Kunoichi The word conjures up images of women wearing revealing clothing and

using their charm to get lords or rich merchants to reveal vital or secret
information. But what were they really like???

First, why the mysterious name Kunoichi? Why did female ninja get this name?

When you break down the Kanji character for the word woman, it can be seen in
three segments. The first is the hiragana symbol for ku, the second is the
katakana symbol for No and the third is the kanji character for Ichi. So,
the name Ku-no-ichi is derived from the symbols that make up the character for
woman itself.

In the early 1960s there was a series about a female ninja written by a famous
Japanese author by the name of Yamada Futaro. The series ran for about two years
by the name of Kunoichi Ninpo-Cho (). For that reason, many books
on ninjutsu have said that he created the term Kunoichi for the series. But with
a little digging we can see that Mr. Futaro had done his research. In the once
secret ninja manuscripts, Bansenshukai and Shoninki, there is recorded the term
Kunoichi-jutsu with a slight variation on how it is written, . The
first character is still pronounced Ku. Per these writings Kunoichi-jutsu
falls in the category of Ninpo strategies termed Yoninpo Toiri no Jutsu (
). It is the strategy of placing a maid or servant into the household
of an enemy to secretly gather information. It was important for her to gain the
trust of her target, so many types of skills were necessary. In old Japan, there
was a custom called Yado-Sagari () which is when servants and maids
get time off from their responsibilities so they can go home to their families
for visitations. During these visits either the birthparents or a higher-level
commander will collect the information that has been gathered.

Also, in places like Kyoto where there were many beautiful women, they would find
voluptuous women that would breed babies for remuneration that were to be bread
and trained for these types of missions. These beautiful young girls, when mature
enough, would be gifted to lords to act as servants, while all along having their
clans wishes secretly hidden away in their heart, and gather information much
in the same way as described above.

Naturally there have also been times where the kunoichi may have had to have
passionate affairs with the target to gather the information. Because of this
many lords would hire male ninja to secretly live and work around them to look
out for these types of Kunoichi.

Also, once you got a Kunoichi into the castle with the method above there was
another strategy called Kakuremino no Jutsu () where she will assist
in letting fellow ninja, male or female, into the castle. Either overtly or
covertly, all depending on the goal of the strategy. As an example, once she was
inside and gained the targets trust, she would wait for the target to go on a
trip, and not too long after the target leaves she would send a large wooden box
containing her targets clothes. When the gatekeeper receives the box, he would
open it to only see the masters clothing and personal items neatly arranged
inside. But what he didnt see was the secret panel in the bottom of the box
containing a male ninja ready to assassinate, set fires, poison water supplies
inside the castle or any other act of war that may be required of him.

I would now like to discuss Kunoichi in historical records. Takeda Shingen used
his Sanhsa () and the Onshi () as ninja spies, along with the
other two great warlords who were famous for using ninja, Tokugawa Ieyasu and
Mori Motonari. But what sets Takeda Shingen apart is that we know he had a unit
of female ninja as well. The Aruki Miko () was a female spy
organization. Miko are the female Shinto shaman maids. There were regular
Miko who worked and assisted at the shrines but there were others called the
Aruki Miko. These maids, raised by the shrines, worked as spies. They were
also known historically as Azusa Miko (), Kuchiyose (),
Ichiko (), etc. Some regional castle dialects also termed these women as
Shiromoji (), Tabijoro () and Sasabaki ().
These normal positions in everyday Japanese society had female ninja or kunoichi
in their midst.

Now we have many Bujinkan Kunoichi all throughout the world!!!

Sean Askew

Bujinkan Kokusai Renkoumyo

8/24/2017