Ninja Culture

A typical ninja village would not be any different from other medieval
Japanese villages except for few very sharp-eyed adults who would
keep a careful watch on a trespasser. Many would be tending their rice
fields and harvesting vegetables and fruits. Others would be making
craftworks and few would be blacksmiths making sickles and cooking
knives. A ninja village's purpose is to support ninja and remain
unnoticed. As with another village, a ninja village would have a leader,
who often was the head of ninja group. Under him would be several
jyounin , which literally means the high ninja. Under the jyounin

would be severalch unin, which literally means the middle ninja.
Under chunin would be manygeni, which literally means the
low ninja. Upon receiving a mission from a daimyo, an osa would give
order to the jyounin to select necessary personnel. Some ninja groups would be smaller and may have been less structured. Other groups may have been structured more like an army and the leader may instead have been called ashou (general). While ninja are often depicted as male, female were often ninja as well. A female ninja may be called akun oic hi. These are actually the three strokes that make up the kanji character for female,onna . Although sometimes depicted as an experienced prostitute who gained secrets from the enemy by seduction, they rarely used that method. Most prostitutes in medieval Japan worked exclusively in brothels. Few would take their chances with a freelance prostitute, especially since in many places it was considered illegal.

Ninpo (literally 'the laws of ninja), or simply okite ( literally'rule'), are the guidelines that ninja followed. It had many stipulations, but the most important rule was of keeping the secret of being ninja to themselves and never revealing the daimyo who gave them orders. The most severe crime any ninja could commit was of betraying and killing fellow ninja. The punishment was death and, if deemed by the council of ninja, his or her family would be executed as well. Second to that was the crime of leaving the ninja village without authorization and never coming back. He or she would be callednuke nin  and his or her family member would be tasked to bring him back, dead or alive.