Discover the Ninja

In feudal Japan, ninja or shinobi (literally, "one who is concealed," or "one that endures") were assassins and agents of espionage. Ninja, like samurai, followed their own special code of conduct, called ninpo¯. Some modern practitioners of budo ninjutsu argue that ninja were used primarily as spies, not assassins.

It is popularly believed that the ancient ninja were peasants, who were forbidden under law from studying the samurai swordplay techniques because of a restrictive caste structure. However, most ninja were also samurai, operating as spies in the service of their daimyo.

Whether of peasant or samurai descent, ninja needed to travel without being noticed, so they made use of weapons that could be easily concealed or disguised as common tools. Common ninja weapons included shuriken and bo.

In popular folklore, ninja also used special swords called ninja-ken. Ninja-ken are smaller than katana but larger than wakizashi and were supposedly created by grinding down broken samurai katana found on battlefields.