Ancient ninja textbook found in Aomori Pref. public library

An original copy of a ninja technique textbook believed to date back to the 18th century has been discovered at a public library here, the adviser of the Aomori University ninja club has disclosed.

A page from the ninja technique textbook discovered in the Hirosaki City Public Library is seen in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture. 

This is the first time that such a textbook has been found in Aomori Prefecture, said club adviser Shigeto Kiyokawa, 57, a professor in the faculty of pharmacy at Aomori University. He has also confirmed that an old private house in the city was used by ninja in the past.

The 12-page textbook discovered at the Hirosaki City Public Library contains explanations about how to make weapons and use charms. Also among the skills detailed in the text is a method for combining gunpowder and aconite to make a dust to blind enemies and a mysterious technique for making a sleeping medicine by burning dried toads and mandarin ducks. The textbook also instructs ninja to secure a single doorway for use when staying at an accommodation facility and to prop up a tatami mat against the door to alert them to intruders.

The old book was discovered in March by Tetsuya Ueda, a ninja researcher in Kyoto, when he visited Hirosaki for his work.

Based on similarities in textbooks discovered in other regions and other factors, "There is a high possibility that it was written to hand down ninja techniques to the next generation in around 1756 by the ninja group Hayamichinomono," Kiyokawa said.

The group served the Hirosaki feudal clan, and was a branch of the Koka school in Shiga Prefecture in central Japan. Hayamichinomono temporarily dissolved around the time that Kiyokawa believes that the book was written.

"It is now clear that Hayamichinomono actually used ninja techniques and small tools," said Kiyokawa. "I hope that this discovery will prompt other people who have similar material to come forward."

Ancient ninja textbook found in Aomori Pref. public library

Ancient Pottery Reveals Japanese Hunter-Gatherers’ Taste for Fish

In one of the largest studies of its kind, an international team of researchers conducted organic residue analysis of almost 800 ceramic vessels from 46 Jomon culture archaeological sites, dated to between 13,000 and 6,000 BC, in Japan to identify their contents. The results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate that pottery had a strong association with the processing of fish and other aquatic resources.

The team, headed by Dr. Alex Lucquin from the University of York, recovered diagnostic lipids from the charred surface deposits of the Jomon pottery with most of the compounds deriving from the processing of freshwater or marine organisms.

“These vessels were used by Jomon hunter-gatherers to store and process fish — initially salmon, but then a wider range including shellfish, freshwater and marine fish and mammals — as fishing intensified,” the scientists said.

“This association with fish remained stable even after the onset of climate warming, including in more southerly areas, where expanding forests provided new opportunities for hunting game and gathering plants.”

The samples analyzed are some of the earliest found and date from the end of the Late Pleistocene — a time when our ancestors were living in glacial conditions — to the post-glacial period when the climate warmed close to its current temperature and when pottery began to be produced in much greater quantity.

“Thanks to the exceptional preservation of traces of animal fat, we now know that pottery changed from a rare and special object to an every-day tool for preparing fish,” Dr. Lucquin said.

“I think that our study not only reveals the subsistence of the ancient Jomon people of Japan but also its resilience to a dramatic change in climate.”

“These findings are significant because they provide proof of the diversity of foodways and culinary innovations that developed at the end of the last Ice Age and into the modern geological era, the Holocene, when the modern environmental conditions that we are now so used to were developing,” said co-author Dr. Simon Kaner, an archaeologist at the University of East Anglia.

“Our results demonstrate that pottery had a strong association with the processing of fish, irrespective of the ecological setting,” added senior author Professor Oliver Craig, from the University of York.

“Contrary to expectations, this association remained stable even after the onset of warming, including in more southerly areas, where expanding forests provided new opportunities for hunting and gathering.”

“The results indicate that a broad array of fish was processed in the pottery after the end of the last Ice Age, corresponding to a period when hunter-gatherers began to settle in one place for longer periods and develop more intensive fishing strategies.”

