Caste in Early Modern Japan: Danzaemon and the Edo Outcaste Order [1 ed.] 0429863039, 9780429863035

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Map
Tables
Acknowledgements
Explanatory note on style
Introduction
The argument
Methodology and structure
Note on Danzaemon and terminology
Notes
1 The caste experience of early modern Japanese outcastes
Introduction
Outcaste governance in eastern Japan
Identifying the nature of outcaste rule in early modern eastern Japan
Status and caste
Caste in early modern Japan: hierarchy and scapegoats
Conclusions
Notes
2 The emergence of the Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule
Introduction
Pre-Tokugawa legacies
The workplace
The 16th century context
Origins of Danzaemon rule
Seventeenth century developments
Systemization of the status system
Conclusions
Notes
3 The ideological construction of eta
Introduction
Note on pollution ideology
Late 17th century ideas of pollution
Late 18th century developments
Intensification of pollution ideology in the 19th century
Samurai mimicry and Sanskritization
Conclusions
Notes
4 Danzaemon and the political economy of crucifixion
Introduction
Early Tokugawa crucifixion
Danzaemon and crucifixion in early Tokugawa times
Eighteenth century transformations
Social distancing, symbolic power, outcaste economies
Conclusions
Notes
5 Eta governance, hinin, and the policing of the poor
Introduction
The early 18th century hinin independence movement
Eighteenth century development of unregistered policing and hinin rule
Late 18th century regional developments
Early 19th century, the Tenpō famine, and outcaste poverty relief
Conclusions
Notes
6 Transformations in urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo
Introduction
Early history: urbanization and status rule
Growing labour specialization, capital concentration, and cultural endeavours
Late Tokugawa/early Meiji transformation of Shinchō
Conclusions
Notes
7 Outcaste status and the leather monopoly
Introduction
Danzaemon’s place in the early modern leather trade
Official duties and commercial developments
Complications and competition in outcaste production
Conclusions
Notes
Epilogue
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

Caste in Early Modern Japan

“Caste”, a word normally used in relation to the Indian subcontinent, is rarely associated with Japan in contemporary scholarship. This has not always been the case, and the term was often used among earlier generations of scholars, who introduced the Buraku problem to Western audiences. Amos argues that time for reappraisal is well overdue and that a combination of ideas, beliefs, and practices rooted in Confucian, Buddhist, Shinto, and military traditions were brought together from the late 16th century in ways that influenced the development of institutions and social structures on the Japanese archipelago. These influences brought the social structures closer in form and substance to certain caste formations found in the Indian subcontinent during the same period. Specifically, Amos analyses the evolution of the so-­called Danzaemon outcaste order. This order was a 17th century caste configuration produced as a consequence of early modern Tokugawa rulers’ decisions to engage in a state-­ building project rooted in military logic and built on the back of existing manorial and tribal-­class arrangements. He further examines the history behind the primary duties expected of outcastes within the Danzaemon order: notably execution and policing, as well as leather procurement. Reinterpreting Japan as a caste society, this book propels us to engage in fuller comparisons of how outcaste communities’ histories and challenges have diverged and converged over time and space, and to consider how better to eradicate discrimination based on caste logic. This book will appeal to anyone interested in Japanese History, Culture and Society. Timothy D. Amos is Associate Professor in the Department of Japanese Studies, National University of Singapore.

Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia

Borneo in the Cold War, 1950–1990 Ooi Keat Gin International Rivalry and Secret Diplomacy in East Asia, 1896–1950 Bruce A. Elleman Women Warriors in Southeast Asia Edited by Vina A. Lanzona and Frederik Rettig The Russian Discovery of Japan, 1670–1800 David N. Wells Singapore – Two Hundred Years of the Lion City Edited by Anthony Webster and Nicholas J. White Borneo and Sulawesi Indigenous Peoples, Empires and Area Studies Edited by Ooi Keat Gin Tuberculosis – The Singapore Experience, 1867–2018 Disease, Society and the State Kah Seng Loh and Li Yang Hsu Caste in Early Modern Japan Danzaemon and the Edo Outcaste Order Timothy D. Amos Performing the Politics of Translation in Modern Japan Staging the Resistance Aragorn Quinn For a full list of available titles please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-­ Studies-in-­the-Modern-­History-of-­Asia/book-­series/MODHISTASIA

Caste in Early Modern Japan Danzaemon and the Edo Outcaste Order

Timothy D. Amos

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Timothy D. Amos The right of Timothy D. Amos to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-­in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-62507-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-46021-0 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Contents



List of illustrations Acknowledgements Explanatory note on style



Introduction

viii ix xi 1

The argument  5 Methodology and structure  10 Note on Danzaemon and terminology  11 1 The caste experience of early modern Japanese outcastes

15

Introduction  15 Outcaste governance in eastern Japan  16 Identifying the nature of outcaste rule in early modern eastern Japan  21 Status and caste  25 Caste in early modern Japan: hierarchy and scapegoats  32 Conclusions  36 2 The emergence of the Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule Introduction  42 Pre-­Tokugawa legacies  43 The workplace  47 The 16th century context  50 Origins of Danzaemon rule  52 Seventeenth century developments  57 Systemization of the status system  59 Conclusions  63

42

vi   Contents

3 The ideological construction of eta

69

Introduction  69 Note on pollution ideology  71 Late 17th century ideas of pollution  73 Late 18th century developments  77 Intensification of pollution ideology in the 19th century  82 Samurai mimicry and Sanskritization  86 Conclusions  90 4 Danzaemon and the political economy of crucifixion

97

Introduction  97 Early Tokugawa crucifixion  98 Danzaemon and crucifixion in early Tokugawa times  100 Eighteenth century transformations  104 Social distancing, symbolic power, outcaste economies  114 Conclusions  118 5 Eta governance, hinin, and the policing of the poor

124

Introduction  124 The early 18th century hinin independence movement  125 Eighteenth century development of unregistered policing and hinin rule  129 Late 18th century regional developments  132 Early 19th century, the Tenpō famine, and outcaste poverty relief  134 Conclusions  140 6 Transformations in urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo

144

Introduction  144 Early history: urbanization and status rule  145 Growing labour specialization, capital concentration, and cultural endeavours  147 Late Tokugawa/early Meiji transformation of Shinchō  152 Conclusions  159 7 Outcaste status and the leather monopoly Introduction  163 Danzaemon’s place in the early modern leather trade  165

163

Contents   vii

Official duties and commercial developments  168 Complications and competition in outcaste production  176 Conclusions  180

Epilogue

184



References Index

188 202

Illustrations

Map 1.1  Area under Danzaemon rule

18

Tables 7.1  Eighteenth century changes in “day rights” (Banichi) 7.2  Chōri population of Lower Wana village, 1766–1795

171 172

Acknowledgements

Many people have contributed to my understanding of caste across Asia and therefore to this volume. In India, I am particularly grateful to Priyadarshini Vijaisri at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi for the invitation to attend the The Caste Question and the Historian’s Craft Conference in 2014, as well as to all the conference participants for their penetrating questions and generous encouragement. I also wish to thank Sanal Mohan and his students and colleagues who met with me in 2015 in Kottayam; K. Satyanarayana and his colleagues and students who engaged with my work in 2015 in Hyderabad; and Y. Chinna Rao and his colleagues at the Centre for the Study of Discrimination and Exclusion (CSDE) at Jawaharlal Nehru University who generously invited me to their Race and Caste: Intercontinental Experiences Conference in 2016. In Japan, I am particularly grateful to Takashi Tsukada from Osaka City University who since 2007 has given me abundant opportunities to engage with his research, to join fascinating research gatherings with many of his gifted colleagues and students, and to hear many thought-­provoking insights into the nature of the early modern Japanese status system. In many ways, I credit whatever positive developments have taken place in my research over the last decade to Professor Tsukada’s generosity and mentorship. There are, of course, many other people who have helped me along the way. In Singapore, I am of course grateful to my National University of Singapore colleagues, particularly in the Japanese Studies, Asian Studies, and History departments, for their engagement with aspects of my work. A particular thanks goes to Scot Hislop and Akiko Ishii for discussing some of the core ideas contained in this book. Adrian Gilbert provided the musical inspiration for my writing. My partner Aki, as always, has been a constant source of encouragement and sound advice. An earlier version of Chapter 6 was originally published as “Asakusa ‘Newtown’: the Transformation of Outcaste Space in Early Modern Edo/ Modern Tokyo”, Japan Forum, vol. 27, no. 2 (2015): 213–234. This article is reproduced with kind permission from Bill Mihalopoulos, editor of Japan Forum.

x   Acknowledgements My hope is that the current volume will illuminate the history of Danzaemon as well as generate a larger discussion about the nature of caste in Asia and beyond. While grateful to everyone who has helped me complete this book, any mistakes found within are of course mine.

Explanatory note on style

Japanese words have been placed in italics in the first instance that they appear in the book using the Hepburn system for Romanization. Macrons have been applied wherever appropriate. Exceptions to this rule include instances when the words cited are in commonplace use in English (like Tokyo or Kyoto) and when the words contained in passages are taken in direct quotation from other authors and macrons and italics have not been applied in the original usage. Japanese place names are generally Romanized in full with designations of places such as kuni and mura translated into their respective English equivalents: province and village. In the case where the meaning of a place name would be lost with a direct transliteration, an English equivalent has been used (for example, the shimo in Shimowana village has been translated as “Lower Wana”). Japanese names are written in the body of the text with the family name preceding the given name as per common convention. The exceptions are when the author’s name appears in the opposite order in the source cited or the author is more commonly known by names (or has published work) in the conventional English language order. Standard Anglophone citation methods are followed for footnotes and the bibliography. Pre-­Meiji dates have not been converted into the Gregorian calendar equivalents unless otherwise stated, so that the Japanese date Bunsei ninen nigatsu futsuka, which would normally be read as February 2, 1819, is, in fact, February 25, 1819. Dates have been listed, moreover, in traditional Japanese order of year, month, and day: 1819.2.2. Original currency units are also preserved in the text. Gold, silver, and copper all functioned as independent currency units during the early modern period, and although rates changed according to time and place, one gold ryō generally bought about 60 monme of silver and 4,000 copper coins (mon).

Introduction

Travelling in a car from Ubud to Denpasar in late 2014, a friendly young man by the name of Dewa informed me quite matter-­of-factly: “Bali is a caste society. It is reflected even in our names and the language we use.” A month later, sitting in a hotel lobby in the Malayalam-­speaking Indian city of Kottayam, a scholar by the name of Yesudasan informed me that: “Caste is reflected in the names we have, our facial features, our skin colour, language, and even the ways we comport ourselves in front of others.” Heading to Hyderabad a week later, a Telugu-­speaking scholar informed me of the caste problem in his family and village, where his father would refuse to sit down in the presence of a person of a higher caste even if it was in his own house. Much later, visiting the Seungdong Presbyterian Church in the old Seoul district, I learned of the attempts of a group known as the Baekjeong to liberate themselves from discrimination by converting to Christianity. These experiences, and many others like them, have arisen out of my sustained engagement to try to better understand the history and contemporary plight of Burakumin in Japan. My comparative engagement with the histories of these groups has led me to conclude that caste is a term that can and should be applied to Japan.1 Caste is a useful shorthand to describe a particular way people are characterized, categorized, and/or identified in their local contexts across Asia and beyond. It is also an important term for linking the experiences of the people or groups mentioned above, whose existence has in important ways been determined by a “caste system” and notions of “pollution” and “untouchability”. Throughout the wider Asian region, moreover, there is a sense in which subcontinental forms of caste have impacted the region, whether directly through transmission of ideas and practices, or indirectly through acting as a kind of template through which local conditions have been understood. At the same time, each instantiation of the word “caste” in relation to Asian societies must be carefully scrutinized, for it carries unique, culturally specific, semantic baggage. Distinct practices of translation and various regionally specific traditions and contexts play a role in determining particular localized understandings and structural realities of caste. Neither, moreover, do terms such as caste necessarily carry for each interlocutor the same kind of emotive load. For Dewa, there was no such thing as an untouchable class in Bali; for Yesudasan,

2   Introduction the word conjured up a long history of violence and oppression linked to a system akin to slavery. The dominance of the use of the English term in my work is, of course, a sad reflection of my inability to speak the local languages of many of the areas I have visited in doing broader research for this study on Danzaemon, as well as perhaps a disquieting indication of the hegemonic reach of the English language throughout large stretches of Asia. The fact that caste is actually derived from the Portuguese language, moreover, further reminds us of the long history of European imperialism that has helped shape the ways we have come to understand complex systems of stratification across Asia and the reason why caste is now a dominant word to explain a variety of forms of social difference rooted in practices of endogamy, commensality, and the like. Despite these sizeable barriers to understanding that threaten to capsize any meaningful study of the broader phenomenon of caste across Asia and beyond, “outcasteness” – a sub-­categorical analytical term within studies of caste – nonetheless remains both a conceptual glue and an ontological reality eminently capable of binding both scholars and activists together. Time and again the figure of the “outcaste” has served as a sturdy and politically meaningful platform for cross-­cultural engagement, comparative study, and potent activism. It can do this because the term reflects not only a historical, but also a contemporary reality. While it is ultimately my goal to produce a study of “caste” and the “outcasteness” produced by such social systems rooted in a firmer understanding of the specificities of local and regional histories across the Asia-­ Pacific region, the present volume simply aims to engage in a deeper empirical investigation of a particular regional variation of caste and outcasteness in Japan as an attempt to better understand the points at which it converged on and diverged from other caste formations. It does this for three primary reasons: first, in the hope of identifying common mechanisms for excluding peoples from groups and societies around the region as well as pinpointing the various forms of agitation that have helped achieve a modicum of liberation from these practices; second, to demonstrate the ways different hegemonic power formations exercise dominating spheres of influence over particular people, spaces, and places over time that contain both important commonalities and points of divergence; and third, to gain a better understanding of how particular forms of exclusion usually associated with “outcasting” change over time, in particular during the transitional phase from older, feudalistic patterns to modern societal forms. I do not have reservations about calling Japan a caste society for a number of reasons that will be outlined in this book, but in the beginning it will perhaps suffice to say that none is more compelling than the fact that doing so places me in some rather good company within Japanese scholarship. One of the leading Japanese scholars on Danzaemon – the early modern institution at the heart of this book – used the words “caste form” (kāsutoteki keitai) when referring to at least one of its important components.2 The work of this scholar, Minegishi Kentarō, was the first I read in Japanese as a young graduate student and it has remained an important source of inspiration for me throughout my research.

Introduction   3 And as the reader will discover in this volume, Minegishi is but one of a number of scholars who have made the association. Danzaemon is the main focus of this book because it is a particularly interesting instance of an extremely organized and localized form of outcaste social management which has been carefully studied by several generations of scholars; and because it is the system that I have come to know best. But while focusing on the history of Danzaemon and the outcastes who came under his rule, I have had the privilege of living, researching, and working in other parts of Japan and Asia. Consequently, while simultaneously making a careful examination of Danzaemon governance practices within the system of status rule in early modern Japan, I have tried to make useful comparisons with other localized caste formations across Japan and Asia, and beyond. This book cannot claim to be comparative in any straightforward sense, but it nonetheless can and does make comparative observations using the work of scholars from India and other regions to both clarify the nature of Danzaemon rule and to help begin to build a platform for a fuller understanding of caste and untouchability across the region. My earlier monograph also arose primarily out of my study of Danzaemon and the outcaste communities he ruled over.3 This research led me to the conviction that the history that I was discovering in the records appeared quite different to those narratives found in the expansive Japanese language literature on Burakumin which was then uncritically adopted in the sparse English language literature on the topic. I decided that before I could really begin to write my history of Danzaemon and the early modern villages and communities I was studying, I needing to spend more time unpacking the history behind how contemporary understandings of the Buraku problem came about. That book became a historical account of the contingent nature of Buraku identity in Japan. Based on original archival materials, ethnographical research, and critical historiographical work, I argued that it was perhaps more profitable to see Burakumin as a kind of 20th century discourse which subsumed many different bodies of people under the same label for a variety of different reasons, which need to be analysed historically. My earlier work helped me to develop sensitivity to the regional and geographical complexities of caste in Japan and across Asia. It provided a building block that permitted me to return to my earlier study of Danzaemon and begin to better understand the historical dynamics that underpinned the emergence of the outcaste order in eastern Japan in the early modern period. It also permitted me to widen my historical scope and begin to join with other interested scholars in undertaking more comparative research on caste in Asia. It has also led to an engagement with a number of scholars’ works that have similarly argued that premodern Japan was a caste society. Caste is, of course, a word used primarily, but not exclusively, in relation to the subcontinent, and is still seldom meaningfully associated with Japan in contemporary scholarship.4 But this was not the case among earlier generations of scholars who first introduced Western audiences to detailed analysis of the Buraku problem, nor has it been the case among

4   Introduction well-­regarded historians of Japan’s premodern status system. Some intriguing comparative work in recent years suggests, moreover, that the time for reappraisal is well overdue.5 Whether someone will subscribe to the case for classifying Japan as a caste society, or as a society with clear caste-­like formations, will largely hinge upon whether they can agree with how it is being defined in this book and whether or not they agree that those definitional features can indeed be identified on the Japanese archipelago. A comparison of caste (a term of course derived from the Portuguese notion of casta and commonly used to reflect the Sanskrit ideas of varna and jāti) in parts of India and other places around the world, and status (mibun) in the Japanese context, and a clear demonstration of the strong convergence between the definitional markers scholars have highlighted in relation to both kinds of social systems during the early modern period, is therefore essential to the success of this project. That said, however, this book’s primary objective is to reveal common ground between social groups who have been severely marginalized (i.e. made “outcastes”) by caste-­based logic across Asia. It does this in the hope that such research might provide a sturdier platform for comparative scholarship that can generate deeper understanding of this phenomenon, as well as enhance collaboration in the realms of cross-­cultural interaction, historical engagement, and political activism. With the above in mind, this book focuses on the historical evolution and transformations around Japan’s largest formalized outcaste community during the early modern period (1600–1868), the so-­called outcaste system centring on the intriguing institutional leader who went by the title Danzaemon (an office rendered by the Tokugawa authorities usually as “chief of eta”).6 The book argues that this order was a caste-­like configuration rooted in the idea and practice of mibun established in the 17th century as a result of early modern Tokugawa rulers’ decisions to engage in a state-­building project rooted in military logic that built on the back of pre-­existing social and political structures which included manorial, kinship, and historic regional social arrangements, which can be explained as comprising part of a larger history of caste in Japan. Extant historical documents only enable a partial reconstruction of the eastern Japanese outcaste system due to the fact that they contain serious limitations. Documents pertaining to Danzaemon tend to be post-­17th century reproductions of original sources captured by the Tokugawa shogunate for judicial purposes, or a combination of originals and copies contained in the family records of regional sub-­chiefs who came under Danzaemon rule. For this reason, any book attempting to capture the historical realities of Danzaemon and the outcaste order will necessarily focus to a considerable extent on issues of governance. That said, however, the records permit a reasonably detailed reconstruction of some of the main primary duties expected of outcastes within the Danzaemon outcaste order. This book chooses three – executing criminals, policing unregistered peoples, and procuring and supplying leather – and shows through a historical investigation of the evolution of these duties (and the

Introduction   5 privileges that came with performing them) that early modern outcastes clearly experienced Japan as a kind of caste society. As scholars such as Tsukada Takashi have clearly and consistently demonstrated, “status” (mibun) was the predominant “mode of existence” in premodern Japanese society.7 Early modern subjects, according to Tsukada, were publicly affirmed in their political and social positions through performing official duties for a particular lord (okami) in their respective “status-­based groups” (mibunteki shūdan). Tsukada demonstrates that early modern society was slowly reorganized through the formation and legitimization of status-­based groups during the first half of the 17th century (becoming particularly pronounced from the 1660s). These groups entered into official relationships (goyō kankei) with the Tokugawa authorities to ensure their survival. An earlier division of labour coupled with various late medieval and early Tokugawa policies saw numerous so-­called outcaste groups such as the eta (chōri) and hinin enter into various official relationships with authorities. They received official acknowledgment and economic privileges in relation to begging and leather production in return for accepting officially prescribed duties often pertaining to certain stigmatized industries (execution duties, burial, etc.).8

The argument Early modern Japan was also built on a unique system of social status with an earlier pedigree which also operated according to its own peculiar regional logics. This system of status, moreover, was further defined by birth, occupation, marriage, hierarchy, pollution ideology, and religious practice. Danzaemon and his subjects, moreover, also clearly came to fulfil a scapegoat function within this system where their social existence was constantly transformed by evolving ideas of pollution and redefined by their own attempts to use status system logic to improve their own position within the overall sociopolitical hierarchy. Understanding the foundations of and various transformative influences on Japan’s early modern system of sociopolitical hierarchy enables us to better understand the comparative ease with which the outcaste system was eventually dismantled in eastern Japan after the Meiji Restoration as well as the subsequent problems facing people commonly understood today to be Burakumin. Understanding the caste-­like nature of the early modern social order also propels us to engage in fuller comparisons of how outcaste communities’ histories and challenges have diverged and converged over time and space, and encourages us to consider how better to establish global platforms for eradicating discrimination based on caste logic, structure, and practices. English language writing on Burakumin for much of the postwar period generally suffered from a combination of poor contextualization, lack of empirical research, and orientalist sensationalism. Scholars matter-­of-factly referred to the group as one of Japan’s main taboos, usually making mention of the “invisibility” of Burakumin, and regularly drew a conceptual parallel to Indian Dalits by invoking words such as “untouchability”.9 Despite these constant allusions

6   Introduction to the caste-­like nature of the problem, only a handful of writers attempted to take the comparison seriously. And apart from a few outliers, moreover, subsequent English language literature tended to be largely derivative in nature, subscribing uncritically to the literature produced by Japan’s largest postwar Buraku liberation organization, the Buraku Liberation League (BLL).10 Much of this literature became enamoured of the “political origins” of Burakumin, arguing that while ancient and medieval outcast groups existed in Japan, it was only around the time of the creation of the early modern Japanese feudal state that we could definitely claim an origin for Buraku communities that can be demonstrably shown to have persisted right through to the present.11 In this commonplace interpretation, the warrior class – for various reasons including the desire to secure a monopoly on leather production and the need to create a class of people who would bear the brunt of social frustration at the establishment of a tiered sociopolitical system – forced outcast communities to live in certain segregated places and to become the bearers of an outcast status that over time became increasingly immutable and characterized by certain kinds of socially stigmatized labour and duties. In this common conceptualization, outcasts at the commencement of the early modern period became outcastes. Subsequent modern attempts at liberation were argued to be largely devoid of substance, mostly working against members of these communities by destroying their early modern monopolies. It was only when the members of these communities took matters into their own hands and started to engage in grassroots struggles for emancipation that real changes began to happen. The movement was quashed as a result of the rise of Japanese militarism, however, and the Japanese state really only officially assumed some responsibility for their role in the creation of a pseudo-­caste system in the late 1960s. While this interpretative position still tends to dominate some contemporary reflections on Buraku history even today, subsequent critical perspectives nonetheless offered significant reinterpretations or correctives in relation to how to relate the history of Burakumin and the nature of the Buraku problem.12 Scholars pointed, for example, to the medieval and even in some cases post-­ Meiji origins of some of the communities declared to be Buraku communities today as evidence of the unsuitability and unsustainability of the early modern political origins thesis.13 They also pointed to the ways in which the logic of status (mibun) pervaded all aspects of early modern Japanese society, challenging the notion that early modern outcaste groups were somehow deliberately singled out as specific targets of discriminatory state policy. Perhaps most tellingly, however, they sought to understand the ways in which status systems were generated and transformed locally, forged into a seemingly universal category in the modern period through the forces of capital, but in reality becoming a product of the ways in which local communities instituted systems of modern land ownership and legislated systems of participation and belonging as Japan attempted to join the comity of modern nations. This book builds on the key insights of such critical scholarship, while at the same time attempting to synthesize such critiques with a considerably revamped

Introduction   7 early modern political origins literature which itself has reached new levels of sophistication in the last decade or so.14 This book argues that early modern Japan was a caste society, a solid mixture of inherited and created elements, but that the ultimate form the social system took needs to be understood primarily through a careful investigation of local conditions and considerations. This book offers the first book-­length manuscript on the history of Danzaemon in English, building on the insights of scholars who have in recent decades thought critically about the history of outcastes in Japan and who have refused to toe the simple ideological line of outcaste victim in their historical narratives. But it also takes seriously the insistence by large numbers of evolving “political origins” theory scholars about the importance of the role of the early modern state in the creation and ideological justification of a system of status that proved definitional in relation to the making of a fixed system of early modern outcastes who are commonly considered to be the ancestors of today’s Burakumin. Such a synthesis is made possible in part by bringing together the insights of scholars working on premodern Japan from diverse methodological perspectives. The comparative sociologist S.N. Eisenstadt has noted, for example, that Japanese feudalism adopted the form it did because of the peculiar relationship between the disintegration of tribal-­class and state formation.15 Placing Danzaemon history within the larger historical context of the breakdown of clans, and the emergence of new occupational and kinship groups in eastern Japan during the medieval period, is an important aid in understanding Japanese caste formation and early modern status dynamics. Considering Danzaemon, moreover, as Mark Ravina once pointed out, as a newly created “feudal agent” in the early modern period, someone who became a reasonably independent authority incorporated into the early modern “compound state”, is also an important insight that has helped with the conceptual development that underpins this study.16 Danzaemon and the eastern Japanese outcaste system can be understood as one particular loose caste configuration defined by pre-­existing medieval kinship, occupational, community, and belief structures that were reconstituted and bound together through Tokugawa state-­building processes. In the early part of the Tokugawa period, the shogunate built on the earlier medieval logic of monopolizing the labour of groups considered essential for maintenance of warrior rule. The Tokugawa authorities inherited a society with various strong social divisions, formed primarily as a result of a historical division of labour, but which was also clearly shaped by kinship-­based organizational structures. The occupational group community, originating in localized kinship structures that were further shaped by medieval socioeconomic and political forces, became one of the primary units for the effective and efficient undertaking of official duty (along with villages and town block associations) in early modern Japan. Such groups became one of the central units through which order could be maintained and the performance of duty enforced. Danzaemon rule came to be superimposed over a large number of eta (chōri) village communities, in a good many cases already in existence for some time (how long, exactly, is a difficult question to answer). Pre-­existing villages with

8   Introduction reasonably unique local arrangements of exchange, trade, and in some cases servitude with nearby peasant communities, religious institutions, and townships became incorporated into an early modern system of governance in which leaders were geographically anchored to communities characterized by a shared geography and occupational and familial proximity. Where such an arrangement was already in clear operation in the later medieval period, such as in some rural villages and townships, minimal effort was needed to restructure communities to conform to the group expectations of warrior elites. Where such as arrangement was far from being realized, however, entry into the early modern social order proved more problematic. Policy measures such as cadastral surveys and population registers also proved critically important in further helping shape such processes. Danzaemon and the immediate community over which he ruled in the latter half of the 17th century were moved to their Asakusa location on the outskirts of Edo and offered special privileges in exchange for loyal service to the shogun. Permitted to retain some autonomy in relation to the matter of how he ruled over members of his own group, Danzaemon was in turn required to serve in an official capacity in relation to numerous shogunal duties. Because of this strong connection to the shogunate, successive Danzaemon heads came to govern their subjects ostensibly according to a military-­style organizational logic, largely conforming to what Herman Ooms once called a “fundamental hierarchizing ‘imaginary’ ”.17 The early Tokugawa shoguns had further flirted with hierarchical cosmologies in various combinations drawing heavily from Confucian/Neo-­ Confucian, Buddhist, and warrior discursive practices that would justify their imposition of warrior rule and social container-­based prejudice upon the rest of society while simultaneously restricting access to other ideas and inspirations such as Christianity or militant, exclusivist Buddhist sectarianism which might help local populations see ways of overcoming these imposed constraints.18 “Pollution” (kegare) ideology was central to this endeavour, and Danzaemon and the outcaste system that subsequent heads presided over were deeply affected by such developments. Gerald Groemer has labelled the entire system of rule that grew up around Danzaemon the “Edo Outcaste Order”.19 Building upon such a conceptualization, this book argues that early modern Japanese society was founded on the conceptualization of a unique system of social status (mibun) which was in essence a reconstituted caste form which operated according to its own peculiar regional logics and was defined by local conditions and pre-­existing practices, but that regardless of region produced a category of scapegoated persons who were repeatedly linked to ever-­evolving ideas of pollution and normality.20 Despite the interpretative difficulties of locating pollution and understanding how it necessitated the existence of a societal scapegoat, this book nonetheless takes seriously the marginalized nature of Danzaemon and his subordinates, pushing for the larger conclusion that essentially what one is witnessing in Japan during this period is a reenergized caste system, however “loose” it may appear in comparative terms.21

Introduction   9 Caste, whatever the origins of the term and the historical baggage it contains, can be envisaged as a social system with certain distinctive features, and its presence is clearly evident in eastern Japan between the 17th and 19th centuries. That the term caste can be applicable to premodern Japan becomes readily apparent, for example, if we theorize it along the lines of Irfan Habib, who has argued that caste contains the following six features: a universalizing division based on birth; endogamy; hierarchy/ranking; occupational fixity; a purity/ impurity imaginary; and affective religious duty.22 The experiences of Danzaemon and those who were subject to his rule, as well as many of the main features of the Edo outcaste order, fit neatly inside such a definition, albeit with some important caveats that will be explored in the following chapter. Danzaemon and the outcaste order from the 17th century onwards assumed official responsibility for an ever-­increasing series of overlapping stigmatized duties which worked together to establish a compounded form of outcasteness with shifting definitional contours. In undertaking official duties in relation to religious festivals, flaying skins and procuring leather, performing crucifixions and other execution duties, and policing and caring for itinerant vagabonds, Danzaemon and his subjects came to function as societal scapegoats. In the second half of the 18th century, as Tokugawa society entered a phase in which much of the original foundational logic of the early modern status system was little understood and losing traction, as ideological influences that had at one time proved quite potent were losing their veneer, and as the economic benefits able to be accrued through economic monopolies based on certain forms of stigmatized labour became more conspicuous, the shogunal authorities embarked upon a process of drastic reinforcement of the caste system. This was an act that necessarily involved re-­policing caste divisions, reenergizing earlier polarizing notions of pollution and stigma, and recreating an outcaste subject again capable of fully functioning as a scapegoat in the face of rapid change rendered by economic transformation. The important restorative act was signalled by documents such as the An’ei Edict of 1778, a law that among other things worked to police outcaste practices. At the same time, however, discourses on pollution from the late 18th century onwards also had to rely on a new kind of logic, as older foundational logics no longer retained the same kind of rhetorical hold and normative effect, and the reality of blurred caste lines was increasingly visible for all to see. Yet also somewhat paradoxically, outcastes under the rule of Danzaemon simultaneously became increasingly mobilized as instruments of Tokugawa power at around this time. In 1772, for example, the shogunate ordered eta to arrest those caught gambling in their respective areas.23 Such a move, however, needed to be underpinned by a more expansive interpretation of outcaste social function and accompanied by a considerable shrinking of actual social distance between outcaste and sovereign (while of course maintaining the fiction of vast social difference in terms of perception). This was achieved in three ways: by placing Danzaemon and his outcastes more directly under Tokugawa rule and  encouraging a reorganization of their social group along more militarized lines; mobilizing a specialized “pathos of distance” for outcastes which would

10   Introduction function to further separate them from the world of commoners; and adopting an official position towards them which tended to recognize and affirm that of all the social groups under Tokugawa rule they had a particular duty to absorb and assimilate an ever-­expanding number of functions and duties.24 What resulted from this system was an outcaste order under Danzaemon that became a highly bureaucratic punitive arm of the Tokugawa shogunate, able to project the sovereign’s power throughout all of his territories, but sufficiently set apart from the world of men that socio-­religious stigmas and popular discontent could also be directed at it with comparative ease.

Methodology and structure The chapters of the book are arranged as follows. Chapter 1 establishes the grounds for the argument outlined above, introducing the reader to some of the core issues involved in thinking about the early modern Japanese status system as a form of caste, and some of the specificities of the Edo outcaste order under the leadership of Danzaemon that reveal core similarities between caste forms, predominantly in subcontinental Asia and Japan. Chapter 2 then outlines the construction of the Edo outcaste order at a macro-­historical level, showing how the system was forged out of the ruins of older social arrangements and economic systems and transformed over time through logic and practices that reveal considerable overlap with other similar caste systems in Asia. Chapter 3 focuses on how the discursive and ideological dimension of outcaste existence was transformed over time through ever-­evolving ideas of pollution and normative ideals pertaining to “normality”. It also reveals how an overarching military logic came to underpin the artifice of Danzaemon governance and how this might in fact be interpreted as a form of social mobility/ resistance akin to Sanskritization in the subcontinental context. Chapter 4 analyses outcaste duties involved in punishment, with a particular focus on official execution duties pertaining to crucifixion at the place of the crime. The chapter demonstrates how Danzaemon and his subordinates were increasingly mobilized over time to effect these punishments, while at the same time they were nonetheless forced to maintain strict practices of social separation. Elaborate ritual symbolism was increasingly employed in the latter part of the Tokugawa period to inscribe status lines in new ways which simultaneously scapegoated the outcaste while projecting the authority of the shogunate. Chapter 5 examines the history and development of Danzaemon’s official duty of policing unregistered members of the population and shows how poverty issued a constant and serious challenge to the early modern status system. Through an examination of the Tenpō famine and the relief measures proposed by the Tokugawa shogunate, and by following the role of Danzaemon and members of the Edo outcaste order in their prescribed roles during that period, the chapter further shows how the logic of status was reaffirmed and inscribed with new elements during one of the most tumultuous periods that potentially undermined the authority of the shogun.

Introduction   11 Chapter 6 deals with outcaste space, focusing particularly on the history of the main residential area of Danzaemon, Asakusa “Newtown”. This chapter demonstrates that historical processes of urbanization, status group consolidation, labour specialization, capital accumulation, and inter-­status group network creation, formed an elite stratum of neighbourhood residents in Asakusa which was reasonably well-­integrated into the broader social and economic landscape of Edo by the late Tokugawa period. The stratification of the neighbourhood over time, moreover, created numerous internal tensions within the neighbourhood as well as throughout the Edo outcaste order, which affected both how outcaste status in eastern Japan was imagined, and how regional outcaste communities imagined their relationship to the centre. The final chapter of the book then moves on to examine a core outcaste commodity: leather. Because status and human existence in early modern Japan were so closely tied to particular forms of production, following the goods and services outcastes produced and provided reveals how their activities/actions were constrained by, and helped add shape to, the caste order. While much is made of leather production in relation to outcastes, surprisingly little has been written about the mechanics, logistics, and economics of production in relation to the outcaste order in eastern Japan. Through an investigation of the economic aspects of outcaste existence, the chapter demonstrates how economic forces undercut the caste structure in important ways, creating tensions both within and outside the Edo outcaste order and multiple attempts to uphold the old status order. This book does not assert that the above structure offers a complete or finalized view of early modern caste in Japan. But by examining some of the core ideas, events, people, spaces, and goods that helped define Danzaemon and the Edo outcaste order, the hope is that the book will offer a reasonably comprehensive examination of one particular kind of caste formation in early modern Japan. Comparative references are made to other outcaste communities around the Japanese archipelago, and in relation to other societal contexts, when such comparisons are deemed useful or when referencing situations in other regions is thought to help fill gaps in the analysis. And as I hope becomes abundantly clear throughout the following pages, this book is written with the conviction that a good history of Danzaemon and his direct subordinates should ideally help us to understand the mechanics of the entire system and offer insights about the historical processes involved in its dismantling in order to better illuminate the modern mechanics of caste and to develop potential strategies for its complete annihilation.

Note on Danzaemon and terminology Danzaemon, frequently written about as a single, nameless institutional figure in Anglophone literature, was actually the title assumed by successive individuals who ruled over Edo outcaste groups and who understood and articulated their particular places in the Tokugawa socio-­political order in markedly different

12   Introduction ways. The proper names for Danzaemon and the dates surrounding individual births, deaths, and reigns are incomplete and open to serious contestation, particularly for the first five leaders who are said to have assumed the title. The most comprehensive list of individual Danzaemon to date and the one relied upon in this book can be found in the work of Uramato Yoshifumi.25   1. Danzaemon Chikafusa (Shukai) (r.1590–1617)   2. Danzaemon Chikasue (r.1617–1640)   3. Danzaemon Chikanobu/Chikaharu (r.1640–1669)   4. Danzaemon Chikahisa (r.1669–1709)   5. Kichijirō (r.1709)   6. Danzaemon Chikamura (r.1709–1748)   7. Danzaemon Chikasono (r.1748–1775)   8. Danzaemon Chikamasu (r.1775–1790)   9. Danzaemon Chikashige (r.1793–1804) 10. Danzaemon Chikamasa (r.1804–1821) 11. Danzaemon Chikatami (r.1822–1828) 12. Danzaemon Chikamori (r.1829–1838) 13. Danzaemon Chikayasu/Naiki/Dan Naoki (r.1840–1871) To reflect the considerable ambiguity surrounding the earliest Danzaemon leadership, and the almost complete absence of biographical information in relation to the early generations of leaders who purportedly assumed the title, this book simply uses the term Danzaemon to refer to all leaders who emerge prior to Danzaemon Chikamura. From the period of rule of Chikamura, however, certain biographical data becomes available for subsequent leaders who assume the title Danzaemon, making it somewhat easier, when source materials permit, to offer an examination of the various transformations of rule in each period as led by certain individuals with peculiarities and defining characteristics. Nonetheless, considerable caution must still be exercised on this point, for while the materials left to us to recreate this history are rich in comparative terms, the materials were not often originally created for that purpose, and there are considerable issues pertaining to the reliability of certain documents. In an important sense, what we know biographically about various Danzaemon rulers is sometimes ascertained by reading against the grain of the intended purpose of the original source. This book, moreover, also occasionally utilizes the term Danzaemon in a more general sense, to refer to the institutional dimension of the Edo outcaste order with an established bureaucratic centre in Asakusa. This book also uses the terms eta, chōri, and kawata largely interchangeably. While it is my belief that Danzaemon and his subordinates clearly preferred the term chōri to refer to themselves in eastern Japan, eta was the term that came to be used most often in relation to them by other groups. Indeed it probably became the most prevalent term used in relation to them in official documentation and literary writing in the second half of the Tokugawa period. The term kawata is more prevalent in other parts of Japan, particularly in central Japan,

Introduction   13 and will be utilized when it is more accurate to do so or when previous scholarship has preferred to use the term. Where possible, however, this book will use the term chōri, and depending on the context eta, or even sometimes a combination of the two: chōri (eta) or eta (chōri).

Notes   1 The medieval historian Ōyama Kyōhei agrees, noting that the Indian version of caste is certainly “classical” and “severe”, but that caste should not be considered solely a product of the subcontinent. Kyōhei Ōyama, Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai: Chūsei Nihon (Tokyo: Hasekura Shobō, 2003), 12–13.   2 Kentarō Minegishi, “Kegare Kannen to Buraku Sabetsu (Ge): Sono Fukabunsei To Kegare Kannen No Itchi”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 162 (2002): 107.   3 Timothy D. Amos, Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011).   4 A case in point would be the following work by June A. Gordon, “Caste in Japan: The Burakumin”. Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 40, no. 1 (2017).   5 George De Vos, “Toward a Cross-­Cultural Pyschology of Caste Behavior”, in Japan’s Invisible Race: Caste in Culture and Personality, ed. George de Vos and Hiroshi Wagatsuma (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966). W.H. Newell, “The Comparative Study of Caste in India and Japan”, Asian Survey 1, no. 10 (1961); Kyōhei Ōyama, “Mibunteki Shūen Wo Megutte: Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 159 (February 2002); Danieru Botsuman, “Kāsuto Seido To Mibun Seido: Hikaku Rekishigaku No Kanōsei Nitsuite”, ibid., no. 195 (2011).   6 Eta was a word usually written with Chinese ideographs meaning “much pollution”, For more on outcaste labels, see the introductory chapter of Amos, Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan.   7 Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū (Kobe: Hyōgo Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1987), 7.   8 Kinsei Mibunsei Shakai No Toraekata: Yamakawa Shuppansha Kōkō Nihonshi Kyōkasho Wo Tōshite (Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 2010), 5–36.   9 Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed., The Invisible Visible Minority: Japan’s Burakumin (Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1977); George de Vos and Hiroshi Wagatsuma, eds., Japan’s Invisible Race: Caste in Culture and Personality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966); John Price, “The Economic Organization of the Outcasts of Feudal Tokyo”, Anthropological Quarterly, no. 4 (1968); Tim Larimer and Toko Sekiguchi, “Social Outcasts: Japan’s Untouchable Class the Burakumin Live on the Fringes of Society”, Time Asia, Wednesday, March 28, 2001. 10 This point was demonstrated at length in my first book, Amos, Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan. 11 The best coverage of this topic in Japanese is found in Tsukada, Kinsei Mibunsei Shakai No Toraekata: Yamakawa Shuppansha Kōkō Nihonshi Kyōkasho Wo Tōshite. 12 See, for example, Toshiyuki Hatanaka, “Kawata” To Heijin: Kinsei Mibun Shakai Ron (Kyoto: Kamogawa Shuppan, 1997); Mibun/Sabetsu/Aidentitii: “Burakushi” Wa Hakajirushi To Naruka (Kyoto: Kamogawa Shuppan, 2004); Ryō Suzuki, Suiheisha Sōritsu No Kenkyū (Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 2005); Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū. 13 Kentarō Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū (Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 1996); Seijirō Fujimoto, Kinsei Senminsei to Chiiki Shakai: Izumi No Kuni No Rekishizō (Osaka: Seibundō, 1997). 14 See, for example, some of the ways in which discussions of political origins have deepened in the multiple volume series on both Osaka and Wakayama in recent years.

