Ninja Ken
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The Ninja Ken (also called shinobigatana) is the more correct term for "ninjato," or the sword a ninja would have carried. According to the book "Ninjutsu History and Tradition" by Masaaki Hatsumi, soke of the Bujinkan Dojo system, these swords came in a variety of shapes and sizes. Often, however, they were much shorter than the traditional daito katana used by the samurai of feudal Japan.
The typical shinobigatana carried by a ninja would most likely have been a wakizashi or cut-down katana, fitted with a katana-length handle and placed in a katana-length saya (scabbard). Anything else would have been a giveaway that the person carrying the blade was a ninja, and hence cause for execution by the samurai.
Modern ninjato are often straight with a square tsuba (hand guard), but the historical accuracy of this is indeterminate. According to the same book by Masaaki Hatsumi, the ninja ken was often straight. Curvature of katana is due to the way they are forged and tempered, and since ninja were largely peasants, they would not have the knowledge or ability that a professional smith would. Hence, Hatsumi says that they were often straight bars of low-quality steel with an edge ground on to them. According to other sources, some of the sword being forged during the Tokugawa era also had blades with less curvature than others. This was also the period during which the mythology of the ninja grew as they were employed by the Shogun as secret police.
The Bujinkan dojo currently contains one school, the Togakure ryu, which teaches the use of the ninja ken. Typically, this is a wakizashi-length sword (or slightly longer) that has been outfitted with katana sized koshirae (fittings). The idea behind a shorter sword is that it is much easier to fight in close quarters with a shorter sword, as would be necessary for a ninja acting as an intelligence-gatherer.Template:Weapon-stub