of Japan. With the destruction of the Iga and Kôga territories by Oda
Nobunaga in 1581, many of the local warriors fled to daimyo in eastern
Japan, thus further spreading the knowledge of ninjutsu.
The daimyo most closely connected with the use of ninja was Toku-
gawa Ieyasu, first shôgun of the Tokugawa bakufu established in 1603.
The connection dated back two generations, to the time when his grandfa-
ther, Matsudaira Kiyoyasu, employed several hundred Iga ninja under Hat-
tori Hanzô Yasunaga. When Akechi Mitsuhide’s troops assassinated Oda
Ninjutsu 357A nineteenth-century
Japanese woodcut
depicting a samurai
initiated in ninjutsu,
the martial art of
invisibility, Ninja
Museum, Ueno,
Japan. The initiates
are also known as
ninja. (Werner
Forman/Art
Resource, NY)