. Originally, this skill involved imitating the dialects of more than sixty provinces with great fluency. Those with this skill “knew and were aware of all the points of interest, historic spots and places of natural beauty within each area.” However, warned Natori, “this technique used to be achieved only by ancient masters and seems to be too difficult for people of the present time to master completely. Your efforts could easily be interpreted as tricks that are the tricks of con men and thus could be self-damaging.”

In addition to a disguise, it is useful to change your appearance. To do this, wear a long jacket or rain cape. You could also reshape your eyebrows, blacken your teeth with iron (filings), change the shape of your hairline, wear black ink on your face, tousle your hair, and/or “put some tresses” (grass or straw?) in your mouth.

You may sometimes need to fake an illness on short notice. Here are some ways to help your performance: Don't sleep at night; burn your skin with moxa;
¹
fast to the utmost limits to make yourself emaciated; don't shave or cut your hair; don't clip your toenails or fingernails; and don't wash.

Be careful with whom you consort. Of course, whatever you do, luck plays a large part in whether you give yourself away or not. But remember that you put yourself at risk if you talk to low-minded scum and take them into your company.

You can ply someone with booze, sex, or gambling for the purpose of taking him in and getting your way. As you will be included in these pleasures, you must be sure not to lose your self-control.

If you think you are about to be revealed, create a diversion of some kind. Leave a tool or some other object that will confuse an investigation. Planting a fake letter, tricking someone into creating something strange or making up false traces of you, anything that gives misleading information—these are methods commonly used by a ninja to throw people off his scent.

Or you can head off in one direction and then double back unseen. People will give false information about you, and will do so willingly, because it makes them seem important. It is vital for you to master this deception above all things. The main point is that you should devise the simplest method possible, without any complications. A difficult or complex scheme could arouse suspicion and result in a more intensive investigation.

Intuition plays a major role in
ninjutsu
. For example, supposing you are on an unfamiliar mountain path in a dark forest. You come to a fork. Which way do you choose? Maybe there are clues: Cast around for abandoned sandals, horseshoes, dung, trampled grass, easily startled birds. Such things may tell you which road is better used, which to avoid, which to choose. But if not, simply let fate decide. “Buckle up and recite an old verse. Then count how many syllables there are in the verse and choose to go right if the number is odd, and left if even, and do not have any doubts about the decision. This is because if you simply use the first thing that flashes through your head without any intention or contemplation, you are consigning yourself to divine intervention and fate. Wonders can happen when you abandon your ego!”

One common task for a ninja was to infiltrate a castle. It is an iconic image—the ninja with hook and rope creeping over a wall in the dead of night. But there is a much easier, safer, and more effective way—deception. Talk your way in. For this you need confidence and charm. Stroll past the gate a few times to gain confidence. Then fake an illness in front of the gate, a sudden illness such as food poisoning. On no account pretend to be drunk. Take a rest, and have your servant or accomplice ask for medicine or just some hot or cold water. Thank those inside, and go on your way. Later, to show your gratitude, return with a present—no, two presents, one for the owner, one for his wife . . . no, three or more presents. Speak to the owner. “Don't forget to give his wife her present first.” Praise his children. Give little presents to one or more of the favorite servants. “The master will be pleased about that, as he sees that his people are happy and this will influence him. In this way you could glean information about what you want while talking to the people of the mansion. . . . If you creep into someone's favour with smooth words, you can deduce valuable information even from the smallest of small talk.”

Remember this:

A
WELL
TRAINED
SHINOBI
(
NINJA
)
LOOKS
LIKE
A
VERY
STUPID
MAN
.

“It is a core principle to praise others as much as possible to keep them carrying on about a subject at their own leisure.”

Here's a way of recording information about the size of a place or numbers of people. Prepare bags of pebbles or beans, counting them so you know the number in each bag. Then as you count whatever it is you want to record—the length of a wall, the number of houses or people—drop a pebble or bean for each unit. No need to count as you go. At the end, count what you have left in the bag. Subtract that from the original total. That's your number. You've counted without counting.

When infiltrating an army column or a retinue, deal only with the lower ranks or servants. If you ingratiate yourself with those of higher status, you will be hated by the lower-ranking people for the favor you are being shown by those above you.

When spying on a province, by far the best way is to visit shrines and temples. Give priests or other men of the cloth gold and silver coins, sparing no expense. Don't give to ordinary people, because this is not normal and will draw suspicion. But Buddhist and Shinto priests will be delighted to accept an offer to treat you with meals and hospitality. “Taking advantage of this opportunity, you should probe them for information while getting them drunk.”

Natori has a pretty low opinion of priests, regarding them as naïve, garrulous, and easily manipulated. You can start them talking by asking if there are any plans to construct a new building to pray for the fulfillment of wishes. If so, you will naturally ask: Whose wishes? What wishes? Thus, by hinting at your willingness to help financially, you may get wind of a possible rebellion or a family dispute or unrest in the army. “They will not be able to stop themselves bragging about their wonderful religious power or divine wonders, and then they will give away everything you need to know at great length. Thus by exploiting their nature, you can gain your goal.”

