Ninja’s rules and jobs

I want to introduce ninja’s rules and jobs. Firstly I speak about the rule of ninja. One of rules is that “you must not use skill of ninja for personal gain.” In short, they must not put the skill to a bad use. And another of them is that “you must keep your real character deeply secret.” In other words, they should not be found out they are ninja. Another of them is that “you should throw away your shame to do missions.” They should throw away pride, self-respect and so on. And another of them is that “you should never let strategy of ninja out.” They should keep those secret at the risk of their own lives. The job of ninja was to find out some information, many times it is something of a secret, and to inform their employer of that. It is very hard to carry out operations in strict secrecy. So they could not succeed in missions without strong bonds and sever rules.

Secondly I speak about the job of ninja. One of ninja’s jobs was to bring secret writings, called “MISSHO”. In those days, there were “SEKISHO” and “KENMONJO”, where were the checkpoint to catch doubtful people. And there ninja belongings were examined many times. Therefore ninja concealed a writings in many ways. For example, they sew it into cloth or something or to roll up tightly like a string and weave it into the “ZOURI” and “AMIGASA”. “ZOURI” and “AMIGASA” are Japanese traditional sandals and hat, which branded straw. Or for the worst ninja think out that nobody can read the writing except their companion. It is named “INSHO-HITOKU-NO-HOU”. They wind long narrow paper written something of a secret around a stick, and take the stick apart, in order that only their company who know the diameter can read it. they sometime seem to use their own body to hide information. They shave their head like Buddhist priest, and tatto a secret. And they make their hair long in order to hide the tattoo. When they read it, they shave their head like Buddhist priest again.

It seemed that they use a lot of means to hide the secret. But the best way is to learn information by heart. Ninja had many methods to memorize something. For example, one of the methods is association of ideas. Someone used to substitute something to remember for foods. Others used to substitute something to remember for parts of their body. Or if it is very necessary to remember in conditions where they do not have something to write, they sometime hurt themselves. Because when they watch the scar, they can call the memory of that time to mind. Certainly it is painful and the scar is remained. But they were at the risk of their lives to succeed in the mission.

Makoto

Last updated 6-Dec-2001