“We suggest this marks a significant change in the role of pottery of hunter-gatherers, corresponding massively increased volume of production, greater variation in forms and sizes, and the onset of shellfish exploitation.”

Ancient Pottery Reveals Japanese Hunter-Gatherers’ Taste for Fish

Candi Sukuh, Java, Indonesia

Sukuh (Indonesian: Candi Sukuh) is a 15th-century Javanese-Hindu temple (candi) that is located on the western slope of Mount Lawu (elevation 910 metres (2,990 ft)) on the border between Central and East Java provinces.

Sukuh temple has a distinctive thematic reliefs from other candi where life before birth and sexual education are its main theme. Its main monument is a simple pyramid structure with reliefs and statues in front of it, including three tortoises with flattened shells and a male figure grasping his penis. A giant 1.82 m (6 ft) high of lingga (phallus) with four balls, representing penile incisions,was one of the statues that has been relocated to the National Museum of Indonesia.

Tucked away in the mountains near Solo in central Java is one of the more interesting Hindu temples in all of Southeast Asia. The temple of Candi Sukuh is unique not only in overall design, but also in decoration. This place isn't exactly off the map. It's in all the guidebooks, but is definitely off the tourist trail. From the guest book kept by the gatekeeper, it appears that it only receives a dozen or so visitors a week. Even if you aren't very interested in the ancient structures of Southeast Asia, you may still want to have a look at Candi Sukuh.

In general layout, the temple conforms to the plan of most other Hindu temples. There are three precincts, consisting of three concentric terraces. However, where most temples would have a large square shrine, Candi Sukuh has a pyramid reminiscent of Mayan structures from Central America. This is one of the few Hindu temple, or Buddhist one for that matter, sporting a pyramid like this and nobody knows for sure why the builders chose this type of structure. Just in front of the pyramid, three large truncated turtles are haphazardly placed. They appear to be for offerings or sacrifices, or perhaps, given the nature of the carvings, go-go dancing.

There aren't as many of them as most temples typically have, but those it does have are quit unique. Candi Sukuh, you see, is what they call a "fertility" temple. That's archaeological gobbledygook for a temple that features a lot of sexual images. In Candi Sukuh's case this label may not be so appropriate. The temple was built around the time of a civil war between the Muslim North and the Hindu South that the Muslims were winning; forcibly converting the Javanese to Islam. Those that didn't want to be converted either fled to Bali or up into the mountains. Since the temple is apparently devoted to the god Bima, the sword maker, it seems more reasonable that the temple represents a sort of "we will win because our dicks are bigger than theirs" military mentality.

Everywhere you look around the temple, images of male members abound. And these aren't abstract phalluses like the Hindu lingam symbol. Carved into the floor of the entrance gateway is a large penis about to insert itself into a vulva. As you examine the stone panels along the pathway leading to the pyramid, you will notice that most of the male figures are naked from the waist down.

Candi Sukuh is located on the slopes of Lawu Mountain about 25 miles east of Solo. You can reach it in about one hour from Solo or about two and a half hours from Yogyakarta. Another interesting temple from around the same time period, Candi Ceto, is about 15 kilometers away.

Background

Sukuh is one of several temples built on the northwest slopes of Mount Lawu in the 15th century. By this time, Javanese religion and art had diverged from Indian precepts that had been so influential on temples styles during the 8th–10th centuries. This was the last significant area of temple building in Java before the island's courts were converted to Islam in the 16th century. It is difficult for historians to interpret the significance of these antiquities due to the temple's distinctiveness and the lack of records of Javanese ceremonies and beliefs of the era.

The founder of Candi Sukuh thought that the slope of Mount Lawu was a sacred place for worshiping the ancestors and nature spirits and for observance of the fertility cults. The monument was built around 1437, as written as a chronogram date on the western gate, meaning that the area was under the rule of the Majapahit Kingdom during its end (1293–1500). Some archaeologists believe the founder had cast the fall of Majapahit, based on the reliefs that displaying the feud between two aristocratic houses, symbolizing two internal conflicts in the kingdom.

