Tendencies and Countermeasures for the 'Matsuo Basho=Ninja' Theory (summary)
Lecturer: Katsuya Yoshimaru
The theory that considers Matsuo Basho to be a ninja based on his descent is unreasonable due to following reasons. First, although he was a descendant of a low-status samurai without land, the family was already in the farmer class in his father's generation. Secondly, 'samurai without land' are completely different class from ninja, who had acquired the knowledge and skills of ninjutsu and put it to use. For the people in that class to know any ninjutsu would be highly unusual. Lastly, upon careful interpretation of the records, his mother's descent proved impossible to be related to the Momochi Family.
The theory that claims his ninja nature based on his extreme pedestrianism exhibited in the journey of "Okuno Hosomichi" can also be denied, since the longest distance walked in a day comes to be 60 kilometers, which is not very different from the possible distance for any healthy Japanese walker at the time.
The Basho=Ninja theory originates in the book titled "Tokyo no Tabi (Journey of Tokyo)" (Kobunsha 1966), co-authored by both Matsumoto Seicho and Higuchi Kiyoyuki. Thereafter, Basho=Ninja theory has been developed in a rather unreasonable way, in which the conclusion was set first and excuses to support it were found later. In fictional works such as the novel by Saito Sakae titled "Okuno Hosomichi Satsujin Jiken (A Murder Case in Okuno Hosomichi)" (Kobunsha, 1970) or a period TV drama titled "Onmitsu - Okuno Hoshomichi (The Spy - Okuno Hosomichi)" (TV Tokyo, from 1988 to 1989) helped the theory to be spread widely among the public.
Since supporting the theory from his descent or physical ability turned out to be quite difficult, the less falsifiable Basho=Spy theory seems to be the only surviving version of the Basho=Ninja theory today. Though Basho was a person with a lot of anecdotes, none of them contains any description of his using of ninjutsu. It is quite possible that the Ninja boom after the war had created the concept of combining Basho and Ninja, but the Basho= Ninja theory seems to be an useless concept for both Basho and Ninja/ninjutsu.