14   Introduction Wakayama Jinken Kenkyūkai/Wakayama No Burakushi Hensankai, ed., Wakayama No Burakushi, 7 vols. (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2013–2015); Osaka No Burakushi Iinkan, ed., Osaka No Burakushi, 10 vols. (Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Jinken Kenkyūkai, 2005–2009). Also Nobuaki Teraki and Yutaka Yabuta, eds., Kinsei Osaka to Hisabetsu Shakai (Osaka: Seibundo, 2015). 15 Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Japanese Civilization: A Comparative View (Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), 173. 16 Mark Ravina, “State-­Building and Political Economy in Early-­Modern Japan”, The Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 4 (1995): 1018. 17 Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 327. 18 Here I draw on the insights provided by historians such as Herman Ooms, Naohiro Asao, and Kiri Paramore, to name but a few. Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Ideology: Early Constructs, 1570–1680 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law; Naohiro Asao, ed., Mibun To Kakushiki, vol. 7 (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha, 1992); Kiri Paramore, Ideology and Christianity in Japan (New York: Routledge, 2009); Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 19 Gerald Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, The Journal of Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (2001). 20 In my discussions of the scapegoat here, I draw loosely on the work of Rene Girard. See, for example, Rene Girard, The Scapegoat (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 21 “Loose caste” is an idea borrowed directly from the medieval historian, Ōyama, Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai: Chūsei Nihon. The idea of the early modern outcaste functioning as a kind of scapegoat has not been absent from prior historical writing on Burakumin. Scholars from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds and theoretical convictions have in the past made reference to such a phenomenon. Writing half a century ago, George de Vos, for example, noted: “The scapegoat functioning of an outcaste group is dependent upon historical events … in the earliest period majority group farmers frequently turned on the Burakumin neighbours, venting their frustrations over the ill-­understood social processes of change into which they had been swept. It is difficult for the outcaste to escape his role as scapegoat, since being of the lowest status he finds it difficult to strike back politically, economically, or by use of force.” De Vos, “Toward a Cross-­Cultural Pyschology of Caste Behavior”, 375. 22 Irfan Habib, Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception; With The Economic History of Medieval India: A Survey (London: Anthem Press, 2002). I am here also drawing on my notes from a talk Habib gave at a conference entitled The Caste Question and the Historian’s Craft during February 26–28, 2014 at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi. 23 Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 10 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1988), 378–379. 24 My thinking about transformations in Japanese feudalism, particularly in relation to the “pathos of distance”, is influenced by Masao Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, trans. Mikiso Hane (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974), 1–24. 25 Yoshifumi Uramoto, Edo/Tokyo No Hisabetsu Buraku No Rekishi: Danzaemon To Hisabetsu Minshū (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2003), 21.

1 The caste experience of early modern Japanese outcastes

Introduction This chapter establishes the grounds for thinking about early modern Japan as a caste society. The Edo outcaste order under the leadership of Danzaemon was similar in many respects to outcaste formations on the subcontinent as well as other parts of the world. Caste is a term that both illuminates aspects of early modern life for chōri (eta) in eastern Japan and helps highlight important commonalities between outcaste communities in Japan, India, and beyond. Comparison with certain Indian caste formations is particularly useful because: (i) Indian outcastes were one discursive template for thinking about outcastes in the Japanese context; (ii) social stratification and pollution functioned in comparatively similar ways in early modern Japan and India; and (iii) structural similarities between regional variants of Japanese and Indian premodern social formations worked in similar ways to create categories of occupational outcastes that shared unique characteristics. Caste, this chapter demonstrates, is an important and effective term for thinking comparatively about early modern Japanese social structures, particularly when examined along the definitional lines contained in Irfan Habib’s and Kotani Hiroyuki’s thought-­provoking treatises on caste in India. The chapter begins by offering a snapshot of the system of outcaste governance in eastern Japan under Danzaemon, before engaging in a discussion of how such a system of rule might be best represented. While noting important points of departure between Indian caste and Japanese status, as well as some of the important problems associated with definition, including colonialism, the chapter illustrates the utility and applicability of the use of the term caste in the Japanese context in relation to outcastes. The chapter then proceeds to offer a detailed discussion of an important feature of caste highlighted in Habib’s definition and Kotani’s research (missing from or understated in some important recent discussions of status in Japan) – hierarchy. As the chapter concludes, hierarchy was an embedded feature of the early modern Japanese social system and was legitimized in ways that produced a scapegoat function for Danzaemon and his subordinates.

16   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience

Outcaste governance in eastern Japan In the late 18th century, a man by the name of Kiheiji (1735–1802) living in Lower Wana village in Musashi Province made a transition to the village leadership, taking over from his father.1 Lower Wana village was located at the southern tip of Upper Wana village, and rice paddies divided the farmer-­based Wana village from the eta (chōri)-based Lower Wana village.2 The terms upper and lower here could be taken as simple physiographical expressions referring to land elevation, but it is more likely that they reflect a relationship of administerial subordination rooted in a specific form of status delineation. Minegishi Kentarō notes that Lower Wana village submitted to Upper Wana village rule with regard to the collection of farming taxes, the preparation of population and group registers, and the notification of changes in village office. But while under their jurisdiction in these matters, Lower Wana village was removed from all Wana village administration duties and had no voice in Upper Wana village affairs.3 In this sense, the label lower was probably originally a practice of administerial subordination to the main farming village rooted in a division of labour (exclusive rice cultivator versus leather procurer/tanner) that most likely developed into a form of a more discriminatory relationship involving derogatory labelling and other practices in later periods. While basic information about his father is sketchy, Kiheiji’s life on the other hand is fairly well documented. The growth of historical materials in relation to Kiheiji is likely to be linked to an increase in literacy during the second half of the 18th century, perhaps a phenomenon itself that arose due to the increased frequency of itinerant priests teaching in the community.4 While his father was still alive, Kiheiji married a woman by the name of Miki living in the same village group and some twelve years his junior. The couple then began to live together with his parents in their house, which was also home to Kiheiji’s uncle’s five-­ member-strong family and his younger sister, Sen. They all lived together in an area in the village designated as the “original group” (motokumi), an area along with the “middle group” and “east group” that comprised the three residential clusters in the village. Kiheiji’s father, and then Kiheiji himself, were usually designated in official documentation literally as “eta little head/sub-­chief ” (eta kogashira), an appellation difficult to date in eastern Japan but probably of late 17th or early 18th century origin. Not long after this, Kiheiji also assumed the title of “group head” (kumigashira) and adopted his father’s hereditary work name: Jin’emon. As it turns out, the two other families that took on the post of “sub-­chief ” historically were also in charge of the other two village groups, but Kiheiji’s family retained the primary leadership position in the village as head of the original group. Records indicate that it was around this period that the family lines of the other sub-­chiefs in Lower Wana died off with neither of them being replaced. Miki’s older brother Yaheiji married Kiheiji’s sister Sen soon after, thereby strengthening their inter-­family ties. While there were no formal laws commanding endogamy at the time, rulings in Tokugawa official legal cases during his

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   17 time as sub-­chief concerning eta intermarriage indicate that it was clearly a punishable offence.5 Furthermore, evidence from the late Tokugawa period in the same province also strongly suggests endogamous relations were commonplace among peasant villagers through strong kinship networks as well.6 Importantly, too, the aforementioned two marriages were probably linked to the fact that Miki and Yaheiji belonged to a village family that also had a leadership pedigree in the original group: their father had served in a leadership capacity in the village until his death in 1769, and although not clearly stated in the early records, was most likely in the position of “group representative” (kumisōdai). This role probably involved Yaheiji acting as the middle-­man between the three residential group clusters in the village when they needed to interact with the nearby peasant village authorities. In 1770, Yaheiji submitted a request to be permitted to take over his father’s role to the nearby Upper Wana village peasant officials. They gave their approval for the promotion in a letter addressed to Lower Wana village’s other “group heads”. In addition to the above names and titles, in occasional private correspondence Kiheiji’s family also used the surname Suzuki, with later documents referencing the genealogy of the village suggesting that the middle and east groups were actually branch families of a single original Suzuki family line. Later documents further indicate that requests to appoint a sub-­chief in the village were usually made directly by the person who held the title on behalf of their eldest son after securing the co-­signature of any relevant intra-­village office bearer to “the Venerable Office” (onyakushosama). The “Venerable Office” referred to in such documents is unmistakably that of Danzaemon, a fact confirmed by a contemporaneous document submitted on behalf of another group head during this time which contained a reference to Shinchō, the residential quarters where Danzaemon resided in Edo. From the above it is clear that Kiheiji had two distinct leadership titles within Lower Wana village: as head of one of three clearly demarcated residential clusters referred to as kumi or groups which required the clearance of peasant officials; and the other as a sub-­chief who acquired his position through approval by an office in the shogun’s capital administered by Danzaemon. Most of the historical records pertaining to Kiheiji’s later life deal with either his office as head of a village whose life and daily pursuits were deeply embedded in the local landscape and interactions with nearby peasant villages or as local functionary for a larger body of people tied together under the leadership of Danzaemon. Records indicate, moreover, that Kiheiji was not just in charge of chōri (eta) in his village, but also the resident hinin who worked primarily as flayers of animal carcasses and guards in the village in exchange for begging privileges. Extant records also tie Kiheiji to a larger body of people outside his village defined in similar ways. Although research to date cannot permit a complete reconstruction of all of the villages under Danzaemon rule in eastern Japan, Map 1.1 offers a glimpse of the scale of the region he governed and the distance between some of the villages connected through Danzaemon’s governance based on extant records. Communities such as Ueno village and Inubushi

18   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience

Map 1.1  Area under Danzaemon rule

township in Aso County, Shimotsuke Province (present-­day Gunma and Toshigi Prefectures) lie on the outer fringes of the map. The distance between Lower Wana village in central Musashi Province and Inubushi township is about 30 kilometres as the crow flies, while it is about 70 kilometres from Inubushi township to Danzaemon’s office in Asakusa. Records indicate that this latter distance

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   19 sometimes put Inubushi into a “distant place” category in official documentation, and this category sometimes permitted village leaders to receive a temporary travel waiver on matters of official business to Edo.7 The area Danzaemon ruled over was known as the “eight eastern provinces” (kanhasshū). Kanhasshū referred to the provinces of Musashi, Kōzuke, Kazusa, Shimotsuke, Awa, Hitachi, Sagami, and Shimousa, but Danzaemon rule also extended to parts of Iyo, Kōshū, Suruga, Mutsu, and Dewa Provinces. In 1816, Danzaemon Chikamasa (r.1804–1821) stated that his ancestors had earlier lived in Kamakura and had ruled over many people there before being appointed “head of the eight eastern provinces” (kanhasshū gashira) during the Tenshō period (1573–1593).8 But, as will be seen in the following chapter, the claim is impossible to verify. The total number of people under Danzaemon’s rule was striking: the number of households governed by Danzaemon Chikashige (r.1793–1804) in the year 1800 was recorded as 7,720.9 Of this figure, approximately three-­ quarters were classified as eta (chōri), and of these perhaps as many as several hundred are estimated to have been part of the sub-­chief leadership class to which Kiheiji belonged. It is clear that not all of the sub-­leadership strata were of the same rank either. In 1789, Danzaemon informed the Edo City Magistrate that there was a group of people under his rule called the “Ya people” who were actually capable of giving orders to the sub-­chiefs and who had permission to wear seasonal clothes of an advanced degree of formality. As scholarship has also recently pointed out, moreover, certain regional sub-­chiefs had pedigrees and ranks that gave them special proximity to Danzaemon and privileged access on formal occasions.10 In terms of hierarchy and ranking, Danzaemon himself had a considerable personal retinue. He had sandal bearers and commanded a considerable entourage during major events and ceremonies. Aside from his personal minions, moreover, the Danzaemon institution itself included “group leaders” (kumigashira), “overseers” (tedai), “secretaries” (shoki/shoyaku), “officials” (yakunin), and “public notaries” (kujiyado dairinin) who also lived in the same Asakusa compound as Danzaemon, referred to as the “the enclosure” (kako-­no-uchi/ kakouchi). While extant documentation does not permit a clear reconstruction of the precise nature of the relationships of rule between Danzaemon and these subordinates, it is clear that Danzaemon’s orders were sometimes issued through them, indicating a fairly sophisticated level of bureaucratic development. The number of “group leaders” appears to have changed over time, with two main officers referred to as Asaemon and Sadaemon, probably also themselves hereditary positions in principle, continuing for the latter half of the Tokugawa period. Little is known about the positions of “secretary” and “public notary”. These core members of Danzaemon’s administrative office were involved in the management of various relationships. The most important upwardly vertical relationship they managed was with the Edo City Commissioners (Edo Machi Bugyō). Danzaemon’s inauguration ceremony when coming into office was

20   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience conducted at the Edo City Commissioner’s Office, and it was to this institution that respects had to be paid on the occasion of the New Year. All problems related to Danzaemon governance were also handled through this Tokugawa shogunate institution, even if a matter had been raised by another shogunate body such as the Finance Magistrate (Kanjō Bugyō). Danzaemon also maintained a strict relationship with sub-­chiefs such as Kiheiji who directly pledged allegiance to him at least once a year in person. Danzaemon further maintained a series of relationships with groups who through their own volition or by legal compulsion were obliged to pledge allegiance to Danzaemon. Of these groups, the most famous were the hinin leaders known as Kuruma Zenshichi, Matsuemon, Yoyogi Kubē, and Fukagawa Zensaburō, who governed subordinate hinin in designated begging areas in Edo as well as rural hinin located in regional villages. They also included a small number of monkey diviners (sarukai) and street performers called gōmune.11 Hereditary succession, a basic operational principle in early modern Japan, also helped define the Edo outcaste order. Both Danzaemon and the Lower Wana village sub-­chiefs passed down their offices and status from eldest male son to eldest male son, although in the event that this basic rule of male primogeniture for some reason could not be followed, an adopted heir was sought out, with a clear preference for heirs from communities of the same status. The retiring Danzaemon could serve in an advisory capacity to the succeeding Danzaemon if the new leader was too young or if it was thought that he needed a period with an overseer, and it was possible for a sibling or a “group leader” to assume this role if circumstances required it. There were several gates leading into Danzaemon’s Edo enclosure, but these were probably not guarded during the day in later periods, as some records indicate a degree of traffic through the community. Within the enclosure were dedicated spaces for conducting trials (shirasu), holding prisoners (rōya), and obtaining legal assistance (kujiyado), hinting at the relatively autonomous nature of Danzaemon’s rule over his own direct subordinates. Some kind of records office was also located within Danzaemon’s residence, which presumably kept copies of population registers which, in the case of rural chōri sub-­chiefs, had to be submitted to Danzaemon in the second month of each year. Also kept in this records office were probably copies of various documents issued by Danzaemon including communications to the Edo City Commissioners, copies of summons to various urban and rural chōri and hinin involved in disputes, copies of edicts transmitting personalized shogunate laws to those under his rule, and copies of appeals made to the authorities for himself or for people under his rule, as well as records of various economic transactions. Procedurally, Danzaemon devised detailed legislation for people under his rule with regards to various matters related to everything from performance of official duties to daily conduct. Detailed legislation existed, for example, in relation to how to perform official duties in relation to flaying, begging, policing of vagrants, execution duties, garbage disposal, and guard duties. Documents were also produced, moreover, which dealt with more intimate matters

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   21 such as personal deportment, housing regulations, and relations with commoner communities, and these documents sometimes went above and beyond the requirements imposed on these communities by warrior authorities. These directives emanated from Asakusa and were circulated among the chōri villages according to transmission routes which appear to have become reasonably fixed by the middle of the 18th century. A strong degree of political autonomy was actually permitted to Danzaemon in his governance over chōri (eta) and hinin. Danzaemon officially “governed” (shihai) the people in his area of rule, and there was acknowledgement on their part that he sat at the apex of an institution that rightfully governed them. Danzaemon also toured around his territories at certain times and required the attendance of his sub-­chiefs during succession ceremonies. Legally, Danzaemon had punitive powers that he could exercise over his subordinates, even up to the death penalty if his decision was approved by the Tokugawa authorities. Danzaemon rule was predicated upon a type of dual economy. The economic base for Danzaemon rule was primarily rooted in two kinds of activities: mercantile activities related to leather procurement and an ever-­expanding small handicraft industry (leather, drum skins, candle wicks, etc.); and performance of a number of official duties from which Danzaemon and his subjects derived an income. The earliest list of chōri duties dates back to the early 1720s and pertains to festival participation, candle-­wick production, secondary leather production, execution duties, and guard duties. Many of the chōri under his governance, however, also made a good deal of their income from agriculture, something from which Danzaemon could not really extract any direct benefit. In this sense, the economic foundation of Danzaemon’s order was somewhat unstable and able to be easily disrupted, although the potential for considerable economic gains could also be derived through monopolization and specialization in relation to leather procurement and related side-­industries. The above brief description reveals the existence of a social system of leather workers, beggars, and a few other marginalized groups with strong leadership, interregional links, hierarchical divisions, structural uniformity, and public visibility under the leadership of an individual known as Danzaemon stretching through eastern Japan in the early modern period. Regional villages such as Kiheiji’s were certainly linked to nearby peasant communities in relationships of subordination, but these sub-­chiefs were also firmly part of a social order with Danzaemon at the apex.

Identifying the nature of outcaste rule in early modern eastern Japan What kind of system of rule did Danzaemon and Kiheiji belong to then? Takashi Tsukada has referred to this order as “an outcaste organization under Danzaemon rule”, while Gerald Groemer has referred to it as the “Edo Outcaste Order”, and I think there is much to commend the latter label.12 That the system itself was comprised of social outcastes to whom a significant amount of

22   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience stigma was attached, and that this could be ratcheted up at certain historical moments, is clear enough. In 1778, for example, the aforementioned Kiheiji received a copy of the infamous An’ei Edict that began as follows: An order concerning the morality of eta and hinin In recent times, the morals of eta, hinin, and the like are extremely poor. To the peasants, they commit illegal acts, or even try to become inconspicuous from the peasants. They enter inns and taverns and if they are challenged respond with all sorts of unreasonable retorts. Peasants and townsmen ignore these outbursts, and because they pardon them and let them go, these illegal deeds increase. Especially, in the middle regions [of Honshū], there are reports that the eta, hinin, and chasen permit thieves and vagabonds to stay with them. Eta are supposed to consult together and find those people who have entered villages and stolen, [capture them, and] after publicly displaying them around the city, execute them. And yet, in spite of these [hard measures], their morality has not improved … .13 This edict, widely acknowledged to have strengthened discrimination against outcastes, particularly eta and hinin groups, during this period, claimed that they had become morally corrupted, breaking the law in all kinds of ways, including banding with thieves and being insolent to townspeople and peasants. This edict, and others like it, provides ample evidence as to the outcaste nature of the order incorporating eta and hinin in eastern Japan during the early modern period. But the same point can also be demonstrated in other ways, such as in labelling practices. Indeed the most straightforward justification for arguing for the adoption of the idea of special differentiation against outcastes is simply the evidence provided by the practices and politics surrounding labelling practices themselves. To the best of my knowledge, no scholarship exists that disputes the marginalizing nature of the terminology of eta and hinin. Moreover, it is a reasonably well established fact that the aforementioned Kiheiji, as well as the various leaders who came to assume the title Danzaemon, actually preferred to use the word chōri to refer to themselves and not eta.14 The term chōri in pre-­Tokugawa times apparently had strong religious connotations; it appeared towards the end of the Heian period within individual Buddhist institutions, probably to indicate the position of a chief priest at a major temple.15 As Groemer notes, the word chōri probably came to simply mean “leader” sometime in the medieval period.16 The word chōri can be found in 16th century documents and has been commonly understood by scholars of early modern outcaste history to refer to the ancestors of families like Kiheiji’s. Tsukada has argued that in 16th century documents pertaining to the chōri at Gokurakuji Temple in Kamakura (claimed by Danzaemon in an early 18th century source to have had a close connection to his ancestors), documents authored by both warrior elites and religious authorities which tend to focus respectively on the leather-­producing and religious duties of these people, the

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   23 word simultaneously refers to people who engaged in both leather production and religious rites.17 Late 17th century documents left by Kiheiji’s ancestors also used the word chōri to refer to their own place within their village and wider community, and it can also be found in a number of later genealogical statements by Danzaemon and some of his sub-­chefs when referring to the origins of their powers and duties. On 1728.10.5, for example, the sub-­chief of a community in Inubushi township signed off on a document as chōri, noting that his ancestors had been in charge of the town market festival since its inception, having a long history of performing official duties going back to the reign of a late medieval fiefal lord. In this case the sub-­chief defined the word as follows: “chōri is the name of a high official and it is said that those who rule over many [people] are called by that name.”18 That Danzaemon in the early 19th century saw the terms eta and chōri as being basically interchangeable, but chose the latter over the former, is a fact of considerable significance and importance.19 The latter term, in this period was commonly transliterated using the characters for “abundant pollution”, which could, and did, generate offence. The earliest medieval references to eta were almost always made within the context of death and religious impurity, signalling the suspect nature of the descriptive category from its earliest inception.20 Even into the 1840s, the idea that members of the eta group (including Danzaemon himself ) were “polluted” remained a core rationale for social disengagement, witnessed for example in Shibata Shūzō’s comment to his friend in a private communication that it was “polluting to even hear” that a salon-­like literary circle had sprung up around Danzaemon (see Chapter 6). It is also telling that the last Danzaemon specifically addressed the problem of “ugly labels” when he requested that his underlings be permitted to have commoner status after the Meiji Restoration.21 Groemer’s “Edo outcaste order”, therefore, is a term that well captures the central dynamics of the system. Danzaemon was the leader of a social system ruled from Edo; he was usually referred to by the authority figures as the “chief of eta” (a term widely acknowledged as an epithet); and the system by which he came to rule was ordered to a high degree. The problem of what to call the system, however, while important, is perhaps not as important as the question of how to understand its emergence and place within the early modern Japanese social system. While there is no space here to rehearse the long and complicated debates surrounding the development of divergent scholarly views on the subject, the complexities of the debate can perhaps be simply reduced to two strongly opposed understandings of the essence of historical status in premodern Japan. The dominant view for much of the postwar period was that status as a historical system was an innate social position fixed by systems of hereditary succession, placing various constraints on the holders of eta and hinin status so that they could not live where they liked, marry whom they wished, or change occupations freely. In this view, political power deliberately created a social system

24   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience that preserved the privileges of the ruling warrior class, and that forced people to be classified as being of a certain status, while simultaneously ensuring that outcaste groups would be fundamentally discriminated against and forced to live and reproduce themselves in relative isolation from other social groups.22 Opposed to this view emerged the idea that status was a socially determined position within early modern society that came about first and foremost through larger historical processes. Various social groups with longer histories that dated back to pre-­Tokugawa times emerged as status groups in the early modern period as they undertook specialized occupations that supported their livelihoods and conditions of existence. Local governing authorities in the late warring states and early Tokugawa periods came to officially sanction these groups through their performance of certain public roles. In the view of Tsukada, one of the architects and leading proponents of this latter perspective, members of publicly sanctioned status groups in the early modern period were called upon to perform official duties (goyō) for local authorities in whose jurisdiction they resided in exchange for various rights and privileges that enabled their survival and reproduction. Status within this system emerged as the primary “mode of existence” for all early modern Japanese peoples, and one of the most precarious forms of existence for early modern peoples was actually “marginal status”: applying to people whose lives were not in fact officially sanctioned by local authorities. Scholarly work on “outcaste status” (senmin mibun), according to Tsukada, allegedly became trapped within a discrimination/non-­ discrimination binary that tended to obfuscate the real nature of status rule in early modern Japan and the remarkably similar ways that the logic of the entire system pervaded all corners of social and political life.23 While proponents of the two aforementioned views still often see their perspectives as diametrically opposed to each other, both perspectives contain central truths about the nature of early modern caste and outcaste society, as well as certain interpretative disadvantages. The older perspective, still undergoing conceptual modification by its more recent advocates, clearly makes political construction of status a primary causal factor in the creation of the early modern social system, while the latter perspective sees the primacy of social and economic conditions in determining the particular kind of system of rule that developed in the early modern period. The first perspective, however, has tended to underestimate continuities between the medieval and early modern periods and the social and economic realities of lives for groups that functioned on both sides of the medieval-­early modern divide. It has also tended to focus exclusively on the problems faced by communities conceptually linked to modern and contemporary Buraku communities. The latter perspective, meanwhile, tends to downplay the importance of the centrality of politics that underpinned the formation process of the early modern state, and out of a growing sense of frustration towards scholarship that adopts a singular focus on outcaste groups, has tended to relegate notions of “discrimination” and “outcasteness” to the historical dustbin. Put another way, in the latter view, all kinds of social differentiation are reduced to a function of socio-­economic difference, and the

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   25 resultant literature fails to take seriously the idea that status is also actually a form of hierarchical social exclusion that is politically as well as socially determined. Moreover, the conceptual pillars that clearly underpinned the outcaste formation process tend to be given short shrift in historical explanations closely linked to the second view. The position adopted here is that socio-­economic processes and the roles they have in determining the ground of existence for people in the past must be meaningfully wedded to the idea that governing authorities can and do target specific groups of people in society for socially debasing activities and that this occurs through ideological frameworks rooted in notions such as pollution (kegare) that are both inherited and to some extent constructed. Early modern status emerged both as a product of social forces rooted in economic processes that facilitated social division over time and through deliberate political policies. It was predicated upon a system of social status rooted in a larger history of caste closely linked to the evolution of historic economic structures which conformed to regional logics, but at the same time outcastes such as eta and hinin became the target of scapegoating through a series of political policies and pronouncements that increasingly linked them to ever-­evolving ideas of pollution. Despite the interpretative difficulties caused by privileging the notion of pollution in a historical study of this kind, one must take seriously this dimension when considering the outcaste nature of Danzaemon and his socio-­political order.

Status and caste A discussion of the lives of eta (chōri) in early modern eastern Japan brings to mind the historical experiences of other historically marginalized groups around the world: Baekjeong in Korea, Cagots in the French Pyrenees, skinner-­ executioner groups in Germany, Paraiyars in Southern India, Rodiyas in Ceylon, Chambhars in Western India, and so on. Colonial period observations of the position of some of these subcontinental groupings reveal the potential comparability of their experiences with those of early modern eta in eastern Japan. Consider, for example, the following mid-­19th century explanation of the Rodiyas in Ceylon: Under the Kandyan kings their humiliation was utter and complete. The designation Rodiya, or rodda, means, literally, “filth”. They were not permitted to cross a ferry, to draw water at a well, to enter a village, to till land, or learn a trade, as no recognised caste could deal or hold intercourse with a Rodiya. Formerly they were not allowed to build houses with two walls or a double roof, but hovels in which a hurdle leaned against a single wall and rested on the ground. They were forced to subsist on alms or such gifts as they might receive for protecting the fields from wild beasts or burying the carcasses of dead cattle; but they were not allowed to come within a fenced field even to beg. They converted the hides of animals into

26   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience ropes, and prepared monkey-­skins for covering tom-­toms and drums, which they bartered for food and other necessaries. They were prohibited from wearing a cloth on their heads, and neither men nor women were allowed to cover their bodies above the waist or below the knee. If benighted they dare not lie down in a shed appropriated to other travellers, but hid themselves in caves or deserted watch-­huts. They could not enter a court of justice, and if wronged had to utter their complaints from a distance. Though nominally Buddhists (but conjointly demon-­worshippers), they were not allowed to go into a temple, and could only pray “standing afar off ”.24 Or consider the following description of Pariahs in colonial South India: Lastly, as to the Pariahs of North Travancore. Their condition seems lowest of all, as they enter farther into the Malayalam country, and enjoy fewer opportunities of escape from caste degradation and from bitter servitude. … They eat the carcases of all domestic animals [that] are claimed by them as belonging to them by right. … These Pariahs are regarded as polluting by contact, are miserably provided with the necessaries of life, while their persons and property are entirely at the disposal of their masters. The state of these poor creatures is in every point of view most wretched.25 While differences between socially marginalized groups in the subcontinent and early modern eastern Japan are also revealed through such colonial accounts, the considerable similarities between them both in relation to occupation and societal treatment are also readily apparent. Duties and special rights in relation to dead animal carcasses and the social approbation that drew from neighbouring communities is an important part of the story that ties together Rodiyas, Pariahs, and eta, as well as numerous other marginalized social groups. Animal carcass disposal, leather procuration, and other similar occupational pursuits were the target of opprobrium, not only in parts of Asia, but also more broadly across the late medieval/early modern world.26 The similarity between subcontinental and Japanese outcastes cannot be divorced from the fact that there was a certain familiarity in premodern Japan with India as well as some knowledge of “caste”, however superficial this may have been. The connection is an old one: one of ancient Japan’s most influential priests was indeed known as the “Brahman priest” and has been attributed with the transmission of Sanskrit to the country.27 Caste, or more specifically varna, moreover, was actually ascribed a Chinese ideograph (shusei), literally meaning “various names”, which came to be utilized in old Japanese literature.28 Moreover, indigenous Japanese discourses entertained an Indian comparison with Japanese outcast/e groups well before the 16th century arrival of the Europeans. A story about Can.d.āla – Indian untouchables – being called upon to gouge out the eyes of a prince, for example, can be found in the late ancient period literary compilation Konjaku Monogatarishū (The Collection of Tales of Times Now Past).29

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   27 Medieval texts reveal many more examples. The late 13th century dictionary Chiribukuro (The Dust Bag), for example, contained the following reference: “In India, those called Can. d.āla are butchers. They are evil people like eta who kill and sell living things.”30 The Muromachi period dictionary Jinten Ainōshō (Rubbish Sack Extracts with Dust), moreover, written in the early 16th century, explicitly mentioned that kawaramono (literally “riverbed people”) were called “eta” because they were “heavily polluted”, that eta was essentially a corruption of an older term etori, meaning “feed-­gatherers”, and that, “In India, can. d.āla were the same kinds of dirty people as etori.”31 Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801), in his famous treatise Tama Katsuma (The Jewelled Bamboo Basket), quoted from the 12th century Chinese dictionary of Buddhist terms to refer to eta as Can.d.āla.32 A far more detailed list of low status groups in the early modern period (1600–1868) was compiled in the Nativist scholar Motoori Uchitō’s (1792–1855) Senjakō (Thoughts on Lowly Persons). Uchitō, an adopted grandson of Motoori Norinaga, concluded that the eta in his story were “the same as the Can.d.āla of India”, a deduction almost certainly reached through reference to his adopted grandfather’s work and readings of medieval dictionaries.33 These references also suggest a strong degree of perceived similitude between groups of low social status in Japan and India, both in terms of the activities they engaged in and the social and moral value associated with them. They also point to a clear sense in which caste functioned as a pattern of social hierarchy reinvented through localized appropriation of certain cosmologies, but one significantly modified and perpetuated through acts of linguistic association and translation. At the same time, it is also important to take seriously the idea that caste and outcasteness were to some extent ideas constructed in a non-­European setting by Western observers and that these notions travelled across Asia in the early modern period on foreign ships. As I have argued elsewhere, even the order of imperial encroachment in Asia should be taken seriously when deconstructing this process.34 Observers often came to Japan via India and China, and their experiences in those countries functioned as a prism through which Western visitors’ understandings of Japan came to be filtered. In an important sense, the Indian pariah was the lens through which the subject of the Japanese outcaste was viewed and interpreted, and this subject became a “foundational building block for the idea of a shared Asiatic culture and a symbol of its irredeemability”.35 In short, closely connected to writing on outcastes in Asian contexts is the problem of domination, whether through colonial subjugation or extraterritoriality, and it is important to take seriously the political nature of writings on this issue in the 19th century. Another important piece of evidence of this tendency is the way in which characterizations of hierarchy in both India and Japan by many observers tend to be homogenizing and totalizing, something that careful scholarship today suggests misconstrues the nature of caste.36 Closely related to the above point is the need for a careful investigation of how caste has historically been defined within Western scholarship. Nicholas Dirks, for example, has highlighted the significance of Hegel, Marx, and Weber

28   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience and their formation of categories for understanding “the East” in their writings on India.37 Max Weber’s The Religion of India was first published in the early 1920s and had a tremendous impact on Indology.38 It also implicitly impacted Western writings on Japanese caste and outcasteness. Weber used the expressions “guest peoples”, “pariah peoples”, and “outcastes” to refer to the lowest classes in Indian society, and he also alluded to the compatible (and not-­socompatible) points between the Indian and Japanese caste/status systems.39 Moreover, that Weber discussed the Japanese status system within a larger framework of Asian religion should not be understated.40 After Weber, Louis Dumont became one of the leading figures to extend this interpretative movement. Susan Bayly’s summary of Dumont’s position on the nature of caste is succinct: “… Indians belong to a distinct human order or cultural category, that of homo hierarchicus. This is a broad category embracing other supposedly ‘traditional’ non-­Western civilizations. Yet for Dumont the Indian variant of this hierarchical being is unique; in their deference to the overriding ‘religious’ values defined in his theory of caste, Indians (or Hindus) are so different from other peoples that they are almost a distinct species of humankind.”41 Bayly explains that this Dumontian version of India, a society where Euro-­American concepts of individuality and equality allegedly did not develop, was a “caste society” where “power is invariably ‘encompassed’ by status”.42 Probably the most lucid and compelling explanation of caste formation and untouchability emerges in the work of Marxist historians of India. Of course, Marx’s scattered writings on caste need to be handled with care; they have been rightly criticized for reducing it to a “crude form in which the division of labour appears” or as simply a “hereditary division of labour”.43 And as Ambedkar once pointed out, Marx’s view of history was Eurocentric: “[h]ad Karl Marx been born in India and had written his famous treatise Das Capital [sic] sitting in India, he would have had to write it in an entirely different fashion.”44 Yet for scholars interested in moving beyond the idea that caste was basically a colonial construct, Marx’s suggestive interpretation about the relationship between the historical division of labour and caste development still probably provides the best starting point for trying to understand how historical continuities and processes surrounding prior institutions, concepts, and practices shaped what one finds in pre-­colonial India. Problems certainly arise through a wholesale acceptance of the interpretative arsenal that is historical Marxism, including the often embedded assumptions about an almost unitary path for human social development, but at the same time the analysis provided by Marxist-­inspired scholars such as Irfan Habib and Kotani Hiroyuki offers a clear interpretative framework for comparative examination of the historical realities and continuities of caste history. Habib has argued that caste contains the following six defining features: a universalizing division based on birth; endogamy; hierarchy/ranking; occupational fixity; a purity/impurity imaginary; and affective religious duty.45 In his important critique of Dumont’s work, Habib has highlighted the need to analyse caste formation historically: “caste should be viewed primarily in its role

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   29 in different social formations that have risen in a chain of sequence.” He has also pointed to core processes in the caste-­formation process: incorporating “tribal elements into a general society” (following the renowned scholar Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi (1907–1966)), subjugation, a historical division of labour and subsequent conflict of interest between agricultural and non-­ agricultural occupations, “rationalization” through ideological appropriation of a “purity” and “pollution” dichotomy, an “urban revolution” and the emergence of new technologies (following R.S. Sharma) leading to increased specialization, and the maintenance of a dominant position by the priestly class through their preservation of codes and practices.46 Habib has further argued that caste is a “relatively rigid form of division of labour” and that “hereditary caste labour in villages and towns is practically continuous from ancient India to the 18th century.”47 Habib also discussed developments in relation to caste formation that force the analyst to clearly distinguish between the experiences of India and other places such as the Japanese archipelago in important ways. First, he noted that the “ruling and warrior class, the Kshatriyas (rajanyas)” were in a perpetual position of weakness in India, pointing to an inherent instability in “the ruling community”. Lurking here, of course, is also the problem of the ascendency of a Hindu priestly caste in India, although Habib has added that Buddhism also worked at an ideological level in the Indian case to reinforce and perpetuate caste: he argues that any idea that “caste ideology has been exclusively brahmanical in its development” is incorrect.48 Moreover, Muslim and later British influence also sets India and Japan apart, although Habib has further argued that to the extent that caste provided economic benefits to these rulers it was preserved if not encouraged as a system (albeit with certain modifications). Habib also concluded that caste “divided the agrarian classes into two antagonistic camps, the caste peasants and the menial labourers; and it stabilized the division of labour in petty production. But it is questionable if these functions were crucial enough … to propound that caste defined the form of the labour process in medieval India (c. 1200–1750).”49 Kotani Hiroyuki’s work on the later medieval Deccan complements Habib’s exposition of caste and enables a clearer picture of the way in which marginalized social groups (“outcastes”) fitted into the overall caste structure. Kotani points, for example, to the important ways in which rural society was organized around a village with primarily nuclear families, with a clear system of membership rights known as vatan, and an organizational structure that revealed a primary division of labour between peasants with membership rights and service providers. Kotani further argues that village members were organized both vertically and horizontally through pargan.ā and jāti communities. Pargan.ā communities were essentially district-­level village groups with their own leaders and administrative structures, while jāti communities were trans-­village groups connected by caste occupations that also had their own leadership and administrative structures. Kotani points, as an example of this system, to a successful mid-­17th century case of an untouchable leatherworking community known as

30   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience Chambhar appealing an order by a state official to pay their tax of leatherskin shoes in cash rather than kind. From this appeal, Kotani argues that it becomes clear that the members of the Chambhar community in the district concerned had representatives who would petition on their behalf, but that they would also be required to uniformly abide by the eventual reversed ruling.50 Such observations about the history of Indian caste, particularly in relation to medieval caste, provide ample basis for reflection and comparison with the Japanese case. Furthermore, it is likely that certain outcaste formations across late medieval India, such as the Chambhar community in the Deccan mentioned by Kotani, are relatively close in terms of their organizational composition when compared to the Edo outcaste order. Here the work of two Japanese medieval historians – Ōyama Kyōhei and Kuroda Toshio, and one early modern historian – Minegishi Kentarō, is important for further fleshing out the historical development of caste in premodern Japan. While their ideas concerning the nature of caste formation in premodern Japan are not uniform, neither do they necessarily contradict each other, and each in their own right suggests the distinct possibility of meaningful comparative caste analysis with other formations such as the subcontinental case. Ōyama Kyōhei, in his comparison of the status system with the pre-­modern Indian caste system, has argued that occupational caste groups (jāti) of various sizes were also formed in the ancient period in Japan. These groups were organized according to their perceived position on a continuum of purity and pollution where the Imperial institution was considered pure and sacred. Ōyama argued that pollution in the ancient Japanese state was managed at the centre through the Emperor, but that various agents were required to assist in its management as it emanated from centre to periphery. Medieval occupational groups, living within the transforming strictures of earlier kinship models, actually became one important mechanism for purification, assisting in the management of such pollution. Ōyama argued that occupational caste groups (jāti) of various sizes were formed in the ancient period in Japan, organized according to their perceived position on a continuum of purity and pollution, where the imperial institution and person of the Emperor were considered pure and sacred. To the extent that such occupational groups in the medieval period also took on the form of closed groups with inherited powers defined in relationship to the imperial centre, they can be said to have functioned like caste-­like structures. Kuroda Toshio argued that the ancient Japanese state, built upon the absolute preeminence of the figure of the Emperor, was significantly altered by the emergence of a medieval state ruled over by courtier, warrior, and religious elite groups with differing functions, but who all operated as feudal lords that ruled over estates and public lands (kenmon taisei). The Emperor certainly functioned as a transcendental leader within this system, but for Kuroda the medieval state was actually rooted in a foundational Buddhist exoteric-­esoteric ideological system that was supported by popular beliefs and which determined the contours of the state-­sanctioned priestly function and ideas of religious orthodoxy (kenmitsu taisei). According to Kuroda, these aforementioned elite groups

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   31 developed a medieval status system, rooted in ideas of hereditary status and pollution, in a way that resembled the Indian caste system. Occupational statuses basically became reorganized in the medieval period through caste, while preserving a special place for purity at the heart of the system.51 Minegishi Kentarō has pointed out that while the centrality of Hinduism in the Indian context signals an important point of departure from the Japanese case, what might be termed untouchability nonetheless also clearly existed in premodern Japan. Minegishi observed, for example, that groups referred to as hinin and eta were written of in the late 13th century dictionary Chiribukuro (The Dust Bag) as those “who had no interaction with [other] people”. Minegishi further referenced incidents such as avoidance of marital relations with people of certain status as well as insistence on the use of separate eating vessels in medieval sources, demonstrating that “customary discrimination” (shūzokuteki sabetsu) in the form of practices commonly linked to caste societies was also very much present in premodern Japan.52 Moreover, Minegishi built his insights on the work of Watanabe Hiroshi, who was one of the first Japanese scholars to seriously think comparatively about Japanese outcaste experience, and who argued that it was really only in the second half of the 17th century that pollution was given fullest expression in Japan, a period that actually coincides with the establishment of the Edo outcaste order in eastern Japan.53 Drawing on the above insights from Japanese scholars who have argued for the existence of caste in premodern Japan, it becomes possible to conceive of an approach to the comparative study of caste in India and Japan that focuses not merely on analyses of historical experiences of marginalization, but also on larger historical transformations rooted in the nature of social relations between various groups in society, the spatial structures involved in processes of marginalization and emancipation, the ideological underpinnings of social marginalization in particular historical periods, and economic change in particular regions. Moreover, it is not difficult to see how the experiences of Danzaemon, Kiheiji, and other sub-­chiefs, as well as many of the main features of the Edo outcaste order, can also be placed in fruitful comparative tension with their Indian counterparts, albeit with the need for more careful attention to historical context, experiences of colonialism, the religious dimension of caste, and the ideological ranking of groups in society. In relation to historical context, Yanagisawa Haruka has pointed to important similarities in terms of “agrarian progress” in both South India and Japan from the 17th through to the 19th centuries – a move towards “intense cultivation” and “small family farms from the former agricultural labourer class”, alongside a “gradual deterioration of large farms cultivated by non-­family servile labourers” – that further strengthens the contextual similarities for comparison during this period.54 Regarding experiences of colonialism, moreover, he has also indicated significant points of departure between the two contexts, including the persistence of a large agricultural labourer class in India which can be explained by “colonial conditions in India” including “the decline of some indigenous industries, the serious limit set on industrial development, the growth of stratification

32   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience among the Non-­Brahman communities and the resultant decline of some farmers into the status of tenants and agricultural labourers, and the basic differing stance of government policy”.55 Concerning the religious dimension of caste, quite apart from the obvious problem of different religious predominance in both countries, Ōyama Kyōhei has also mentioned in his work an important variance in relation to temples in India and Japan, namely the existence of head-­branch (honmatsu) temple lineage in early modern Japan. Finally, in relation to the problem of ideological ranking, the generic idealized hierarchies of groups in both societies are usually ranked quite differently, although taking seriously regional differences will again complicate the picture. At the most basic level, warriors in the Indian caste system were usually conceptually ranked second in the idealized caste order, but in the early modern Japanese status system they ranked ideologically at the very top.56 While there are several important problems that arise from just this one point, it is clear that even in relation to the most basic problem of caste mobility, the group being targeted as an aspirant status group could be quite different in both contexts, and therefore the normative dimension of status ideology and aspiration can be expected to take on a very different form from region to region (more on this in Chapter 3). While such differences certainly create problems for straightforward comparison, they nonetheless fail to negate the genuine similarities that can be pointed to if one uses the historical analyses of caste provided by Habib and Kotani. Moreover, beyond the question of what caste is lies the important problem of the nature of outcasteness that is central to this study. Outcasteness, of course, also needs to be conceptualized carefully within the context of a caste system, as Priyadarshini Vijaisri has argued: “[o]ne of the challenges in writing on outcastes seems to be deconstructing the myth of outcastes as external to the structure.”57 But it is also true that a focus on so-­called “untouchability” is indeed arguably one of the most pressing of tasks as it is “perhaps the single worst feature of the caste system”.58 Early modern Japanese society was “heavily structured” by an ordering category known as status (mibun), just as India has been “heavily structured by caste”.59 Comprehending where Danzaemon and his subordinates were situated within the early modern social order and what role and function they played in it is critically important for better developing the grounds for a comparison of outcasteness across Japan, Asia, and beyond.

