I think a number of otherwise pretty sharp academics have fallen for this stuff - not naming any names at this point - because to do research you have to take most of what everyone else writes on trust. You can't possibly check every single source in what you read, so you have to proceed on the assumption that everyone else's stuff is basically on the level. The problem comes, then, when that same presumption of being on the level is extended to the large swathes of English-language 'ninja' history that definitely are not.
I suppose you’d say it applies partially even to Serebriakova & Orbach’s 2020 paper (although I understand the paper to be in line with the spirit of the Critical Ninja Theory).
From my understanding too, the kusarigama was a popular weapon amongst the doshin, and, according to a conversation I had years back with Antony Cummins, there's a kusarigama document that exists titled "Iga ryu kusarigamajutsu" that was for the Iga doshin living in Edo.
It is my belief that some "researcher" in the Shouwa period might have seen this kusarigamajutsu document, also had heard the story of Shishido being killed by Musashi, saw that the connection between them was "Iga" and fallaciously claimed that kusarigama was a "ninja weapon"
That's very interesting - I'll look into that. It's entirely possible that there was indeed an Iga school of kusarigama-jutsu, but as you point out that doesn't automatically translate into "ninja used kusarigama," because not everyone in Iga was a ninja.
documents of his ancestor's in his attic when his ancestor served the Owari domain during the Edo period, one of which was titled "Koka ryu taijutsu". Many of the modern ninjas were ecstatic of course, using it as evidence that "ninjas DID have their own unique martial arts, blah blah blah"...until it was found out that the document was actually a Haten Muso ryu jujutsu document, and it only had the "Koka ryu" label because the Watanabe family and the other Koka samurai families in Owari serving as shinobi were students of the ryuha.
I'm of the same mind that this is also the case for this "Iga ryu kusarigamajutsu" text... it's an established ryuha that was also trained by ALL samurai of doshin rank...and it only has the "Iga ryu" label because the Iga doshin families in Edo serving as shinobi were also students of this established ryuha. What ryuha it is, I do not know, and I hope to find the text in order to find out. All I can say is that no matter how one spins it, everything we attribute to "ninjas" are no more than just all around samurai, or even just common Japanese things, and "ninjutsu" in of itself was nothing out of the ordinary for the samurai.
Great stuff - I would be very interested to see the textual evidence there. I agree with your point that a lot of what is presented as the specialized and unique history of "ninjutsu" turns out on closer examination to be stuff common to warrior culture as a whole, or just things that everyone did. The approach here seems a bit like grafting one plant onto another, doesn't it?
I fondly remember the paper I wrote about the kusarigama. I recently revised it and it's still fascinating to me. I first came across the Yamada and Araki story in a book written by aikido practitioners (which is a classic example of ninja history literature being written by martial artists).
That was a great paper - I still have it on my hard drive. I just re-read it and you came up with some info that's worth sharing here, which is that Walter Dening (1888) claims that the ancient Japanese prince Nakatomi no Kamatari killed one of the Soga in 645 with a kusari-gama (see here https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hnuxvl&seq=17). So that would suggest that the kusari-gama is indeed "ancient."
Great read. Looking forward to the next article.
Coming on Saturday!
Another great post. I checked the sources in Deal’s Handbook and, やっぱり, the usual suspects…
I think a number of otherwise pretty sharp academics have fallen for this stuff - not naming any names at this point - because to do research you have to take most of what everyone else writes on trust. You can't possibly check every single source in what you read, so you have to proceed on the assumption that everyone else's stuff is basically on the level. The problem comes, then, when that same presumption of being on the level is extended to the large swathes of English-language 'ninja' history that definitely are not.
I suppose you’d say it applies partially even to Serebriakova & Orbach’s 2020 paper (although I understand the paper to be in line with the spirit of the Critical Ninja Theory).
From my understanding too, the kusarigama was a popular weapon amongst the doshin, and, according to a conversation I had years back with Antony Cummins, there's a kusarigama document that exists titled "Iga ryu kusarigamajutsu" that was for the Iga doshin living in Edo.
It is my belief that some "researcher" in the Shouwa period might have seen this kusarigamajutsu document, also had heard the story of Shishido being killed by Musashi, saw that the connection between them was "Iga" and fallaciously claimed that kusarigama was a "ninja weapon"
That's very interesting - I'll look into that. It's entirely possible that there was indeed an Iga school of kusarigama-jutsu, but as you point out that doesn't automatically translate into "ninja used kusarigama," because not everyone in Iga was a ninja.
Mr. Watanabe of Koka had found
documents of his ancestor's in his attic when his ancestor served the Owari domain during the Edo period, one of which was titled "Koka ryu taijutsu". Many of the modern ninjas were ecstatic of course, using it as evidence that "ninjas DID have their own unique martial arts, blah blah blah"...until it was found out that the document was actually a Haten Muso ryu jujutsu document, and it only had the "Koka ryu" label because the Watanabe family and the other Koka samurai families in Owari serving as shinobi were students of the ryuha.
I'm of the same mind that this is also the case for this "Iga ryu kusarigamajutsu" text... it's an established ryuha that was also trained by ALL samurai of doshin rank...and it only has the "Iga ryu" label because the Iga doshin families in Edo serving as shinobi were also students of this established ryuha. What ryuha it is, I do not know, and I hope to find the text in order to find out. All I can say is that no matter how one spins it, everything we attribute to "ninjas" are no more than just all around samurai, or even just common Japanese things, and "ninjutsu" in of itself was nothing out of the ordinary for the samurai.
Great stuff - I would be very interested to see the textual evidence there. I agree with your point that a lot of what is presented as the specialized and unique history of "ninjutsu" turns out on closer examination to be stuff common to warrior culture as a whole, or just things that everyone did. The approach here seems a bit like grafting one plant onto another, doesn't it?
I fondly remember the paper I wrote about the kusarigama. I recently revised it and it's still fascinating to me. I first came across the Yamada and Araki story in a book written by aikido practitioners (which is a classic example of ninja history literature being written by martial artists).
That was a great paper - I still have it on my hard drive. I just re-read it and you came up with some info that's worth sharing here, which is that Walter Dening (1888) claims that the ancient Japanese prince Nakatomi no Kamatari killed one of the Soga in 645 with a kusari-gama (see here https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hnuxvl&seq=17). So that would suggest that the kusari-gama is indeed "ancient."
But on checking the Nihongi, one of the earliest histories of Japan, it actually says that Nakatomi no Kamatari used a sword: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Nihongi/Z48xN727Wh4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=with%20a%20sword%20cut%20open%20
This is a great example of how you need to hunt down the primary sources...