Kunoichi

Female Ninja

Two young shrine maidens in white robes and red divided skirts walk along a mountain road past a small wayside shrine, one carrying a bundle, as an armored rider approaches. — *Miko* on the road

In 1561 the warlord Mochizuki Moritoki was killed in the famous Battle of Kawanakajima. According to tradition, his widow Chiyome placed herself under the protection of her late husband’s uncle, the powerful Takeda Shingen. Custom would have sent her into a religious order to live out her days quietly as a nun. Chiyome did the opposite and went on throwing all her energy behind the great daimyō’s ambitions. When Takeda asked her to build a network of kunoichi くノ一, she agreed. It became one of the most effective and discreet networks of the entire Sengoku jidai (戦国時代).

At the gate of a thatched house in the mountains, a woman in a dark kimono hands a bowl of rice to a small girl in ragged clothes while two older girls wait behind her. — Mochizuki Chiyome takes in orphans

The idea came from Takeda Shingen. Chiyome was to school trained miko 巫女, shrine maidens, so that alongside their actual duties they could work as spies, observers, or couriers. They were to operate in the Kai area (present-day Yamanashi) of the Takeda domain and in the Shinano territory (present-day Nagano). Shinano mattered most strategically: both Takeda Shingen and his rival Uesugi Kenshin saw it as the main target of their future conquests.

Spies and Informants

Throughout his rule, Takeda relied heavily on ninja spies. He recruited them in his own domain and from the ranks of his enemies. The kunoichi were simply one more link in this chain of informants. They gathered intelligence and checked the reports of other agents. As young temple servants they could travel freely and contact local spies without arousing suspicion. In this way the power and knowledge of the Takeda family grew further still.

Chiyome set up her underground school in Nezu, a village in Chiisagata District in the Shinshū area (present-day Nagano), and from then on ran it as a school for female ninja. A miko always had to be young and unmarried. So Chiyome looked for candidates among the countless children whom the civil wars had left orphaned and homeless. Every abandoned or runaway girl who made her way to the Shinshū area found a home with her.

To the other people of Nezu, Chiyome was a kind, warm-hearted woman who did everything she could to rescue girls left on their own from poverty, give them a home, and teach them spiritual values.

Training the Female Ninja

First the girls learned everything that made a miko: the customs, duties, and knowledge of the maidens who served the priests of the Shintō shrines.

Alongside this basic training ran a process of indoctrination meant to secure their absolute loyalty later on. Chiyome kept reminding the girls that she was the one who had lifted them out of poverty and made this new life possible. In this way she bound the future kunoichi to her emotionally. Again and again she had her charges think back to their childhood: to who was to blame for their poverty, who had betrayed them, and who had found them in that wretched time and given them a new life when all seemed lost. Little by little the girls came to believe that their only chance of survival lay in standing firmly by their sisters and in unconditional loyalty to Mochizuki Chiyome.

In a walled courtyard, young women in dark jackets and wide trousers practice with staffs, a curved-blade polearm, and a knife while a woman stands with folded arms in front of the house, watching. — Training the *kunoichi*

The third phase turned to the craft of the agent. The students learned to obtain valuable information and to read situations correctly. They learned to stir up confusion and quarrels with (false) rumors, to find reliable messengers who passed important news on to other miko-kunoichi, and to disguise themselves. And they learned, when necessary, to use their feminine charms to manipulate men. Once training and indoctrination at the ninja academy in Nezu were complete, the girls became active agents of Mochizuki’s kunoichi corps.

This is how important information from the two target provinces was gathered. Chiyome also had travelers who had passed through those areas questioned in detail. That allowed her to give Takeda Shingen an exact picture of the political and military situation. To keep the ring effective and anonymous, no one but the general himself knew of Chiyome’s role. He kept the secret even from his closest associates.

Similarities to and Differences from the Ninja

The kunoichi of the Middle Ages were trained much like their male comrades in arms, but with more emphasis on the finer points of close combat. Where the male ninja learned battle tactics and guerrilla warfare, the women practiced applied psychology, manipulation techniques, and the training of intuition.

Preparation for active service naturally also included solid basic training in the fighting methods of ninjutsu: taijutsu 体術, bōjutsu 棒術 and hanbōjutsu 半棒術, tantōjutsu 短刀術, yarijutsu 槍術, and kenjutsu 剣術.

The fighting techniques were adapted to the situation of a woman with a slighter build. They included escape methods and ways of fending off stronger male opponents. Assaults on guard posts or military positions in the manner of a shock troop, on the other hand, were left to the male ninja.