Caste in early modern Japan: hierarchy and scapegoats A good many of the features of caste Habib has highlighted such as birth, endogamy, occupational fixity, a purity/impurity imaginary, and to a lesser extent affective religious duty have already been evidenced in the discussion of Kiheiji and Danzaemon above. Here, in this final section, I simply wish to focus on the important problem of hierarchy and ranking, because as noted above one of the weaknesses of contemporary status theory as it has recently developed in Japan is the lack of attention it pays to analysis of this important dynamic. Status

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   33 is not simply something that existed in layers and pockets in early modern Japan; rather, it was a mode of existence where these same layers and pockets were ordered hierarchically in ways that conformed to regional logics. Furthermore, the legitimizing function embedded in localized hierarchies in relation to outcastes served an important scapegoating function that itself requires deeper consideration. Rajan Gurukkal has argued in the case of South India that the “[f]ormation of a hierarchy was a natural consequence of the system of social differentiation, based … on varying levels of ritual status positions in the orbits around the Brāhman. as.”60 He further points out that “Jāti hierarchy” was in fact a “discursively engendered outcome” of the Brahmanical class achieved through a “sāstraic mode of social representation and knowledge production”.61 Kotani Hiroyuki, in his work on early modern Maharashtra, has also pointed out that caste was a form of status system, an order built both upon the hierarchical ordering of caste groups as well as local customs and laws.62 Something analogous can be envisaged in the early modern Japanese context in eastern Japan. Early 17th century Tokugawa society was a period when a military status group created and maintained control of feudal territories, with the Tokugawa shogunate emerging as the central power in Japan, with territorial strongholds primarily in eastern Japan, but also to some extent in other places such as the Kansai area. The Tokugawa shogunate and some of the regional daimyo that comprised this feudal system imposed their increasingly hierarchical vision on society, sanctioned by a deification of their founding architects whose own personal prejudices and preferences were enshrouded in law, which were in turn modified and reinterpreted by subsequent rulers who based their legitimacy on the same foundations while also infusing their own unique prejudices into the system. What continued to be emphasized throughout the Tokugawa period and what did not is a perplexing issue, but what was consistent throughout the entire early modern period was essentially a belief in the need to maintain the system itself, and to reinforce a strict hierarchical system where duties were emphasized and failure to perform them became one of the most strictly policed crimes. Tokugawa policing of society was conducted through law designed to establish the limits of acceptable behaviour: setting rules for what should (and should not) be done and outlining punishments for those who failed to keep the stipulated articles. For the Tokugawa shogunate, the source of the law and the basis for its promulgation rested originally in the person of the original shogun Ieyasu, referred to variously in many later texts as the gongensama (physically manifested deity) or the taisokun (great-­ancestor-lord), justified through a genealogical argument and ultimately reinforced by a system of ranks rooted in imperial court sanction. In an important sense, the source of political legitimacy was embedded in the original lawgiver whose pedigree and accompanying pursuits and accomplishments were further used to reinforce his sovereignty. What was dangerous in such a system were words or actions that betrayed this idea:

34   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience the creation of a sense that sovereignty may have been bestowed by some external source outside of the control or management of the lawholder that had the inherent possibility of producing the collapse of the entire system. Appeals to higher and higher authorities as a basis for one’s own authority served as a mark of all people trying to expand their power or influence within the ruling system. Likewise, appealing to different authorities over time and making alterations to the accent of those appeals became indicative of legitimation problems stirring beneath the surface, which in turn reflected tensions in both the reality and perception of one’s place in early modern society and the organizational structure.63 A central characteristic of early modern Japanese law was that those who were permitted to engage in the formation and policing of it usually emphasized their power in this realm through personal pronouncements appealing to their household genealogies as the source of ultimate justification for their issuance of certain edicts. Warriors ruled by an appeal to personal authority, which was itself authorized by a largely impersonal sacroreligious realm with tangential but reliable links to the imperial institution. In this way, legal pronouncements originated as a matter of personal conviction, and political expediency tended to reflect the prejudices of individuals and societies at a given point in time rather than something that was thought of as a universal principle rooted in a philosophically or theologically grounded conception of good and bad/just and unjust.64 While more formal justifications of this system were sought after through a range of philosophical and religious traditions, these were never complete, uniform, or consistent over time. In order to protect oneself from popular backlash, the balance between duty and liberty in the early modern status system was skewed almost completely in favour of duty, with the failure to perform duties heavily punished. To prevent individuals from taking any untoward initiative in this system, moreover, a system of corporate punishment (building on earlier historical models) was adopted alongside elaborate policing and surveillance measures handed over to co-­opted institutions perceived to have counter-­effectual powers of containment (whether sacred or profane): religious institutions and outcastes. In such a system, laws, being based originally on personal conviction and maintained contemporaneously through a reliance on precedent invoked at the will of individuals who wished to maintain or further their own power and privilege, drawing on previously established historical norms, were severe and selective in nature and embraced the notion of corporate responsibility. They were also inconsistently applied and enforced as a general rule. Enlargement of the conception of duty took place in such a system as an important means of deflecting attempts to agitate for increased personal or communal freedoms. Physically incapable of punishing each and every infringement, the system shifted to one of selective punishment and the granting of requests that expanded the ability of the person or people making the appeal to perform additional services for the authorities, services which were ostensibly rooted in  practices that were freely determined out of self-­interest but shrouded in

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   35 a  veil of selflessness in the official request so as to pay the proper deference to  the approving bodies. As the gap between the possibility of genuine self-­ determination and official stance/presence grew, the break between what actually was and how it was represented became increasingly pronounced.65 In relation to the governance of social groups, extreme efforts were usually made by people in positions of authority to give off the appearance of proper policing, but form often took precedence over content. The basis for behaviour and performance of duty moved slowly from a focus on the fact that an authority figure had requested it to one of performing it because one had done so to date and the successfulness of that performance had been acknowledged by the authorities over time. Such a logic was further employed as the basis for requests to expand the category of duties performed to include other things (especially items requiring increased power over other groups performing duties that were believed to impinge upon one’s own territorial claims). What this resulted in was a system in which power acquisition became rooted in successful appeals to authority figures for acknowledgement of the petitioner’s right to perform certain duties. In such a system, grievances were often expressed by nitpicking about the wording of particularly offending articles. The historical emergence of the Edo outcaste order involved a number of pre-­Tokugawa groups (leather producers, beggars, and other assorted such) becoming incorporated into an emerging system, where appeals to the Tokugawa warrior authorities to permit them exclusive rights to the performance of certain duties were largely upheld over time, thereby permitting them to reinforce the legitimacy of their own governance through construction of genealogies which replicated the Tokugawa-­style logic of establishing itself generally and mimicked the military attributes of the ruling warrior class. Yet it is also important to note that Danzaemon and the outcaste order from the 17th century onwards assumed official responsibility for a series of overlapping duties (themselves with histories of stigmatization) which worked together to establish a compounded form of outcasteness with shifting definitional contours. In performing official duties in relation to festival guard duties, flaying and leather production, crucifixion and other execution duties, and policing and caring for itinerant vagabonds, Danzaemon and his subjects were inserted into such a hierarchy, coming to function as scapegoats capable of operating as proxies for projected ideas of pollution in multiple realms: religious, social, political, and economic. But it is a mistake to see a firm constancy and consistency to this order. The policies under the fifth shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, had an important role to play in the further construction of outcasteness in early modern Japan. Moreover, the period of reforms under the seventh shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, was also significant in giving shape to the Edo outcaste order, particularly in relation to bringing hinin under eta control and introducing a new series of controls and duties for Danzaemon and his subordinates.66 It was in the late 18th century, however, as Tokugawa society entered a phase wherein much of the original logic bound up in earlier stigmas was little understood and was

36   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience losing traction, and as the economic benefits able to be accrued through economic monopolies based on certain former stigmatized labour became more conspicuous, that the ruling warrior authorities embarked upon a process of reinforcing the Japanese status system: an act that necessarily involved re-­ policing caste divisions, re-­establishing earlier notions of pollution and stigma, and re-­creating an outcaste subject capable of fully functioning as a scapegoat in the face of rapid change rendered by economic change. The An’ei Edict introduced in this chapter was produced at precisely this moment. The Edo warrior authorities worked to create a social system deeply rooted in notions of social hierarchy and that functioned in a way that ensured the maintenance of structural stratification in the 17th century. Strengthening the status system became a preoccupation at numerous points during the following century and a half, as it cracked under the weight of seismic economic and social changes. Disasters, famines, floods, and the like accentuated problems such as rural decline, poverty, and homelessness. Economic developments, moreover, changed the political and social landscape of both urban and rural centres. Outcastes, particularly those at the lower socio-­economic end of these groups, felt these effects acutely. It is no coincidence that the two greatest famines in Tokugawa history – the Tenmei and Tenpō famines – preceded the periods with some of the strictest “anti-­outcaste” legislation seen during the Tokugawa period. These periods were times when it was conceptually important to clearly articulate normality and to again create a scapegoat that could be made to occupy and symbolically represent what was abnormal and not conforming to the world that was being lived in. During the periods 1760–1780s and 1820–1840s in particular, eta and hinin under Danzaemon rule were made representatives of these spaces of abnormality in legislation as well as the early modern popular imaginary.

Conclusions Danzaemon and the Edo outcaste order, this chapter has argued, was the product of a status society that falls within a larger history of caste in Japan. While Anglophone scholars often avoid analysis of the period using the concept of caste, this chapter has shown that there is considerable precedent for and utility in doing so, particularly when the historical explanations and definitions of caste by scholars such as Irfan Habib and Kotani Hiroyuki are employed. When caste is understood as a historical phenomenon, and efforts are made to retrace the processes and transformations related to local institutions and social structures, the points of similarity and difference between regional caste formations in India and Japan come into clearer view. More importantly for this study, the striking similarities between the outcaste communities that were located within those historical processes and social structures also become more apparent, indicating the possibility of meaningful transnational comparisons. Such comparative moves are strengthened in the case of Japan and India because a good many of the patterns and processes observed are not merely synonymous,

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   37 but they also have a homologous component. Sanskrit influence, while never approximating the significance of Sinological presence in Japan, nonetheless still exerted a strong impact over Japan’s cultural and social practices, in particular its understandings of societal and moral structures. India also provided a kind of template through which Japan attempted to understand features of its own society. Core historical processes related to a particular kind of historical division of labour, moreover, provide a firm basis for considering the nature of the caste formations that emerge in both the Indian and Japanese contexts. And while the religious bases of both countries witness strong deviation, notions of pollution and purity that combine with hierarchical social and political structures to produce practices of outcasting and scapegoating are clearly not the unique preserve of subcontinental thought and belief, but are also present in other religious world views such as Buddhism.

Notes   1 A good many of the details in this section can be found in Timothy D. Amos, “Portrait of a Tokugawa Outcaste Village”, East Asian History 32/33 (June 2006/ December 2007).   2 Yoshimi-­Chō Chōshi Hensan I’inkai, ed., Yoshimi-­Chōshi, 2 vols., vol. 2 (Yoshimi-­ Chō: Yoshimi-­Chō (Production by Mokujisha), 1979), 927.   3 Kentarō Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū (Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 1996), 70–71.   4 See, for example, 1784.2 Copy of Chōri Statutes, with Seal, of the Various Provinces, Article 18. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed., Gunma-­ken Hisabetsu Buraku Shiryō: Kogashira Saburōemon-Ke Monjo (Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2007), 40–44.   5 Shigeru Kobayashi, ed., Kinsei Hisabetsu Buraku Kankei Hōreishū: Tenryō Wo Chūshin Toshite (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1981), 237–240.   6 Nobuyuki Hanaki and Satomi Kurosu, “Marriage Relationships among Households in the Mid 19th Century Tama, Japan: Socioeconomic Homogamy, Geographical Endogamy and Kinship Networks”, The History of the Family 15, no. 3 (2010): particularly 341–343.   7 Gunma Burakuken Tomo Chiku Kinseishi Gakushūkai, ed., Shimotsuke-­No-Kuni Tarōbē Monjo, vol. 1 (Ota: Gunma Burakuken Tomo Chiku Kinseishi Gakushūkai, 1987), 467.   8 Why did Danzaemon envisage his territory as Kanhasshū or “the eight eastern states”? In 1871, Dan Naoki (previously Danzaemon Chikayasu/Dan Naiki, r.1840–1871) stated that his rule over outcastes in Kanhasshū stretched back “700 years or so”. But the first reference to “Kanhasshū” probably only dates back to the time of Danzaemon Chikamura (r.1709–1748). There is a book of military tales called the Kanhasshū Kōsenroku, which was purportedly written in the period of warring states but edited by Makishima Akitake (nativist scholar) in 1726. Chikamatsu Monzaemon also authored a play on Taira no Masakado entitled Kanhasshū Tsunagiuma (Tethered Steed and the Eight Provinces of Kantō) dated 1724, so it may well be the case that Danzaemon Chikamura began to use this term as it became popularized through the literature and plays of the period. Monzaemon Chikamatsu, Chikamatsu: Five Late Plays, trans. Andrew C. Gerstle (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 325–427; Terutake Makishima and Enji Shimokawa, eds., Kanhasshū Kosenroku, 2 vols., Genpon Gendaiyaku, 28–29 (Higashi Murayama: Kyōikusha, 1981).   9 Amos, “Portrait of a Tokugawa Outcaste Village”, 84.

38   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience 10 Tetsuo Okuma, “Kinsei No Burakushi Ni Okeru Danzaemon Taisei”, in Higashi Nihon Burakushi: Kantō-Hen, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 366. 11 Gerald Groemer, Street Performers and Society in Urban Japan, 1600–1900: The Beggar’s Gift (Abingdon: New York: Routledge, 2016), 53. 12 Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Mibunsei Shakai No Toraekata: Yamakawa Shuppansha Kōkō Nihonshi Kyōkasho Wo Tōshite (Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 2010), 48. In his earlier work, Tsukada strongly emphasized the continued importance of the term outcaste in relation to work on this subject. For his earlier statement, see “Ajia Ni Okeru Ryō to Sen: Gyūkawa Ryūtsū Wo Tegakari Toshite”, in Ajia No Naka No Nihonshi, ed. Yasunori Arano, Masatoshi Ishii, and Shōsuke Murai (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1992), 249–250. Also, Groemer, 2001. 13 Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 10 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1988), 465–466. 14 Seiko Sugiyama, “Kinsei Kantō Ni Okeru ‘Hisabetsu Buraku’ No Mibun Kōshō Ni Tsuite: Suzuki-­Ke Monjo Yori”, Minshūshi Kenkyū, no. 26 (1984). The first mention of this term in English language scholarship as far as I can ascertain is found in Lafcadio Hearn’s writings. He states: “Outside of the three classes of commoners, and hopelessly below the lowest of them, large classes of persons existed who were not reckoned as Japanese, and scarcely accounted human beings. Officially they were mentioned generically as chori, and were counted with the peculiar numerals used in counting animals: ippiki, nihiki, sambiki, etc. Even today they are commonly referred to, not as persons (hito), but as ‘things’ (mono). To English readers (chiefly through Mr. Mitford’s yet unrivalled Tales of Old Japan) they are known as Eta; but their appellations varied according to their callings. They were pariah-­people … .” Lafcadio Hearn, Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (New York: Macmillan, 1905), 271–272. Okada Asako states that the 1728 document referenced in this section is probably a draft statement of a letter sent by the local chōri chief Dan’emon (referred to in later documents through the hereditary title Hachirōbē) requesting that the term chōri be used instead of the more pejorative eta. Asako Okada, “Kinsei Kantō Ni Okeru Chōri No Ichiakinaiken To Dannaba”, Kokushigaku 177, no. 5 (2002): 66. 15 William H. McCullough and Helen C. McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japanese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period (Stanford University Press, 1980), 397. 16 Groemer, Street Performers and Society in Urban Japan, 1600–1900: The Beggar’s Gift, 52. 17 Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū (Kobe: Hyōgo Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1987), 51. 18 Gakushūkai, Shimotsuke-­No-Kuni Tarōbē Monjo, 582. Okada, “Kinsei Kantō Ni Okeru Chōri No Ichiakinaiken To Dannaba”, 66. 19 Kobayashi, Kinsei Hisabetsu Buraku Kankei Hōreishū: Tenryō Wo Chushin Toshite, 39–40. 20 Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law (University of California Press, 1996), 247. 21 Toshiyuki Hatanaka, “Mibun Hikiage To Shūmei Jokyo: ‘Dannaiki Mibun Hikiage Ikken’ No Saikentō”, Ritsumeikan Gengo Bunka Kenkyū, no. 90 (2007): 206. 22 Teraki Nobuaki’s work on Danzaemon, for example, highlighted the construction of cadastral surveys that distinguished the landholdings of peasants from leatherworkers, the construction of separate population registers for the same purpose, and the creation of discriminatory laws and regulations that legislated the lives of eta in ways that distinguished them from the rest of the commoner population, as all evidences of the political construction of outcaste status. Nobuaki Teraki, Kinsei Buraku No Seiritsu To Tenkai (Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1986); Kinsei Mibun To Hisabetsumin No Shosō: “Burakushi No Minaoshi” No Tojō Kara (Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 2000).

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   39 23 Tsukada Takashi’s work on Danzaemon (as well as more generally) has been less about highlighting the nature of discrimination “outcaste communities” faced in early modern Japan, but more about bringing to light the ways in which such an early modern social system neatly conformed to the broader logic of status rule which existed in “layers and pockets”, or more technically, “compositely and stratificationally” (fukugō to jūsō), throughout early modern Japanese society and took on a myriad of intriguing regional forms underpinned by localized differences. The last section of this chapter can be understood as an attempt to flesh out the features of “stratification” suggested by Tsukada. See, for example, Takashi Tsukada, “Stratification and Compositeness of Social Groups in Tokugawa Japan: A Perspective on Early Modern Society”, Acta Asiatica, no. 87 (2004); “The Urban History of Osaka”, City, Culture and Society 3, no. 1 (2012). For the last point, see Kinsei Mibunsei Shakai No Toraekata: Yamakawa Shuppansha Kōkō Nihonshi Kyōkasho Wo Tōshite, 8. 24 J.E. Tennent, Ceylon: An Account of the Island Physical, Historical and Topographical, with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities, and Productions (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859), 188. 25 S. Mateer, “Art. X. – the Pariah Caste in Travancore”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland 16, no. 2 (1884): 194–195. 26 Leatherworkers were also stigmatized in early modern Germany, although the nature of pollution ideology and the geographical locus of stigma seem to have differed significantly from that found in Japan and the subcontinent. Kathy Stuart, Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 8–9. 27 Charles Norton Edgecumbe Eliot, Japanese Buddhism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1924), 225. 28 Masaaki Takahashi, “Chūsei No Mibunsei”, in Kōza Nihon Rekishi 3: Chūsei 1, ed. Rekishigaku Kenkyūkai and Nihonshi Kenkyūkai (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1984), 309. 29 Keizai Zasshisha, ed., Konjaku Monogatari, vol. 16, Kokushi Taikei/Keizai Zasshisha (Tokyo: Keizai Zasshisha, 1901), 166–169. 30 Masamune Atsuo, ed., Chiribukuro, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Nihon Koten Zenshū Kankōkai. 1934–1935), 366–367. 31 Shakushi Bobiku [Anon], “Etori No Koto”, in Jinten Ainoshō, Volume 5/6. Handwritten manuscript, No. 1002120838, Okinawa Kenritsu Toshokan Kichō Shiryō Dijitaru Shoko. Available at http://archive.library.pref.okinawa.jp (accessed 2 August 2016) 32 Motoori Norinaga, Tama Katsuma. Eirakuya Shutten. 1794. National Institute of Japanese Literature, frame 47. Available at www.nijl.ac.jp/ (accessed 6 June 2017) 33 Motoori Uchitō, “Senjakō”, in Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryō Shūsei, ed. Kōji Aoki (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1969), 520. 34 Timothy D. Amos, “The Subaltern Subject and Early Modern Taxonomies: Indianisation and Racialisation of the Japanese Outcaste”, Asian Studies Review 41, no. 4 (2017): 577–593. 35 Ibid., 580, 587. 36 Surinder S. Jodhka and Ghanshyam Shah, “Comparative Contexts of Discrimination: Caste and Untouchability in South Asia”, Economic and Political Weekly 45, no. 48 (2010): 100. 37 Nicholas B. Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 52–53. 38 For a discussion of the significance of this work, consult Susan Seymour, “Caste”, Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1996), 177–181. 39 Max Weber, The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism, trans. Hans H. Gerth and Don Martindale (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1958), 7–9, 11–13.

40   Early modern Japanese outcaste experience 40 Read, for example, Weber’s discussion of the “Japanese status structure”. Ibid., 270–282. Weber did not deal with the issue of a Japanese outcaste per se in this volume, but he provided an explanatory framework for their existence when he wrote: “ritual impurity meant blood guilt and incest as well as bodily defects. Very strict prescriptions for ritual impurity compensated for the lack of a religious ‘ethic.’ Any sort of compensation in the beyond was lacking. The dead live, as among the Greeks, in Hades.” Ibid., 276. Moreover, Weber’s description of Indian outcastes as a “stratum comprised of services which Hinduism had to consider ritually impure: tanning, leatherwork, and some industries in the hands of itinerant workers” provided a striking parallel to the Japanese case. Ibid., 100. 41 Susan Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 21. 42 Ibid., 22. 43 Karl Marx, “The Future Results of the British Rule in India”, New York Daily Tribune August 8, 1853; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works, vol. 5 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1976), 55. 44 Quoted in Kanwal Bharti, “Marx in Ambedkar’s Thoughts”, Forward Press August 19, 2017. 45 Irfan Habib, Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception; With the Economic History of Medieval India: A Survey (London: Anthem Press, 2002), 161. Habib also listed these features in a talk he gave at a conference entitled The Caste Question and the Historian’s Craft held on February 26–28, 2014 in Delhi’s Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. 46 Ibid., 164–165. 47 Ibid., 169, 172. 48 Ibid., 169. 49 Ibid., 177. 50 Hiroyuki Kotani, Western India in Historical Transition: Seventeenth to Early Twentieth Centuries (New Delhi: Manohar, 2002), Chapter 1, esp. 24–26. 51 English translations of key texts by Kuroda where the above summary is taken from are as follows: James C. Dobbins, “Editor’s Introduction: Kuroda Toshio and His Scholarship”, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23, no. 3/4 (1996); Toshio Kuroda,,“Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion”, trans. James C. Dobbins and Suzanne Gay, Journal of Japanese Studies 7, no. 1 (Winter 1981); Toshio Kuroda, “Persons, Monks, Children, and Non-­Persons”, trans. Charles Woolley, Studies in Japanese Literature and Culture 1 (July 2018); Toshio Kuroda, “The Development of the Kenmitsu System as Japan’s Medieval Orthodoxy”, trans. James C. Dobbins, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23, no. 3/4 (1996); Toshio Kuroda, “Buddhism and Society in the Medieval Estate System”, trans. Suzanne Gay, ibid.; Toshio Kuroda, “The Imperial Law and the Buddhist Law”, trans. Jacqueline I. Stone, ibid. 52 Kentarō Minegishi, “Kegare Kannen To Buraku Sabetsu (Ge): Sono Fukabunsei To Kegare Kannen No Itchi”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 162 (2002): 98. 53 Hiroshi Watanabe, Mikaihō Buraku No Genryū To Henkan: Kishū Wo Chūshin Toshite (Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1994), 29. 54 Haruka Yanagisawa, A Century of Change: Caste and Irrigated Lands in Tamilnadu, 1860s–1970s (New Delhi: Manohar, 1996), 187–194. 55 Ibid. 56 There are obviously serious limits to such an observation, such as those that can be observed in places such as Punjab. See, for example, Toru Takahashi, “ ‘Rajput’, Local Deities and Discrimination: Tracing Caste Formation in Jammu”, in Mapping Social Exclusion in India: Caste, Religion and Borderlands, ed. Paramjit S. Judge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 57 Priyadarshini Vijaisri, Dangerous Marginality: Rethinking Impurity and Power (Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research in association with Primus Books, 2015), 15.

Early modern Japanese outcaste experience   41 58 Ananya Vajpeyi, “A History of Caste in South India: From Pre-­Colonial Polity to Bio-­Political State”, in Shared Histories of Modernity: China, India and the Ottoman Empire, ed. Huri İslamoğlu-İnan and Peter C. Perdue (London; New York: Routledge, 2009), 306. 59 Gail Omvedt, Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anticaste Intellectuals (New Delhi: Navayana, 2008), 20. 60 Rajan Gurukkal, “The Making and Proliferation of Jāti: A Historical Inquiry”, Studies in History 31, no. 1 (2015): 45. 61 Ibid., 50. 62 Hiroyuki Kotani, Indo No Fukashokumin: Sono Rekishi To Genzai (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1997), 44. 63 The following caveat about how things changed over time for the feudal lord should also be noted here: “First under the feudal lords, organs of administration and control were established so that they could then make legislation. The lord’s participation in legislation decreases; at the same time, on rare occasions, the legislation binds the lord himself.” Yoshiro Hiramatsu, “Tokugawa Law”, Law in Japan: An Annual 14, no. 1 (1981): 5. 64 Tsukada has observed that Tokugawa law predominantly fell into the sphere of administration (gyōsei) and not judicial affairs (shihō). Takashi Tsukada, Mibunsei Shakai To Shimin Shakai: Kinsei Nihon No Shakai To Hō (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1992), 148. Another way of stating this distinction might be that Tokugawa law tended to only be retributive in the sense that state authority (kōgi) had been affronted by a particular act. Retributive acts were initially defined in the 17th century Tokugawa system according to status with some of the lowest status groups permitted to take responsibility for the maintenance of their own systems of justice. Once these laws were laid down, however, legal debates generally took place within a utilitarian framework which tried to assess the weight of a respective punishment based on a calculation that took into account historical legal precedent and desired a socio-­legal outcome. 65 This basic argument has been developed to a high level of sophistication in Luke S. Roberts, Performing the Great Peace: Political Space and Open Secrets in Tokugawa Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 2012). 66 Gerald Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, The Journal of Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 284–285.

2 The emergence of the Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule

Introduction A considerable amount of research on Danzaemon and outcaste rule in eastern Japan during the early modern period was published in the 1980s and 1990s. Led by Minegishi Kentarō and Tsukada Takashi, this research did much to shed light on the relationship between the Asakusa-­based leader and the multiple regional sub-­chiefs who lived throughout the Kantō region and further outlying territories, as well as to illustrate what everyday life looked like for the communities over which such leaders presided.1 In more recent times, Makihara Shigeyuki has further facilitated our understanding of the regional relationships individual local chiefs such as Kiheiji, discussed in the previous chapter, had with their surrounding communities, as well as issued a timely reminder that these communities were deeply embedded in local landscapes and geographies before they were ever part of Danzaemon’s outcaste order.2 Older historical legacies indeed had a profound impact on the shape of early modern life for chōri (eta) in eastern Japan, but relatively little is known about the nature of those legacies and the ways in which new early modern systems of governance gave shape to pre-­existing regional orders due to a lack of sources. This chapter attempts to address those lacunae by providing an outline and overview of the early modern outcaste order from earliest times to the late 17th century. It draws on the research of scholars working in adjacent fields, making inferences based on developments in other regions across the archipelago, and by attempting to think comparatively about the historical development of caste and outcasteness in India and other places. It focuses on the historical transformation of the chōri group, demonstrating how it emerged within a historical division of labour, but one that was also significantly determined by political power exercised by warlords and the early Tokugawa shogunate. Pre-­Tokugawa ideas and practices related to occupation, kinship, and hierarchical notions of superior and inferior rooted in notions of ritual pollution that spread out from centre to periphery were refashioned in new ways in the early part of the Tokugawa period which impacted both the form and content of the Edo outcaste order. Danzaemon rule over time came to be superimposed over a number of chōri (eta) village communities already in existence for some time (how long, exactly,

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   43 is not uniform and also difficult to answer). In many cases pre-­existing villages with reasonably unique local arrangements of exchange, trade, and relationships of servitude with nearby peasant communities, temples, and townships became incorporated into a system of governance in which leaders were forcibly made to live in communities characterized by a shared geography, occupational proximity, and kinship networks. Where such an arrangement was already in clear operation in the later medieval period, less effort was needed to restructure communities to conform to the status group expectations of warrior elites. Where such an arrangement was far from being realized, however, additional energies were expended to establish relations of governance and the related appended duties and internal regulations to be realized. Chōri who fell under Danzaemon’s rule certainly belong to both categories, depending on the region they were located in, but by and large those in rural areas in eastern Japan tended to fall into the former category while those in emerging townships and cities tended to fall into the latter category.

Pre-­Tokugawa legacies Shmuel N. Eisenstadt has asserted that Japanese feudalism probably takes the form it does because of the peculiar relationship between the disintegration of tribal class and state formation.3 The tribal class referred to here by Eisenstadt, while not clearly stated, refers to the ancient clan (uji, or in John Whitney Hall’s term, familial) system, one that had important distinctive regional characteristics but also significant commonalities across the archipelago.4 William McCullough has stated that “the ‘clan’ in the early part of the [ancient] period and during the Fujiwara regency was a loosely knit, patrilineal kin group of nobles whose members shared an ancestral or guardian deity, bore a common patronymic (except for the imperial clan, which had no name) and hereditary title of status, acknowledged a common clan chieftain (uji no chōja), and were usually buried together in a clan cemetery.”5 McCullough also noted some other features of the ancient clan, namely that collateral lines linked to rank/status tended to trump primogeniture in earlier versions of the social organization, and that while the “statutory code deprived the uji clan of most of its direct political role, … it remained the broadest kin group to which a noble belonged and continued to play an important role in the lives of individual clan members.”6 As Hall also pointed out, these “familial groups” over time ceased to function as territorial units.7 How the clan system disintegrated and how best to characterize what it was replaced with at the end of antiquity is disputed. Perhaps one of the most famous explanations was offered by Kuroda Hideo, who essentially argued that the ancient state, rooted in the notion of the transcendental nature of the figure of the Emperor, was transformed by courtier, warrior, and religious elite groups that developed a medieval status system underpinned by core organizational concepts of hereditary succession and pollution. Whatever one may say about Kuroda’s important thesis of the foundations of medieval Japan, as can be

44   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule witnessed even in his core analytical term kenmon (i.e. literally “powerful gate”) itself, earlier clan-­based group dynamics retained a modified organizational power in medieval Japan that did not readily dissolve. A similar point was also made by Yamaguchi Keiji, who argued that some of the earliest communities in Japan as recorded in the Chinese histories had hyper-­strict autonomous legal codes which included familial corporate punishment, aspects which continued to exist at a deep structural level throughout Japanese history and which were in an important sense resurrected in the medieval period.8 Ōyama Kyōhei has further shown how older terms used to describe older clan associations such as uji, yake, and ie all changed over time, with the term yake basically disappearing from discourse altogether, and ie eventually coming to be used with increasing frequency over the term uji.9 From the early medieval period, a “family” unit referred to as ichizoku began to prevail among warriors, and increased attempts were made to clearly demarcate such warrior houses that contained various sub-­lineages from each other.10 Through a study of Kamakura shogunate law, Ōyama has argued, in relation to a section pertaining to who should recuse themselves from a trial of a family member, that the medieval warrior clan was essentially built along both horizontal and vertical kinship axes. The vertical axis included hereditary succession based on the marriage of a couple conceived of in a long line of ancestors and descendants. But the horizontal axis was a more temporal grouping that dictated the relations of members of the warrior clan and it incorporated small family units (yake) that forged relations with each other in a larger warrior community.11 At the same time, however, the uji concept also continued to maintain a certain utility; as Hank Glassman noted in some of his earlier research, “[t]he twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the proliferation of new ‘clan temples’ or ujidera corresponding to the creation of newly arising branch lineages. This subdivision of clans or ‘houses’ of clans into distinct families (monryū, ichimon) came to depend in large part on the dedication of such an institution.”12 Medieval family kinship structure, however, certainly cannot be treated as homogeneous; it is important to understand the regional variations that existed between them, as well as status-­based differences in composition. Kevin L. Gouge has suggested the possibility, for example, of a mode of warrior rule in eastern Japan marked by early adoption of a system of unified inheritance as well as “more assertive forms of headship”.13 And while the formation and transformation of eastern Japanese warrior kinship associations may well have had their own peculiarities similar to the ones Gouge points out, peasant and occupational communities also probably had their own unique characteristics, including but not restricted to various forms of dōzoku kinship relations that developed on the fringes of the Kantō area during the medieval period.14 How chōri (eta) communities emerged and intersected with each other in pre-­Tokugawa Japan in both urban and rural contexts has been the subject of considerable debate and most of the theories have developed out of observations about outcast communities in central Japan.15 As Janet Goodwin has noted, the “common thread” linking the factors that pertain to the rise of

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   45 medieval outcast groups is the “concept of ritual pollution”, although the histories of how such ideologies were made socially manifest are diverse.16 Hayashiya Tatsusaburō famously posited, for example, that some ancient occupational groups remained outcasts as they became subordinated to the proprietors of estates. Wakita Haruko counterargued for the need to understand the outcasting of groups that lived in marginalized places (sanjo) according to medieval structures and logics, and to consider outcast origins lying in a plurality of causes indicated by the labels deployed to characterize them without necessarily assuming a strict continuity between the ancient and medieval periods.17 Kuroda argued that through natural processes the social dropouts from medieval society came to be treated as “non-­peoples” (hinin), were labelled as people of inferior “caste” (shusei, literally varna), and therefore came to be discriminated against (i.e. were considered to be “polluted”). Amino Yoshihiko, on the other hand, saw medieval outcasts as people with special occupational skills (including “[religious] powers”) that enabled them to occupy the frontier between the realms of the sacred and the secular. Rather than seeing medieval outcasts as “unclean peoples,” Amino saw them as occupying the realm of the sacred, a situation that was overturned with the downgrading of imperial status in the 16th century.18 In contrast to Kuroda and Amino, Ōyama has argued that pollution in the ancient Japanese state was managed at the centre through the Emperor, but that various agents were required to assist in its management as it emanated from centre to periphery. Medieval occupational groups, living within the strictures of earlier kinship models, actually became one important mechanism for purification, assisting in the management of such pollution. Ōyama argued that occupational caste groups (jāti) of various sizes were formed in the ancient period in Japan, organized according to their perceived position on a continuum of purity and pollution, where the imperial institution and person of the Emperor were considered pure and sacred. To the extent that such occupational groups in the medieval period also took on the form of closed groups with inherited powers defined in relationship to the imperial centre, they can be said to have functioned like regional kinship structures utilizing familial logics, conforming to a hereditary division of labour such as the one pointed out by Habib in the previous chapter. In eastern Japan, the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate in the late 12th century led to significant regional developments in terms of occupational group formation. Eastern Japan was historically marked by a proliferation of horses over cows, so the primary focus for any groups involved in the disposal of domesticated animal carcasses and the tanning of hides largely involved equines. As Andrew Goble has noted, 13th century Kamakura regulations clearly indicated the need for “[c]orpses, and the bones and bodies of oxen and horses … to be taken away”, although it is not clear whether this was the work of a specialized community in the city. Goble further notes that the temple Gokurakuji also had an “equine veterinary clinic”, which given scholarly agreement about the strengthening of notions of pollution in the 13th century, presupposes the possible existence of a service community that would handle unsuccessfully treated horses.19

46   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule In a late 13th century oath by Ninsho, exhibiting “compassion for the solitary, the impoverished, beggars, the lame, and horses and oxen discarded by the roadside” is also promised, implying perhaps the existence of a rather more informal and arbitrary system of animal disposal in eastern Japan in this period compared to later times.20 Medieval sources from 15th century Mito include the word kawata, possibly affirming the existence of regional leatherworker groups in that area at that time.21 It is likely to be the case that in areas with relatively weak ideas of the polluting nature of death, however, specialists did not emerge, and the task of carcass disposal was left to cattle owners or shared within communities on the fringes of the Kantō area. In the eight eastern provinces, the evidence from Kamakura and Mito suggests, however, that specialist communities for the disposal of dead animal carcasses were present there in the medieval period, and 16th century records, discussed at more length below, affirm this reality for other Kantō sub-­regions. The kinds of powers groups involved in dealing with “death industries” were perceived to have is not easy to determine, but they clearly involved some kind of attributed sense of purifying power. Fujimoto Seijirō has made clear in the case of Tanabe (on the Kii peninsula) that a reasonably straight line can be drawn between a medieval kiyome (“purifier”) community, an early modern kawata (chōri/eta) village, and a modern Buraku community.22 While there is no evidence in eastern Japan to demonstrate such a straightforward linkage for communities brought under Danzaemon rule, it is likely that the predecessors to some early modern chōri communities forged linkages with temples, peasant communities, and even the leaders of warrior bands in emerging townships, and performed a range of purification rituals and tasks in addition to their leatherworking activities. The older communities that came to comprise part of the Edo outcaste order most likely emerged through these kinds of distinct historical trajectories. The kinds of duties and functions older “chōri groups” performed probably differed to some degree according to locality and service, but the communities they formed and comprised were subordinated to nearby warrior clans, temples/shrines, and peasant communities, and the identities and genealogies they later attributed to their own origins and purposes originated out of such histories. It is possible, although not really provable, for example, that the inujin (“temple dogs”) employed for religious festivals at Gokurakuji Temple in Kamakura, were in fact connected to an early modern chōri community.23 Within medieval society, pollution was not only taboo, but also came to be envisaged as permanent in relation to certain peoples, and society itself advocated social withdrawal from such communities. Ōto Osamu has noted through his study of grave systems and burial practices that there is a direct correspondence between areas which employed a “dual grave system” and strong notions of the polluting effects of death. In a dual grave system, the remains of the deceased were kept outside the communal living area, either in a cemetery outside the settlement or the local temple. Ōto notes that such a burial system can be found in eastern Japan in the Kantō plain, but not on the peripheries of

