Читать книгу Ninjutsu. Facts, Legends, and Techniques онлайн

20 страница из 32

Lords thus became highly suspicious of ninja in their own hire. Jonin, too, wishing to please their lord clients would dispatch a ninja whom they specially trusted to watch the one operating for a lord; even a third ninja, to watch both might be assigned to a mission.

Because of all the complicated subterfuge connected with the hiring and use of ninja, genin ninja became especially sensitive, always suspicious of all persons, jonin, chunin, and lord alike, and became extremely watchful of all personal contacts, even within their own group.

Ordinary townsfolk considered the ninja as social outcasts, and Samurai warriors looked down upon them as traitorous cowards. Since they were regarded as a pariah class and considered as something less than human, ninja who were captured by warriors usually suffered a horrible death. They might be boiled alive in oil, or have their skin slowly peeled from their bodies.

One particular method of killing a captured ninja was designed to produce a lingering pain and slow death. It consisted of suspending him, having been tightly bound on a wooden frame, over a sharpened bamboo stake. The victim was positioned as though seated in the air with his legs straight and widely stretched; the frame kept the victim from changing his position. The entire load, ninja and frame, was made to hang directly over the stake. When the rope holding the load became wet it elongated and the ninja would slowly be inched downward, anus first, onto the sharp point.