Join our Ninshidan 忍士団 - Order of Shinobi-Samurai, Transnational Research Center on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/shinobisamurai
Our order is not a martial art organisation. No shinobi group was of martial art(s) school but usually a tight-knit group of families like ours.
Mansen Shukai says there were two types of shinobi; shinobi samurai and shinobi no mono. But somehow only a handful of people know about this fact. Shinobi no mono disappeared when the country became peaceful. But luckily about 200 shinobi samurai were employed by the Tokugawa Shogunate. Some made efforts and were promoted to higher ranks of samurai.
If you check the Igamono Yuishogaki document by the Tokugawa Shogunate, you can find our ancestors' names; Shibata Suwo (柴田周防) and Nagamochi Tokuzo (永持徳蔵). They were Igamono Shinobisamurai.（The shinobi no mono were ordinary people so they didn’t have family names.) All of the Igamono employed (including our ancestors) by Ieyasu Tokugawa were shinobi samurai.
Our ancestors were studious, and they passed the Shogunate's exams (Gamukon Ginmi 学問吟味) and did research on the world situation when Japan was closed due to her seclusion policy. Our ancestors were two (Shibata Sadataro 柴田貞太郎 and Nagamochi Goroji永持五郎次) of the first Japanese Embassy sent to Europe officially in 1862 and 1865. Sadataro was nicknamed "Shadow" because he was the head of the intelligence team. He also made arrangements for the French military mission to come to Japan. (Wikipedia: Order of Musashi Shinobi Samurai)
When the Tokugawa Shogunate collapsed, our clan became independent and supported the Last Samurai (Enomoto Takeaki) in the Boshin war. Afterward, they undertook shadow business until Shibata Tatsunojo became a Christian and Salvation Army officer. Tatsunojo told our clan to keep everything to ourselves after his death for 50 years.
In 2006, we started to open up a bit.
Now, we intend to revive our order so we can be like the one Tetsunojo had before 1917, with one exception: we will not balance things with unethical ways.
The majority of the important members in the past were "kusa" people. They were not martial artists but generalists who knew how to gather information.
Ninjutsu is not a martial art(s) but a strategic technique to gather intelligence secretly and vanish and report it to clients.
In our order, we have such traditions and purposes that those who cannot collect information as requested are not regarded as shinobi.
A shinobi collects information like the present-day spy or journalist.
What you will do to enter our order is to answer the membership questions on Facebook. Then, you will write 5 reports on the places of interest in your country so we get to know you. Please refrain from writing about martial arts or ninjutsu.
The order is an NPO with a small think & do tank. Our Honjin Dojo is located in a semi-government building. They allowed us to move in because of our historical background. But usually, people cannot find us as the floor we are on is hidden.
If you like researching, you may be an excellent shinobi in our order.