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   47 the archipelago in the northeast or in Kyushu, suggesting the medieval existence of relatively strong notions of pollution. He further notes that in central Japan specialist communities such as sanmai hijiri emerged in the medieval period to engage in burial and that the ideology of death pollution and its associated practices over time probably projected out from a court centre to regional peripheries.24 By the early 18th century, the term chōri had lost most of its religious connotation, but it is likely, if impossible to emphatically prove, that at least some sub-­chiefs in eastern Japan had roles of religious significance in their local communities dating back to at least the latter part of the medieval period. There is, moreover, a reasonably compelling argument which sees strong linkages between the role of leatherwork and criminality in medieval Japan. The early modern “workplace” in which eta/kawata operated (more on this below) was the basic organizational unit for the collection of animal hides, but attention also needs to be paid to the fact that peasants could not seek compensation for their dead animals, meaning that the right to the animal existed only during their lifetime and not after their death. As Yokoi Kiyoshi has pointed out, this is surely related to the idea that outcast communities had the “right” to collect valuables from dead corpses in the medieval period.25 In short, “eta status” was not merely a social distinction created by economic forces and political policy, but older institutional arrangements and social practices rooted in pollution ideologies also played an important part in defining and shaping the nature of this occupational group and its experiences. Important here is also the “ritual world” in eastern Japan that existed between various social groups. Ōyama has argued that a medieval “ritual world” was subsequently reformed in the early Tokugawa period through Danzaemon and the Edo outcaste order. Drawing on an understanding of “toRil” in the South Indian context, Ōyama notes that medieval social groups carried out tasks of religious or ceremonial significance in relation to other social groups and that these relationships were modified in the early modern period. This is most clearly evidenced, he argues, in the fact that a range of groups had ties to village communities within a “ritual world”, but that this system came to be unified under Danzaemon during the period of Tokugawa rule.26 There is a very real sense in which the emergence of “independent authorities” such as Danzaemon is best understood as a part of this larger historical process, where the Tokugawa shogunate drew in these social groups defined by earlier caste dynamics and they became a core part of a “consistent political order”, usefully conceived of in the words of Mark Ravina as a “compound state”.27

The workplace The outcaste village mentioned in the previous chapter, Lower Wana village, was in many respects just like any other early modern peasant village in terms of its structure and management, but it also controlled a “territory” (shokuba, literally “workplace”) that was “largely invisible except to outcastes”.28 While much

48   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule has been written on these unique administrative units of outcaste rule, drawing a meaningful connection between medieval and early modern features of this territory is difficult. Perhaps one of the most authoritative statements on the origins and historical development of the “workplace” (labelled the kusaba or the “grassy place” in many parts of western Japan) comes from Yokota Fuyuhiko.29 Writing on the central (kinki) region of Japan, which he divided up into early developing and later developing areas, Yokota examined various late medieval documents that outlined the geographical contours of the workplace. Yokota noted in his study of the “workplace” in late medieval and early Tokugawa Yamashiro Province that there could be a complete correspondence between the “workplace” and manorial estate boundaries, a situation where either several “enclosed settlements” (kaitō shūraku) were found within a given estate boundary, or where several sub-­estate counties fit together to comprise one estate boundary. Class conflict between samurai and peasant within these settlements in Yamashiro existed, but the “enclosed settlements” which developed within estates with shrine parishes as their base can be seen to have interacted with each other. Yokota argued that the “workplace” apparently developed out of such “enclosed areas” which were linked to the growth of peasant communities found in the sub-­estate lands or counties. Giving further examples of kawata (eta) in other provinces, Yokota suggested that the territory called the “workplace” developed in response to the need of settlements of estate-­based peasants to have specialists handle the carcasses of their livestock. Yokota contended that over time it was possible for the boundaries of the workplace to shift. He argued that there were initially various groups of people who operated within the workplace plying various trades and the idea that it was their duty to perform certain tasks within them eventually transformed into the belief that duties performed in these areas were actually special rights. According to Yokota, variant notions were employed in different areas to give workplaces sometimes unique characteristics within the late medieval division of labour. Yet at the same time, there were some striking features such as the division of labour between religious purification and leatherwork duties, which saw the separation of the workplace rights of leatherwork and begging associated with religious purification rituals. Yokota argued that essentially central Japanese notions of “pollution” made their way out into the peripheries, and became pervasive.30 At the same time, the labour specialization process did not just affect people of outcaste status but impacted all kinds of occupational groups. According to Yokota, chōri groups in eastern Japan did not experience the same kind of division of labour as their western counterparts, and there were regional areas where there did not appear to be a strong sense of a pollution taboo among peasants. Yokota further pointed out that it was at the time of Hideyoshi’s cadastral surveys that those who were involved primarily in leather production came to be recorded as such, and usually these people were placed at the back of the survey as kawata or “households without official duties”. Such a record meant that kawata came to be recorded as having duties whether pertaining to the supply of leather, cleaning, guarding, and executing criminals, and in exchange were

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   49 awarded certain privileges, such as exemptions of peasant duties, guarantees of the workplace, and “first fruit” privileges.31 Yokota’s view is helpful in considering the development of the workplace and the incorporation of Danzaemon and his regional sub-­chiefs in the early modern state. As the label often used by Danzaemon in relation to the territories under his rule, kanhasshū (“the eight eastern provinces”), suggests, regional identity was paramount in the creation of the Edo outcaste order. In the early modern period, the workplace under Danzaemon rule was the most basic outcaste territorial unit of the time and it had two basic aspects. First, it was the legal territory for the disposal of dead cattle and horses. And second, it was the place where certain people had the right to beg. When cattle or horses kept by peasants in a particular workplace died, they were taken to a place called the animal carcass dumping ground (heigyūba suteba) located on the periphery of each village. Nearby hinin patrolled the area on a daily basis and if they found a carcass they skinned it and disposed of the body. The economically valuable things went to the chōri (eta), who had the rights of ownership for that day (called banichi). “Workplace rights” were owned on a day-­to-day basis by them. If the day on which a dead cow or horse was discovered was the first day of the month, then it was the eta with the rights to that day that benefited. “Begging rights”, on the other hand, were generally claimed to be owned by chōri (eta) on a village basis. Chōri were permitted to collect alms from peasant households in that village on auspicious occasions such as the time of the summer/autumn “Three Grains” (harvests). However, there existed the idea within the Edo outcaste order that eta (chōri) had awarded begging rights to hinin in exchange for their performance of certain duties such as the patrol of the workplace, the flaying of animal carcasses, village guard duties, and the transportation of prisoners. Hinin belonging to the same village were therefore also permitted to roam around these villages begging for alms in special periods such as times of great prosperity or famine, New Year, and Obon. It is uncertain when the right of hinin to beg alms in local villages actually emerged in eastern Japan, but hinin were made to perform the aforementioned duties such as carcass disposal (bayaku) in exchange for receiving the right to beg alms from a reasonably early period (how early is impossible to determine). It is also the case that workplaces were not just the “begging grounds” for eta and hinin, but also for other socially marginalized groups, although relatively little is known about this aspect of the workplace in eastern Japan due to a lack of historical materials. Regarding begging for alms in the workplace, Okuma Tetsuo has found a draft document drawn up by the peasant village head in Aoume village in Musashi Province concerning the begging rights of both chōri and hinin. From this document it is clear that hinin begging rights were more substantial than those of chōri in terms of both permitted frequency and amount of alms, a reflection of the primacy of begging for hinin subsistence. Chōri begging privileges and duties for the workplace included the following: receiving 1.8 litres (1 shō) of wheat in summer and 1.8 litres (1 shō) of rice ears in autumn from each peasant household; going to greet the peasant village head and other

50   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule officials with straw sandals in hand in summer, autumn, during the Festival of the Dead, and at New Year (on these occasions the village head would give 3.6 litres worth of produce in summer and autumn, as well as some cash offerings at the time of the Festival of the Dead and at New Year); on the 14th and 15th days of the first month, the chōri along with his wife and children would go on an alms-­collecting tour of the villages in his workplace in a rite referred to as maigaki (perhaps a religious rite to ward off evil); and “eta [chōri] and hinin guards” were to receive “unclean items” (fujō shinajina) from peasants at the time of a funeral of someone in the community.32 A relatively recent study of workplaces under Danzaemon rule has further indicated that they varied in size, ranging from territories that incorporated a dozen or more villages to areas that stretched well beyond the size of a historical county. This research has also clarified that apart from the eastern Japanese territories not included under Danzaemon rule (Nikko, Kitsuregawa, Mito), each workplace was located adjacent to the next, so that there were no territorial gaps between them. Some workplaces were amalgamations of formerly existing workplaces, a situation that probably arose due to concentrations of wealth in outcaste communities and therefore an accumulation of workplace privileges. It appears that it may have been possible for the opposite process to also happen in the early modern period, however, with the splitting up of workplaces (and their associated privileges) followed by a more equal redistribution among outcaste village community members perhaps also sometimes taking place.33 While few documents exist to help reconstruct the medieval-­early modern transition of the eastern Japanese workplace, following the examples from central Japan, it is likely to be the case that medieval estates and older territorial communities such as the sōson – “relatively autonomous, self-­governing rural communities”34 – drew up boundaries for the disposal of dead animals and for alms collection, and that these boundaries were inherited with a certain degree of adjustment in the early Tokugawa period. Early modern maps of the workplace indicate that animal carcass dumping grounds could clearly change over time. That medieval communities had animal carcass disposal and alms collection territories is itself indicative of the fact that certain communities were widely relied upon for their “cleansing” powers, although there are no real records to reconstruct the history of these groups.

The 16th century context The early modern Japanese state and the associated establishment of its distinctive social order were increasingly realized through the periods of rule under the “three great unifiers”: Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598), and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616). The warfare of the late 15th and 16th centuries had to a considerable extent served to loosen medieval status categories. Warlords, in need of large armies to defeat opponents in their struggle for autonomy or hegemony, permitted people from various occupational backgrounds to fight, and once successful, advancement could take place

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   51 in both socio-­political and economic terms. While Hideyoshi himself was of peasant origins, some warlords like Saitō Dōsan (1494–1556) and Tōdō Takatora (1556–1630) apparently had even humbler beginnings in terms of their status.35 While status boundaries may have been loosened for some during the 16th century, they were conversely tightened for others, including those that were later linked to early modern groups later pejoratively labelled eta (chōri) in eastern Japan. As Tsukada has observed, a strong degree of continuity must be acknowledged between medieval and early modern leatherworking groups: while the restrictions placed on late medieval tanning guilds by warrior heads during the period of warring states in an important sense “created” a new set of social conditions, the fact that such groups already functioned as coherent social assemblages must also be acknowledged.36 Documents from the 16th century tend to refer to leather workers as kawazukuri (literally “leather-­makers”) and not the term chōri discussed in the previous chapter. At least in eastern Japan it appears that tanner communities during the 16th and early 17th centuries were largely called kawazukuri, and that this term was replaced in official discourse by the terms kawata, kawaya, and eventually eta over the course of the 17th century (kawata and kawaya also being terms that imply people work with leather).37 The label chōri (literally “official”), however, was also used in this period to refer to leather workers; in the Vocabulario Da Lingoa De Iapam (Japanese–Portuguese Dictionary) from the earliest part of the Edo period, a reference can be found to the “Yetta” (with a double not a single t), which serves as a synonym for the word “Chori”.38 Seventeenth century documents pertaining to kawazukuri in eastern Japan demonstrate that eastern Japanese leatherworkers operated in groups and had leaders with readily identifiable names that were targeted by late medieval warlords keen to monopolize leather supply in their territories. It is clear, moreover, such as in the case of the shift of the Uesugi clan to Yonezawa, that leatherworking groups also sometimes moved with their lord if the latter party was reassigned to a fief elsewhere by one of the aforementioned unifying lords.39 That leatherworkers were not held in high social regard is also something that can be substantiated through contemporaneous records. Eta were first mentioned in Western records by Luis Frois in 1575, who wrote that “the Eta belong to the lowest class in Japan, rather like the Poleas in Malabar. Their job is to skin dead animals and to act as executioners.”40 The window of social opportunity for social advancement through military service closed during the late 16th century under Hideyoshi. After removing political rivals who could issue a direct challenge to his hegemony, Hideyoshi ushered in political changes which would limit or remove future opportunities for social advancement through military service. He issued edicts such as the so-­ called Sword Hunt Edict (katanagari-­rei) which hastened the establishment of a more rigid social and legal status system. New institutions designed to maximize political control of the population were also established. Some of these systems also arguably included giving monopoly rights to occupational groups

52   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule in exchange for complete compliance on certain issues relating particularly to residence and occupation.41 Cadastral surveys (kenchi), moreover, established an unprecedented degree of linkages between land, occupation, and taxation, working to create a relatively fixed group of producers who were to be placed in a special political and economic relationship with the ruling warrior elites. Along with the land surveys, moreover, warriors were also moved into castle-­towns, which generated a separation of the warring and agricultural classes (heinō bunri). Hideyoshi’s consolidation of power and attempts to create state unity were achieved with considerable effect in the late medieval period. His policies emphasized the transcendence of the warrior class while securing his own position as the penultimate one in this emerging social and political order. In the century following the period when Hideyoshi first came to prominence, land measurement, codes of occupational conduct, strict centralized rule, fixed residence based on temple registration, growing status demarcations among the ruling class, limitations on both domestic and overseas travel, a systemization of tough punitive measures, and severe restrictions on freedom of thought, action, and religion were all undertaken.42 It is clear, moreover, from a late 16th century document that refers to “leather workers of various areas and places” that if Danzaemon was the name of a prominent leather group leader at this time, he was indeed only “one boss among others”.43

Origins of Danzaemon rule Various origin stories surround the emergence of Danzaemon rule, and postwar scholarship has sometimes struggled to distinguish between fact and fiction in writings about the early development of Danzaemon. The most common story is found in the early 18th century genealogical statement of Danzaemon Chikamura (r.1709–1748), which alleges that his ancestors came from Fuchū in Musashi Province and later moved to Kamakura, but that his actual ancestral origins lie in Settsu Province in central Japan.44 This same genealogical statement asserts that Danzaemon met Tokugawa Ieyasu and his men at Fuchū when the latter marched into Edo and that he had his leadership over leather producers in the area affirmed at this time.45 It is difficult to know what to make of these stories, but they are probably best considered questionable assertions by Chikamura designed to help bolster his early 18th century rule during a period of crisis.46 Other aspects of the Danzaemon origins story are built around writings not directly attributable to one of the successive Danzaemon heads. A more detailed variant of the above story was based on a 19th century source, which stated that Danzaemon’s “favored position within Ieyasu’s new political framework for the Kantō region was further strengthened following his participation at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and at the two battles at Osaka as Ieyasu’s official keeper of severed heads”.47Another story attributed to Ieyasu’s retainer Naitō Kiyonari declared that “Ieyasu’s favorite riding horse had fallen sick, and to cure the malady, an eta who claimed to have served the military ‘since the time of

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   53 Yoritomo’ was summoned from a place called Torigoe (an eta later known as Danzaemon).”48 Uncritical acceptance of such stories has in the past led some to affirm matter-­of-factly that “Ieyasu appointed the Danzaemon as head over the leather artisans in the Kantō and as official supplier of leather some time during the period from 1590 to 1596.”49 Confusion concerning Danzaemon origins has been compounded by the fact that 1715 and 1719 variants of Danzaemon’s genealogical statements also exist, and although they were almost certainly fabricated after the 1725 version, many writers in the past have simply assumed that they can be interpreted straightforwardly in chronological order.50 Surprisingly little can actually be written with certainty about early 17th century developments in relation to Danzaemon and his emerging relationship with regional sub-­chiefs and the hinin populations of Edo. Several interpretative possibilities can be inferred by examining developments in other regions. Asao Naohiro, in his insightful work on the kawata (chōri/eta) village, Saraike in central Japan, highlighted the need for caution when making arguments about the political constitution of outcaste communities in early Tokugawa Japan. Asao pointed to the need for scholars to not just look at the inclusion of outcaste labels on documentary records such as cadastral records and population registers as evidence of the political determination of kawata communities, but to also pay special attention to the logic and rationale for the broad array of records used to actualize rule in the early Tokugawa period. Taking up temple registration in the 17th century as an example, Asao made a strong case for also focusing on the ways in which kawata temples actually became part of the overall registration system, instead of just examining such records for possible references to outcastes. Asao further argued that the late 16th century subdivision of villages brought about by the Hideyoshi cadastral land surveys had a considerable impact on kawata communities. Asao provided evidence of the ways in which the Saraike kawata community became an administratively subordinate part of the village at this time in a way that restricted their overall access and residency, and that also basically determined their subsequent occupational range and duties. By carefully considering duties, such as Saraike’s engagement in festival and religious rites, or their performance of lower-­level execution duties mediated through Watanabe village which was close to Osaka, Asao revealed the possibility of discovering continuities from pre-­Tokugawa times. By doing so, he recovered regional social relations between outcaste villages (which came to involve the headship of Watanabe village (kashiramura) as well as internal rules and regulations (nakama shikihō) that impacted subsequent execution of duties). Through his analysis, Asao enabled a deeper understanding of the multi-­layered nature of such obligations (i.e. a better understanding of the difference between older duties that existed in relation to nearby communities and those that had emerged as a result of the community’s incorporation into early modern state structures).51 In his analysis of Saraike, Asao further suggested that this village was an example of an entire pre-­existing village of kawata being brought under the

54   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule governance of the Tokugawa shogunate, an act influenced by the fact that autonomous, self-­governing sōson (“relatively autonomous, self-­governing rural communities”) had developed to an extent in central Japan that they had not in other regions. According to Asao, the method of incorporating entire kawata villages into a system of rule in the early modern Japanese state should be contrasted with Danzaemon rule, where individual chōri, who were the leaders of occupational groups and not always necessarily whole villages, were brought under shogunate rule.52 Asao further acknowledged the ways in which communities which were incorporated into the early modern state such as Saraike were clearly viewed as outcaste subjects. He also noted that the incorporation of kawata villages into the Tokugawa state involved two core processes: establishing rule over kawata communities, as particular status groups (mibun dantai) with official tasks and duties, and also over villages, whose rule was dependent on neighbouring peasant villages – with a propensity for the latter process to become more pronounced as time passed.53 As Asao observed, early cadastral surveys were critically important in the process of incorporating kawata villages into the early modern political order, as they took pre-­existing communities connected to their regions in important ways and internally bound together by lifestyle, custom, and administrative practices, and reorganized them according to new principles. At the time of the cadastral surveys, some communities such as Watanabe village were granted non-­taxed lands in exchange for their performance of execution duties, while others such as Saraike village actually paid tax on their land but received exceptions on their corvée labour duties. Moreover, in central Japan, as Asao also pointed out, obtaining a monopoly on leather supply merely required asserting control over leather shops run by people of townsperson status, meaning that there was far less compulsion on the part of the shogunate to organize supply lines for the product through reorganization of kawata communities into a more coherent social order.54 Mita Satoko, building upon Asao’s core observations and extending them in important ways, has argued that the kawata village of Minami Ōji in Izumi Province came to assume its position due to the ways in which cadastral land surveys came to record and manage the existence of such communities. As Mita makes clear, Minami Ōji became a separate kawata village only after a century-­long process that began with Hideyoshi’s cadastral land surveys, and that involved a slow procedure of acquiring and forfeiting land and associated rights in the face of subsequent land surveys that captured the realities of land ownership in unique ways.55 As Machida Tetsu has pointed out in his review of Mita’s work, the fact that kawata land holdings were publicly recognized in the earliest cadastral surveys that involved Minami Ōji is itself something that needs to be recognized as significantly determining the shape of the village’s later history. Whatever the case, how a village came to be organized through cadastral land surveys clearly had a tremendous impact on its later early modern historical trajectory.56 Makihara Shigeyuki, also in a review of Mita’s work, has argued that depending on whether a kawata community was incorporated into a domain or

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   55 shogunate territory was also important in determining the different relations that it had with neighbouring villages and warrior overlords. He further contended that the extent to which the makeup of a kawata community was determined by cadastral surveys depended on whether or not it had land; kawata communities without agricultural land that could be captured through the initial cadastral surveys had to be determined as such solely through processes of internal self-­recognition and regional community interactions. Furthermore, the process of assigning official duties in return for certain privileges including tax exemptions on land holdings, according to Makihara, may be best considered a Tokugawa policy (i.e. not a Toyotomi policy), essentially a 17th century process whereby the shogunate used separate household and temple registers to secure information about kawata (chōri) populations.57 The rich insights of scholarship on kawata communities in central Japan offer many important lessons for understanding the possible formation process of the Edo outcaste order in the eastern provinces. This is especially important given the real lack of extant documentation in relation to Danzaemon and the Edo outcaste order. Cadastral surveys can certainly be understood as having the same kinds of diverse impacts on chōri communities in eastern Japan as in other regions, although the kind of detailed analysis offered by scholars such as Mita in relation to Minami Ōji village has yet to be undertaken for villages in eastern Japan. While difficult to generalize, it is likely to be the case that cadastral surveys also worked in many cases to establish chōri settlements as villages set apart from peasant communities due to their unusual duties pertaining to leather production, as well as status communities of low standing that had their local administration in some way mediated by nearby peasant communities, building on a set of pre-­existing relationships that were also affected by regional concerns. Taking the Gunma area as an example, one Hideyoshi era cadastral survey record from Datebayashi included references to chōri and their residences and lands, with these entries interspersed with those of peasant households. In Maebashi Domain, a later 1638 survey of Isezaki township confirmed the existence of residential and agricultural land holdings, with a considerable amount held by one particular chōri (the characters “apart from the city” (町離) were also sporadically used to phonetically represent the word chōri, possibly indicating that a strong degree of social ostracism was taking place there). In the case of a 1650 survey from Hosotani village in Nitta County (shogunate land), no land holdings are recorded for chōri, only for their residences, but clear reference is made to tax exemptions, suggesting that the existence of a system of official duties had already developed in the first half of the 17th century.58 The ways in which cadastral surveys were initially implemented and subsequently reissued had considerable impacts on the kinds of relationships that chōri communities had with neighbouring peasant villages and townships in eastern Japan as well. Makihara has further developed our understanding about the nature of kawata (eta/chōri) community formation in this same part of the northern Kantō region. He notes the existence of four kawata communities of smaller

56   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule size, but also one large kawata settlement in the area; and links the demographic concentration of these communities to the fact that the area was of particular importance as a regional transport hub. Each of these communities, Makihara underscores, had workplaces where they engaged in the disposal of animal carcasses as well as ritual begging. He further contends that the largest kawata settlement emerged on the periphery of one of the few cities that emerged in the northern Kantō, perhaps in the late medieval period, and that it came to exert a strong regional influence over the other kawata settlements, but in a way that is perhaps not really witnessed elsewhere in the eastern provinces. When the territory came under the rule of Hikone Domain in 1633, Makihara maintains that the various privileges of the community came to be officially recognized, and that the kawata community came to perform prison guard and execution duties for the domain. Such a community was also brought under Danzaemon rule sometime in the 17th century, a process which involved Danzaemon recognizing the community’s leadership rights of the local kawata community.59 Of course one essential difference between eastern Japan and other regions lies in the fact that an actual outcaste order was created in the 17th century. As alluded to in Asao’s aforementioned discussion of Saraike village, this was probably necessitated by the fact that the Tokugawa shogunate needed to monopolize a steady leather supply in its own territories. In its attempts to bolster its military position in the region and address a number of emerging social concerns, the shogunate simultaneously looked to monopolize the production and supply of leather in virtually all territories surrounding Edo. Some pre-­ Tokugawa linkages had probably already developed between leatherworkers in relation to certain tasks – primarily leather procurement but perhaps in some cases also in relation to execution, policing, cleaning, and disposal. For the Tokugawa shogunate to secure a monopoly on leather required the mobilization of these relationships and certain guarantees once they became a properly developed production network. The shogunate, as well as regional warlords with close family or vassal connections to the Tokugawa, legally affirmed official duties already in place, and in some cases also probably required communities to engage in new ones, in exchange for certain tax exemptions, particularly in relation to land, as well as monopoly privileges in certain industries, most importantly leather production. While missing from the records, it is likely that the Edo outcaste order was also formed through an amalgamation of wider territorial network clusters of kawata communities that had already formed regional relationships by the end of the 16th century (such as the one examined by Makihara discussed above). It is unclear how and when a person referred to as Danzaemon achieved his monopoly on leather production, when he built and came to reside in a large compound in Asakusa, and the point at which he first became referred to as eta. It is also uncertain how Danzaemon came to stand out among a number of specific tanning communities with reasonably well defined heads to achieve a monopoly on shogunate leather supply in the greater Kantō area. Danzaemon Chikamura’s genealogical statements suggest that he fought it out with other

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   57 big leatherworker groups in the region in order to achieve predominance. One of those rival groups was apparently led by Tarōzaemon from Odawara, who apparently had a close relationship to the Gohōjō clan.60 Such a scenario is probably not too far from the truth, but due to the nature of the documents themselves, they must be read with caution. At what point a relatively unified Danzaemon rule emerged is also unclear, but it is likely the case that over the course of the 17th century Danzaemon accumulated powers of governance over a number of groups of people including other kawazukuri (chōri) and hinin groups in relation to matters of a legal, jurisdictional, and disciplinary nature.61

Seventeenth century developments The creation of the outcaste order within Edo itself was also related to a significant degree to law and order issues and a shogunate need to strengthen policing practices.62 Policing the growing city of Edo was an increasing priority for the Tokugawa warrior government. From the second quarter of the 17th century, year in and year out, almost without fail, Edo town circulars ordered citizens to vigilantly watch out for certain kinds of people; those without a fixed address, an officially acknowledged occupation, or decent credentials fell outside the sphere of governance within the emerging Edo social order and became the targets of ever-­stricter policing. Masterless samurai (rōnin) and mendicant priests (gannin bōzu) had to be watched carefully, and “suspicious characters” (fushinaru mono, uranmono, utagawashikimono) were to be detained or reported. Townships were also to be on the lookout for prostitutes operating illegally (baitame) outside the permitted areas. Fires were sometimes the direct result of arson by people who either belonged to or subsequently hid among these classes. Theft and other similar crimes were also commonly associated with such communities, and perhaps most importantly, political insurgents plotting rebellions against the shogunate like the later Yui Shōsetsu also apparently found these communities useful in giving them cover from the anxious eye of the Tokugawa authorities.63 Policing vagrants, however, while a top priority, could not be undertaken without a measure of concern for those who could not look after themselves. Such groups could also themselves become suspect, of course, as potential hotbeds for the spread of problematic ideologies. In 1636, Francois Caron noted in a diary entry that the authorities in Edo were questioning local lepers, the blind, the lame, and the disabled, in an attempt to identify Christians and relocate them to closely monitored prison settlements where they would apparently be left to starve to death.64 But impoverishment was also a distinct reality, particularly after natural disasters. In 1642, a great drought ensued, followed soon after by a particularly devastating famine. Many people were said to have expired in the streets; countless others committed suicide by throwing themselves into lakes and rivers, and many thousands more, dressed in straw and cumin (plants), converged on Nihonbashi for aid. Some townships gave alms on a daily basis to help these people; others, perhaps of their own volition, built

58   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule small huts with which they could protect themselves from the elements as well as receive recognition and help. The Kawagoe merchant Emoto Yazaemon’s diary describes a distinctive shogunate response to the above disaster. A large enclosure about 200 metres in length was built in Bakuromachi, and many beggars (komokaburi: literally “straw hat wearers”) were given shelter there. Emoto estimated that there were about 10,000 beggars in Edo at the time; the city’s rivers also apparently brimmed with dead bodies. Emoto further described the head of this beggar community as a “general” (taishō) of the poor.65 These records suggest that sometime in the second quarter of the 17th century, the creation of semi-­formal settlements for the sick and impoverished with some degree of internal hierarchy was an increasingly common phenomenon in the city of Edo, undertaken with considerable encouragement from the shogunate. Little can be said with certainty about the hinin communities in Edo during the mid-­17th century without relying on records written at much later dates. Tsukada has argued that in 1652, “the territory (kawatoriba) under the direct jurisdiction of Edo was recognized as Kuruma Zenshichi’s begging ground, and as a result Kuruma Zenshichi came under the control of Danzaemon,” although this reference comes from a mid-­19th century text.66 What hinin groups in Edo received in exchange for the performance of such duties is of course an important question, although one that is difficult to resolve definitely; how hinin came to have a subordinated position to Danzaemon in the 17th century is indeed one of the more striking problems within the early history of the Edo outcaste order. Later records also assert that after a fire in 1654, two hinin leaders by the names of Kuruma Zenshichi and Matsuemon were ordered to take care of the dead bodies, and then, after the Great Meireki Fire of 1657, hinin were again mobilized to dispose of the 100,000-plus dead bodies scattered throughout the city.67 In the latter tragedy, it is said that a plot of land in Honjō measuring about 50,000 square metres was set aside to which hinin carried the corpses on boats, built a mound, and then constructed a temple which was given the name Ekōin. Another 19th century record states that Kuruma Zenshichi was summoned to the Edo Town Magistrate’s office in 1666 and awarded land for the community which he presided over in the Shin-­Yoshiwara area.68 In one 1854 document, the hinin leader Matsuemon also claimed that his forebears came to live in Edo in 1635 and that they became the Shiba hinin leaders during the Kanbun period (1661–1673).69 Whether or not one should take all or any of the above statements at face value is debatable, but it does seem safe to assume that the earliest hinin communities in Edo were beginning to stabilize from around the mid-­17th century and that to some extent they were involved in activities such as poverty relief and disaster clean-­up. It is also likely that such hinin groups had aspects of their relationships with the Tokugawa shogunate that were not mediated through Danzaemon, indicating a kind of independence as an early modern status group. And as later records also suggest, Danzaemon was also playing a role in helping to manage poverty in Edo probably from around this time, and was probably involved in the management of some hinin activities during this period as well.

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   59 Danzaemon’s appearances in mid-­17th century documentation are sparse and the references themselves also pose considerable interpretative problems. Edo authorities appear to have forced certain punitive powers relating to the torture and execution of non-­warrior subjects on a figure referred to as Danzaemon during the mid-­17th century. Danzaemon, written with different ideographs, was apparently ordered, for example, to carry out the torture of 45 Christians in 1643.70 Another revealing episode dated 1657 involved several other “kawata” in Kawagoe Domain, a territory that may by this stage have already been under Danzaemon rule. Local officials apparently ordered kawata to build an embankment to be used in the beheading of several people found guilty of pickpocketing. They apparently refused, declaring that they had never before participated in such an activity and did not intend to start. An attempt was then made to sequester the help of a town block association with the unlucky official who initially refused being beaten for his trouble. Eventually, the “kawata” were denied access to the town market to sell their goods and it was only then that they reluctantly agreed to perform the task.71 Despite these tantalizing references, there is little that can be said with certainty about the early history of the Shinchō community that Danzaemon came to rule over. The Tenshō Period Diary (Tenshō Nikki) – long challenged as a reliable historical source for various reasons including a dubious transmission route, pronoun usage inconsistent with a first-­person diary account, and apparent reliance on later historical sources – suggests that Danzaemon’s settlement was forcibly moved to its later location near the Imado Bridge in 1645, an area that at that time lay on the very outskirts of the city, as a result of a shogunate directive.72 An early 18th century compilation, Collection of Gleanings (Ochiboshū), included a reference to an “eta village containing Danzaemon’s residence” located “at a high point among a plain of reeds in an area known as Amamise at Nihonbashi” at the time Tokugawa Ieyasu moved to Edo, while the aforementioned Tenshō Period Diary described a subsequent shift to “Torigoe”.73 Again, it would be unwise to simply take these records at face value, particularly as the information cannot be verified through other sources. But given the considerable movement of outcaste communities to peripheral sites in burgeoning cities during the 17th and 18th centuries, the urban marginalization process described in these sources is probably generally indicative of what actually happened (see Chapter 6).74

Systemization of the status system Eta (chōri) and hinin came to be social status groups incorporated not only into the Edo outcaste order in the 17th century, but as status groups within an early modern system of status that was in many respects a reformulation of an older caste system. As David Howell has pointed out, “[t]he institutionalization of outcaste status by the early modern regime politicized the religious bifurcation of medieval society, and rendered the base realm of the outcastes autonomous yet clearly and in multiple ways subordinated to the quotidian world of samurai

60   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule and commoners.”75 Eta (chōri) and hinin groups fashioned relations with local ruling authorities and with each other all around the Japanese archipelago during the 17th century, but as was argued above, the urban and rural dynamics that underpinned these processes could be quite different. A 1680 map provides a clear reminder that so-­called hinin communities in Edo even at that point of time were still being publicly referred to (at least in some circles) as “beggar villages” (kojiki mura).76 But communities with clear internal hierarchies, mobilized by the Tokugawa shogunate and local rulers to manage poverty, disease, death, and dangerous beliefs as well as to provide certain low-­level bureaucratic services to the warrior regime, were maintaining some institutional cohesion by this time, and were probably increasingly being regarded by authorities as established, status-­group-like entities. The extent to which terms such as hinin and eta were firm status designations in eastern Japan in the third quarter of the 17th century is difficult to determine absolutely, but it is the case that they came to be used in Tokugawa legislation from around the 1650s.77 At least one of the major hinin communities in Edo administered by a hinin boss with the title Kuruma Zenshichi was probably moved during the third quarter of the 17th century to an area further outside the city centre near the Shin-­Yoshiwara pleasure quarters and not too far away from Danzaemon’s “enclosure” in Shinchō, suggesting an emerging mentality of grouping people together who in earlier decades were merely listed in documents as troublesome groups who threatened the stability of Edo’s burgeoning urban environment. Regional eta (chōri) groups, too, were increasingly brought into relations with Danzaemon, as the demand to produce a steady supply of leather for the shogunate grew, and as the performance of official duties in exchange for taxation exemptions and the like became a more concrete procedural feature of the Tokugawa socio-­political order. The ways that cadastral land surveys came to geographically anchor people into particular communities, social relations, and modes of production in new ways has been noted above. From what little that can be added on the creation of temple registers, it is clear that they also must have played an important part in the early formation process of these communities. Nishiki Kōichi, in his examination of an 1806 appeal by Ihē to the Edo City Magistrate, has argued that the incident indicates several important pieces of information about sectarian rule in Edo: that Danzaemon’s Shinchō residents belonged to various religious sects and therefore were patrons at numerous differing temples; that some of these temples had inter-­status group patronage; and that household succession and continuation of family temples were understood (at least in this case) by outcastes to be inseparable activities.78 Nishiki goes on to argue, after an investigation of regional outcaste patron-­temple arrangements, that they were suitably diverse throughout the Edo outcaste order. One of the tentative conclusions he draws from his examples is that there is a strong likelihood that the temple registration system activated by the early Tokugawa shoguns did not actually initially force outcastes into particular patron-­temple arrangements but merely affirmed pre-­existing relationships as they stood.79

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   61 Ideologically, eta (chōri) and hinin groups, while part of an emerging outcaste order within a developing status system, were still conceptually located outside it, as statuses beyond the ideal status order of the “four peoples” (shimin). Such a notion is strongly evident in the writings of the intellectual Yamaga Sokō (1622–1685) – initially a pupil of Hayashi Razan – who wrote very specifically about status and how to manage social groups which fell outside of the “four peoples”. In Yamaga gorui, completed in 1665, Sokō argued that an array of status groups that included “kanjin bōzu, zatō, goze, monoyomi, biwahōshi, umakata, ushitsukai, funegashira, ryōshi, gyōshi, hinin-­kojiki, and eta” should be administered and governed in highly specialized ways. Sokō argued, for example, that people below the status of umakata (horse handlers) should be made to form “guild groups” (nakama) through which they should be governed. Lepers and those with disabilities, according to Sokō, should also be made to live in the one place. The places where these people should live, he argued, were to be well away from the thoroughfares of respected people. “Hinin-­kojiki”, he declared, should be made to clean up the townships, forced to live a healthy distance from the city, and made to wear clothes that distinguished them from others.80 Asao Naohiro noted that in some ways Sokō’s discourse was rooted in his observance of processes that were already underway. At another level, however, his writings probably predated the actual changes themselves, at a bare minimum capturing a zeitgeist, and perhaps even exerting some influence over policy.81 Whatever the case, the processes Sokō prescribed can be evidenced in town circulars from the 1670s. Official documents make mention of the mass emergence of “new hinin” (shinhinin), an expression dependent on the idea of a pre-­existing and relatively fixed group of people. This original group of hinin apparently had their claim to a livelihood through mendicancy officially sanctioned as a legitimate activity with strong religious connections (that needed to be strictly regulated and policed rather than outlawed) because of their performance of official duties for the Tokugawa shogunate mentioned above. Importantly, however, some circulars of the same period also caution hinin not to upset commoners, indicating a conceptual firming at the political level of what was believed to constitute the average political subject. This had considerable ramifications for hinin who were beginning to operate as official status groups. It meant, as Tsukada Takashi has put it, that a firm status distinction had emerged whereby “no matter how poor a townsman who rented accommodation was, he was not a hinin”.82 Although the expression “new hinin” (shinhinin) is found in a Kyoto town circular dated 1663, the term does not appear to have had much currency in Edo this early.83 By the early 1670s, however, the idea of someone who was a beggar or homeless person “becoming a hinin”, for example, can be seen in some contemporaneous sources.84 In 1674, moreover, the following Edo Town Magistrate ordinance was issued: This year, due to the high price of rice, a number of hinin have become visible in recent days. Town elders and other officials must investigate hinin

62   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule not only within the township but also those located at nearby riverbanks and cross-­roads, record their village of origin, lord, and age, and take it to the Town Magistrate within the next few days. New hinin (oitsuki hinin) who move to the area must be sent away but those who are already there can be left for the time being. If this is considered to be too difficult a task and hinin are inadvertently sent to another place, you must first get the permission of the resident town elders and officials.85 Several days later, another circular helped clarify this new policy: “Regarding the new policy towards hinin, we have told you to leave the hinin where they are for the time being, but now the issue has become a little clearer. As has been the case until now, hinin should be permitted to beg as they wish. Those hinin in townships who do not posit a hindrance should be permitted to stay where they are.”86 Hinin, at least in the beginning, were people who congregated in townships, riverbanks, and crossroads, originally from other places, and who made a living through begging, forced into itinerancy because irate townsfolk drove them away from urban settlements.87 Their existence was associated with phenomenon like the rising price of rice, and there was a tension between the authorities and townsmen about how best to deal with them on a daily basis.88 Certainly one common response by townsmen was to simply drive them away to other townships.89 The aforementioned 1674 Edo town circular also speaks of the need for neighbourhood elders and rotating administrative heads to make records pertaining to hinin found around them and report these to the authorities.90 In 1675, moreover, sixty “temporary huts” (karigoya) measuring 4-by-­5 metres in size were built for hinin at Yanagihara in Edo. Each hinin was subsequently given miso, firewood, and rice, and already in the same year the population numbered more than 600. As Groemer notes, however, these temporary shelters were quickly abolished a few months later and the former residents were either dismissed or placed under the leadership of the hinin communities.91 While there is evidence to suggest that there was still a class of beggars who were located in fixed places in Edo who were not part of the official organizational structure being formed under leaders like Kuruma Zenshichi, it is clear that they, along with “newcomers”, were being increasingly differentiated in relation to them. These records also indicate that hinin scattered throughout the city in huts were forming important networks throughout the city.92 One further important step in the consolidation of a formalized relation between authorities and marginalized groups like beggars, who at some point around this time probably came under Danzaemon’s rule, is in the issuance of edicts which forbade the latter group from entering inside the gates of townsmen’s houses.93 By 1680, the situation in Edo began to change. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi issued an edict in that year to the hinin gashira (literally “head of the hinin”). In it, he declared that there were many “beggar hinin” in the city and that forthwith no such person would be permitted in the city. All hinin huts,

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   63 moreover, had to be destroyed within three days.94 The implication of this policy was that hinin leaders had to round up vagrants and the destitute and force them to either live in hinin enclosures or to leave the metropolis. According to later records, the two hinin leaders, Kuruma Zenshichi and Matsuemon, were also brought before the magistrate in 1680 and informed that it would be their responsibility to look after urban vagrants. While this law had practically little effect, it did signal that hinin leaders had become more than conceptually implicated in attending to the urban poor and displaced.95 In 1687, this association strengthened: Edo hinin were marshalled to build and maintain enclosures intending to care for (and maintain surveillance over) sick prisoners in places known as tame.96 What should also be clear from the above is that when reconstructing the history of the Edo outcaste order in the 17th century, the story of Danzaemon necessarily remains in the narrative background due to a lack of source materials. While there are records of disputes between Danzaemon and other status communities in the second half of the 17th century, these records are generally dubious. In 1667, for example, an alleged dispute broke out between Danzaemon and the Zatō (Guild of the Blind), but Tsukada has indicated that it is highly unlikely that these records can be relied upon.97 Maki Hidemasa has also claimed that there was a lawsuit between Danzaemon and Zenshichi during the years 1684–1687 and that Danzaemon insisted during this legal struggle that Kuruma Zenshichi be made his subordinate.98 Early 18th century legal records indicate that a struggle took place around this time, so it is probably unwise to doubt that the event took place. If one is to take Maki’s document seriously, it basically indicates that the 1684–1687 incident led to a victory for Danzaemon and was a critical moment in the establishment of the Edo outcaste order. Again, however, because there is good reason to be sceptical about the source’s authenticity, the position adopted here is that while the incident probably occurred, the details are probably no longer available to us.

