Is there such a thing as a historical ninjato?

[Watchful]

The people often referred to as ninja were mainly the samurai or Iga and Koga.

Sign me as one of many, many people who strongly doubt the "Iga" and "Koga" clans ever existed. I am not familiar with any solidly researched reference to this prior to Hatsumi's research. All subsequent historical reviews of these locations and their alleged relationship to Ninjitsu all seem to cite back to Hatsumi.

That such places exist(ed) are without doubt. Their influence on ninjitsu, on the other hand, seem a late 20th Century "discovery" of incredible convenience.

Note that I couch my language because I can produce no evidence of absence.

 

[Benjamin Liu]

Iga and Koga were regions, not clans.

 

[Watchful]

Correct, and they obviously still are. But the idea that they spawned clans of ninja that somehow remained mysterious until the mid-20th Century...? Not buying it without some solid evidence.

 

[Benjamin Liu]

You won't find any English writings on the topic, or many writings on most other Japanese topics, before the 20th Century. The earlies book on the subject in English was the one by Andrew Adams witten in 1970. IIRC he wrote a series of articles in the 1960s.

There were several books written pre-dating the 20th Century including Bansenshukai written in the late 1600s. It hasn't been translated into English AFAIK.

Since I don't read Japanese, or old Japanese, and have not majored in Japanese history, I can't verify that the English books on these subjects are 100% correct. On the other hand, I'm not going to assume that everyone who wrote that Bansenshukai exists were just making it all up.

 

[Shoki]

FWIW, I've read that a possible explanation for the straight-blade 'ninjato' could be nodachi that were broken on the battlefield, discarded, and then retrieved later. The salvaged nodachi would then have a new kissaki formed to make a sort of budget katana. The resulting sword was straighter than the average katana because of the greater curve radius of the longer nodachi. Whether or not such a salvaged sword was used by assassins dressed in black is up for speculation and who knows if there even was such a practice. Interesting theory though!