Hollywood likes to portray the ninja in black pajamas, scaling a roof to assassinate a samurai. In reality, ninjas, also called shinobi, were more like spies. Assassinations played a role (as did those famous dark pajamas) but ninja training focused as much on espionage as it did on killing, and then–as now–a large part of successful spying depended on disguises. During the 17th century the head of a famous ninja clan wrote a manual called the Shoniniki, which described techniques and methods used by medieval ninjas. At the time, the Shoniniki was considered a “secret” manuscript, used and protected by shinobi clans. Now, it
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