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14. A modern reconstruction of the Hakuhojo ( White Phoenix Castle) in Iga. The original castle was established in 1581 by a vassal of Nobunaga to help control the ninja ; seized by the ninja after Nobunaga’s death, it was later enlarged by Ieyasu, and destroyed by a typhoon in 1612.
After becoming shogun, Ieyasu hired a number of ninja and gave the Hattori family the job of organizing them into a secret police force to protect the ruler and his family members. Former Iga and Koga ninja assumed the roles of gardeners and caretakers on the estates of the shogun and his chief retainers in order to be close at hand at all times. However, security and comfort brought about the downfall of the descendants of the original ninja. Without the threat of war or the need to employ ninjutsu skills, their role gradually declined over the years, until the men who had once been deadly ninja agents had deteriorated into little more than glorified security guards. Their pay was miserably low, their status was degrading, and their official duties were restricted to such activities as opening doors and posing as targets for snowballs thrown by the girls of samurai families.
The few ninja families that remained in the mountain wilderness outside the old capital of Kyoto shrouded themselves in total secrecy, staying completely concealed from the Tokugawa shoguns in their new capital, Edo (today’s Tokyo) . Meanwhile, the ninja under contract to the shoguns decayed into ineffectuality. The Shimabara rebellion of 1637-38, in which Christian peasants living near Nagasaki revolted against religious and economic oppression, provided an opportunity for the shogun’s ninja to go back into action. A group of ten former Iga ninja, the oldest of whom was 63, was resurrected from decades of retirement and sent to the site of the battle to gather intelligence. The aged ninja were able to steal food supplies for the government troops, but since none of them were linguists, they were unable to imitate the Kyushu dialect necessary for slipping into the rebels’ fortress and obtaining information. The mission was not considered successful, although the government troops did quell the rebellion.
The last activity of the Tokugawa ninja occured with the arrival of Commodore Perry’s “black ships” in 1853. The ninja Yasusuke Sawamura was ordered to board Perry’s ship secretly and search for information that would reveal the intentions of the foreign barbarians. To this day, the Sawamura family archives in Mie Prefecture’s Iga-Ueno City still contain the two documents purloined by their stealthy ancestor-two letters containing a Dutch sailor song extolling the delights of French women in bed and British women in the kitchen.
NINJUTSU IN THE MODERN WORLD
As Japan emerged from the devastation of World War II, all martial arts were banned from practice for a time by the American occupation forces that ruled the conquered nation. Ninjutsu came to be seen as a pointless antique by the Japanese people themselves as they adjusted to a role of international cooperation in the postwar era. Along with the introduction of Western troops, culture, and political concepts into Japan came a reliance on skill in commerce and economics to provide for the security and general welfare of the people. The Japanese of today belongs to the corporation instead of the clan; his armor has been replaced by the ubiquitous dark-blue suit; and his monsho (family crest) has become the company lapel pin. Training in the skills of survival no longer takes place in the mountains. In glass and steel skyscrapers, a new kind of knowledge is taught for a new kind of competition on the commercial battlefields of today.
Finding a master of the dark art of ninjutsu in modern westernized Japan seems as unlikely as finding an active practitioner of the magic of Merlin in contemporary industrialized England. Yet, incredibly enough, the art did survive through centuries of obscurity. The ways of the ninja were secretly perpetuated by a small group of quiet, concerned men, committed to the ideals of enlightenment set forth by their ancestors. In the mountain forests of Iga the knowledge survived down through the centuries, passed from the Togakure clan to the Toda family, then handed on to Toshitsugu Takamatsu. The young Toshitsugu was trained in what had been northern Iga by Togakure-ryu ninja of the Toda family, and later earned the name Mongolian Tiger while living and studying with the best of the boxing masters in China during the early 1900s. Master Takamatsu kept his ninja training a secret throughout his entire life. So thorough was the deception that when his neighbors read of his background in the obituaries in 1972, they were stunned.
Toshitsugu Takamatsu, having inherited the legacy of the Togakure- ryu, willed it on to its thirty-fourth generation in Masaaki Hatsumi, who in the 1950s and 1960s traveled across Japan every week to study with his teacher. Now in middle age and an osteopath by profession, Masaaki Hatsumi passes on the knowledge of the centuries from his quiet small-town residence in Noda City, a little north of Tokyo.
I arrived in Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, on a warm June evening in 197 5. It had not been easy finding the place, its small railroad depot now busy with commuters hurrying home for supper. Gnomelike farm women tottered out, bent under massive crates of vegetables tied to their backs. A group of schoolgirls in dour blue uniforms spotted the foreigner and tittered behind hands raised to their mouths. Wearily, knowing no one, I looked about the tiny train station and asked in rather shaky Japanese how to get to the hotel. There was polite laughter, as such towns have only ryokan (small, old-fashioned inns) for travelers. A phone call was made for me, and someone kindly allowed me to ride along to the inn.
Many years of reading about the ninja had brought me to this small town on the Edo River. To pursue my interest I had crossed the sea from America to Iga, ancient home of the ninja, only to find that the only ninjutsu left there was a few tattered black suits, swords, and scrolls locked in museum display-cases. A historian had suggested that I might try seeking a ninja master named Hatsumi, who ran perhaps the last remaining school of ninjutsu, somewhere near Tokyo. Taking trains to catch other trains, I had finally arrived in Noda City to ask if he would accept me in his training program.
At the Atsusa Ryokan, when told there was a call for me, I felt awkward moving down the narrow little hallways to the telephone. I was indeed the first American ever to have stayed at the inn. The tiny landlady scampered down the hall ahead of me and handed me the phone.
“Mr. Hayes?” The voice on the telephone was deep and articulate. “We have been waiting for you. Hatsumi Sensei received your letter.”
I had gotten no answer to my letter asking permission to view the ninja training school. When I asked about this, I was told that there had been no need for a reply. Hatsumi Sensei had •’’seen” that I would be coming regardless. They simply waited for my arrival.
“I am one of the teachers at the ninja school. Hatsumi Sensei would like to meet you and speak with you. May we visit you this evening?”
The meeting had come a little sooner than I had expected. I hurriedly changed from dusty blue jeans to a suit and tie that I had brought along specifically for the purpose of making a favorable impression on the last master of the ninja tradition. I mentally rehearsed a formal greeting that I had memorized for the occasion.
The darkness surrounding the inn soon produced the two men. The master’s assistant appeared first, dressed casually in knit trousers and a golf sweater. We exchanged brief greetings and bows, and then he reached out and shook my hand in Western fashion. He had a warm smile, but he moved with quiet precision and I saw a look of cool, intense appraisal in his eyes. Hatsumi Sensei,
