Free In Search of the Niinja by Antony Cummins Page B

is undertaking a scouting mission. So a shinobi - monomi is a ‘secret scout’ whilst a Monomi-shinobi is a ‘ninja on a scouting mission’. Anyone can be a scout but not everyone can undertake dedicated shinobi missions. There are some people who scout in secret close to the enemy and some may go a little closer than others, to the extent of joining the enemy, making them the classic ninja.
    Within the greater context of samurai warfare, the Monomi and the shinobi are similar, both perform scouting duties but the Monomi from a distance, the shinobi from within or near to the enemy. Some warriors who perform close scouting skills, such as ambush troops, may cross over into the realm of the shinobi. It may be the case that a troop of scouts would have a ninja leading them as a guide. It must be remembered that shinobi are sent to find ambush troops and hidden scouts, a constant game of cat and mouse which is played out in no-man’s-land between two samurai positions.
    The Monomi are not associated with the shinobi skills of thieving, banditry and the other ‘criminal’ elements.

    Notes
    47     There is a complex argument about the use of Kamari and Kusa . Kusa (grass) is considered an alternative to ninja, however, Fujibayashi in the Bansenshukai uses both Kamari and shinobi in different ways. The ‘100 ninja poems’ used the term Kamari alongside shinobi . It appears that the two jobs overlapped but were not identical.

7
Bandits, Thieves and Criminals
    C ertain Japanese researchers attempt to place the ninja into the criminal bracket and have history brand them as thieves, brigands and blackguards. Whilst there are cogent reasons to connect the shinobi to mere thieves, there is a more solid argument that shows that ‘ninja activity’ and ‘theft for profit’ were different sides of the same coin.
    The initial step is to identify what a criminal is and how we should understand this in the context of Japanese history. The Oxford English Dictionary defines crime as ‘an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law’. This means that anyone who is acting against the laws of the state he resides in is a criminal. Therefore, it is difficult to accuse the ninja of being a criminal when the definition of a ninja is someone who is hired by a clan to perform espionage duties for an army in an enemy province. A man is hired to kill someone and the same man is hired by the government to shoot and kill someone, one is murder and the other is ‘doing one’s duty’. The argument for the ninja is eqivalent. If a shinobi is hired by an army to infiltrate the enemy, he is working for the law and not against it, yet if he is hired by a lower faction from within his domain to spy against the government or another person, he is then a criminal. If hired officially by one clan and sent to spy on another clan, he is acting within the laws of his domain, yet whilst he is in enemy territory he is in fact a criminal in that domain, making him both legal and illegal and the same time. This renders the tag of ‘criminal’ redundant, as it is impossible for a shinobi to be a criminal if he is performing espionage for the ruling military elite.
    Medieval Japan was not unified as today, and the enemies over the mountains were not your countrymen, they were not the same people, you did not enjoy a national bond. The samurai of the Sengoku period were constantly at war, making the ninja a legitimate entity. All historical references mention the ninja in a functional context and not in a legalistic or condemnatory way. The charge of illegal shinobi activity does not come into Japanese court systems as it is logged as Nusubito . The samurai themselves participated in stealth raids, all people dealt in slavery, they burnt and killed and raped and stole, all of which are illegal in our eyes but were commonplace actions in the Sengoku period.
    Theft is certainly a crime, as is killing, but only if done within