Ninja Swords and Weapons

The Ninjato, also known as the Ninjaken, or Shinobi Gatana, is the most used name for the famed sword carried by the Japanese Ninja. This was a shortsword, and was crafted with much less care and skill than the Katana  or Tachi swords of the Samurai. The modern Ninjato, as used today, are usually straight with a square hand guard, or tsuba.

The traditional Ninjato swords came in various shapes and sizes, almost always considerably shorter than the Daito Katana carried by the Samurai. These swords were straight with only a slight curve to the blade. Typically, a Ninja would carry a Wakizashi swortsword, fitted with a Katana length handle, inside a Saya, or Katana length scabbard.

The Ninja may have carried the shortsword in a longer scabbard to deceive his enemy into miscalculating the length of time it would take to draw the sword out fully, ready for combat. It has been speculated that the extra space in the scabbard might have been used to conceal and store other fighting equipment.

Smoke Screens and Other Tricks of the Ninja:

Ninjas were famous for using a variety of weapons and tricks that called for gunpowder. Firecrackers and smoke bombs and firecrackers, for example, were often utilized to create a useful diversion for an attack or escape. The Ninja often used fuses with timers that delayed explosions. Sometimes they threw small bombs called metsubushi, or "eye closers" that were filled with sand or metal dust.

This was carried in bamboo tubes or in hollow eggs, and when the makeshift bombs were thrown at an enemy, the shells would crack, thus releasing the sand or metal dust, which temporarily blinded the opponent.

The Ninjas, far ahead of their times in thinking; even made land mines with a mechanical fuse or lit string that had been soaked in oil. Ninja clans zealously guarded their secret formulas for making these bombs, landmines, and other mixtures of gunpowder.

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