Conclusions A caste system emerged in Japan in the ancient period, rooted in clan-­based social formations. The distinctive ways in which this system disintegrated, along with the emergence of new medieval kinship structures, helped to determine the ways in which occupational groups came to be structured, and how they interacted with other groups in eastern Japan. While there is little that is clear about how chōri (eta) communities emerged and intersected with each other in pre-­ Tokugawa Japan, it is probably the case that they emerged as occupational groups that also took on the form of closed groups with inherited “powers” defined by their relationship to the imperial centre. They became marked by “pollution”, and their relationships with authorities and neighbouring communities were heavily defined by the historical relations that developed in the urban and rural contexts in which they were located. The transition from medieval to early modern Japan involved increasing regulation of the lives and

64   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule practices of these occupational communities by a centralizing state, and the economic and political demands of the Tokugawa shogunate heavily impacted the decision to create an order of outcastes. Despite the real lack of material to help with the rebuilding of the early history of the establishment of the Edo outcaste order, it is nonetheless clear that it came into existence with Danzaemon at its apex by the end of the 17th century, and that the order comprised an important part of an emerging social status system in eastern Japan in territories dominated by shogunate rule. Beggar settlements in Edo transformed into the headquarters of a quite formalized network of hinin status groups with distinct hierarchies by about the third quarter of the 17th century. Extant materials reveal that these outcastes became an important part of Tokugawa shogunate social policy aimed at dealing with issues such as poverty, disaster, and homelessness. How these groups came to be associated with Danzaemon in the 17th century and how a relationship of subservience emerged between eta and hinin community heads is difficult to ascertain, although it clearly involved some kind of transference of begging rights in relation to the workplace. These status groups incorporated a number of hinin huts (hinin goya) governed by leaders with hereditary titles who would play a pivotal role in the later establishment and maintenance of beggar camps and prison infirmaries. Danzaemon and the communities directly subordinated to his rule were at some point in the 17th century moved to their location on the outskirts of Edo and offered special privileges in exchange for loyal service to the shogun. Permitted to retain some autonomy in relation to the matter of how he ruled over members of his own group, Danzaemon was in turn required to serve in an official capacity in relation to numerous duties including torture and execution. The rule that Danzaemon was able to extend to chōri communities throughout the eastern Japanese provinces was predicated upon the networks between leatherworker groups that had already developed prior to the 17th century. Cadastral land surveys and registration practices worked in ways to legally affirm the position of chōri within their wider communities, but considerable differences existed between those that were eventually incorporated into the Edo outcaste order. What tied these groups together was the need of the shogunate to secure a steady supply of leather and an Edo-­based community that could be relied upon to handle that task, as well as communities that could also handle the outsourcing of a variety of duties that the ruling authorities themselves increasingly wished to avoid.

Notes   1 Kentarō Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū (Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 1996); Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū (Kobe: Hyōgo Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1987); Takashi Tsukada, Mibunsei Shakai to Shimin Shakai: Kinsei Nihon No Shakai To Hō (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1992).   2 Shigeyuki Makihara, “Kita Kantō No Chōri Kogashira To Shokuba/Yuisho”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 185 (2008); “Kawata Mura To Chiiki Shakai: Bushū Shimowana To

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   65 Shimo Yoshimi Ryō”, in Tokyo Daigaku Nihonshi Kenkyūshitsu Kiyō Bessatsu: Yoshida Nobuyuki Sensei Taishoku Kinen Kinsei Shakaishi Ronyō, ed. Tokyo Daigaku Daigakuin Jinbun Shakaikei Kenkyūjo (Tokyo: 2013).   3 Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Japanese Civilization: A Comparative View (Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), 173.   4 John Whitney Hall, Government and Local Power in Japan, 500 to 1700: A Study Based on Bizen Province (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 6.   5 William H. McCullough, “The Capital and Its Society”, in The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 2: Heian Japan, ed. Donald H. Shively and William H. McCullough, The Cambridge History of Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 128.   6 Ibid.   7 G. Cameron Hurst III, “The Structure of the Heian Court: Some Thoughts on the Nature of ‘Familial Authority’ in Heian Japan”, in Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History, ed. John Whitney Hall and Jeffrey P. Mass (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 44.   8 Keiji Yamaguchi, “Mondai No Shozai”, in Saiban To Kihan, ed. Keiji Yamaguchi (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987), 8–9.   9 Kyōhei Ōyama, Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai: Chūsei Nihon (Tokyo: Hasekura Shobō, 2003), 243–244. 10 Hall, Government and Local Power in Japan, 135. For a discussion of the complexities of kinship issues in the formation period of the Kamakura shogunate, see Jeffrey P. Mass, Lordship and Inheritance in Early Medieval Japan: A Study of the Kamakura Soryō System (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 38–39. 11 Ōyama, Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai: Chūsei Nihon, 246–247. 12 Henry Joseph Glassman, “The Religious Construction of Motherhood in Medieval Japan” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2001), 41. 13 Kevin L. Gouge, “The Ties That Bind: Kinship, Inheritance, and the Environment in Medieval Japan” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2017), 426. 14 The literature on dōzoku is unfortunately quite dated, but further research on the historical development of older kinship patterns across regions in eastern Japan will further illuminate important aspects of the Edo outcaste order. For an old but useful discussion of dōzoku by a scholar who also wrote on outcaste groups, see John B. Cornell, “Dozoku: An Example of Evolution and Transition in Japanese Village Society”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 6, no. 4 (1964). 15 I will continue to follow here the labelling practice advocated by Gerald Groemer of listing medieval groups as outcasts and early modern groups as outcastes. I have explained the rationale for his decision in Timothy D. Amos, Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011), 8. 16 Janet Goodwin, “Outcasts and Marginals in Medieval Japan”, in Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History, ed. Karl F. Friday (London; New York: Routledge, 2017), 297. 17 Ibid., 298. 18 Here I draw upon the thought-­provoking review of postwar literature on premodern outcaste history by Yoshida Tsutomu in this section. Tsutomu Yoshida, “Mibunron Kara Sabetsuron: Kegareron, Kyōkairon, Chi’iki Shakairon He”, Buraku Kaihō Kenkyū, no. 200 (2014). Also, ibid., 299–300. 19 Andrew Edmund Goble, Confluences of Medicine in Medieval Japan: Buddhist Healing, Chinese Knowledge, Islamic Formulas, and Wounds of War (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011), 17, 19. 20 Ibid., 129. 21 Seisuke Fujisawa, “Kantōhen ‘Jobun’ ”, in Higashi Nihon No Burakushi, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 3.

66   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule 22 Tanabe Dōwashi Hensan I’inkai, ed., Tanabe Dōwashi, vol. 1 (Tanabe: Tanabe City, 1995), 3. 23 Hiroshi Toriyama, “Kanagawa”, in Higashi Nihon No Burakushi: Kantō Hen, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūkai, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 25. 24 Osamu Ōto, “Life and Death, Funeral Rites and Burial Systems in Early Modern Japan”, Early Modern Japan: An Interdisciplinary Journal 19 (2011): 18–19. 25 Quoted in Chisato Kujirai, “Hifu No Yamai To Kyōkai No Kami: Nihon ‘Senmin’ Shikenkyū He No Ichikaitei (Chō/Ō/Kin/Ju No Minzokushi)”, Kokuritsu Minzoku Hakubutsukan Kenkyū Kiyō 174 (2012): 145. 26 Ōyama, Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai: Chūsei Nihon, 19–20. 27 Mark Ravina, “State-­Building and Political Economy in Early-­Modern Japan”, The Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 4 (1995): 1018. 28 David Howell, Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-­Century Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 37. 29 The summary I provide in the following few paragraphs is based on pages 300–306 in Fuyuhiko Yokota, “Senshi Sareta Shokunin Shūdan”, in Nihon No Shakaishi, ed. Asao Naohiro, vol. 6 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987). 30 Ibid., 300–301. 31 Ibid., 301–302. 32 Tetsuo Okuma, “Danzaemon Taiseika Ni Okeru Chōri Dannaba”, in Dannaba: Kinsei Hisabetsumin No Katsudō Ryōiki, ed. Tetsuo Okuma, et al. (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2011), 55. At this point the “affective religious duties” of outcastes come into closer view. While this was primarily evidenced through their involvement in the offering of blessings in exchange for alms within their various workplaces discussed in this section, it was also evidenced in the various demands and constraints placed on them in relation to participation in local religious festivals. Regarding the latter point, for example, the sub-­chief of an eta community in Inubushi township noted in 1728 that “from the beginning of the market in Inubushi Township, as an eta, I have not been able to participate in the festival of the market God.” Participation in guard duties was, however, often seen as an acceptable form of participation in local festivals in many regions throughout the archipelago. Gunma Burakuken Tomo Chiku Kinseishi Gakushūkai, ed., Shimotsuke-­No-Kuni Tarōbē Monjo (Ota: Gunma Burakuken Tomo Chiku Kinseishi Gakushūkai, 1987), 582. Asako Okada, “Kinsei Kantō Ni Okeru Chōri No Ichiakinaiken To Dannaba”, Kokushigaku 177, no. 5 (2002): 66. 33 Okuma, “Danzaemon Taiseika Ni Okeru Chōri Dannaba”, 47. 34 Naohiro Asao, “The Sixteenth-­Century Unification”, in The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 4: Early Modern Japan, ed. John Whitney Hall, The Cambridge History of Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 79. 35 Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 35; Kazuo Sasahara, Nihonshi Kenkyū (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1977), 242. 36 Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 51. 37 Amos, Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan, 83–84. 38 Nippo Jisho: Pari-­bon = Vocabvlario da lingoa de Iapam/kaidai Ishizuka Seitsū (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1976), 641. 39 Seisuke Fujisawa, “Chōri/Kawata No Seigyō To Yakuwari”, in Higashi Nihon No Burakushi, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 119. 40 Michael Cooper, ed., They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543–1640 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1965), 54. 41 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 17–23. 42 See, for example, Chapter 1 of Hiroshi Mitani’s discussion of the “processes of unification” from the medieval period. Hiroshi Mitani, Meiji Ishin to Nashonarizumu: Bakumatsu No Gaikō To Seiji Hendō (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Shuppansha, 1997), 5–34.

The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule   67 43 Gerald Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, The Journal of Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 271. 44 Ibid., 270. 45 Ibid., 271. 46 For more on this, see Timothy D. Amos, “Genealogy and Marginal Status in Early Modern Japan: The Case of Danzaemon”, Japanese Studies 33, no. 2 (2013): 147–159. 47 William Lyman Brooks, “Outcaste Society in Early Modern Japan” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1976), 223. 48 Ibid., 220. 49 Ibid., 223–234. 50 Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, 270; Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Mibunsei To Shūen Shakai (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1997), 237–242. 51 Naohiro Asao, Asao Naohiro Chosakushū, 8 vols., vol. 7 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2004), 4–16, 29–30. 52 Ibid., 17. 53 Ibid., 24–28. 54 Shigeyuki Makihara, “Kinai No Taikō Kenchi To Kawata Mura: Mita Satoko Cho ‘Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō: Senshū Minami Ōji Mura Wo Chūshin Ni’ ”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 228 (2019): 43. 55 Satoko Mita, Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō: Senshū Minami Ōji Mura Wo Chūshin Ni (Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 2018), Chapters 1–2. 56 Tetsu Machida, “Mita Satoko Cho ‘Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō’ Ni Manabu: Sonrakuron No Tachiba Kara (Shohyō Mita Satoko Cho ‘Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō: Senshū Minami Ōji Mura Wo Chūshin Ni’)”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 228 (2019): 52. 57 Shigeyuki Makihara, “Kinai No Taikō Kenchi To Kawata Mura: Mita Satoko Cho ‘Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō: Senshū Minami Ōji Mura Wo Chūshin Ni’ ”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 228 (2019): 44–45. 58 Tetsuo Okuma, “Gunma”, in Higashi Nihon Burakushi: Kantō-Hen, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 226–227. 59 Makihara, “Kita Kantō No Chōri Kogashira to Shokuba/Yuisho”, 30–31. 60 Yoshifumi Uramoto, Edo/Tokyo No Hisabetsu Buraku No Rekishi: Danzaemon To Hisabetsu Minshū (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2003), 13. 61 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 24–27. For another English language concise history of this process, see Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, 276–280. 62 This point was also made in Asao, Asao Naohiro Chosakushū, 7, 19–20. 63 For these points, see for example Edo town circulars from the 1640s and 1650s. Kinsei Shiryō Kenkyūkai, ed., Edo Machibure Shūsei, 22 vols., vol. 1 (Tokyo: Hanawa Shobō, 1994), 3–89, especially 7, 55, 58, 70. 64 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 32. 65 Ibid., 37–38. 66 Takashi Tsukada, “Stratification and Compositeness of Social Groups in Tokugawa Japan: A Perspective on Early Modern Society”, Acta Asiatica, no. 87 (2004): 91. 67 Gesshin Saitō, Zōtei Bukō Nenpyō, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1968), 59. 68 Kenji Nakao, ed., Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, 3 vols., vol. 2 (Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995), 38–39. 69 Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, 275. 70 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 28. Interestingly, Danzaemon’s name, written throughout most of the 18th century as 弾左衛門, is recorded in this merchant diary entry of 1642 as 談左衛門, suggesting the possibility that it may even have been a different person.

68   The Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule 71 Ibid., 33–35. Kawata is placed in parentheses here because Minegishi Kentarō notes that this word may have been penned in next to Danzaemon’s name at a later date. 72 Jun Hatano, “Edo’s Water Supply”, in Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era, ed. James L. McClain, John M. Merriman, and Kaoru Ugawa (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 245. Tasaburō Itō, “Tenshō Nikki to Kana Seiri”, Nihon Rekishi, no. 196 (1964): 3, 7–8. 73 Kenji Nakao, Edo Shakai To Danzaemon (Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1992), 167. 74 For a discussion of Watanabe village in Osaka, see for example “Naniwa Buraku no Rekishi” Hensan I’inkai, ed., Watanabe, Nishihama, Naniwa: Naniwa Buraku No Rekishi (Tokyo: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1997). 75 Howell, Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-­Century Japan, 40. 76 Yoshinaga Hayashi, 1680. Zōho Edo Ōezu, Hitsuji Sangatsu Aratame Oyaku Eiri. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Library. http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi­bin/catsearch?bid=2804096 (accessed 2 August 2016) 77 Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 6 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987), 370–371. 78 Kōichi Nishiki, “Kinsei Kantō No Chōri To Dannadera: Sabetsu No Rekishiteki Ichizuke Wo Mezashite”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 99 (1989): 45–46. 79 Ibid., 48. 80 Naohiro Asao, ed., Mibun To Kakushiki, vol. 7 (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha, 1992), 23–24. 81 Ibid., 24. 82 Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 211. 83 Mieken Kōseikan, ed., Mieken Burakushi Shiryōshu (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1974), 17. 84 Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 216. 85 Kinsei Shiryō Kenkyūkai, ed., Edo Machibure Shūsei, vol. 1, 386. 86 Ibid., 387. 87 It is difficult to establish these points precisely through Edo town circulars, but some evidence for them can be found in ibid., 77, 150, 297. 88 Ibid., 386. 89 Ibid., 122, 50, 297. 90 Hidemasa Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka (Kyoto: Aunsha, 2014), 48. 91 Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, 284. 92 Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 218. 93 These were issued not just in Edo, but also Osaka. See, for example, Takashi Tsukada and Kinsei Osaka Kenkyūkai, eds., Ōsaka Oshioki Okakidashi No Utsushi/Ōsaka Oshioki Todome (Osaka: Osaka Shiritsu Daigaku Daigakuin Kenkyūka Toshi Bunka Kenkyū Sentā, 2007), 61. 94 Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 7 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987), 259. 95 Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 210. 96 Harada, Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, vol. 7, 340–343. 97 Tsukada, Kinsei Mibunsei To Shūen Shakai, 214–227. 98 Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka, 3–4, 51–61.

3 The ideological construction of eta

Introduction This chapter focuses on the complex story of the ideological construction of outcasteness in eastern Japan during the early modern period. The Edo outcaste order was constantly evolving in the face of significant political, economic, and social changes, meaning that the kinds of ideas used to describe and frame Danzaemon and his subordinates by the Tokugawa shogunate, other social groups in society, and even by Danzaemon and his subordinates themselves also underwent significant variations over time. There is, moreover, an important sense in which the conceptual place of Danzaemon and his subordinates within the Tokugawa political and social order also shifted during the course of the Tokugawa period. These were shifts marked by a range of different rules, proclamations, statements, and gestures covering a plethora of different topics, but that all helped to define the idea and reality of outcasteness in early modern eastern Japanese society. Central to these processes was of course “pollution (kegare) ideology”, which was, as Herman Ooms once succinctly put it, an “elastic idiom”.1 This chapter focuses on the question of what function pollution ideology held in early modern Japan at historical junctures when it became an obvious preoccupation among the Tokugawa authorities, literati, and local communities themselves. There were at least three such periods in the early modern period when it became particularly pronounced – the late 17th century (1670s–1690s), the late 18th century (1770s–1790s), and the second quarter of the 19th century (1820s–1840s) – but the role and function of pollution ideology in each of these periods was distinctively dissimilar. This is not to say, of course, that pollution ideology was not mobilized at other times, or that there was not a persistently analogous ideological thread that ran throughout the entirety of the early modern period, or even that there was not inconsistency among the regional manifestations of pollution across Japan. This chapter contends simply that there were clear periods when pollution ideology became overdetermined in the early modern period, and it is important to consider both the reasons behind its strong emergence during these periods as well as the constitutive roles each instantiation played in transforming the Edo outcaste order.

70   The ideological construction of eta In the late 17th century, pollution ideology primarily functioned as a medium that enabled people to comprehend the contours of the social system that they comprised. Outcastes such as chōri (eta) came to embody and symbolize society’s outmost extremities, and therefore simultaneously functioned as a repository for social functions and duties deemed incommensurate with the ordinary functioning of the social system. In the late 18th century, pollution ideology functioned more as a medium to help ruler and ruled alike negotiate growing status incongruence, rooted in social fragmentation and economic upheaval. The main way it functioned during this period was to highlight and suppress actions considered contrary to an increasingly idealized social order, which itself was being recast as a problem of “outcastes” (eta-­hinin-nado) and “commoners” (heinin/heijin/shirōto). Outcastes increasingly came to be framed as people attempting to rise above their station in life, forgetting their “true essence” as people alleged to be irretrievably affected by impurity. Then in the second quarter of the 19th century, pollution ideology came to function as a medium that invoked a moral imperative to create social cohesion in the face of social breakdown, economic distress, and popular malcontent. Here the outcaste became a target of moral outrage, evil in essence, censured for all of their activities regardless of questions of legality and established social custom. In all three periods, the overarching and overwhelming effect of pollution ideology was to scapegoat the outcaste, to portray him or her as someone who was impure, abnormal, and corrupt. There is, however, an important sense in which a history of pollution ideology in early modern Japan and an analysis of the function it played in defining the image and place of members of the Edo outcaste order is not a deeply satisfying narrative, particularly when viewed from the perspective of the history of emancipatory movements. Once the extent of the problem of outcasteness is demonstrated, it is easy for Danzaemon and his subordinates to simply emerge as passive subjects shouldering an unbearable ideological load. In order to rectify this problem, it is imperative to demonstrate the ways in which outcastes themselves had various strategies to deflect or resist these ideological expressions, or at least to work with or against them to their advantage. Previous research, including my own, has highlighted a number of these strategies, which involved among other things the persistent use of certain appellations when self-­ identifying, the fabrication of genealogies to secure power and social position, or responding to official requests for information in ways which enhanced the internal clarity of the chōri (eta) group along with the range and scope of their duties and privileges. Such actions obviously transpired in addition to more contentious strategies such as foot dragging, open protest, and straight refusals to comply with directives, examples of which can also be found in this book. The concluding section of this chapter, however, in an attempt to more creatively link chōri struggles for social advancement with emancipation movements that have been identified on the subcontinent, will point to a more difficult response, one more murky in terms of its political import when compared to some of the above actions. That struggle might be termed samurai mimicry, a

The ideological construction of eta   71 process that has some similarity to the process Harumi Befu long ago once identified as “samuraization”.2 The institution associated with Danzaemon, or more precisely a series of individuals who went by this title for much of the latter half of the Tokugawa period, clearly attempted to incorporate and embody certain perceived samurai values and practices, albeit with some important differences. By the mid-­19th century, it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between the last Danzaemon and a member of the samurai class. Carefully examining such a stark process of attempted social mobility serves to shed new light on the nature and limits of status in the early modern period, the ways chōri (eta) attempted to negotiate new arrangements for themselves within the existing social order, and the crises of identity that could sometimes emerge as a result of the blurring of status boundaries.

Note on pollution ideology Pollution ideology was not simply a policy deliberately mobilized by ruling elites in each period for nefarious purposes that permitted them to slide through a range of period-­specific agendas. A variety of social, economic, cultural, and political conditions clearly worked together to create historical moments when pollution ideology achieved a level of influence that it perhaps ordinarily did not have. These historical moments were critical defining moments in the history of Danzaemon and the Edo outcaste order, as we shall see below. Pollution ideology did of course also function as a masking agent of true political intentions, but the view adopted here is that it is more instructive to try to understand the different ways in which pollution ideology functioned as an important definitional mechanism in relation to eta (chōri) and hinin groups during the early modern period. One of the points that makes writing about the ideology of pollution in early modern eastern Japan particularly difficult is its pliability or slipperiness. There is not necessarily a constant, clear relationship between ideological pronouncements captured in political, legal, and social discourse and the development of what might be termed specific discriminatory acts towards Danzaemon and his subordinates. Eta status was, of course, an empirical reality in eastern Japan: it was a mode of existence related to the early modern development of status within a larger history of caste rooted in a historical division of labour defined by various processes such as kinship formation, pollution ideology linked to the imperial institution, and localized religious and social practices. Eta, just like other status groups, entered into official relationships with governing authorities in exchange for the guaranteeing of certain privileges within society that permitted them to reproduce themselves. At the same time, however, eta status in early modern Japan must also be understood as a historical product of period-­specific ideational forces. The status category of eta did not operate independently of ideology, but was significantly shaped by and through it. The reality of the status system helped determine the ways in which people thought about their society and the place of eta within it.

72   The ideological construction of eta But the opposite was also true: ideas of status and pollution helped determine the nature and structure of social relations that over time increasingly came to assume a caste-­like texture within the existing status order. Pollution ideology therefore had both a stabilizing and disruptive effect in society; it worked to help create, maintain, and undermine particular kinds of social distance and practices. Among scholars who work on eta history in Japan, there is a tendency among some researchers to see pollution ideology as almost an entirely secondary issue – as primarily a justificatory effect and not a contributing cause of outcaste status. Reading through their work, one cannot help but feel at points that this interpretation emerges despite the considerable evidence to the contrary. Mita Satoko, for example, in her carefully researched study of Minami Ōji village in Izumi, takes up the 1688 example of a dispute between the kawata (eta) village and the nearby peasant community over the details concerning a local harvest-­ related ritual, where the outcaste community’s encroachment into the local temple grounds was labelled by the peasants as “unclean” (fujō).3 One of the remarkable features in this section of her ground-­breaking study is the absence of discussion about this dynamic of pollution ideology. While one should certainly be sceptical of an approach to outcaste history that breaks everything down into an uncritical binary of discrimination and non-­discrimination, it is also possible to go to the other interpretative extreme and dismiss actual evidence of “pollution ideology” in relation to a troubling instance of social exclusion as peripheral to other real social, economic, or political concerns. As Umihara Ryō has noted in relation to another of Mita’s works that addressed a later 19th century incident with similar “pollution” language, while there are good reasons to acknowledge complexities pertaining to the unique regional social relations of Minami Ōji village and its neighbours, and not to simply reduce everything to discrimination, the logic of “polluted, impure people” (kegare fujō no tomogara) clearly underpins the relations between the two villages: it is reflected in the thinking of people living in the community and therefore it is a factor that encompasses the nature of the incident in question.4 Mita’s stance perhaps mirrors an accepted logic in some quarters that socio-­ economic relations actually define the real nature of the outcaste problem in early modern Japan, that the state assumes a secondary role in attempting to forge the problem in ways that are politically expedient, and that ideologies such as “pollution” are simply projections of reality that lead to serious misrecognition of social realities and therefore should not be regarded as having meaningful causal attributes.5 This chapter, in firm contradistinction to this view, finds essential agreement with Maki Hidemasa that it is in fact impossible to deny that “pollution” and “uncleanness” were regarded as core attributes of people of eta status during the Tokugawa period, and that the study of such ideological processes is essential to our fuller understanding of the experiences of Danzaemon and his subordinates.6

The ideological construction of eta   73

Late 17th century ideas of pollution The late 17th century emphasis on pollution can be evidenced in numerous ways and is linked to a number of other important developments that affected the lives of people who comprised the Edo outcaste order. Pollution ideology piggybacks on the back of earlier developments that increasingly witness early modern Japan’s transformation into a status society. As Asao Naohiro noted, and as introduced in the previous chapter, the idea that society was made up of the “four peoples” was not absent from early 17th century discourse. Scholars such as Nakae Tōju (1608–1648) mobilized arguments utilizing the logic of such an understanding of society: “Generally speaking, all three [groups] of peasants, artisans, and merchants, [occupy] the rank of commoner.”7 While the socio-­ political division of early modern Japanese society following the Confucian ideographic compound shi-­nō-kō-shō (“warrior–peasant–artisan–merchant”) was never a neat reflection of social reality in early modern Japan, it did nonetheless play a role in framing social existence by functioning as an expression of an idealized social order. As an expression of such an order, it served to expose groups that did not fit or conform. As noted in the previous chapter, scholars such as Yamaga Sokō (1622–1685) began to write explicitly and prescriptively of such groups (which included eta and hinin) in the mid-­17th century: Next, the eta. When undertaking a public execution, they should be made to carry this out. The place where they live (okutokoro) should be avoided. Let them take care of killing horses and cows, and if one dies, they should be made to carry it. The cleaning of the town is the duty (yaku) of hinin, beggars, and eta. If an eta skins the hide of a beast, they must bury the carcass. There are many examples of [them] deceiving people by mixing in the meat of beasts with that of deer and badgers. Because of that, the gonin gumi should mediate, a leader should be appointed, and these evil men dealt with. They should be made to do these jobs and their marks should also be fixed on the place for family crests on their clothes.8 The earliest instance of eta being referred to in Tokugawa shogunate legislation targeting eastern Japan dates to 1657, according to Maki Hidemasa.9 The nine-­ article charter in which this language is first employed introduced a number of governance issues, and eta and hinin are mentioned in relation to their potential criminality. As Maki points out, this section of the charter listed a cluster of suspect groups all in need of careful surveillance, of which eta and hinin were considered to qualify.10 In the early 1680s, connections between leatherworker communities and pollution were further subjected to explicit articulation. The text Yōshū Fushi (1682–1686, History of Yamashiro Province), for example, contained the following explanation of one such community in Kyoto: Amabe village is situated in the south of Higashisanjō. It forms a settlement [together] with Hidenji temple. However, its people are butchers, skinning

74   The ideological construction of eta cows and horses to make leather. They use these on drums and to sew on the soles of straw sandals. Every day they go into the city, taking with them a small box containing needle, string, and leather, to repair broken sandals. These people of Amabe and the Hidenin are called eta. They are called eta [characters for much pollution] because originally they skinned the hides of cows and horses and therefore had many encounters with pollution. They are also called kawata [characters for fat leather]. … They have many households that are wealthy. Despite that, people avoid them, live apart from them, and do not sit with them.11 The 1680s marked the start of a unique period of rule by Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, well-­known for his policies pertaining to the protection of “living things” (shōrui) and enhancement of rules for purification when mourning. As Tsukamoto Manabu pointed out long ago, concern about living things was significantly heightened during Tsunayoshi’s period of rule, but the legislation produced was not just about being compassionate to dogs (Tsunayoshi later came to be known euphemistically as the “dog shogun”); from this time, laws forbidding ill-­treatment towards cows and horses were actually more numerous than those pertaining to dogs. Furthermore, legislation prohibiting the abandonment of sick horses and cows was issued across the archipelago well in advance of Tsunayoshi’s reign. Indeed, the proper disposal of dead horses came to be one of the most pronounced laws of the land, paralleling edicts such as the prohibition of Christianity, and noticeboards dedicated to the issue were found even in private domains such as Sendai.12 Rather than simply viewing the special attention given to the care of living things (horses central among them) as the result of the arbitrary, idiosyncratic policies of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, Tsukamoto has argued that we should look to the changing nature of rural practices that took place over the course of the 17th century, such as transformations in the idea of what constituted public pastoral lands and acceptable grazing practices. Changes in attitudes towards these practices in turn probably contributed to an overall decrease in the number of horses in the country and also to an increase in the cost of keeping them.13 And as Tsukamoto has further pointed out, Tsunayoshi’s policies in relation to the pitying of living things also had an important social function: by emphasizing a continuum between humans and animals, it also became possible to emphasize the differentiation between kinds of humans (i.e. humans of different status).14 Another feature of Tsunayoshi’s policies during this period was the Fukuki-­ Ryō (Regulations for Mourning). Ōto Osamu has noted that Tsunayoshi “used the law to regulate order among families and relatives”, essentially establishing a regulation that used older laws previously generated by the imperial court and shrines that worked to determine the degree of permissible social engagement among family members rooted in a notion of death pollution.15 Minegishi Kentarō has observed that an additional section on pollution was included shortly after the release of the original regulations pertaining to mourning, outlining the number of days men and women had to remain in isolation in the

The ideological construction of eta   75 event of childbirth, miscarriage, blood discharge, death, and polluting contact. In fact, as Minegishi shows, there was a reasonably quick ratcheting up of this policy even in 1684, with location-­specific prohibitions quickly emerging, such as what to do if something happened on the way to Edo’s Zōjōji Temple.16 The city of Edo, and over time the surrounding regions, came to be more heavily reorganized according to the logic of pollution from around this time (more on this in Chapter 6). Such developments were not restricted to Edo or to residential spaces, however. Regional practices within eastern Japan also came to draw a clearer distinction between eta and people of other statuses. Maki Hidemasa, for example, refers to a case pertaining to an “eta patron temple” in Musashi Province in 1687. Two chōri (eta) chiefs from Musashi Province complained to Danzaemon that twenty-­eight people from their village who were patrons at the Zen branch temple Ryūdoin were expelled from the temple under pressure from the head temple Tenryūji in Kyoto and had ceased producing a sectarian register on their behalf.17 While in this case Danzaemon’s plea to the Tokugawa shogunate was successful, leading to the admonition of the branch temple, it is likely that this kind of sectarian differentiation, rooted in a sense of the polluting nature of its eta parishioners, was gaining traction throughout eastern Japan and the wider archipelago at this time. Ooms also notes that discrimination against kawata (eta) increased in severity during this time. By the end of the 17th century, he argues, Buddhist temples began keeping separate lists of the deceased, one for ordinary commoners and one for kawata, and bestowing posthumous names on kawata containing the word “leather” (kaku/ kawa).18 It is possible, as noted in the previous chapter, that at roughly the same time as the above 1687 incident, Danzaemon was also staving off an unsuccessful legal attempt by the hinin community in Edo to come out from under his rule.19 While the details of this incident cannot be described with reliable documentation, all indicators point to the likelihood that hinin were more directly placed under Danzaemon rule after it as a result. A central reason for the struggle between these groups doubtless links to the existence of an ever-­expanding pool of duties and privileges over which they were being required to contend. But emphasis here should also be placed on the kinds of duties and privileges that were increasingly associated with eta and hinin status. Danzaemon and his subordinates came to function as monopoly subcontractors in many of the most unpopular industries of the time and dedicated themselves in increasing numbers to duties that involved the skins of animals, care for the sick and dying, execution of criminals, disposal of dead bodies of people and animals, and so on. Danzaemon at the end of the 17th century became the target of public social opprobrium in a range of different spheres, including the literary world. In one 1694 tale, Danzaemon (once again represented in Chinese ideographs that were not used in later periods) was depicted as someone who engineered the kidnapping of a townsperson infatuated with the beauty of an eta woman who happened to be his daughter. Apparently not confident that she would not find a

76   The ideological construction of eta spouse, Danzaemon allegedly contrived to trap the townsman into marrying his daughter, something he was successful in doing despite the remonstrations and pleas of the man’s family to free him.20 In a social world becoming increasingly hypersensitized to pollution ideology, Danzaemon came to embody pollution. Danzaemon literally came to be referred to as Etagashira Danzaemon – Danzaemon, Chief of Eta – from around this time; and he and his subordinates, albeit to differing degrees across the region, were made to symbolize (as well as physically occupy) the outer extremities of the early modern social order. The communities Danzaemon came to preside over served as collection points for social functions and duties that were not easily reconciled within the emerging social status system. Social engagement with these communities also became increasingly socially unacceptable; Ihara Saikaku’s Nihon Eidaigura (Japan’s Eternal Storehouse), written in the early Genroku period, reveals, for example, a core assumption that people had no business entering an eta community even if they thought no one knew.21 The category of “outcaste” (eta-­hinin-nado, iyashikimono, etc.) also came to take on significance from around this time. The preeminent scholar Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728) spoke uninhibitedly of “outcastes” (iyashikimono) in the early 18th century as being base and immoral due to their different “stock” (literally varna, or “caste”), distinct from the commoner who was morally upright and civilized with a proper bloodline.22 With the increased emphasis on birth, the early modern social status system came to function more explicitly according to caste logic at an ideological level, containing some of the central features highlighted by Irfan Habib as characterizing a caste system, such as a universalizing division based on birth, endogamy, hierarchy/ranking, occupational fixity, a purity/impurity imaginary, and affective religious duty. One important development within outcaste communities from around this time is the production of outcaste genealogies.23 From Morita Yoshinori’s work, and then from the subsequent research of Wakita Osamu (1991), it is apparent that the earliest outcaste genealogies date from around the turn of the 18th century and that genealogical variations reflect important regional differences.24 Outcaste genealogies generated in eastern Japan near the Tokugawa capital of Edo tended to emphasize the feudal grounds for their existence by drawing upon discourses and motifs pertaining to the establishment of warrior rule in the 12th century. In comparison to this, the genealogical posturing of early modern outcaste communities in central Japan had a very different politics of legitimation.25 While there is no space here to pursue this subject in detail, it is highly significant that Danzaemon’s own 1725 genealogical statement began in the very first article to discuss the role his community played in the Kamakura Hachiman Shrine festival from antiquity, appealing to an earlier history of affective religious duty in order to support his appeal to the Tokugawa shogunate for enhanced political power in the early 18th century.26

The ideological construction of eta   77

Late 18th century developments Late 17th century pollution ideology had effects that were felt long afterwards, although they were of course experienced unevenly across regions. While the next official Tokugawa shogunate policy reference to eta appears to have only come in 1720, it involved a significant application of pollution ideology, appearing as an order that eta wrap their silver taxes in paper first with an inscription “eta payment” before submitting them to the authorities.27 Minegishi argues that this policy was quickly repealed in 1722, perhaps because it had begun to wreak havoc in peasant villages that had to negotiate the complex problems created by its implementation.28 Various regional practices in relation to eta taxation payments continued to exist, however. When submitting taxes in kind rather than cash, for example, eta villages continued to have their contributions labelled “eta rice” (etamai) until the end of the Tokugawa period in some parts of Musashi Province.29 Despite the short-­lived nature of the 1720 law, its promulgation emerged out of a prevailing discourse that emphasized the polluted nature of the eta class. Indeed the practice of the social avoidance of eta remained a topic of discussion and explanation around this time. Sorai, mentioned above, wrote in Sedan (Discourse of Government, written in the Kyōhō period (1716–1736)) that “not sitting at the same fire as eta is an unavoidable custom in the land of the gods.”30 What to do with such groups also became a topic for discussion; from the early 18th century, Tokugawa officials considered forcing eta and hinin to colonize the northern island of Ezo, based on some of the ideas of Sorai.31 Meanwhile, literature from the early part of the 18th century mentioned eta in a way that explicitly reinforced the perceived untouchability of the group. In one 1733 book, the protagonist utilized the lie that he was an eta to avoid having to drink with another group, a falsehood positively affirmed by the author as illustrative of the protagonist’s cleverness.32 Other literature also utilized eta as a foil; a 1757 story (based on the life of a real 17th century figure), for example, portrayed a conflict in the pleasure quarters between a dashing samurai and a group of ruffian eta, where the leader of the latter group was permitted to keep his life purely because he was of that status and therefore deemed not worth the effort of killing.33 The idea of the “commoner” (heinin/heijin) also became increasingly prevalent in law and political proclamations disseminated throughout many parts of the archipelago during the course of the 18th century. Within the laws, edicts, and circulars issued by various institutions ranging from the shogunate to the rural village, certain themes surface that signpost an intriguing process by which those people assigned the labels of eta and hinin came to be discursively pinned to outcasteness and untouchability. Of course the creation of an Edo outcaste order was not simply a unilateral act of discriminatory policy that flowed out of the Edo City Magistrate’s office and into the Tokugawa village. There were intriguing methods used in the creation of this order and, interestingly, an assisting role played by eta communities themselves, as I have pointed out in a

78   The ideological construction of eta previous work.34 In one important sense, the creation of the Edo outcaste order happened, as Gerald Groemer suggests, as a “result of deliberate and economic policies of the ruling class”.35 Yet in another, equally important sense, socially conditioned attitudes towards these communities, guided by unique regional dynamics and underpinned by a continuous evolution in the content and nature of pollution ideology itself worked together to further construct outcasteness during this period. And in still another sense, outcasteness became part of a complex negotiation between Danzaemon and the Edo authorities. At the shogunate level, a succession of laws from around the 1720s dealing with problems related to urban social order were issued in the city of Edo that aimed to group undesirable elements together under the supervisory umbrella of eta and hinin.36 Laws in the 1730s and 1740s also increased levels of distinction between outcaste groups themselves, and a preoccupation with counting unregistered peoples, some of whom would be placed with the hinin communities, also emerged.37 From this time, outcastes were also included in records that formed part of the emerging legal code; incidents involving them were included as examples of legal precedents meant to help function as a resource for future legal cases.38 And then of course there were cases where eta were ordered to maintain their social distance and punished when they attempted to arise above their social station.39 Again, in 1756 legislation, references are made to eta and hinin attitudes when dealing with commoners (heinin) in both Okayama and Tottori fiefs.40 Maki Hidemasa notes another legal case dated 1777 when a certain Isuke from Tama County, Musashi Province, was officially reprimanded for simply acting rudely to Gisuke, who was presumably a commoner.41 These were all significant pieces of legislation and rulings, but they are overshadowed by the flurry of somewhat confusing laws that emerge in the second half of the 18th century, particularly from around the 1770s, that tend to pull in different directions but ultimately emphasize notions of and ideas linked to pollution. In 1763, the shogunate ordered the removal of hinin and hinin huts from street corners owing to a Korean emissary’s visit.42 In 1772, the shogunate ordered eta to arrest those caught gambling in their respective workplace areas.43 Again in 1774, the shogunate ordered eta and hinin to arrest those people caught importunately begging in their respective workplace (shokuba) areas, particularly rōnin, itinerant priests, and the blind.44 In 1776, Danzaemon’s retainers were ordered to remain at the front entrance when Danzaemon crossed the threshold into the compound of the Civil Magistrate on official business.45 Then in 1778, the shogunate issued the An’ei Edict that strengthened discrimination against eta, hinin, and a handful of other groups, alleging their moral bankruptcy and illegal activities which ranged from thievery to being rude to townspeople and peasants.46 There are at least two discernible and seemingly contradictory messages that arise from shogunate legislation during this period. First, as witnessed in the removal of hinin huts, the forbidding of Danzaemon retainers to cross the threshold into the compound of the Edo City Magistrate, and also in the 1778