Or you could go to a “licensed house of assignation”—that's a high-class brothel—“where the highest rank of courtesans are appointed to their clients,” or to the public baths, or a gambling den. “There are no secrets that cannot be revealed at places such as these.”

Deception and charm come way above any technical advice, on which Natori has surprisingly little to offer. He makes just one mention of a sword: “Whenever you steal up on someone you had better carry a short sword.” Except for a brief reference to using a sword to give you a step up when climbing a wall, that's it for swords. Given the Japanese obsession with swords, this is odd. There are two possible implications. One is that for routine work as a spy or secret agent, a sword was not required. The other is that carrying a sword was so completely part of everyday life that he didn't think to mention it. Perhaps (he might have said, if asked) both were true: Take your sword if you want to, but you probably won't need it.

This is the sum total of what he has to say about equipment:

He recommends only six fundamental items, none of which can really count as a weapon: a straw hat, which allows you to see others but hides your face; a grappling iron and thin rope, for climbing, tying people up, locking sliding doors, and other uses too numerous to mention; a pencil for taking notes and making marks on buildings; basic medicine in case you fall ill on the job; a meter-long piece of cloth, used as a headband or an extension to your waistband, to improvise a rope; and a fire starter to make a body warmer or a cooking fire or for arson.

Ninjas are often called the original men in black, but Natori says that brown, dark red, and dark blue are all fine colors, because they are so common that they don't stand out.

In a perfect world, he says, you should not carry any tools at all. Even a tiny object such as a needle might give you away if it falls at the wrong moment. But most covert actions demand tools of some kind. He doesn't give a list, remarking only that they should not be strange, or they will attract attention. By implication, therefore, the choice is up to you—but make sure you carry tools that can also be used in everyday life on the land. You probably have your grappling iron. A simple long stick propped against a wall will allow you to climb or descend. Or you can use a sword leaned against it as a footrest (be sure to tie the cord to your foot so that you can pull the sword up after you).

To break through rammed-earth walls, you can use a tool with a round or oblong blade, which has saw teeth around the edge. For opening inside doors, you can use a smaller saw.

To get through a hedge, cut off the end of a barrel and push it into the hedge to make a hole—and remember to remove it afterward.

If you think someone might try to break in to your bedroom, it's no good staying awake to catch him. What if your enemy decides to delay his break-in until the next night, or the night after? You will be worn out and fall asleep anyway, so deeply that nothing will wake you. Instead, leave the window slightly ajar to tempt the intruder, tie a string from the window to your topknot, and sleep tight without worry (presumably with your sword at hand), knowing that any movement by the window will wake you.

5

A WORLD OF VIOLENCE AND UNDERCOVER OPS

It is a fundamental lesson for ninjas to think more of the way out than the way in.

Ninja instructional poem

FROM
TODAY
'
S
MANGA
AND
FILMS
AND
GAMES
,
YOU
MIGHT
think that the ninja was the only nonaristocratic, non-samurai force in the land. In fact, they were one of many wild elements that kept medieval Japan in a state of ferment, swirling undercurrents of opposition to the lords and their samurai sidekicks. Near anarchy started in the early fourteenth century and would last for almost three hundred years. This was the chaotic context within which the ninja evolved.

Central Japan, though hardly crammed by modern standards, seethed with variety, especially along the single-lane main roads, which were no more than tracks on which two horses could hardly pass. Convoys carrying rents in the form of rice, messengers, pilgrims, slave traders, horse dealers, and merchants went by, and all needed rooms at the inns, where they crowded around puppeteers, jugglers, musicians, and storytellers. In the words of Yoshihiko Amino, one of the greatest of modern historians (though little known in the West), these people formed “the wandering world,” a counterpoint to the fixed world of rulers, nobles, temples, and landowners. Beyond this lay the other worlds of mountain and forest, occupied in folklore by demons and monsters and in reality by a scattering of esoterics devoted to pilgrimages and the Shugend
o
training regimes described in chapter 1. Such was the rich mix that interwove with the violence in what is now central Japan, Honsh
u
and northern Ky
u
sh
u
(while the northerly island of Hokkaid
o
was so remote from all this that it might have been in a different universe).

It was not all bad. In the right circumstances, violence can stimulate as well as destroy. It happened in China's Warring States period almost two thousand years earlier, in medieval Japan, and in fifteenth-century Italy, where bitter rivalries and brutal little wars coincided with the height of the Renaissance. It seems that under the pressure of constant though less-than-total warfare, leaders also yearn for peace, creative minds struggle to make sense of life, and an obsession with war can produce equal and opposite obsessions: diplomacy, art, philosophy, poetry, trade. And it is one of the paradoxes of social evolution that peace usually has to be imposed by violence. This was certainly true of medieval Japan, where everyone expected violence and fought for peace, though each wanted it on his own terms. From such diversity no unity could come. Every special-interest group—warlords, warrior priests, Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, bandits, ninja villages—would have to be crushed or won over by any would-be leader aiming to unify Japan.