In 1815, Sir Thomas Raffles, the ruler of Java during 1811–1816, visited the temple and found it in bad condition. In his account, many statues had been thrown down on the ground and most of the figures had been decapitated. Raffles also found the giant lingga statue broken into two pieces, which was then glued together. This vandalism of traditional culture (especially where sexuality is not suppressed, as in the statues) is likely to be an effect of the Islamic invasion of Java during the 16th century, based upon the identical patterns found in all other Islamic and monotheistic invasions generally.

Architecture

The central pyramid of the complex sits at the rear of the highest of three terraces. Originally, worshippers would have accessed the complex through a gateway at the western or lowest terrace. To the left of the gate is a carving of a monster eating a man, birds in a tree, and a dog, which is thought to be a chronogram representing 1437 CE, the likely date of the temple's consecration. There is an obvious depiction of sexual intercourse in a relief on the floor at the entrance where it shows a paired lingam which is represented physiologically by the (phallus) and yoni, which is represented bodily by the (vagina). Genitalia are portrayed on several statues from the site, which is unique among Javanese classical monuments.

The main structure of Sukuh temple is like no other ancient edifice; it is a truncated pyramid reminiscent of a Maya monument and surrounded by monoliths and meticulously carved life-sized figures. The Sukuh temple does not follow the Hindu architecture Wastu Vidya because it was built after the Hindu religion had weakened. Temples usually have a rectangular or square shape, but Sukuh temple is a trapezium with three terraces, with one terrace higher than the others. A stone stairway rises through the front side of the pyramid to its summit. It is not known what the monument's unique shape was intended to symbolize. One suggestion is that it represents a mountain. There is no evidence that the main building supported a wooden structure. The only object recovered from its summit was a 1.82-metre lingga statue bearing an inscription and it is now in the National Museum of Indonesia). The statue may once have stood on the platform over the stairway. The lingga statue has a dedicated inscription carved from top to bottom representing a vein followed by a chronogram date equivalent to 1440. The inscription translates "Consecration of the Holy Ganges sudhi in ... the sign of masculinity is the essence of the world." Reliefs of a kris blade, an eight-pointed sun and a crescent moon decorate the statue.

The wall of the main monument has a relief portraying two men forging a weapon in a smithy with a dancing figure of Ganesha, the most important Tantric deity, having a human body and the head of an elephant. In Hindu-Java mythology, the smith is thought to possess not only the skill to alter metals, but also the key to spiritual transcendence. Smiths drew their powers to forge a kris from the god of fire; and a smithy is considered as a shrine. Hindu-Javanese kingship was sometimes legitimated and empowered by the possession of a kris.

The elephant head figure with a crown in the smithy relief depicts Ganesha, the god who removes obstacles in Hinduism. The Ganesha figure, however, differs in some small respects with other usual depictions. Instead of sitting, the Ganesha figure in Candi Sukuh's relief is shown dancing and it has distinctive features including the exposed genitalia, the demonic physiognomy, the strangely awkward dancing posture, the rosary bones on its neck and holding a small animal, probably a dog. The Ganesha relief in Candi Sukuh has a similarity with the Tantric ritual found in the history of Buddhism in Tibet written by Taranatha. The Tantric ritual is associated with several figures, one of whom is described as the "King of Dogs" (Sanskrit: Kukuraja), who taught his disciples by day, and by night performed Ganacakra in a burial ground or charnel ground.

Other statues in Candi Sukuh include a life-sized male figure with his hand grasping his own penis and three flattened shells of tortoises. Two large tortoise statues guard the pyramid entrance and the third one lies at some distance in front of the monument. All of their heads point to the west and their flattened shells may provide altars for purification rituals and ancestor worship. In Hindu mythology, the tortoise symbolizes the base or support of the World and is an avatar of Vishnu, i.e. Kurma refer: Ocean of Milk.

Candi Sukuh, Java, Indonesia