The ideological construction of eta   79 edict, when legislation was issued in which eta and hinin were treated as impure subjects and an eyesore for the state during its dealings with foreign dignitaries. The second, however, was witnessed in the 1772 and 1774 edicts, when eta and hinin were legally invested with judicial powers to monitor and police criminals, vagrants, and suspicious persons, within their own territories but also more broadly across the wider region. In these legal developments, eta and hinin were, on the one hand, “outcastes” – impure bodies that needed to be cordoned off and prevented from infecting the rest of the population – but, at the same time, they were increasingly invested with considerable policing powers to enforce Tokugawa policy on the ground level and maintain social stability. The 1776.8.17 ruling, ordering Danzaemon Chikamasu (r.1775–1790) to leave his zōritori (sandal bearers) at the main entrance to the office of the Edo City Magistrate, was rooted in a clear, derogatory posture. A few days earlier, when Chikamasu had visited the office of the Edo City Magistrate, he had taken his sandal bearers up to the place where the town elders stood and removed his sandals, but was apparently met with protests. He had objected to this treatment, stating that he was only doing what he normally did, but his remonstration fell on deaf ears. He was apparently informed that town elders were special and that ordinary townsmen were not permitted to follow this practice, and because he and his subordinates were eta, they were not permitted to do what was not permitted for townsmen. Chikamasu was also apparently told that when they had finished with their business with the Magistrate, they should run rather than walk through the compound because they were of eta status – something to which Chikamasu ultimately acquiesced, although he lamented that there was no written stipulation of this kind or proof pertaining to its necessity based on past practices.47 The 1778 (An’ei) Edict was obviously a crucial document in more broadly framing the eta and hinin communities as “outcaste”, and several theories have been forwarded concerning the reasons for its introduction. Asao Naohiro has claimed that it was part of an attempt by the Finance Magistrate to expand their control over the country.48 Tsukada Takashi has argued that there is a strong likelihood that it was promulgated as a deliberate ploy by an official within the Edo City Magistrate’s office working in cahoots with the hinin leadership, who desired to become independent from Danzaemon rule.49 These are interesting and important perspectives, but what I would like to focus on here is simply the broader ideological function of the Edict, which was the suppression of actions by socially and morally corrupt outcaste groups regarded as destabilizing an increasingly idealized social order, by re-­emphasizing the notion of their fixed social status coordinates. Pollution ideology in this period worked to re-­establish the externalized position of eta in early modern society. But this was also a different kind of pollution ideology, for it made the case in ways that conflicted with other important pieces of legislation targeting the same groups. Eta were no longer an emergent category of polluted people, as they had been in the late 17th century, but an increasingly well-­defined community comprising part of a social order with a

80   The ideological construction of eta history requiring explanation but which few could piece together with any real accuracy or cogency. Idealized notions of the “four peoples” certainly continued to work in defining the social order, but more effective were appeals to outcasteness and the need to regulate it as the counterpart to a category of commoner that had become increasingly conspicuous during the 18th century. An outcaste order such as Danzaemon’s could naturally only really exist in a stable sense if it was clearly definable, predicated upon a system that could distinguish between “outcastes” and “commoners”. Logically, the point at which an outcaste was most dangerous was the point at which they were able to shed their ascribed outcasteness and pass as a member of an “ordinary” status group. The 1778 piece of legislation made its way into villages that came under Danzaemon rule, and it is clear that in some cases, such as Lower Wana village, hinin residents were cautioned separately, suggesting that official status categories were invoked in local communities when interpreting the meaning and importance of the document.50 Minegishi has also noted the Edict’s almost immediate effect on local eta communities: Jin’emon (Kiheiji mentioned in Chapter 1), the chōri sub-­chief in Lower Wana, was soon newly ordered to stand in the garden instead of the kitchen when visiting the house of a nearby peasant village headman with sword-­wearing, last-­name-bearing privileges to offer seasonal greetings.51 At the same time, however, even though copies of this Edict had a distribution that stretched from northern Japan to the southern island of Kyushu, it is clear that the Edict did not actually reach Kiheiji directly from Danzaemon’s Asakusa office – he received a copy of a copy of it from a certain Ryūbo from Kozutsumi village.52 This, alongside the fact that receiving the same official document numerous times was probably not all that uncommon, indicates that the Edo outcaste order that Kiheiji was a part of did not always operate with the kind of efficiency or uniformity one might expect. There were clearly cracks and fissures in this order despite the elaborate roots developed over time for Danzaemon communications and official correspondence to make their way without fuss into the villages of the regional chiefs.53 Pollution ideology penetrated the Edo outcaste order differentially and was informed by local understandings of what the category was thought to entail. While official status categories were invoked when justifying the exceptional treatment of Danzaemon and his subordinates, it is also true that the term commoner was used more progressively in legislation and other political discourses in relation to them. By the end of the 18th century, both Danzaemon and the Edo City Magistrate were employing it in a great deal of official documentation. In 1789, Danzaemon answered an enquiry regarding the proper handling procedures for “commoners” (shirōto) who had become hinin.54 Then, in 1794, the term commoner village (shirōto mura) was used in legislation by the shogunate. Again in 1796, the daughter of an eta who was forced into prostitution was condemned by the shogunate for “mixing with commoners” (heinin no majiwari). In the same year, the Edo City Magistrate attempted to ascertain the correct procedures for property confiscated by eta who had become

The ideological construction of eta   81 “commoners” (heinin).55 An incident also arose shortly after concerning a hinin who had become indistinguishable from “commoners” (heinin), presumably with regard to physical appearance.56 What had probably begun as an idea based on an attempted reordering of the population by drawing a firm distinction between ruler and ruled had found its way into political discourse and legislation by the latter stages of the 18th century.57 As I have noted elsewhere, there is also an emergent phenomenon of “racializing” the outcaste during the 18th century which needs to be remembered when understanding this reframing process of members of the eta status group as “polluted”. Racialization of the outcaste emerged as an attempt to project the difference of these communities in a way that could preserve a sense of a unified social system, and scapegoating these communities proved an effective tool as eta and hinin served as prime symbolic representatives of the reality of and the danger inherent in status system transgression.58 From around the third quarter of the 18th century, attention came increasingly to be paid to the need for outcastes to act in commensurate ways to their status, and policing of the body, comportment, and social interaction was a conspicuous part of this process. The alleged bankruptcy of the eta class was commonly linked to their desire to rise above their station. A preoccupation with ensuring eta and hinin acted in ways commensurate with their status abounds in official communications and legal rulings from the 1780s and 1790s. In 1781.5, Edo hinin were required to carry a wooden license tag approximately 2 by 1.5 inches in size.59 In 1782.10, a hinin from Yamanashi apparently ignored Danzaemon’s request to come to Edo, and it is alleged in the case that the hinin worked poorly when instructed by the farmers, intermingling with commoners at taverns (izakaya).60 In 1784.2, Danzaemon’s “Chōri Statutes, with Seal, of the Various Provinces” further noted many infractions of eta going beyond their status boundaries, including “chōri recklessly wearing short swords and jitte as they walk, and sometimes being quite rude to people on the way to their destination”.61 In 1789, Danzaemon issued a report discussing the possibility of “unregistered persons” (mushuku) who had been made hinin becoming fully fledged “commoners” (heinin).62 This was a follow-­up document to the one published the previous year that stipulated the clothing requirements of those under his jurisdiction involved in “homeless hunting” (mushukugari).63 In 1790 as well, a representative of Danzaemon reported regarding the habit of hinin servants (teka) tying their hair.64 At one level, it is clear that eta were indeed involving themselves in a range of activities that moved them beyond their official designations and social expectations. Urabe Manabu has demonstrated, for example, that the Suzuki family in Lower Wana village actually began a pharmaceutical business in 1784 and that it was probably the wealth generated from this enterprise that enabled them to buy large portions of land.65 But at another level, it is clear, as with the example of Danzaemon’s ability to enter the gates of the Edo City Magistrate’s office, that the acceptable limits of social intercourse were also being redrawn at  this time in important ways, driven by a pollution ideology that operated

82   The ideological construction of eta differently to the one that had emerged a century earlier. Komura Ken, a peasant from Hitachi Province, articulated it in this way in 1790: Eta, among all other human beings, are polluted. From the seventh year of Tenmei [1787], a circular came from the county governor to the eta chief Gohē, who wore a solitary sword and a haori, concerning a certain group’s performance. The lion dance is performed by people of outcaste status. [This group] borrowed the eta village to perform the dance, as per the official orders that have circulated in recent years, but then wore haori, hakama, and two swords, dancing in the direction of the peasant village head, and [actually] dancing within the [peasant] village itself. These things are all due to corruption and are the workings of village officials … eta are polluted people of old, and I wish for them to be restored to this position. The lion dance, as before, should be performed [only] in the eta village.66 Official measures were also introduced at this time to help reinforce the abject position of eta in eastern Japanese society. Punishment was one important measure: a 1784 document reveals that an eta who had mingled with “commoners” (heinin) was sentenced to remote exile.67 In 1794, the shogunate instructed that summons directed at eta and hinin who resided in entirely eta- and hinin-­ populated villages could go directly to the village, but in situations where farmers also resided in the villages, the summons notices should go to the farmers.68 In these judgments, one can witness the careful injection of older notions of hierarchy within power relations as well as a conceptual distinction between commoner and outcaste practices. Again in 1797, the shogunate ruled that the method of investigation of eta and hinin should be conducted in the same way as it was for commoners, while adding that punishments would necessarily differ. 69

Intensification of pollution ideology in the 19th century The period corresponding roughly to the second quarter of the 19th century (1820s–1840s) was another occasion when pollution ideology again became conspicuous in rulings, literary imaginings, and social practices in eastern Japan. Of course pollution ideology did continue to appear in ways similar to its occurrence in earlier periods. The idea that pollution, embodied in outcastes, revealed the outer extremities of the early modern social order and therefore in a sense helped point to a unique social essence, can be found in the writings of important 19th century thinkers, including Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843), who wrote: “The honourable ways of our gods are based in purity and despise pollution.”70 Similarly, the idea that polluted bodies were largely responsible for the collapse of the social order and that a reassertion of the order (i.e. a restoration of things back to either the classical conception of status order or simply to a sense of status order normality) by re-­emphasizing the polluted nature of groups such as eta also continued to be articulated well into the 19th century. Buyō Inshi, in his 1816 Seji kenmonroku (Observations of Worldly Affairs), for

The ideological construction of eta   83 example, savaged outcastes for, among other things, flouting the rules that held the status order in place.71 Developments in 19th century pollution ideology are of course intimately linked to important socio-­economic developments of the period. As Mita Satoko has pointed out in relation to Minami Ōji village in Izumi, an increase in village population coupled with general stability in terms of total village rice yield created a situation which led to an 18th century rise in the number of landless households. The lack of employment opportunities for these households triggered movements to leave the village, or else to enter into tenant farming or other industries such as leather-­sandal production in order to make a living. In the case of Minami Ōji village, the development of a leather-­sandal industry led to the emergence of a small group of wealthy leather merchants and a large pool of low-­wage, manual labourers. A number of problems pertaining to law and order also emerged out of this state of affairs and tended to heighten tensions before the kawata and surrounding peasant villages.72 While chōri villages in eastern Japan did not exist on the scale or scope of their counterparts in western Japan, the processes Mita points to and their linkages to the problematic nature of broader social relations are nonetheless still relevant to transformations in the 19th century Edo outcaste order. There is an important sense, however, in which pollution ideology during the 19th century, particularly during the period from the 1820s through to the 1840s, came to function more pointedly as a medium that focused on the depravity of the outcaste in order to foster social cohesion in the face of social breakdown, economic distress, and popular malcontent. The outcaste during this period became a kind of unethical existence, a target of moral outrage, censured for both their social existence as well as the activities in which they engaged. Eta, in an important sense, became evil. This sentiment is expressed in works such as an 1817 text by Kaiho Seiryō. As David Howell has neatly summarized the relevant passage, although eta had “faces [that] were indistinguishable from those of Japanese”, their “hearts were irredeemably bad, making assimilation impossible”.73 Seiryō’s unique understanding of commoner is interesting in that he drew upon the notions of “good” (ryō) and “base” (sen) from the ancient period to describe and contrast outcaste status. Within this framework, Seiryō argued that eta were of foreign origin, and that Japan’s climate (wagakuni no suido) was the factor that had permitted them to magically alter their external features to the point that they were now indivisible from the rest of the “good people”. Seiryō’s treatise, unlike Sorai’s, indicates the existence of a reasonably firm category of the Japanese commoner. What Seiryō had in common with Sorai, however, was that he also viewed the outcaste as exceedingly reprobate: “The reason why eta are treated as animals is because there is an absence of a knowledge of good and evil in their hearts: their hearts are different to good people [ryōmin]. Therefore, they do the things that good people are ashamed of and despise doing. It is because their hearts are different and their appearance the same that they obstruct political rule.”74

84   The ideological construction of eta The purity/impurity binary by the early 19th century clearly contributed to the determination of social existence for eta in various parts of the archipelago. Minegishi notes the case of an official query in Komoro Domain from officials to a number of proprietors after eta were caught drinking alcohol in an establishment when they had not brought their own drinking vessels. In addition to taverns promising a renewed effort to crack down on this practice, a tea shop proprietor and sake brewer-­distributor reported that eta were not even permitted to approach the doorstep of their premises.75 While it is sometimes difficult to separate fact from fiction in writings about the extent of pollution ideology during the 19th century, it seems reasonably clear that Danzaemon was also affected by such practices. Nakao Kenji related a story (the veracity of which is unclear) concerning Danzaemon that stated he was permitted to dine at a luxurious restaurant in Edo called Yaozen, but only on the condition that he rent a separate room. When he was forced to dine with other clientele he was permitted to do so, but only on the condition that he paid to have all the tatami mats replaced.76 At a policy level, it is clear that some decisions at the beginning of the century were made that heightened the exceptional status of eta. In 1802, special rules for handing over an eta who had been disowned by his family to another outcaste village were determined. It was also clarified that eta could not abscond in the same ways as other members of the population – they had to be subject to a “perpetual search”.77 But it is not really until the 1820s that a notion of pollution strongly remerges. Groemer has noted in relation to an 1821 petition by Zenshichi and Matsuemon for “daily begging” (hikanjin) rights that “[t]hese records again indicate that it was not simply ‘polluting’ occupations that had turned hinin into outcastes, but rather that some jobs were considered polluting when they were performed by hinin.”78 On 1824.7.13, a document pertaining to pollution rites for people whose dead relatives were hinin was also produced. It was noted that such people were no longer relatives and therefore pollution rituals no longer needed to be observed.79 At a regional level, while there is little way of knowing whether some of the developments in this period reminded regional eta communities of the 1780s, the An’ei Edict and the apparent (rumoured?) circumstances surrounding its issuance were clearly copied into a new ledger in Lower Wana village in the early 1830s.80 Some 19th century authors simply uncritically reproduced notions of the polluted status of eta in their work. Takizawa Bakin, for example, noted in his 1803 work, Kiryo Manroku (A Traveller’s Record), that eta in Osaka killed cats and dogs for their skins and that old dogs began to howl when an eta approached them.81 Bakin elsewhere wrote that: “[E]xalted and base exist among people. Marriage conforms to this division and people befriend others of the same kind. There are those called eta and kojiki [hinin] who are the lowest of the low, but I have never heard an example of someone making [one of these] a person of repute and having one as his wife.”82 Other works of literature focused more on the mobility of eta and the dangers associated with it. Hannichi Kanwa (Idle Chatter), a text that was probably compiled in the 1820s, recorded the life of a

The ideological construction of eta   85 “former eta” thief who had dreams of escaping his life of social exclusion. An Edo City Magistrate official who treated this “former eta” kindly after his execution was subsequently rewarded by a visitation in a dream and a revelation about the whereabouts of the hidden stash.83 Naniwa No Kaze (The Winds of Naniwa), written by the Osaka City Magistrate, Kusumi Suketoshi (1796–1864), noted the prevalence of eta villages abandoning children, allegedly as an attempt to give them an opportunity to live life as commoners.84 Pollution ideology during this period tended to function as part social lament and part political appeal to right a moral decay that had eaten away the core of Japan’s social fabric. In short, while there is still ample evidence of “pollution” being used to describe eta and eta practices during this time, it is also the case that the group increasingly came to be referred to in terms of “bad” or “evil” in this period. Representations of eta during the 19th century went well beyond the previous parameters outlined by pollution ideology. Eta in these representations sometimes become the very personification of evil. Tenmei Kimon Kansei Kimon (Sights and Sounds of the Tenmei and Kansei periods), for example, included a story about an eta who was asked by a peasant from the Senjū area to procure a human liver to cure his sick daughter on the advice of his doctor. The eta, apparently without blinking an eyelid, murdered the peasant’s servant girl messenger for her liver and delivered it to the peasant for a large sum of money. The author finished his account by calling these the actions of a devilish beast.85 While the intellectual and literary realms provide some of the most obvious examples of the re-­emergence of a pollution ideology targeting eta, there are also plenty of examples in documents that capture the social history of the period. In Mito Domain, for example, the taxable land holdings of eta were converted to non-­taxable lands at the time of the Tenpō Cadastral Surveys so as to parallel the “forsaken lands” (misutechi) upon which their houses stood; and eta were forbidden from further purchasing new paddies and fields. Eta whose houses were located among those of peasants were also given some removal costs to relocate to the edges of established settlements.86 Danzaemon also became the subject of censure by the literati of the period for his attempts to create his own salon (discussed further in Chapter 6), with Shibata Shūzō (1820–1859) lamenting in 1842 that it was “indeed polluting to even hear about such a thing.”87 Perhaps the most striking examples of pollution ideology functioning to demonize eta during this period, however, are the cases which dehumanized them by pointing out their limited worth in relation to other people. While probably the most famous case in this regard is an 1856 ruling that suggested eta were only worth one-­seventh of the life of an ordinary commoner, such an understanding can perhaps best be understood as the culmination of developments from the current period under examination.88 Okuma explains that the principle of eta life being worth far less than a commoner’s can be found in an incident involving a clash between a chōri (eta) and a peasant in Kōzuke Province. The peasant at the heart of this incident was reported to have stated: “Even if I killed seven eta, I would only need to offer up fourteen white dogs

86   The ideological construction of eta for execution in return.”89 A blatant disregard for eta life can also be found in an example from 1846, when a domain official from Kawagoe requested permission to simply execute eta who refused to perform execution duties themselves. This refusal was itself a response that had only arisen due to the increased measures placed on the resident chōri group that attempted to reassert rules that would enhance the social cordon sanitaire they were expected to maintain.90

Samurai mimicry and Sanskritization At the end of the Tokugawa period, Danzaemon Chikayasu, later referred to as Dan Naiki, then Dan Naoki (r.1840–1871), wrote of life under Tokugawa rule as “several hundred years of continual abuse” and he lamented the fact that “even though we are no different to human beings born under heaven, the fact that humane associations are [still] not possible is a truly deplorable fact.”91 While this was clearly the perspective of someone who had recently been elevated to commoner status and felt confident about criticizing a system that he saw was rapidly passing, his perspective still points to the real possibility that overcoming the effects of harsh treatment generated by the norms of pollution ideology was a central concern of people living within the strictures of the Edo outcaste order. Danzaemon and his subordinates embarked upon attempts to free themselves from early modern forms of discrimination in earlier periods. Although outcaste rebellions against aspects of the status order in eastern Japan were not frequent, they did exist (the “Musashi Sandal Strap Disturbance” of 1843 will be discussed in Chapter 7). Certainly Danzaemon Chikayasu and seventy of his aides being raised to “commoner status” (heinin mibun) in 1868 was also a significant development, and it was accompanied by a change in name from Danzaemon to Dan Naiki and met with celebrations throughout the Edo outcaste order.92 But for the most part, struggles against ill-­treatment generally took place through legal petitions and, in some cases, a refusal to obey orders, feet dragging, or other actions best conforming to what James Scott described as “weapons of the weak”.93 In the case of the chōri whose life was compared to a couple of white dogs by the peasant above, his initial response was with his fists, followed by a community brawl, before an official appeal was eventually lodged with the Tokugawa shogunate. Japanese scholars have studied these evidences of resistance thoroughly, and while there is meaning in summarizing their views, there is also utility in exploring this problem more creatively. Here I would like to examine anti-­caste struggle in Japan through the lens of a concept found in Indian caste studies, namely “Sanskritization”.94 “Sanskritization” has been described by Aya Ikegame, in her summary of Srinivas, as “a process by which a lower caste or tribal group adopts certain customs, forms of rituals, beliefs, ideologies and the lifestyle of a higher, and especially a twice-­born (Brahmin, Kshatriya and Viashya) caste”.95 This process might be seen in light of what the anthropologist Harumi Befu long ago first identified as the process of “samuraization”, a

The ideological construction of eta   87 process with intriguing parallels to Sanskritization in the Indian context.96 Befu, in the words of Josef Kreiner, posited that: “Unlike the concept of letters, which dominated China, a decisive factor in Japan was that at least since the thirteenth century, or the Kamakura period, the military logic, which may be regarded as instrumentally rational logic, became the dominant [social] orientation.”97 Later generations of historians have further developed the idea; Herman Ooms, for example, has argued that the “military model” was the most widely accepted metaphor for organizing Tokugawa society.98 Marius B. Jansen, too, in a similar vein, argued that “[s]amurai served as ethical ideal types, theoretically committed to service and indifferent to personal danger and gain.”99 An examination of Danzaemon ruling practices throughout the 18th and 19th centuries reveals an intriguing tendency for successive heads to borrow or imitate the various institutional and policy conventions of samurai authorities in Edo. The fabricated genealogies of Danzaemon Chikamura (r.1709–1748), mentioned briefly above, expose an outcaste leader intent on linking his own ancestors to famous warrior leaders (including both Minamoto-­no-Yoritomo and Tokugawa Ieyasu) and his underlings to feudal daimyo lords. He also claimed privileges for himself usually associated with elite warriors such as the ability to offer New Year’s greetings to the Tokugawa shogunate’s Senior Councillors. It is clear from such examples that the kind of “kingdom” (shihai kuniguni) being imagined by Chikamura was one rooted and legitimated by connections to samurai warlords and embodied through warrior-­like powers, albeit a bricolage of samurai images stretching from the time of Yoritomo right down to the contemporary Tokugawa shoguns. Successive Danzaemon heads, as well as their supporting officials, also consistently applied “military regimentation” principles in their dealings with the Edo City Magistrate and other city residents, and within their own status group. People who came to hold positions of status group leadership in the city of Edo as did Danzaemon had the possibility of more direct dealings with the warrior government. Danzaemon, within this society, was an outcaste leader who developed an array of military connections to the point where he “wore swords and was permitted to enter the inner gates of the Edo City Magistrate”.100 And,  as we have seen in this chapter, this could also generate considerable controversy. The very name Danzaemon literally meant “Dan of the Left Gate Guard”, and the fabricated genealogies of Danzaemon made the claim that the surname Yano (“Arrow Field”) was given to his ancestor Fujiwara Yorikane, a loyal vassal of Minamoto-­no-Yoritomo.101 While using the term chōri (a term formerly applied to religious officials) in relation to the core constituents of their order, the various Danzaemons also used the term kashira (head) to refer to their overall position in the hierarchy. Those officials immediately under Danzaemon were kumigashira (group heads) and under them were kogashira (sub-­chiefs), and all of these labels were also employed by the samurai in their various military group formations. Danzaemon borrowed from the language of the samurai authorities to refer to his attendants, such as sandal-­bearers, and some of the

88   The ideological construction of eta earliest extant records involving Danzaemon are appeals about the kinds of procedures he should be permitted to follow when on official business to the Edo City Magistrate’s office and the kinds of clothes and weapons he and his officers should be allowed to bear.102 Danzaemon also used intriguing titles to refer to some of the people in his employ: those whose job it was to officiate in execution duties, for example, were sometimes referred to as the “arrow people” (ya-­ no-mono),103 probably derived from the fact that Danzaemon’s family name was Yano. And as Minegishi Kentarō has noted, Danzaemon’s most trusted subordinates were also being referred to as “those people who belong to the loyal vassals of old” (fudai kerai suji no mono) by the end of the Tokugawa period.104 Danzaemon was directly subject to warrior rule, and it was therefore not only appropriate but necessary that he and his officials learn and abide by strict samurai protocol. Danzaemon’s institution was founded on the basic rule of male primogeniture, but leadership was only established after warrior sanction through the official procedures of “meeting” (omemie) the City Magistrate’s higher officials. The official seating arrangements on the occasion of the succession ceremony of Danzaemon Chikamasa (r.1804–1821) make it clear that while two unequal parties were in actual fact meeting, Chikamasa also needed to bring with him a small retinue that sat directly opposite the Magistrate according to their respective ranks.105 Danzaemon’s management of his own downwardly vertical relationships often mirrored the ways he was expected to conduct himself in front of his samurai overlords. Junior officials were expected to directly pledge allegiance to him at least once a year in person. Danzaemon also created and administered spaces within his own territory in ways which mirrored those of the Magistrate, with spaces dedicated for conducting trials (shirasu), holding prisoners (rōya), and obtaining legal assistance (kujiyado). Nakao Kenji has further pointed out that “Danzaemon on occasion took the place of the Edo City Magistrate in its patrol of the city. The procession on those occasions took place with Danzaemon in a kago (palanquin), and twenty-­six men at his front and rear.”106 According to a document dated 1843.4.5, Danzaemon undertook a survey tour of the territories under his rule in the mid-­18th century, and the procession resembled a miniature daimyo procession. Those who walked before him on his tour were known as jūshi: they carried three swords, wore black jingasa (samurai hats) and sky-­blue cotton haori dyed in the katazome style with an indigo fine-­patterned cotton yakubiki. Three wakato (armed, junior assisting officials) followed, dressed the same as the jūshi. These men were then followed by three palanquin bearers and three substitute palanquin bearers, one spearman, one “scissor box” carrier, two sandal-­bearers, one tea/bentō carrier, one overseer, one pack horse (with attendant), one document bureau carrier, one “two-­handled scissor box” carrier, two rain-­gear palanquin bearers, two rain-­ gear coverers, one sword carrier (tachihakioshi) wearing a black cotton haori with a white half-­seal (awasein) of the character “arrow” in a different shape (“font”). There were also detailed specifications for Danzaemon’s luggage: cotton covers for the scissor boxes and document bureaus which were to be dark blue in colour with a white half-­seal of the same character.107

The ideological construction of eta   89 Other evidences of the military regimentation of the Edo outcaste order include the styles of documentation produced by Danzaemon. The power relationship between local chōri (eta) village leaders like Jin’emon and Danzaemon was complicated. At times it borrowed considerably from other historical power relationships, most notably those in the military world. In an early Meiji document dated 1869, for example, the last Danzaemon (Dan Naiki) issued a document to Jin’emon that guaranteed his rule over the hinin. This document was written in a style reminiscent of the kind military rulers directed toward their vassals in earlier periods.108 Danzaemon’s “samurai mimicry” can also be confirmed through images. The only image believed to exist of a Danzaemon head was taken in the early Meiji period and is purportedly that of Danzaemon Chikayasu (Dan Naiki).109 A comparison of that photo with a portrait of a warrior of the same period, such as Sakamoto Ryōma, one of the most popular samurai figures of the late Tokugawa period, is instructive. Immediately recognizable is the lack of visible difference between the two figures. Extant records reveal that the similarities also went beyond physical appearance or comportment. Danzaemon lived in a residence that was referred to as the “Danzaemon residence” (Danzaemon yashiki), discussed at greater length in Chapter 6, and it compared favourably in size and design with the residences of hatamoto (“high-­ranking direct vassals of the shogun”). Hatamoto residences averaged about 2,000 square metres in size with central gates, walled compounds, and gardens. Danzaemon’s compound measured approximately 2,400 square metres, with the same features as described above, demonstrating that Danzaemon did not merely look like a samurai but lived in a residence that was on par with one owned by a sizeable feudal lord.110 While the above is only a rough sketch, it reveals an intriguing tendency for the various Danzaemon heads from the early 18th century onwards to borrow or imitate the various conventions of samurai authorities in Edo and apply them to practices within the Edo outcaste order. At one level, such observations certainly need to be made circumspectly, for countless sumptuary laws from the Tokugawa period demonstrate that copying fashion and social practices were common and not necessarily one-­directional among status groups. Nonetheless, the “samuraization” addressed above is also remarkable precisely because of the complex perceptions that circulated throughout the early modern period about the social distance that existed between samurai and outcaste. Such a process, moreover, appears to have certain similarities with the Sanskritization discussed by scholars working on South Asia. The term Sanskritization has been the target of sustained criticism, yet at the same time it retains value as an analytical shorthand. Criticisms of Sanskritization include perceived problems with the original interpretation of caste history that underpins it, internal contradictions within the theory itself, limitations of the sample from which the theory was largely derived, allegations concerning the inapplicability of the theory to large regional stretches as well as to particular communities and groups, and a strong nationalistic ethnocentrism underpinning the development of the idea which resisted the development of a more

90   The ideological construction of eta comparative frame.111 These criticisms are substantial and valid, but it is also true that scholars continue to see utility in building upon a revised version of the concept, particularly in relation to historical discussions of social mobility in premodern and colonial India.112 The continuing value of the concept lies in the fact that popular struggle historically also involved both conscious and unconscious attempts to overcome serious social structural impediments by engaging in the practice of a kind of social mobility that mirrored groups perceived to be of higher status. The increased status proximity of later Danzaemon heads to samurai elites arose out of practices established by earlier official institutional heads who emulated certain values and practices believed to be the embodiment of samurai rule. Early instances of mimicry probably initially arose for a variety of reasons including a desire for self-­preservation as well as enhanced status in the eyes of  the ruling class and members of other status groups through public acknowledgement of their various powers. These movements are particularly evidenced in the kinds of direct appeals Danzaemon heads made to Edo authorities through genealogies and statements of duties as well as governing practices (including rituals) they adopted towards subservient status groups. Over time, however, as the place of Danzaemon stabilized within the Edo outcaste order, the desire for status acknowledgement probably gave way to some extent to the desire for recognition of loyal service in rendering duties faithfully to samurai officials. This strategy for an appeal to loyalty was evidenced in numerous ways, but it can particularly be seen in documents that appealed to the nature of proper precedent within Danzaemon ruling practices and the effective employment of duties in relation to various groups under Danzaemon’s charge. This kind of “samurai mimicry”, like Sanskritization in the subcontinent, can be understood as a form of structural resistance to caste rule, a refutation of a status system that had as one of its central supporting ideological pillars the notion of pollution, by adopting a stance that can perhaps be understood as mimicry of the samurai class that also makes a mockery of the status system’s foundational logic.113 Challenges to social and political orders should arguably not just be measured in terms of overt acts of resistance in the social and political realms; subtle, everyday forms of resistance such as those outlined by scholars like James Scott exist, as do efforts at advancement through attempts at social mobility. All of these efforts can and should be recognized as important forms of resistance to the dominant social and political order within caste society.

Conclusions The net result of the above transformations in pollution ideology for Danzaemon and his subordinates was complex. On the one hand, as numerous scholars in recent times have discussed, the early modern social system was built upon the logic of status which extended official acknowledgement by the authorities to groups for the services they rendered in exchange for an exclusive

The ideological construction of eta   91 guarantee for privileges granted. In other words, even for a person of eta (chōri) status, it was in a sense better to be inside the system than marginalized by not conforming to it, and therefore not having one’s official presence acknowledged and a pathway to social existence guaranteed. At the same time, as this chapter has demonstrated, eta were a group that through transforming ideas of pollution came to embody an irredeemable and problematic social difference, even as they usually managed to maintain working relationships with other status groups throughout the early modern period. This was an unenviable position to be in, and the costs of being within an eta community far exceeded the benefits, whether they were concrete ones such as economic privileges or more intangible ones such as high levels of social and political autonomy. In all three periods discussed above, the overarching and overwhelming effect of pollution ideology was to scapegoat the outcaste, to portray him or her as someone who was impure, abnormal, and polluted. One important reaction to scapegoating, in addition to the various other well-­documented responses pollution ideology engendered, was a form of samurai mimicry. Although the politics of such a movement is certainly less straightforward than other forms of response and resistance, it was nevertheless an action that still called into question the political and social status quo. One question that still remains unanswered here is the underlying reason for the transition between the various forms of pollution ideology. Scholars have historically framed this problem as one pertaining to the changing intensity of pollution ideology. Minegishi observed that compared to the medieval period, early modern pollution ideology weakened over time. Although this is an important interpretation within longue durée caste/outcaste history, the view adopted here is that because of the recycling and reinvention of ideological forms over time, attempting to measure the relative strengthening or weakening of an ideology envisaged in a continuum over time is perhaps ultimately unhelpful. Pollution ideology is most fully evidenced when it becomes overdetermined at particular historical junctures and it assumes different forms in response to a range of factors including socio-­economic divisions, political expediency, perceived social requirements, and popular perceptions. Each of the dominant forms pollution ideology assumed in early modern Japan – religious, social, humanistic – were historical responses to contradictions and impediments exposed by the faltering structural integrity of the status system.

Notes    1 Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 272.    2 Harumi Befu, Japan: An Anthropological Introduction (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1971), 32, 51–52.    3 Satoko Mita, Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō: Senshū Minami Ōji Mura Wo Chūshin Ni (Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 2018), 86–90.    4 Ryō Umihara, “Shohyō: Tsukada Takashi Hen ‘Mibunteki Shūen No Hikakushi: Hō To Shakai No Shiten Kara’ ”, Shidai Nihonshi, no. 15 (2012): 183.

92   The ideological construction of eta    5 Yoshida has a useful, original discussion of the ways in which Takagi Shōsaku, Asao Naohiro, Tsukada Takashi, Fujimoto Seiichirō, and Watanabe Hiroshi all approached the issue of the balancing act between social forces and political power in the construction of outcaste communities in early modern Japan. Tsutomu Yoshida, “Shohyō Fujimoto Seijirō ‘Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Nakama Kōzō’ ”, Buraku Kaihō Kenkyū, no. 197 (2013): 70–78.    6 Hidemasa Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka (Kyoto: Aunsha, 2014), 16.    7 Naohiro Asao, ed., Mibun To Kakushiki, vol. 7 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1992), 21.    8 For an annotated version of a portion of this work with notes see Kazuteru Okiura, ed., Suihei: Hito No Yo Ni Hikari Are (Tokyo: Shakai Hyōronsha, 1991), 14–15.    9 Minegishi notes, however, that the term was used in a 1644 population register from Saraike village. Kentarō Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū (Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 1996), 179.   10 Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka, 47–48.   11 Kenji Nakao, Edo Jidai No Sabetsu Gainen: Kinsei No Sabetsu Wo Dō Toraeruka (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1997), 27–28.   12 Manabu Tsukamoto, Shōrui O Meguru Seiji: Genroku No Fōkuroa (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1983), 206–208.   13 Ibid., 211–213.   14 Ibid., 284.   15 Osamu Ōto, “Life and Death, Funeral Rites and Burial Systems in Early Modern Japan”, Early Modern Japan: An Interdisciplinary Journal 19 (2011): 15.   16 Kentarō Minegishi, “Kegare Kannen To Buraku Sabetsu (Ge): Sono Fukabunsei To  Kegare Kannen No Itchi”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 162 (2002): 100–101. Minegishi in this same article expressed disagreement with Tsukamoto’s interpretation of Tsunayoshi’s reign (and Yokota Fuyuhiko’s interpretations as well), especially on the question as to the degree to which policies from this period should be understood as the primary catalyst for the increase in discriminatory attitudes towards outcaste groups.   17 Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka, 52–53.   18 Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law, 283–284.   19 Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka, 55–56.   20 Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Genroku Sekenbanashi Fūbunshū (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1994), 36–37.   21 Nakao, Edo Jidai No Sabetsu Gainen: Kinsei No Sabetsu Wo Dō Toraeruka, 28–29.   22 Okiura, Suihei: Hito No Yo Ni Hikari Are, 16.   23 For a brief discussion of this in English, see my Timothy D. Amos, “The Subaltern Subject and Early Modern Taxonomies: Indianisation and Racialisation of the Japanese Outcaste”, Asian Studies Review 41, no. 4 (2017): 587–590.   24 Yoshinori Morita, Kawara Makimono (Tokyo: Hōsei Daigaku Shuppankyoku, 1978); Osamu Wakita, Kawara Makimono No Sekai (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1991).   25 Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Mibunsei To Shūen Shakai (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1997), 243.   26 Many texts discuss Danzaemon’s genealogical statement. For my interpretation of these genealogies and the role they played in early modern society, see Timothy D. Amos, “Genealogy and Marginal Status in Early Modern Japan: The Case of Danzaemon”, Japanese Studies 33, no. 2 (2013): 147–159.   27 Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka, 49.   28 Minegishi, “Kegare Kannen To Buraku Sabetsu (Ge): Sono Fukabunsei To Kegare Kannen No Itchi”, 103.   29 Timothy D. Amos, “Outcaste or Internal Exile? Ambiguous Bodies in the Making of Modern Japan”, Portal: 2, no. 1 (2005): 22.

The ideological construction of eta   93   30 Minegishi, “Kegare Kannen To Buraku Sabetsu (Ge): Sono Fukabunsei To Kegare Kannen No Itchi”, 100.   31 Noah McCormack, “Buraku Immigration in the Meiji Era – Other Ways to Become ‘Japanese’ ”, East Asian History, no. 23 (June 2002): 90–93.   32 Nakao, Edo Jidai No Sabetsu Gainen: Kinsei No Sabetsu Wo Dō Toraeruka, 34–35.   33 Ibid., 36–37.   34 Timothy D. Amos, Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011), 100–106.   35 Groemer also notes: “By the second half of the Tokugawa period a combination of political, economic, legal, ideological, and religious forces had produced a rigid, systematic and state-­sanctioned order of discrimination in the capital.” Gerald Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, The Journal of Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 263, 292.   36 Kenji Nakao, ed., Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995), 3–5, 7–8, 11–12, 34–35; Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 8 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987), 404–411.   37 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 33–34; Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 9 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987), 515–516, 548.   38 Hōseishi Gakkai, ed., Tokugawa Kinreikō: Zenshū Dai Yon, 11 vols., vol. 10 (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1961), 354; Hōseishi Gakkai, ed., Tokugawa Kinreikō: Bekkan Ichi, 11 vols., vol. 11 (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1961), 164.   39 In 1736, for example, outcastes were forbidden to enter the households of commoners in Komoro fief. Harada, Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, vol. 9, 335–336.   40 Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 10 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1988), 223–224.   41 Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka, 123.   42 Harada, Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, vol. 10, 279–280.   43 Ibid., 378–379.   44 Ibid., 397–400.   45 Ibid., 434–435.   46 Ibid., 465–466.   47 Ibid., 434–435.   48 Naohiro Asao, Asao Naohiro Chosakushū, 8 vols., vol. 7 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2004), 22–23.   49 Takashi Tsukada, Mibunsei Shakai To Shimin Shakai: Kinsei Nihon No Shakai To Hō (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1992), 199–201.   50 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, 5 vols., vol. 1 (Urawa: Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1977), 5–6.   51 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 89–90.   52 Maki Hidemasa notes that copies of the An’ei Edict have also been found in Kaga, Shinano, Ise, Kumihama, Nara, Osaka, Kawachi, Ikuno (Hyogo), Okayama, Hiroshima, Tottori, Awa, Tosa, Uwajima, Ogura, Kumamoto, and Kagoshima. Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka, 114.   53 Tsukada also makes a similar point. Tsukada, Mibunsei Shakai to Shimin Shakai: Kinsei Nihon No Shakai To Hō, 191–192.   54 Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 11 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1988), 234–235.   55 Ibid., 386–387, 400–401, 487, 549–552.   56 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 192.   57 Numerous scholars have written of status in this way, although admittedly writing on different periods and with different points of emphasis. Herman Ooms argued in  an earlier work there were essentially two categories of human distinction in

94   The ideological construction of eta Tokugawa society – the ruler and ruled. Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Ideology: Early Constructs, 1570–1680 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 293–294. Such a view has been echoed to some extent by other leading Japanese early modern scholars on status such as Naohiro Asao, “ ‘Mibun’ Shakai No Rikai”, in Nihon Rekishi No Naka No Hisabetsumin, ed. Nara Jinken/Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo (Nara: Nara Jinken/Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 2001), 75. Yokota Fuyuhiko also devised a three-­strata explanation of the status system – “warrior-­commoner-outcaste” – which is somewhat similar to what is being described here. The emphasis in this section, however, is on the partial, discursive reordering of the status system in the late 18th century using a similar tripartite schema. Fuyuhiko Yokota, “Kinseiteki Mibun Seido No Seiritsu”, in Nihon No Kinsei 7 Kan, ed. Naohiro Asao, vol. 7 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1992), 76.   58 Amos, “The Subaltern Subject and Early Modern Taxonomies: Indianisation and Racialisation of the Japanese Outcaste”, 587.   59 Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, 282–283.   60 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 160–161.   61 Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed., Gunma-­Ken Hisabetsu Buraku Shiryō: Kogashira Saburōemon-Ke Monjo (Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2007), 40–44.   62 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 98–99.   63 Ibid., 98.   64 Ibid., 207–208.   65 Manabu Urabe, “Bushū Shimo Wana Chōri No Shitchi Ukemodoshi Hantai Tōsō”, in Buraku No Seikatsushi, ed. Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo (Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1988), 225–230.   66 Nakao, Edo Jidai No Sabetsu Gainen: Kinsei No Sabetsu Wo Dō Toraeruka, 41–42.   67 Harada, Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, vol. 11, 138.   68 Ibid., 400–401.   69 Ibid., 466–467.   70 Minegishi, “Kegare Kannen To Buraku Sabetsu (Ge): Sono Fukabunsei To Kegare Kannen No Itchi”, 103.   71 Inshi Buyō, Lust, Commerce, and Corruption: An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard, by an Edo Samurai, trans. Mark Teeuwen, Kate Wildman Nakai, Fumiko Miyazaki, Anne Walthall, and John Breen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 368–370.   72 Mita, Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō: Senshū Minami Ōji Mura Wo Chūshin Ni, 379–380, 394–396. Mita’s paper at the 2014 AAS in Philadelphia entitled “Poverty and Intravillage Regulation in Izumi Province’s Minami Ōji Village: A Study of One Kawata Village’s Nineteenth Century” also presented a similar argument.   73 David Howell, Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-­Century Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 81.   74 Okiura, Suihei: Hito No Yo Ni Hikari Are, 21.   75 Minegishi, “Kegare Kannen To Buraku Sabetsu (Ge): Sono Fukabunsei To Kegare Kannen No Itchi”, 98–99.   76 Kenji Nakao, Edo No Danzaemon: Hisabetsu Minshū Ni Kunrin Shita “Kashira” (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1996), 16.   77 John Henry Whigmore, ed., Law and Justice in Tokugawa Japan, vol. VIII-­B (Tokyo: Japan Foundation, 1983), 183–203.   78 Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, 288.   79 Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka, 133.   80 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 1, 15.   81 Nakao, Edo Jidai No Sabetsu Gainen: Kinsei No Sabetsu Wo Dō Toraeruka, 45.   82 Ibid., 47.   83 Ibid., 43–44.

The ideological construction of eta   95   84 Ibid., 44–45.   85 Ibid., 48–49.   86 Hirobumi Takahashi, “Mito Han No Buraku No Seiritsu To Sono Shokugyō/Yakuwari”, in Higashi Nihon No Burakushi, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 167.   87 Keiichi Tanaka, ed., Shibata Shūzō Nikki, vol. 2 (Niigata: Chōshikankō I’inkai, 1971), 297–298.   88 Mikiso Hane, Peasants, Rebels, and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan, 1st ed. (New York: Pantheon, 1982), 142.   89 Tetsuo Okuma, “Gunma”, in Higashi Nihon Burakushi: Kantō-Hen, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 246.   90 Ibid., 244.   91 “Dannaiki Mibun Hikiage Ikken”, in Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryō Shūsei, ed. Tomohiko Harada and Hiroshi Kobayashi (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1971), 473.   92 Masaki Hirota, ed., Sabetsu No Shosō, vol. 22, Nihon Kindai Shisō Taikei (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1990), 69–71.   93 James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), xv–xvi.   94 M.N. Srinivas, “A Note on Sanskritization and Westernization”, The Far Eastern Quarterly 15, no. 4 (1956).   95 Aya Ikegame, “Karnataka: Caste, Dominance and Social Change in the ‘Indian Village’ ”, in The Modern Anthropology of India: Ethnography, Themes and Theory, ed. Peter Berger and Frank Heidemann (London; New York: Routledge, 2013), 123–124.   96 Befu, Japan: An Anthropological Introduction, 51.   97 Josef Kreiner, “The First Symposium on Civilization Studies”, in Japanese Civilization in the Modern World: Life and Society, ed. Tadao Umesao, Harumi Befu, and Josef Kreiner, no. 16 (Osaka: Minpaku National Museum of Ethnology, 1984), 124.   98 Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law, 338.   99 Marius B. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), 101. 100 This was a point made first by Gotō Shinpei when he was governor of Tokyo. Shinpei Gotō, Edo No Jichisei (Tokyo: Nishōdō Shoten, 1922), 172. 101 Amos, “Genealogy and Marginal Status in Early Modern Japan”, 154. 102 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 29. 103 Shigeo Kobayashi et al., eds., Burakushi Yōgo Jiten (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1985), 326. 104 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 44. 105 For the original table, see Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū (Kobe: Hyōgo Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1987), 85. 106 Nakao, Edo No Danzaemon: Hisabetsu Minshū Ni Kunrin Shita “Kashira”, 11. 107 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 355–358. 108 I am referring here to the documents entitled ategaijō or chigyōjō. See, for example, Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 1, 246. 109 This portrait of Dan Naiki is found, for example, on the cover of Sen’ichirō Shiomi’s Danzaemon To Sono Jidai: Senmin Bunka No Doramatsurugii (Tokyo: Hihyōsha, 1991). The original can be found in Bonsen Takahashi, Buraku Kaihō To Dan Naoki No Kōgyō, vol. 1, Shakai Jigyō Kenkyūjo Hōkoku (Tokyo: Chūō Shakai Jigyō Kyōkai Shakai Jigyō Kenkyūjo, 1936). 110 André Sorensen, The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty-­First Century (London; New York: Routledge, 2002), 34; Gerald Groemer, Street Performers and Society in Urban Japan, 1600–1900: The Beggar’s Gift (Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2016), 54.

96   The ideological construction of eta 111 For a range of older and newer critiques of Sanskritization, see Lucy Carroll, “ ‘Sanskritization’, ‘Westernization’, and ‘Social Mobility’: A Reappraisal of the Relevance of Anthropological Concepts to the Social Historian of Modern India”, Journal of Anthropological Research 33, no. 4 (1977); Christophe Jaffrelot, “Sanskritization vs. Ethnicization in India: Changing Identities and Caste Politics before Mandal,” Asian Survey 40, no. 5 (2000); Bageshwar Singh, “Sanskritization: An Appraisal”, Indian Anthropologist 8, no. 2 (1978); and Sheldon I. Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 514. 112 See, for example, Cynthia Talbot, Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 66; Vijaya Ramaswamy, Historical Dictionary of the Tamils (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 2007), 239. 113 Homi K. Bhaba, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2006), 122.

4 Danzaemon and the political economy of crucifixion

Introduction This chapter examines an official duty which lies at the very heart of Danzaemon rule – execution. Execution duties are listed in both Danzaemon Chikamura’s (1698–1758; r.1709–1748) yuishogaki (genealogical records of family and lineage) and supplementary declaration (kakitsuke) submitted to the Edo City Magistrate in 1725, with both documents declaring that these duties were performed from former times.1 Moreover, the first comprehensive document dealing with Danzaemon laws, the 1784 “Copy of Chōri Statutes, with Seal, of the Various Provinces”, opens with several articles prescribing correct execution practices.2 As Tsukada Takashi has noted in his research, the performance of execution duties for the shogunate functioned as a basis of legitimacy from which Danzaemon and his subordinates attempted to assert other kinds of rights such as leather-­sandal production.3 Accordingly, an examination of Danzaemon’s engagement in execution duties over the course of the early modern period is a critically important way of grasping the evolving nature of the Edo outcaste order. The specific mode of execution examined in this paper is haritsuke (usually translated as crucifixion, although as will be seen in this chapter, a practice that differed significantly from the ancient Roman practice), singled out in Danzaemon Chikamura’s aforementioned genealogy with a purportedly historical example. In particular, the focus here is on crucifixions carried out in regional areas as a result of illegal activities, particularly those involving sneaking past shogunate checkpoint barriers. Crucifixions near some of the major checkpoints were carried out at with increased frequency over the course of the early modern period, and extant materials indicate that they entailed high levels of preparation, cross-­country movement, and inter-­status group and inter-­community interaction.4 While villages under Danzaemon rule also had experiences with other forms of execution, particularly gokumon (gibbetting: decapitation followed by exposure of the head), which likewise required a considerable degree of preparation and logistical cooperation, the total number of people involved in this kind of punitive event paled in comparison to crucifixion.5 By examining the role of shogunate authorities, local rulers, Danzaemon, and regional communities in performing crucifixion in eastern Japan during the

98   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy Tokugawa period in light of the changing prescriptive pronouncements found in official communications about how it should be carried out, important insights can be gained into the changing nature of and transformations surrounding Danzaemon rule. This analytical method also enables us to see the growing frequency of and uniformity/conformity surrounding this punitive practice, an increased emphasis in the political symbolism surrounding the event, and a mushrooming of the numbers of official participants. The method further enables us to better understand the ways in which such executions carried out by outcastes differed between communities even within the Edo outcaste order, as well as between territories lying inside and outside Danzaemon’s main sphere of governance – the eight eastern Japanese provinces. Perhaps most importantly, however, it reveals how outcastes under the rule of Danzaemon became increasingly mobilized as instruments of Tokugawa power, how their existence was increasingly underpinned by a more expansive interpretation of outcaste social function as well as accompanied by a considerable shrinking of actual social distance between outcaste and sovereign (while of course maintaining the fiction of vast social difference in terms of perception), and how the ruling authorities nonetheless simultaneously pushed for greater distance between warrior and outcaste that would function to further separate them from the world of the rulers. Knowing how and why people were punished in a given time and place also provides us with a concrete way to study the historical contours of early modern power. Execution of non-­warriors was generally outsourced to outcastes during the Tokugawa period, leading the shogunate to attempt to project its power symbolically in the realm of punitive action, something that is revealed quite clearly in the historical records. Standardization of execution practices and ritualization of the performative act itself proceeded slowly and in tandem, although in ways that tended to cede authority to Danzaemon and his subordinate outcastes in relation to the form and content of executions. Subsequent outcaste attempts to manipulate symbolic power in the realm of punitive action sparked numerous responses, including the enhancement of measures to increase the social stigmatization of outcastes.

Early Tokugawa crucifixion The question of how crucifixion came to be carried out in premodern Japan is an important one. Daniel Botsman has argued that “it has often been assumed that it [crucifixion] was first introduced to the country with the Christian religion. In fact, however, the practice of stringing people up on wooden frames before executing or torturing them can be traced back at least as far as the twelfth century in Japan.”6 The word haritsuke (usually rendered by the single  character 磔 but also occasionally by the compound 張付) is certainly found in medieval texts.7 Documents related to the Sengoku period practice offer an indication that the 16th century arrival of the Europeans did have a probable impact on the renewed importance given to the practice. Crucifixion

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    99 was specifically employed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and at least one early Tokugawa shogun for the punishment of Christians.8 Pedro Morijon (1562–1634?) observed in his writings on the torture and executions of Christians, moreover, that some were “… fast bound imediatly to a ladder, which had a peece of wood put through it in forme of a Crosse [sic]”.9 The crucifixion scene was also one of the objects found in later fumie (“images to step on”), becoming a symbolic embodiment of what one was meant to repudiate when demonstrating that one was not a Christian believer.10 From a cursory examination of late 16th and early 17th century records, however, it is readily apparent that people were crucified for reasons other than being a Christian. Mary Elizabeth Berry lists Hideyoshi’s crucifixion of a person responsible for applying graffiti to the Jurakutei gate in 1595.11 On 1644.7.12, the priest Gensaku and his family were crucified for stealing. Four years later, on murders.12 From these last two cases it can be argued that crucifixion in the first part of the 17th century was also applied to people of high status such as priests and samurai, suggesting that the punishment had a twofold purpose: status debasement through public humiliation and torturous death as a form of pronounced retributive justice.13 Botsman has noted that early modern sentences and punishments were based in a complex system of status differentials which among other things were designed to help all members of society under the shogun’s rule “see the maintenance of hierarchy as a condition for social well-­being”.14 Among these punishments, crucifixion was a particularly torturous and exacting form of punishment suffered by publicly disgraced people found guilty of a flagrant form of deplorable disobedience to authority that challenged the public order, whether broadly defined as gross social disobedience or more narrowly as “infractions against superiors and household heads”.15 There was an increase in the frequency of occurrences of crucifixion in the second half of the 17th century, suggesting an enhancement of its importance as a spectacle capable of conveying a public demonstration of power and thereby acting as a deterrent to social and uncivil disobedience in more general terms.16 Certainly the punishment continued to be meted out for more general acts of gross civil disobedience: Vaporis mentions the shogunate’s crucifixion of large-­ scale illegal brothel operators, while Botsman lists the crucifixion of the outlaw Hirai Gompachi.17 Yet the record of executions for the second half of the 17th century in Edo and shogunate territory found in the Oshioki Saikyochō (Ledger of Rulings for Punishments) reveals a practice of sentencing a crucifixion primarily for violent crimes committed against one’s parents or lord. A number of things become clear about crucifixion during this period from this record. First, a total of 73 people were crucified by the shogunate. Second, these crucifixions were carried out on 51 known different days (the dates for two crucifixions are unaccounted for), showing an occasional proclivity for multiple crucifixions on the same day.18 Third, the most common reason for execution was killing a family member, lord, or member of a lord’s family. Fourth, the vast majority (41) of crucifixions were carried out at the Asakusa execution grounds, with a much smaller number (11) being carried out at the Shinagawa execution

100   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy grounds and at the regional location where the crime took place (11). A handful of crucifixions (2) were carried out at the execution grounds at Asakusa reserved for beheading samurai, although a few (4) were not stipulated. Fifth, there was a variety of extra humiliations heaped on many of the prisoners before their execution, including public exposure, parading through the city, and being “put to the saw” (nokogiri), but there appears to be no fixed pattern in the cases where these additional punishments were applied. Sixth, there are several examples of women and children being subjected to crucifixion in this list, indicating that it was not a gender-­specific or age-­limited punishment at this time. And lastly, the process by which a crucifixion was ordered and executed was not subject to a fixed procedure. A 1651 record not found in the Oshioki Saikyochō notes that both courts of the Edo City Magistrate’s office led the procession to the execution ground at Asakusa to carry out a crucifixion. The City Magistrate’s direct and full participation in this case was doubtless related to the political climate and the particularly treasonous nature of the crimes of the people being executed and the severe threat they posed to the Tokugawa social order.19 Yet this record, as well as the one above, also reveals that procedures for the carrying out of executions were not fixed in stone at this time and the physical presence of high officials at the execution grounds could well have even been more a case of hands-­on enforcement rather than an exercise in political symbolism.

Danzaemon and crucifixion in early Tokugawa times Hiramatsu Yoshirō observed long ago that the right to investigate, sentence, and carry out punishments during the Tokugawa period lay with the shogun, individual daimyo/Tokugawa vassals (and temples and shrines which were effectively treated as if they were daimyo), and certain “special groups” such as those governed by Danzaemon.20 In 1697.6, the shogunate issued a circular to daimyo with land holdings of over 10,000 koku, indicating that for the crimes of treason, arson, and injury to living things, those who governed an individual province could punish criminals without consulting the shogunate, including in relation to the sentence of crucifixion. If there were jurisdictional issues involved, however, these daimyo would need to consult with the on-­duty Senior Councillor.21 The right to crucify criminals, however, did not extend to those ranked under 10,000 koku or to “special group” leaders such as Danzaemon. Indeed, lesser-­ranking domain lords, especially hatamato, or bannermen, were not permitted to investigate, sentence, and carry out crucifixions: these activities had to be carried out by one of the three magisterial or regional shogunate offices.22 Two questions arise here in relation to Danzaemon and crucifixion. First, did he (i.e. the rulers who successively inherited the title) ever have the right to carry it out upon people under his own direct rule? And second, when did he come to carry out official duties in relation to crucifixion on behalf of the shogunate? Briefly, in relation to the first question, in a much later document dated 1807, Danzaemon Chikamasa (r.1804–1821) indicated that he had the

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    101 right to investigate crimes committed by his underlings (tekagiri ginmi), but when the crime was severe enough to warrant the death penalty by beheading, he would first report the matter to the Edo City Magistrate, receive their directive, which would be recorded in a book of recorded oral transmissions, and then, only after reporting to the other Edo City Magistrate not on duty, carry out the sentence. Chikamasa also mentioned that he did not have the power to sentence people to parading or to exposure of their decapitated head; the most severe punishment he could administer was beheading. He further recorded that he had never sentenced any of his own subordinates to crucifixion or burning at the stake and would have to consult about what to do if such a case arose in the future. He also apparently had the power to practise limited forms of torture on his own underlings whom he was investigating.23 It is clear, moreover, as indicated in an earlier chapter, that Danzaemon Chikamura exercised the right to execute hinin during an uprising in the 1720s, and other later 18th century records also indicate the use of such powers, such as in 1768 during the time of Danzaemon Chikasono (1722–1788; r.1748–1775).24 With regard to the second question, the first verifiable examples in which Danzaemon or one of his local chiefs participated in actual cases of crucifixion date to the mid-­18th century, although this certainly does not mean that a group of organized outcastes under Danzaemon rule actually only came to participate in execution duties from around this time. Tsukada notes the existence of an early Meiji text which records a legend that Tarōzaemon (the figure from whom an early Danzaemon supposedly stole power in the alleged struggle for chōri (eta) hegemony in the 16th century) was historically involved in execution.25 The early 19th century work Morisada Mankō (Morisada’s Sketches) records that an early Danzaemon once acted as an inspector for a crucifixion at Sugamo village, carrying a spear with him bearing the craftsman’s seal of Kamizaka Shimada Gisuke (apparently there was initially only one spear for crucifixion with a second one added later). Morisada Manko notes, however, that while Danzaemon owned these crucifixion spears, he usually had hinin do the official duties and did not participate himself.26 Danzaemon Chikamura’s own fabricated genealogical statement of 1725 included several articles which make reference either directly or indirectly to execution duties. First, Article 6 of the genealogy referred to a direct ancestor having a severed head placed in “Danzaemon custody” during the Aonogahara Battle of 1338. Second, Article 10 outlined official duties in relation to “exposure, crucifixion, burning at the stake, gibbetting, sawing, tattooing, dismembering ears and noses, suspending [torturing] of Christians, etc.”. Immediately after this clause, the article went on to mention that the Judicial Council (Hyōjōshū) ordered Danzaemon to participate in the crucifixion of three criminals at Kōnosu village in Musashi Province “64 or 65 years ago during the time of Ishitani, Lord of Shōgen”, most likely a reference to the year 1659.27 Tsukada has convincingly argued, however, that linking these clauses together in an effort to generate an argument about it marking the origins of Danzaemon’s execution duties constitutes a misreading of the document.28

102   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy Although not directly pertaining to crucifixion, as discussed in the previous chapter, Minegishi Kentarō has surmised that Danzaemon (according to Uramoto Yoshifumi, Chikanobu r.1640–1669) was ordered to undertake the torture of Christians in 1642, although there are some problems with attribution in this case, as noted in Chapter 2.29 Likewise Minegishi mentions the participation of kawata (eta) in the building of an embankment used in the beheading of criminals in 1657 in a diary entry by the town elder Emoto Yazaemon in Kawagoe.30 While it is possible to link the above diary entry to the probable establishment of Danzaemon rule in relation to official duties like execution, it is impossible to say conclusively when execution became an official duty of Danzaemon and his subordinates. The earliest eastern Japanese document that specifically mentions eta in relation to crucifixion dates four years earlier than the Kawagoe example above. In 1653.6.13, a record is found of the crucifixion of a man who was a hired samurai labourer for Matsushita Seibē and was charged with sneaking past the Hakone Barrier. Apparently the man had run away from his post under Matsushita the previous month. After consultation with Edo, the Senior Councillor ordered that the prisoner “for posterity’s sake” be crucified at a suitable location near the barrier. For the crucifixion the officiating officers, Kirima Suke’emon and Takamura Sakuemon, were sent, and two ashigaru (foot soldiers) and two Edo City dōshin (low-­ranking samurai who performed basic policing duties for the Edo City Magistrate) were made to accompany them. The document adds that “eta went as well”. While it is not clear where these eta departed from, it cannot be ruled out that they travelled from Edo and therefore were sent by order of Danzaemon. For this crucifixion, an execution placard was erected (although apparently not called a fuda), indicating that the criminal had taken a side road and had been caught going past the fort (saku), presumably a reference to the barrier guard post. It is clear from this incident, too, that the Keeper of Edo Castle (rusui) was first consulted and that he was involved in investigating the convicted retainer’s guarantor (ukenin), a logical step given the fact that barrier-­post affairs came under the Keeper’s jurisdiction.31 A second 17th century example explicitly mentioning eta and crucifixion comes from Utsunomiya Domain (a fudai daimyo territory). It was recorded in the Official Duties Guard Diary (Goyōban Nikki) kept by officials in the domain that on 1693.3.29 the crucifixion of a man named Tokuzaemon from Higashi Nissato village was carried out. Tokuzaemon had killed his mother and was detained and questioned by the authorities before being sentenced to parading and crucifixion. As was the practice during this time, his other family members were also held accountable for the actions of Tokuzaemon, with his three-­yearold son also sentenced to death and female family members sentenced to what was probably a local form of incarceration (aowara). Tokuzaemon was taken to Nissato village on the 28th, accompanied by the Head of the Foot Soldiers (chūgen) Mano Shingoemon, the Local Magistrate Ochiai Mokuemon, the Assistant to the Police (kachimetsuke) Okuyama Yoichizaemon, ten foot soldiers (ashigaru), and one “small head” (kogashira). The use of the term little head

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    103 here may refer to a samurai official in the domain, but given the established use of this term during this period to refer to local sub-­chiefs under Danzaemon rule, it is also possible that it refers to the resident eta sub-­chief in the area. The diary indicates that the poles used for policing the parade and execution were wrapped in paper and sent separately, and then, at a little after six in the morning on the 29th, Tokuzaemon came in a prison basket, after which he was placed on a horse and paraded with an execution placard carried by “etta”. The diary entry also highlights the fact that during this execution the “etta” were given spears and accompanied the prisoner as a direct result of there not being enough samurai to guard the prison basket. In other words, while eta participation in the execution parade was expected, the actual role of the eta in the crucifixion parade was still somewhat flexible and could be affected by something as simple as a shortage of warrior labour.32 To summarize the above discussion, the year in which Danzaemon first participated in punishments of any kind is not clear. Despite the 1869.1 declaration by Dan Naiki (Danzaemon Chikayasu (r.1840–1871)) that his ancestors had performed these duties since medieval times, a right that was allegedly reaffirmed by Ieyasu upon his arrival in the region, it is not at all clear that Danzaemon was actively involved in official executions or crucifixion in the first half of the 17th century.33 That said, given Luis Frois’ statement in 1575 that “the Eta belong to the lowest class in Japan … [t]heir job is to skin dead animals and to act as executioners,” it is not unreasonable to expect Danzaemon to have had a role in the carrying out of this task on shogunate lands from the early 17th century.34 Moreover, there is also the supporting statement by Engelbert Kaempfer dating from his observations in the latter half of the 17th century: “Much more despised are the so-­called eta. Properly speaking, they are people who skin dead animals and tan hides, also making shoes and other items. They tend to perform the task of the bailiff to torture, crucify, and behead. They live apart from other people, outside the city, far from the execution ground, which is always situated to the west of the city next to the highway.”35 Such statements not only do not seriously conflict with contemporaneous Japanese materials, but actually tend to cohere well with them. Although they do not establish what was taking place in the eastern provinces from the late medieval through to the early Tokugawa period, they do lend credence to the overall ideas that: there were certain coherent groups of people with roughly commensurate occupational backgrounds or social status performing execution duties for their local lords; that the originators of the Danzaemon line were probably leaders of one such group; that during the early Tokugawa period, someone with the official title Danzaemon was mobilized to serve as chief executioner for commoners on behalf of the Tokugawa shogunate; that perhaps as early as the mid-­17th century, eta were being sent by Danzaemon to officiate at regional crucifixions; and that some local eta communities either were given newly ascribed responsibilities or were made to carry out additional duties on a case-­by-case basis during the second half of the 17th century.

104   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy

Eighteenth century transformations Hiramatsu has argued that there was a growing tendency for daimyo in Tokugawa Japan to see their own ability to issue punishments severely delimited by perceptions of the relative lowliness of the prestige and rank of their household standings. This, too, despite the fact that the shogunate clearly and consistently stated from the Genroku period onwards that daimyo rated at holdings of over 10,000 koku had the right to carry out some of the harshest punishments such as crucifixion and burning at the stake without consultation if the matter only pertained to their own domain. The growing doubt among daimyo of their right to carry out severe punishments in their domains was constantly dissuaded by the various magistrates’ offices in their responses to the many requests for confirmation about acceptable practices and clarification of daimyo powers in relation to the more severe punishments. One can also witness during the 18th century the emergence of a level of counterfactual warrior discourse which stated that one had to achieve the court rank of Chief Minister before they could carry out a crucifixion, an idea which once accepted would basically restrict the practice to only a couple of domains.36 The flip side of this emerging self-­doubt among some of the less powerful domains was that large domains over time probably increasingly took matters into their hands with ever-­ decreasing levels of concern for shogunate protocol.37 Early 18th century references in shogunate records to crucifixion are relatively few but can be found in magisterial communications. In 1721.7, for example, there was an enquiry about correct procedures for people convicted of treason (gyakuzai). While the main focus on the ruling centred on the role of “the saw” (nokogiri) during the public exposure part of the ritual, it is also possible to glimpse evidence of the real case that lurked behind the enquiry. In this case, the query arose because of concerns about how to execute the punishment of a certain criminal, Gonbē, who had murdered his master and son. The sentence handed down to Gonbē was one day of public parading, two days’ public exposure with a saw (cut marks were to be inserted in both shoulders and blood spread on the saw blade which was then placed horizontally alongside the neck), and then crucifixion. The ruling was that those who wished to apply the saw to the criminal could do so, but that the crucifixion was to take place the day after the exposure finished. The record also notes that for the exposure at Nipponbashi, no officials were sent out, but from that time dōshin were sent to the place of public exposure to undertake patrolling duties.38 In the early 18th century, the kinds of offences punishable by crucifixion were probably still somewhat in flux and subject to considerable regional variation. Yokota Fuyuhiko has noted, for example, that those found guilty of slaying cows in Kyoto in the late 1710s could be sentenced to crucifixion.39 Kōsatsu, or signboards to notify people of laws and ordinances, were also erected in various areas and, intriguingly, some cautioned against executions becoming a public spectacle. In Honjō, Musashi Province, for example, a Shōtoku period (1711–1716) signboard clearly prohibited people from converging on a place

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    105 for an execution.40 It is of course questionable how seriously this kind of law was enforced across regions, particularly in relation to crucifixions of people who had stirred up insurrections against the “public powers” (kōgi), whether the shogunate, daimyo, or some extension of these authority figures. Records concerning the 1722 Nagatoro Uprising (present-­day Yamagata Prefecture) described below indicate that the crucifixion of the insurgents led to an unprecedented crowd of onlookers, although there is no evidence to suggest that they were forcefully dispersed.41 During the same uprising, a peasant by the name of Kiemon was sentenced to crucifixion for “disrespecting the authorities”. During the separate execution of the punishment for other ringleaders, a group referred to as kettaimono (“defect people”) were listed as participating in guard duties, reinforcing the conclusion that Danzaemon’s underlings were probably not engaged in an important part of the execution process in this part of the northeastern region.42 In the same year, an uprising broke out in Takada Domain in Echigo Province (present-­day Niigata Prefecture), with peasants taking their protest about a new law prohibiting the mortgaging of land all the way to Edo. There appears to be some disparity surrounding the subsequent crucifixion itself. One record states that five ringleaders were sentenced to crucifixion to be carried out on the Imaizumi Plain, but as they all died in prison a signboard (kōsatsu) was placed there instead, while another record surrounding the incident seems to suggest that at least some of the crucifixions were actually carried out.43 The mid-­18th century Tokugawa shogunate law compilation, “100 Articles” (Osadamegaki Hyakkajo/Kujikata Osadamegaki) listed numerous offenses deemed worthy of crucifixion: dodging a barrier and crossing over a prohibited mountain; acting as a guide to a barrier dodger; falsely charging a master or parents with committing a grievous crime; killing a foster-­father or strangling a child; wounding a former lord or master; murdering a parent; killing a lord or master; and killing a teacher or instructor.44 The “100 Articles”, however, as seen above, while wide-­ranging and authoritative, was not necessarily the final word on what crime led to what punishment, although it is important to understand what kinds of innovations were achieved through the establishment of this compilation. Ooms’ note on this is important: “The Kujikata Osadamegaki increased the level of seriousness of certain crimes against superiors and decreased that of certain crimes against inferiors.”45 In effect this meant that punishments for killing one’s master, for example, were ratcheted up to public exposure and crucifixion, while the sentence for unintentional killing of a lesser relative was downgraded from beheading to banishment accompanied by the confiscation of property and personal goods. That people directly under Danzaemon rule were participating in executions in their rural areas during the 18th century is clear enough. Although not records pertaining to crucifixion per se, a 1723 case of official exposure of a severed head formerly belonging to a certain Saitō Saigū in Kurihashi, Musashi Province, indicates that authorities travelled to the site from Edo, a local boat carpenter was employed to construct a display shelf, and a guard of eta status

106   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy was mobilized to stand watch.46 In 1743, too, in a case recorded in the household documents of the local chief in Lower Wana village in Musashi Province, which makes explicit mention of Danzaemon, twelve officials (labelled jōyaku), most if not all of whom were from Asakusa, came armed with large swords and poles and carrying the head of an executed criminal by the name of Shōhē. Nearby hinin were also armed with short swords (wakizashi) and Jin’emon mobilized fourteen local eta to work as guards. On Shōhē’s execution placard, located near his prominently displayed head, was a statement that including his wrongdoings, which included gambling and stealing. Records indicate that all of the outcaste officials ate three square meals a day at the peasant village head Matasuke’s home, and visiting local eta (chōri) chiefs from other villages who came to pay their respects were also provided meals by Matasuke. After the exposure of the head (which lasted three days), Jin’emon’s workers were expected to dispose of the makeshift hut to shelter those on guard duty, but in this case decided not to burn it down because it would affect the peasants’ houses nearby. In the end, they decided to burn the thatch from the hut’s roof but salvage the bamboo and utensils. Some cups used during the execution duties eventually went to the hinin hut head Kakubē’s residence.47 Tsukada Takashi notes that in this case the shogunate official in charge of handling the matter was the local magistrate attendant Kōbe Yaemon, a vassal of Ina Hanzaemon.48 Although there is no record of the various interactions between Danzaemon Chikamura, the Edo City Magistrate, and the Local Magistrate in the lead-­up to this punishment, extant documents indicate that Kōbe visited the home of the Upper Hosoya village headman and from there summoned Jin’emon and one fellow Lower Wana village official and interrogated them about official procedures. During the course of preparations for his official duties, Jin’emon encountered some resistance to the procedures he intended to implement by the local magistrate official. Interestingly, the magistrate official declared that he had heard there was a local custom in country areas to charge 8 mon to passersby to look at a crucifixion and 9 mon to look at a severed head. Jin’emon, perhaps predictably, expressed ignorance of such a custom and stated that it would render the public nature of the execution ineffective because passersby would simply take another route, possibly reflecting his true opinion, or more likely revealing an astute ability to assuage official scepticism concerning a potentially lucrative practice arising from this official task. Indeed Ooms notes that while Jin’emon dismissed the idea that they ever accepted payment from spectators (while leaving open the possibility that other areas did), ultimately “a fee was charged, and forty-­six people came from eleven villages and had a jolly, drunken time”.49 Tsukada raises several other important points concerning the exchange between Kōbe and the Lower Wana village officials. First, he notes that there was a significant dispute about the appropriate numbers of people to take part in the exposing and guarding of the head, with the Lower Wana officials demanding that more people be permitted to undertake the duty than the attendant wanted (a request which was denied but subsequently ignored on the

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    107 part of the Lower Wana officials). And second, he argues that it is clear from the stance of the Lower Wana officials that they understood that the duty they were being ordered to undertake was actually something performed in Edo by Danzaemon’s underlings living in the enclosure, and that the Lower Wana officials saw themselves in a similar fashion performing this same task for a fee, both indicating and reinforcing the idea that they were part of a more universal outcaste status serving Danzaemon.50 Turning attention briefly to an area in eastern Japan not under Danzaemon rule – Mito Domain (present day Ibaraki Prefecture) – it is clear that crucifixions also took place there sporadically throughout the 18th century. On 1717.8.25, for example, a woman was crucified upside-­down for killing her husband, a boatman from To village.51 On another occasion, on the evening of 1744.2.29, a person by the name of Isuke (birthplace unknown), who had raped his master’s daughter and then killed her, was crucified at Nakadaihara.52 Then in 1777.9, Isuke from Hetare village was crucified at Kōzanji Temple (Hitachi, Ōta City). He had become the indentured servant (yakko) of the temple, but four years earlier, had killed the head priest, stolen money, and run away. Eventually he was captured, had all his fingers and toes cut off, and was paraded up and down the street before finally being crucified.53 On 1798.8.8, Kozono Jinzō, a guard at the fortification tower, was crucified at Nagaokahara (located between Mito and Nagaoka) for secretly stealing money and weapons and selling the latter for profit.54 As is clear from these examples, Mito Domain, for reasons not readily apparent, had its own distinctive execution practices: severing of all interphalangeal joints before public parading and reverse crucifixion being just two of the regional modifications witnessed here. No mention is found in the records of eta or other outcaste groups being involved in the carrying out of the executions, although obviously this does not preclude a group by that name or of commensurate status undertaking this duty in that domain. Records pertaining to shogunate rulings or advice given by the shogunate on how to rule in a particular case involving crucifixion are somewhat difficult to come by for the 18th century. One example found in the Tenmei Senyō Ruishū involves a series of interactions between the Edo City Magistrate (Tsuchiya Masakata), Uraga Magistrate (Hisanaga Masaharu), and Danzaemon Chikasono (r.1748–1775) concerning the incarceration of a village headman Jūzaemon and the crucifixion of an Osaka ship captain named Ainosuke.55 This documentation was actually included as an appendix to a 1788.7 case raised as an illustration of how jurisdictional matters had been handled in the past for questions of incarcerating subjects who came under rule of different shogunal magistrates. The series of documents related to this incident indicate that almost exactly one year later, Hisanaga sent a request to Tsuchiya stating that he intended to crucify the pickled body of Ainosuke but needed the Edo City Magistrate to order Danzaemon Chikasono to undertake the duty.56 On 1760.4.24, Danzaemon Chikasono supplied the Edo City Magistrate with details of who he was going to send to the Uraga crucifixion site and

108   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy information about the necessary procedures and purchases. The document states that the crucifixion beams were to be procured on site, but if those tasked with preparations did not know how to properly construct a cross frame then they were to wait for official instructions, a possible indication of an expectation by Danzaemon that local technical expertise in this matter might be lacking. The execution placard was to be constructed in Edo and sent to accompany the criminal. Nails and tools were to be procured on site, as too was firewood that needed to be burned for two evenings during the period of official guard duties. The guard hut was also to be built on-­site following the instructions of Danzaemon’s local subordinates. The spears for guarding were to be handed over to the group by the local officials while the spears for the actual crucifixion were to come from Danzaemon’s office. Danzaemon also made it clear that the costs for food and accommodation for the duration of the execution were to be ordered by the Uraga Magistrate to be borne by the local township or “peasant households” (hyakushōke). Danzaemon also indicated that there were occasions in which he was able to offer insights about the crucifixion process to the shogunate inspectors and make direct requests to local officials himself. On the same day, Danzaemon Chikasono was summoned to the Edo City Magistrate’s office and ordered to take charge of the crucifixion to be carried out in Uraga on 1760.4.27. The Edo City Magistrate noted that preparations were carried out immediately. The pickled body of Ainosuke was brought to the jail (from where, it was not stated) for collection. Rather than actual collection, however, the pickled body was sent from the jail to Shinagawa through “both Tenma neighbourhoods” (referring to the Otenma and Minamitenma neighbourhoods), utilizing the post-­horse system that was administered as a form of corvée labour (official duties) for these townships.57 While it is not clear who actually took on the responsibility of accompanying the transport of the pickled prisoner (most likely the Uraga Magistrate lower official), the neighbourhood elders were handed the corpse along with a copy of a station relay permission slip with an appended note. It was also their responsibility to notify all of the stations along the way of their gruesome incoming cargo. The Edo City Magistrate was informed by a Danzaemon official on the morning of 1760.4.26 that Chikasono had in fact ordered one of his representatives, a certain Ichiemon, to travel in advance to Uraga and to inform Hisanaga that Danzaemon’s party would depart from Edo on the morning of 1760.4.25. Ichiemon also asked Hisanaga’s vassal about the execution placard and the latter mentioned that they had been ordered to take care of it. Danzaemon’s representative led a group from Asakusa which included an assistant, one hinin execution official under Kuruma Zenshichi’s rule, one pole bearer, one pole bearer assistant, and two execution pole (spear) bearers to carry out the crucifixion (a total of eight people). While the group were supposed to have arrived that evening, they had in fact arrived that same morning. The guard hut for the crucifixion was built by Danzaemon’s chōri officials from the area, while the costs for the keeping of the hinin guards for the duration of the crucifixion were ordered to be borne by the local town elder who made the necessary arrangements.58

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    109 The above is probably the first detailed documented account of the procedures involved in outcaste execution of a crucifixion under shogunate direction, although as the aforementioned Lower Wana village example makes clear, claims had already been made in the early 1740s that there were distinctive local practices related to the performance of regional crucifixions in different regions. The first formal example of warning sub-­chiefs about how to conduct themselves during executions was the so-­called Chōri Statutes document of 1784.2 issued by Danzaemon Chikamasu (r.1775–1790).59 While this document covers a whole range of issues, the first two articles of the statute pertain to execution duties. The document, pointing out the formal obligations of outcastes in relation to this practice, was actually drawn up by Chikamasu and sent to all of his regional sub-­chiefs for obligatory endorsement. Based on the fact that it survived in at least two regional outcaste document collections and was made reference to in another, it was probably widely circulated throughout the Edo outcaste order during this period. The articles pertaining to execution are as follows: 1. To the rural places: when the public authorities have an execution, the chōri in that area are to follow instructions from people sent from this office with regards to the wearing of swords and jitte [specialized policing weapon]. There are times when the authorities, without contacting our office, conduct executions through the local magistrate’s office. At those times, there will be directives from these officials; and at the time of the executions, the chōri of those places are to wear swords. But if there is a directive from those officials not to wear them, then only the sub-­chiefs are to do so. At that time, there will be no need to wear jitte, so none should be worn. 2. When there is an execution on “Tokugawa vassal land” (jitōsho), there are reports that chōri recklessly wear short swords and jitte as they walk, and that they are sometimes quite rude to people on the way to their destination. Forthwith, short swords, katana, jitte, and the like, even if they are permitted by the vassal lords in whose territory the execution is to take place, shall come to a complete stop: these are not to be worn. An intriguing overlapping of spheres of authority can be found in these two articles. Danzaemon Chikamasu noted that instructions for executions in regional areas were to come from his office, but at the same time recorded the possibility of the shogunate bypassing him and directly ordering local magistrates to handle the matter with local outcaste communities. While the above Uraga example makes it clear that Danzaemon was consulted and had a say in the way crucifixion practices were managed in the mid-­18th century, the “Chōri Statutes” suggest that even in the l780s a growing chōri (eta) monopoly in the realm of execution did not necessarily translate into strict Danzaemon hegemony in terms of ordering and practice. Even at the end of the 18th century,

110   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy local chōri sub-­chiefs could have official duties related to execution that were not directly mediated by Danzaemon. In terms of the carrying of weaponry, the local magistrate’s directives were to be followed by ordinary eta, but the local chōri sub-­chiefs were instructed to follow Danzaemon’s directives and continue to carry arms. In the case of Tokugawa vassal territories, however, the carrying of arms was forbidden entirely, even if these lords did not expressly forbid it. The issue of Danzaemon’s actual role in crucifixion emerges in more concrete fashion in 1789 as the Finance Magistrate contacted the Edo City Magistrate and requested information about various administrative procedures when carrying out crucifixions at the actual place where a crime had been committed. The Finance Magistrate wanted to know whether the local shogunate magistrate and domain officials in the place where the prisoner was to be executed were first consulted and then a lower ranking warrior sent to collect the prisoner. They also requested information about the arrangements that needed to be made for the cage-­basket in which the prisoner was to be transported and which the labourers needed to carry, as well as those for the spear bearers and the people who were to be placed on guard duty for three days (an implicit reference to eta and hinin). In response, the Edo City Magistrate answered that when there was a crucifixion in a place where a crime had been committed, at the time of sending the prisoner to that place, each of the relevant bodies was first contacted, and then a clerk from the nearest local magistrate’s office was sent to the prison (this description, simultaneously serving as a prescription, contradicted the actual practices described by Chikamasu in the aforementioned Chōri Statutes). Thereafter, with lower ranking samurai and the head of the Edo jail warden Ishide Taitō (Ishide Tatewaki) present, the prisoner was handed over to the local magistrate’s clerk. There was also apparently no need to worry about labourers to help with the transportation of the prisoner. Danzaemon was ordered to take care of the cage-­basket, execution placard, spear carriers, and guards for three days, as well as numerous other essential items, by the Edo City Magistrate. Regarding the expenses incurred at the place itself, these were to be handled by the local magistrate in charge of the execution, with Danzaemon receiving money directly from them for various expenses incurred.60 Concrete examples of these practices were also referenced in the reply to the query by the Finance Magistrate. In 1780.3.18, for example, a prisoner by the name of Kumejirō was transported from the Edo jail to Yokokawa (Kōzuke Province), and two officers from the Edo City Magistrate were present to witness the sendoff: a “dōshin elder” (toshiyori dōshin) and a “normal dōshin” (taira dōshin). Travel documentation for the prisoner was handed over to an assistant (tedai) to the local magistrate (although not explicitly stated, from Mikage), but it also bore the seal of the Annaka Domain lord. Likewise present were the jail key keeper, the representative for the horse post from Minami Tenma, and Danzaemon. Each of these people received their official instructions from the Edo City Magistrate’s on-­duty representative, Yamamoto Moichirō. The costs for the execution at that time came to 37,500 mon, with this sum subsequently handed over to Chikamasu for the maintenance of his eta

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    111 and hinin subordinates who were employed to perform the crucifixion and guard duties. Another example given in this series of documents related to the crucifixion of a homeless man from Kanda, Banzō, at the Kobotoke Barrier in 1771, with 23,525 mon handed over to Danzaemon for expenses. As was so often the case, the Edo City Magistrate was able to explain the above to the Finance Magistrate in such detail because it had first contacted Chikamasu to receive a report on the procedures surrounding crucifixions at locations outside Edo.61 As I have argued elsewhere, this was one important way Danzaemon was able to directly influence the shape of his subjects’ involvement in, as well as his own control over, particular practices pertaining to his rule.62 Chikamasu had responded to the Edo City Magistrate with a statement dated 1789.6.12, about two weeks before their eventual reply to the Finance Magistrate. While there is a good deal of interesting additional information in this document, it is perhaps sufficient here to list the following points: the wood for the crucifixion, as well as the expenses incurred for the guard hut and other things, was prepared by Ina Hanzaemon using peasant contributions and handed over to Chikasono; Chikasono sent a large party of sixteen people to perform the crucifixion (two representatives, three spear bearers, two hinin hut leaders (under Zenshichi’s governance), three spear thrusters, and six (possibly hinin) labourer assistants), and mobilized an extra 130 people for guard duties for the stipulated period of two nights and three days, with the guards being chōri and hinin hired from a nearby village called Kajigaya in Sagami Province.63 The costs for the crucifixion had apparently been calculated on a daily basis with each participant receiving 148 mon per day of the execution, an amount received from the Edo City Magistrate official in charge of the execution. The crucifixion shopping list included:   1. Crucifixion Beams (chōri living in the Annaka post station were made to buy the wood and a hinin carpenter under the hinin head Zenshichi’s rule was brought and made to build the cross)   2. Kindle bundles × 90 (chōri living in the Annaka station were made to buy this)   3. Steel iron claw × 1   4. Sickle × 1   5. Hatchet × 1   6. Pick × 1   7. Mallet × 1   8. Saw × 1   9. Spade × 1 10. Placard nails × 10 11. Guard hut × 1 (materials for the hut purchased by local chōri and put together by hinin servants) Including: 12. Oak logs × 40 planks 13. Bamboo × 80 poles

112   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy 14. Rope × 1500 tazune 15. Thinly padded tatami mat rugs × 50 16. Straw × 3 horse loads 17. Barrels × 2 The money for the above purchases was apparently provided up front by the local magistrate. The above document also makes clear that Chikasono’s party did not accompany the prisoner, travelling separately from the group led by the local magistrate official and the cage-­basket. Guard duties within the city of Edo fell to the hinin hut head Chōzō, stationed on the riverbank in Minami Tenma neighbourhood. This same hinin hut head also supplied timber to the carpenter and received payment from the Edo City Magistrate for his services separately. The responsibility for the construction of the execution placard fell to the hinin hut holder Chōzaemon from Yokkaichi. Finally, Chikasono was responsible for reporting the costs to the Magistrate, while the spears and tools for policing people were received from the local magistrate. The execution spears were supplied by Chikasono. Based on the above process of requests for information and clarification, it would appear that at least on the surface of things there was a considerable lack of clarity about how to carry our crucifixions in the regions outside Edo, including in some areas which came under Danzaemon’s provenance in the latter stages of the 18th century. There was inconsistency in understanding as to whether it was the outcastes under Danzaemon who would escort the prisoner, or whether this was the task of warrior officials. This inconsistency was probably linked to some extent to the relative lack of frequency with which crucifixions took place in some areas, the dearth of previous records about what was done in prior instances, and the way the time lapse between crucifixions rendered institutional memory about such episodes obsolete. Not knowing something as basic as who was to do the guarding of the prisoner after their execution suggests that it was still not necessarily common sense that the duty bearer of this task should necessarily uniformly fall on eta or hinin, or that all of the activities that came together to comprise a crucifixion were necessarily the monopoly tasks of members of these groups. At the ground level, this could probably even translate into uncertainty among eta communities about how one was supposed to proceed with the task. An intriguing 1797 example from Takada Domain found in the bulky Kiroku Binran (List of Records) bears this point out: one eta community actually requested another eta community to perform an execution on their behalf because they were “not accustomed” to the practice.64 Nevertheless regular clarification of procedures for Danzaemon’s role in carrying out crucifixions also led to increased uniformity in practices by the end of the 18th century. The Jikata Hanseiroku (Administrative Regulations in Rural Areas), a Tokugawa period guide to local administration from around this time, echoed (and supplemented) the information contained in the “100 Articles”: “Crucifixion … are ordered at Asakusa and Shinagawa. It is also the case that sometimes [the criminal] is sent to the place where the crime (akuji)

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    113 was committed. A signboard with the sentence is erected, and for three days a hinin guard is assigned. However, there may or may not be parading depending on the crime. [Property] confiscated.”65 Here the logic behind the practice of regional executions – punishing someone in the actual place where they had committed a crime – was also clearly spelled out. In addition to these items, the duration and explanatory placard were also both explicitly mentioned. Furthermore, as seen in official shogunate legislation, the procedures for carrying out crucifixions in Edo took on a more enhanced level of formality and symbolic rigidity from around this time. By the early decades of the 19th century, the detail defining the public roles of eta and hinin in crucifixions came to be so elaborate as to resemble a script that needed to be memorized by the outcaste for the solemn theatrics of public execution. One oft-­quoted 19th century text, Keibatsu Daihiroku (The Great Secret Record of Punishment), contained the following detailed explanation of crucifixion: Once the criminal is brought to the place of execution, six hinin servants take the prisoner down from the horse, place them on the cross with their back to the cross, and tie their limbs to the vertical beam. Two hinin then move to each side of the cross and tie the upper limb to the vertical cross. The clothes of the prisoner are then torn on either side to about the waist, tied on the left and right to the chest-­board, and then fixed in three places with rope. With thin rope and cord, the cross is then raised by about ten helpers and the base of the cross inserted into the ground about three feet before being buried and compressed. The lower ranking samurai then receives the name of the prisoner from Danzaemon’s representative and the inspector. They tell Danzaemon’s representative to strike whereafter the hinin servants, with spears, break away to the left and right sides respectively. One of the hinin thrusts with his spear (miseyari) about two feet in front of the prisoner’s face crying out Ariya! Ariya! The other hinin is waiting with spear at the ready and immediately after the other one withdraws he pierces the prisoner’s side up through the shoulder so that the tip of the spear extends out about a foot. He then twists and pulls out the spear. Then from both the left and right sides this process is alternated about twenty or thirty times. After inquiring of the inspector, the hinin then place their spears on the prisoner’s throat and stab.66 This text also contained quite detailed and elaborate diagrams of this spectacle. The crucifixion took place not just anywhere but inside a circular, roped-­off area, and the points at which participants were to be located during the actual crucifixion itself were clearly demarcated. The reasons for the emergence of rigid symbolism surrounding the crucifixion event itself were probably linked to the enhancement of a conception of “outcasteness” linked closely to emerging ideas of the “commoner” during the 18th century, outlined in the previous chapter. At the same time, however, the generation of a firmer outcaste-­commoner

114   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy distinction in turn created opportunities for Danzaemon and his subordinates to extend their authority. Legislation pertaining to execution, here specifically crucifixion, served to entrench the practice as an outcaste undertaking, leading to the production of official templates for how the practice of crucifixion should be conducted in eastern Japan and, increasingly, beyond.

Social distancing, symbolic power, outcaste economies Outsourcing of execution duties to peoples considered to be socially polluted can be found across the early modern world, including in Europe and the subcontinent. The contemporaneous writings of Western official observers in the subcontinent capture the disdain for the executioner well, and suggest a fundamental comparability concerning the role of outcastes in relation to execution. Consider, for example, the following two 19th century records of subcontinental execution scenes: a prince in Delhi sentenced to death: “… ascending the fatal scaffold, the prince cast a look upon the person who was to perform the last dreadful ceremony, and asked if he were a mater”; and the execution of the high-­caste wife of a high official in Kandy: “The hand of the executioner is laid on her, to lead her to her watery grave. She thrusts him aside, telling him not to pollute a high-­born Kandian matron with his touch.”67 While there are also marked similarities between executioners in early modern Japan and Germany rooted in certain structural parallels, there nonetheless existed important points of differentiation between the two societies, such as the lack of stigmatization of butchers in the German case, the differing processes of ideological legitimation surrounding stigmatization, the perceived effects of pollution (i.e. the largely secular nature of German notions of “dishonourable pollution”), and the geographical locus of such stigmatizations (a concentrated urban focus in Germany).68 The agents of execution in the Japanese and subcontinental cases clearly comprised part of a formalized system of status-­based differentiation that had already historically devalued them for reasons other than the labour of execution, with pollution ideology drawn from religious frameworks rather than acting in opposition to them. As such, one can conclude that there was a considerable difference between engaging in a disreputable or dishonourable trade, and a social group targeted to undertake tasks deemed socially polluting because they themselves were considered unclean. Important here, too, are the questions of the degree to which there is political sanction or legal recognition of the execution tasks engaged in by a particular group and the rate at which the professionalization of these tasks took place over time. Early modern Japanese warriors outsourced execution, largely because of their desire to remove themselves from the stigma of execution, but also because this was the modus operandi of early modern Japanese society – to rely on occupational and other groups in society to police themselves, and to officially permit such groups certain privileges in exchange for their performance of certain duties. What few records there are certainly attest to the likelihood that eta (chōri), far from jockeying for a position in this order through attempts

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    115 to claim a monopoly right over execution duties, were probably initially compelled to perform them. Only over time did this duty subsequently become a basis for strengthening their position within the early modern social order. Such jockeying took place in Germany as well, for as Joel Harrington has pointed out in his survey of the Schmidt family, the professionalization of the executioner’s craft took place in the early modern period in ways that saw practitioners attempt to increasingly distinguish themselves from other socially despised groups such as tanners.69 And while the job of execution targeting samurai became the work of a hereditary family in Edo, such professionalization did not appear to emerge within the Edo outcaste order itself.70 Yet such professionalization must also be understood in light of a historical division of labour that was marked by considerable global variations and unevenness. In Japan and India, this process was probably more closely parallel, particularly when certain similarities in historical context such as agricultural development (i.e. parallels in the proliferation of small-­scale, family producers) are taken into account.71 As should be clear from the examples of crucifixion discussed in this chapter, the Edo outcaste order was defined at one level by the pollution eta accrued in relation to the performance of this unenviable task. There is clear evidence of the development and maintenance of a status-­based stratification that functioned at an ideational level in relation to them. But at the same time, as the criminal was transported from Edo to the execution site in eastern Japan, there also emerges clear evidence of a local level of ordering of community social relations in practice that functioned in conjunction with, rather than in opposition to, the ideational level. Further complicating this picture is the fact that execution was quite different from some of the eta’s other official duties in that it involved the explicit projection of state power and was therefore linked to thorny questions of legitimacy and sovereignty. To better understand the role and function of Danzaemon and the Edo outcaste order in relation to these questions is to see more clearly the nature of early modern state power. As the role and function of Danzaemon and his subordinates came to increasingly occupy centre stage within the act of crucifixion, the politically symbolic elements of the process also underwent considerable enhancement. The care taken with the transportation of the prisoner, the careful separation of the tools for killing from the tools for guarding at the execution site, the content and location of signboards declaring the prisoner’s guilt, the spatial layout of the execution scene, and the timetable for execution, were all invested with politically symbolic content. Regarding the implements for execution, during the 1760 crucifixion of the Osaka ship captain in Uraga discussed above, the spears for guarding the prisoner were handed over to the eta group by local warrior officials, while the spears for the actual crucifixion came from Danzaemon’s office, indicating a clear separation of the tools for executing from the tools for policing. In an 1820 crucifixion in Annaka, moreover, the Local Magistrate officials, before departing from the place of execution back to Edo, ordered the local village in-­ charge to return the “decorated weapons” to the Edo Magistrate’s office

116   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy immediately after the outcastes’ initial two night-­three day guard duties had finished, again via the relay postal system.72 The language used in this latter crucifixion indicates that the warrior tools were enhanced beyond basic functionality to embody a symbolic message. Moreover, deliberate care was taken to only expose the symbolic spears to public view during the execution itself. Outcastes involved in the execution were ordered to return these weapons after their guard duties were complete to the commoner officials through the local town jailer, who was also working as a guard for the crucifixion, and the villagers were to wrap the weapons before returning them via the relay postal system. The executioner’s guard tools in these crucifixions clearly served as a proxy for Tokugawa shogunate power. Outcaste communities themselves were conscious of the symbolic power found within executions, as too were the authorities aware of the possibility of outcastes appropriating it for their own purposes. During an 1835 crucifixion in Lower Wana village, local eta officials were explicitly warned not to flout their authority (ken’i gamajiki gi) in relation to townspeople and peasants.73 Indeed the ceremonial aspects of the events prior to, during, and after the crucifixion would have been striking to the casual observer. The procession on the evening before the execution provided quite the visual display. Danzaemon officials rode in a palanquin with paper lantern bearers walking ahead in twos, all representatives of local eta villagers. In addition to these people, many people brought their lanterns, thus further enhancing the spectacle (dōchū nitemo osorubeki shidai nari). Then, on the morning of the execution, a procession departed to collect the prisoner. The weapons for escorting and guarding the prisoner had apparently already been collected the previous day, and those carrying these weapons led the execution procession. Once the crucifixion was finished, and the local magistrate officials had completed their inspection of the body, eta officials led by the spear-­bearers moved back to the main outcaste host village, where they entered the local eta sub-­chief ’s house. Chōri (eta) attempts to appropriate symbolic power in the realm of punitive action sparked numerous responses by the shogunate, including the enhancement of measures to increase the social stigmatization of outcastes, as seen in the previous chapter. The most striking of these in the 18th century was of course the 1778 An’ei Edict (discussed in the previous chapter), which referenced eta and hinin groups in clear, stigmatizing language. This continued into the 19th century, as the same outcaste groups continued to be singled out for discriminatory treatment.74 Outsourcing of the state’s punitive function needed to be accompanied by a kind of symbolic containment in relation to the act of execution itself, a process that involved elaborate procedures pertaining to how things should be carried out and what kinds of symbolism should be incorporated. Because value in early modern Japan was simultaneously derived through social function and degree of distance from the sovereign, the exercising of power took its most virulent form in relation to matters pertaining to status. People were only recognized as official members of society through the status groups in which they found themselves through birth, and these groups were

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    117 sanctioned by the authorities based on the understanding that they performed a necessary function. Power was simultaneously calculated on the place one held in the status system and the proximity of that position to the sovereign. While internal disputes within status groups pertaining to specialization were often handled in-­group, matters pertaining to “vertical dependence” were handled by the ruling authorities.75 Crimes that directly challenged this latter principle such as regicide, patricide, illegal border crossing, and political insurrection were punished the most severely, usually with crucifixion. But underpinning this social status order was also an important distancing telos (a “pathos of distance”), whereby the ruling authorities increasingly attempted to present themselves as the source of power and legitimacy but not the instrument of commoner punishment.76 In such a world, outcastes under the rule of Danzaemon became increasingly mobilized as instruments of Tokugawa punitive power. Such a move, however, needed to be underpinned by a more expansive interpretation of outcaste social function, and accompanied by a considerable shrinking of actual social distance between outcaste and sovereign (while of course maintaining the fiction of vast social difference at an ideological level). This was achieved in three ways: by placing Danzaemon and his outcastes more directly under Tokugawa rule and encouraging a reorganization of their social group along more militarized lines; mobilizing a specialized “pathos of distance” for outcastes which would function to further separate them from the world of commoners; and adopting a policy position towards them which tended to recognize and affirm that of all the social groups under Tokugawa rule they had a particular duty to absorb and assimilate an ever-­expanding number of functions and duties. What resulted from this system was an outcaste order under Danzaemon that became a highly bureaucratic punitive arm of the Tokugawa shogunate able to project the sovereign’s power throughout all of his territories, but that was sufficiently set apart from the world of men that socio-­religious stigmas and popular discontent could be directed at them and not the political authorities. Yet neither was this a unilateral process. The various leaders who assumed the title Danzaemon played interesting roles at an institutional level in insinuating themselves into the early modern socio-­political order during this period by directly defining their involvement in the execution of this aspect of state power. Meanwhile, local outcaste groups found inventive ways to cloak themselves in the majesty of the shogun that was derived from the politically symbolic potential generated by outsourcing. Expanding the scope and scale of the activity was also a creative method of extending influence and privilege. Yet this too could be a double-­edged sword. The growing scale of the crucifixion event itself was paralleled by an increased tendency towards local chōri (eta) having to make their own provisions first while seeking compensation later. This trend was tacitly approved by the shogunate, sanctioned as a way of displaying its majesty in an area of growing fiscal difficulties and regal decline. These tendencies become particularly pronounced during some of the Tenpō period crucifixions. During the 1835.2.25 crucifixion held in Lower Wana

118   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy village mentioned above, for example, the local eta community borrowed heavily in the period leading up to the crucifixion and continued to haggle with Danzaemon officials about payment well after the event had finished. While there were times for the shogunate to spare no expense (and official crucifixions were arguably one of those times), outlays increasingly had to be made by the outcaste communities themselves, which were also interested in using these events for social enhancement. The very fact that criminals did not need to be alive for a crucifixion to take place is an important reminder that this was less a matter of justice as it was a matter of keeping up the appearance of functioning as the one true legitimate power. Given this shogunal conceit, it makes sense that Danzaemon and the outcastes under his governance in the Edo outcaste order saw it as a potentially profitable enterprise. The growth in the total number of participants, the elaborate shopping lists that developed, and the making of additional requests for compensation indicate that a concern with status enhancement and lording it over other status groups within local communities was not the only possible benefit outcastes could incur as a result of being compelled to engage in this activity.

Conclusions This chapter has outlined the history of crucifixion (haritsuke) in eastern Japan from the earliest part of the Tokugawa period to the early 19th century. Based on the evidence outlined above, it is possible to argue that outcaste groups in eastern Japan may have been engaged in the crucifixion of criminals in their local areas from the late medieval period onwards, but that this probably became an eta monopoly activity under Danzaemon’s rule during the late 17th century. Tight control of barrier checkpoints (sekisho), first developed as part of a military strategy for the Tokugawa shogunate, quickly became important nodes in a larger strategy of maintaining effective control over the general population and managing their movements. Crucifixion at the place of the crime thereafter became an important means of demonstrating the effectiveness and reach of shogunate power, and it is probably the case that the centrality of execution practices within the larger sphere of Danzaemon rule in the eastern provinces was largely defined by its ability to carry out such actions in areas well outside of the immediate vicinity of Edo. A substantial degree of uniformity in how crucifixions were carried out emerged later again out of these kinds of practices, with evidence of convergence in actual practices beginning to be strongly evidenced towards the end of the 18th century. By that time, Danzaemon control over the Edo outcaste order became better coordinated and his position vis-­à-vis the Edo City Magistrate strengthened. This enhanced the ability of the outcaste leadership to more firmly dictate how executions were to be carried out and to outline what constituted acceptable practices in normative terms. This virtually ensured the emergence of a regulated and reasonably fixed code of practice for Danzaemon subjects to follow, although high degrees of uniformity and conformity were

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    119 probably never really achieved. Explicit commands to carefully follow the procedures for crucifixion rooted in previous examples became a common order particularly during the early 19th century. Being part of an armed procession that acted as a retributive mechanism of justice enacting state vengeance on a variety of bodies (regardless of whether they were alive or dead) marked by different statuses also came with a degree of compensation. At the same time, however, the very state that required an outcaste hand for the execution of this harsh justice went to considerable lengths to dismiss the idea that outcastes were merely functioning as an extension of state power. The collection and transport of the prisoner, the transport and handing over of decorated weapons along with express stipulations about when and how these needed to be concealed or revealed, the selection of the execution site, and the preparations and payment for the crucifixion itself fell on the shoulders of local officials. The fact that Danzaemon officials retained hold of the bloodied spears that would eventually take the life of the convict for the duration of the crucifixion itself is an important reminder that eta and hinin retained the pollution incurred as a result of the taking of the life of the criminal while the shogunal weapons were there merely for magisterial display. Moreover, the tools used to parade the prisoner and guard his or her dead body, revealing the majesty of the shogunate at the execution site, were strictly on loan and had to be concealed outside of the crucifixion dates and returned to non-­outcaste officials immediately after the two-­night/three-day vigil period expired. Furthermore, the removal and burial of the corpse, the burning of the guard hut, and the disposal of the execution placard and cross fell upon the local outcastes engaged by Danzaemon to execute the punishment. The use of violence against the state in the 1860s by shishi (“men of spirit”) began to further undermine the notion of the absoluteness of Tokugawa authority. Furthermore, with the arrival of Western powers and the emergence of extra-­territoriality, there was a widespread recognition that Tokugawa power was rooted in a fundamental ignorance of justice and that punishment had to be adjusted downwards in the majority of cases to fit the crime and practices modified to fit a new economy of efficient enforcement techniques. Significantly, the punishment of crucifixion continued to be applied to cases of regicide and patricide until 1870, after which crucifixion was abandoned, signalling an important moment in the dismantling of the Edo outcaste order.

Notes   1 Timothy D. Amos, “Genealogy and Marginal Status in Early Modern Japan: The Case of Danzaemon”, Japanese Studies 33, no. 2 (2013): 152–153. Kenji Nakao, ed. Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995), 24–32.   2 Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed., Gunma-­Ken Hisabetsu Buraku Shiryō: Kogashira Saburōemon-Ke Monjo (Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2007), 40–44.   3 Takashi Tsukada, Mibunsei Shakai to Shimin Shakai: Kinsei Nihon No Shakai to Hō (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1992), 203–204.

120   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy   4 Tsukada has argued that crucifixion and other forms of capital punishment were relatively unknown outside Edo and executions on the whole were relatively few and far between. Mibunron Kara Rekishigaku Wo Kangaeru (Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 2000), 43. Evidence surrounding settlements near barrier checkpoints suggests, however, that this may not necessarily have been the case. Just focusing on crucifixions at barrier points, documentary evidence indicates that these took place in Usui at least during the years 1727, 1733, 1780, 1797, 1799, 1801, 1810, 1820, 1835, and 1846. Tatsuo Kanai, Nakasendō Usui Sekisho No Kenkyū, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Bunken Shuppan, 1997), 664.   5 For an early illustration of a crucifixion, see Daniel V. Botsman, Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan (Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005), 17.   6 Ibid. Unsurprisingly, the assumption was also in operation in China. One observer to a Chinese crucifixion in the 1860s also stated that it was his belief that its introduction to China probably came about after interactions with the Jesuits. James Jones, “On the Punishment of Crucifixion in China”, Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London 3 (1865): 138–139.   7 Entries for haritsuke (磔) can be found for 1370.1.11 in the Komonjo Furutekisuto Dētābēsu, and for 1568.10.23 and 1573.9.21 in the Dainihon Shiryō Sōgō Dētābēsu, University of Tokyo (1984). Available online at Tokyo Daigaku Shiryō Hensanjo, wwwap.hi.u-­tokyo.ac.jp/ships/db.html (accessed 6 July 2015)   8 See, for example, the instances of crucifixion ordered under Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu in the Dainihon Shiryō Sōgō Dētābēsu, University of Tokyo (1984). Luis Frois famously noted: “Among us, people are not crucified; this is very common in Japan.” Danford, Gill, and Reff gloss this statement with a quote from Carletti about the crucifixion of a large number of Christians at Nagasaki in 1597. Richard K. Danford, Robin Gill, and Daniel T. Reff, eds., The First European Description of Japan, 1585: A Critical English-­Language Edition of Striking Contrasts in the Customs of Europe and Japan by Luis Frois, S.J. (London: Routledge, 2014), 250–251. Regarding crucifixion of Christians under Tokugawa Hidetada, see Hubert Cieslik, “The Great Martyrdom in Edo 1623. Its Causes, Course, Consequences”, Monumenta Nipponica 10, no. 1/2 (1954): 32.   9 Michael Cooper, ed., They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543–1640 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1965), 387. 10 William E. Deal, Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan (New York NY: Facts On File, Inc, 2005), 218. 11 Mary Elizabeth Berry, “Public Peace and Private Attachment: The Goals and Conduct of Power in Early Modern Japan”, Journal of Japanese Studies 12, no. 2 (1986): 245. 12 Keian Nikki, Dainihon Shiryō Sōgō Dētābēsu, University of Tokyo (1984). 13 For more on these concepts and how they relate to each other, see James Q. Whitman, Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide between America and Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 27. 14 Botsman, Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan, 32. 15 Amy Stanley, “Adultery, Punishment, and Reconciliation in Tokugawa Japan”, The Journal of Japanese Studies 33, no. 2 (2007): 320. 16 Although outside of shogunate territory, Nelson remarks in his study of the 17th century Kanazawa fief that crucifixion was by far “the most common form of execution” in the second half of the 17th century, noting at least forty-­five crucifixions in the domain between 1656 and 1690. David Nelson, “The Consolidation of Place and Punishment in Seventeenth-­Century Japan: Kanazawa Prisons and Criminal Justice”, Southeastern Review of Asian Studies 30 (2008): 192, 194. Even with its early modern reinvention, the practice looked considerably different to its ancient Roman counterpart. Nelson offers the most succinct description of the quintessential Tokugawa crucifixion scene: “… the criminal was tied, spread-­eagle fashion, to a stake with

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    121 horizontal beams attached for the arms and legs. Two spearmen then stabbed the body repeatedly, until sufficient pain had been afflicted. The spearmen then gave the victim the coup de grâce by simultaneously stabbing the criminal in either side or the neck, twisting their spears to ensure death.” 17 Constantine Nomikos Vaporis, Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1994), 81; Botsman, Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan, 25. 18 This proclivity was not restricted to Edo either. Olof Eriksson Willman noted in January 1652 on his trip to Edo the following: “In the Morning at Daybreak we passed 150 Crucified [persons] and 50 Heads which were placed on Iron Rods, who had wanted to betray the Castle Hoosacka [Osaka]; Everyone who has been put to death always has a Board nailed up by him upon which it is written what he has sinned.” Catharina Blomberg, The Journal of Olof Eriksson Willman (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 37. 19 Keian Nikki, Dainihon Shiryō Sōgō Dētābēsu, University of Tokyo (1984). Entry for 1651.8.10. 20 Yoshirō Hiramatsu, Kinsei Keiji Soshō No Kenkyū (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1960), 3. 21 Ibid., 4–5. 22 Ibid., 247. 23 Ibid., 371. 24 Ibid., 372. 25 Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū (Kobe: Hyōgo Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1987), 51–52. See also Gerald Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, The Journal of Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 271–272. 26 Morisada Kitagawa, Kinsei Fūzokushi: Morisada Mankō (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1998), 201–202. 27 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 25. 28 Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 57. 29 Kentarō Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū (Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 1996), 28–29. 30 Ibid., 33–35. 31 Kanagawa-­Ken Kikaku Chōsabu Kenshi Henshūshitsu, ed., Kanagawa-­Kenshi Shiryōhen 7: Kinsei, vol. 4 (Yokohama: Kanagawa-­ken, 1975), 227–228. 32 Tochigi-­Kenshi Hensan I’inkai, ed., Tochigi-­Kenshi Shiryōhen: Kinsei, vol. 1 (Utsunomiya: Tochigi-­Ken, 1974), 96. 33 Hiramatsu, Kinsei Keiji Soshō No Kenkyū, 373. 34 Cooper, They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543–1640, 54. 35 Engelbert Kaempfer, Kaempfer’s Japan: Tokugawa Culture Observed, trans. Beatrice M. Bodart-­Bailey (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999), 157. 36 Hiramatsu, Kinsei Keiji Soshō No Kenkyū, 3–29, 210. 37 Toby has argued that “while smaller domains required review and authorization from the bakufu on a case-­by-case basis to crucify or burn convicted criminals … some of the great kunimochi and collateral domains imposed crucifixion and other extreme punishments on their own authority, despite bakufu mandates to seek permission.” Ronald P. Toby, “Rescuing the Nation from History: The State of the State in Early Modern Japan”, review of Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan, Mark Ravina; Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain: The Merchant Origins of Economic Nationalism in 18th-Century Tosa, Luke S. Roberts, Monumenta Nipponica 56, no. 2 (2001): 207. 38 Kyōhō Senyō Ruishū, vol. 5, no. 32, p. 63. National Diet Library Japan. Available at info:ndljp/pid/2572760 (accessed 15 October 2015) 39 Fuyuhiko Yokota, “Senshi Sareta Shokunin Shūdan”, in Nihon No Shakaishi (1987), 312.

122   Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy 40 Honjō-Shi Kyōiku I’inkai, ed., Honjō-Shi Shiryō, vol. 4 (Honjō: Honjō-Shi Kyōiku I’inkai, 1988), 182. 41 Shin’ichi Nakamura, ed., Takada Hansei-­Shi Kenkyū: Shiryōhen, vol. 5 (Tokyo: Kazama Shobō, 1970), 861–863, 912–915. 42 Yamagata-­Ken Keizaibu, ed., Dewa Hyakushō Ikkiroku (Yamagata: Yamagata-­Ken Keizaibu, 1935), 67. I have yet to find any additional information on this group. 43 Ibid., 526–528. 44 John C. Hall, “Japanese Feudal Laws III: Tokugawa Legislation, Part IV, the Edict in 100 Sections”, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 51, no. 5 (1913). The “100 Articles” does make direct reference to how to carry out a crucifixion as well as give some actual examples of crucifixion. The 103rd Article, for example, reads as follows: “Ordinarily the punishment of crucifixion is to be carried out either at Asakusa or at Shinagawa; but there may be cases in which the culprit should be sent for punishment to the place where he committed the crime. A placard recording the facts of the crime and the punishment is to be exhibited for three days near to the corpse, which is to be handed over (not to relatives but) to the Eta (pariah) attendants for inhumation. Whether or not the criminal is to be led around for public exposure previous to being crucified depends on the circumstances of the case, and similarly as regards the confiscation of his property” (791). Hall’s translation appears to be in error here, however, because the Japanese refers to “hininban” and not “eta”. 45 Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 327. 46 Saitama-­Ken Kyoiku I’inkai, ed., Kurihashi Sekisho Shiryō, vol. 1, Saitama-­Ken Shiryō Sōsho (Saitama: Saitama-­Ken, 2002), 66. 47 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, 5 vols., vol. 1 (Urawa: Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1977), 198–202. 48 Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 189. 49 Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law, 250–251. 50 Tsukada, Mibunsei Shakai To Shimin Shakai: Kinsei Nihon No Shakai to Hō, 55–61. 51 Ibaraki-­Kenshi Hensan Kinseishi Dai’ichibukai, ed., Ibaraki-­Ken Shiryō: Kinsei Seiji Hen 1 (Mito: Ibaraki-­Ken, 1970), 506. 52 Ibid., 533. 53 Ibid., 567. 54 Ibid., 590. 55 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 69–74. 56 Article 87 of the 100 Articles refers to the pickling of the bodies of diseased prisoners convicted of serious crimes which included but was not limited to transgressing a barrier. Hall, “Japanese Feudal Laws III: Tokugawa Legislation, Part IV, the Edict in 100 Sections”, 783–784. Kōjirō Arai, “Kinsei Usui Sekisho-­Noke/Yamagoe Toganin to Gyōkei Yakunin”, in Kinsei Kantō No Hisabetsu Buraku, ed., Ryōsuke Ishii (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1978), 429. 57 Kin’ichi Matsuzaki, “Edo Ryōtenmachō No Dōchu Tenmayaku Un’ei”, Shigaku Kenkyū 42, no. 1 (1969): 31. 58 Tsukada, drawing on 19th century documentation, notes that the small group head (kokumigashira) of eta status responsible for the punishment of criminals in Uraga was Kyubē, the hinin hut leader Gobei, and the eta and hinin under the local eta chief Tarōemon in Furusawa Village, Aikō County. Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 189. 59 Tsukada, Mibunsei Shakai To Shimin Shakai: Kinsei Nihon No Shakai To Hō, 187–188. A copy of the document can be found in Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed., Gunma-­Ken Hisabetsu Buraku Shiryō, 40–44. Mention is also made of it in Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 1, 100–104. 60 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 75–76. 61 For more on this topic, see Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 187–190.

Danzaemon and crucifixion political economy    123 62 Timothy D. Amos, Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011), 100–106. 63 Kajigaya Village, Sagami Province, the village noted in the transcription of this document, is not listed in the early modern land tenure database Kyūdaka Kyūryō Torishirabechō Dētābēsu, National Museum of Japanese History. The only entry that comes close to matching this village name is Kajiya Kaidō village, located in Musashi Province and about 50 kilometres away from the crucifixion site. 64 Nakamura, Takada Hansei-­Shi Kenkyū: Shiryōhen, vol. 5, 550. 65 Jikata Hanseiroku. Volume 13. In the possession of the Waseda University. Available at http://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/wa03/wa03_06628/ (accessed 7 May 2015) 66 Quoted in Hōseishi Gakkai, ed., Tokugawa Kinreikō: Zenshū Dai Yon, 11 vols., vol. 10 (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1961), 276–277. This section is originally from the Keibatsu Daihiroku. This text notes that the cleanup and the spearing itself was the work of six hinin underlings, while the additional labourers used was the same number as for burnings at the stake. It also mentions that the spears for the actual crucifixion were supplied by Danzaemon. 67 Anonymous, “The Pariah and Inferior Castes of India”, in The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, ed. H.C. Sirr (London: Wm. H. Allen & Company, 1836), 286; Henry Charles Sirr, Ceylon and the Cingalese: Their History, Government, and Religion, the Antiquities, Institutions, Produce, Revenue, and Capabilities of the Island: With Anecdotes Illustrating the Manners and Customs of the People (London: W. Shoberl, 1850), 326. 68 Kathy Stuart, Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 8–10. 69 Joel F. Harrington, The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), 41. 70 For a brief discussion of this history and related documents, see Danieru Botsuman and Waka Hirokawa, “Shiryō Sanpo: Iēru Daigaku Shozō No Yamada Asaemon Kyūzō Monjo”, Nihon Rekishi, no. 818 (2016). 71 Haruka Yanagisawa, A Century of Change: Caste and Irrigated Lands in Tamilnadu, 1860s–1970s (New Delhi: Manohar, 1996), 8, 187–194; Hiroyuki Kotani, “Shakaiteki Bungyō To Mibunteki Joretsu Kankei: Ōyama Kyōhei No ‘Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai’ Ron Ni Yosete”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 189 (2009): 49–62. 72 Arai, “Kinsei Usui Sekisho-­Noke/Yamagoe Toganin To Gyōkei Yakunin”; Kanai, Nakasendō Usui Sekisho No Kenkyū, 2. 73 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, ed., Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 1 (Urawa: Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1977), 209–224. 74 Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law, 286–287, 289, 311. Ooms characterized this period as one of “state racism” and “intra-­race racism”, a characterization which Daniel Botsman has convincingly rebutted. Botsman, Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan, 244. 75 The argument developed here originated from a reading of Masao Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, trans. Mikiso Hane (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974), 14. 76 Ibid., 13.

5 Eta governance, hinin, and the policing of the poor

Introduction Eta and hinin groups became more closely linked together in the public and political imaginary in Edo from around the beginning of the 18th century in an extraordinary legal battle that emerged between Danzaemon and Edo-­based hinin leaders. The head of the chōri, Danzaemon Chikamura (r.1709–1748), achieved a qualified victory in this struggle, positioning himself at the apex of an increasingly well defined Edo outcaste order and acquiring a new official duty of policing the unregistered population in Edo, primarily through the hinin population that had more fully come under his control. As a result, hinin groups in Edo, under a more tightly governed outcaste order, came to induct compliant unregistered peoples into their status groups, or take them into custody until they could facilitate their return to former status designations. This particular poverty relief and urban policing strategy – making outcastes of the poor and those who broke with official status designations – was more usually a temporary punitive measure exercised during periods of crisis and linked to immediate concerns about maintaining effective urban governance and social ordering. What to do with the poor and those who shed official status was a constant concern of the Tokugawa shogunate because the existence of such persons symbolized, perhaps better than anything else, the failure of the status system to keep people confined and committed to their various social “containers”.1 The regulation of such persons fell to Danzaemon and his eta and hinin subordinates primarily because these groups functioned as scapegoats, expected to perform tasks that other social groups disdained, and because hinin composed a status group capable of acting as a receptacle for catching those who fell through the cracks in the status system. Having said that, however, it would be a mistake to interpret this process only negatively, for the imposition of new duties was also a way for chōri (eta) and hinin groups to secure new powers and privileges. Indeed by the third quarter of the 18th century, Danzaemon Chikasono’s (r.1748–1775) governance of hinin came under renewed scrutiny, and one can witness during his rule attempts to rearticulate the grounds for his existence, justifying his social position more in terms of his ability to manage Edo’s urban underclasses.

Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   125 Danzaemon and his subordinates played an increasingly key role in ordering and managing attempts to ensure that early modern poverty was experienced within the boundaries of inherited status group categories. Widespread impoverishment leading to increased population mobility threatened both real and imagined established status categories, particularly during historical moments when it became so commonplace that the fiction of a neatly fixed and ordered status system became glaringly unsustainable. Famines were one such time; they were uniquely capable of testing the logic and practice underpinning the status system in a way that not many other historical events could.2 The great Tenpō famine became an important potential moment of transformation within the Edo outcaste order, for it challenged official status categories and official thinking about status in the city of Edo, particularly in relation to Danzaemon and his subordinates, who were central to poverty policing efforts and who aided the authorities in dealing with a constellation of problems that arose as a result of this disaster.

The early 18th century hinin independence movement Danzaemon engaged in a battle with the hinin communities during the late 17th century in what was probably an attempt on their part to become more (if not completely) independent from Danzaemon rule, although no reliable documentation can be drawn upon to flesh out the details of this event.3 Whatever the case, the tension between the groups remained unresolved, for by the second decade of the 18th century, the strained relationship between the eta and hinin communities in Edo again reached tipping point. An incident with more reliable contemporaneous sources is the famous legal battle between Danzaemon Chikamura and the hinin leaders in 1719, a clash Minegishi Kentarō labelled the “hinin independence movement” (hinin no dokuritsu undō).4 In that year, Chikamura was accused by the leader Kuruma Zenshichi and several of his generals (kumigashira) of abusing hinin groups by treating them as his own private labour force.5 As can be seen from sources related to the incident, the hinin leader Zenshichi actually stated that the catalyst for the initial legal battle came from some lesser shogunate officials who approached Zenshichi while he was conducting official business related to poverty relief for the shogunate. This is a clear indication that even as late as 1719, there were certain kinds of hinin official duties related to poverty relief which did not directly involve Danzaemon, and that not every Tokugawa official was backing Danzaemon’s hegemony in ruling Edo’s underclasses. The so-­called hinin independence movement was actually a series of long-­ drawn-out events, each containing numerous twists and turns. These events, which involved various petitions, trials, and rulings, included allegations of corruption (Zenshichi’s generals were alleged to have sent out a request for money from rural hinin throughout the eight eastern provinces in order to bribe officials who were investigating Danzaemon and Zenshichi’s legal claims); intrigue (Zenshichi died before the trial ended with one document suggesting that he

126   Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor hung himself because that was a hinin equivalent to suicide (harakiri)); and striking civil disobedience (Zenshichi’s generals after his death apparently refused to obey the Senior Councillor’s legal rulings and according to Danzaemon through bribing officials actually came to be involved in numerous activities around the city, including commercial relations with Edo townspeople).6 While the recorded details pertaining to this movement also probably contain embellishments, hyperbole, and untruths, nonetheless they deserve to be laid out in full in light of the insights they can provide about the nature of the Edo outcaste order. The legal battles ended with mixed results for both parties. Chikamura had to rein in his use of hinin in official duties to half of what he was accustomed to and was forbidden from ordering hinin to do things they had not formerly agreed to do. Hinin, however, were effectively told that their officially sanctioned begging rights (their ability to beg alms around the city on certain days and on certain auspicious occasions) had their origins in an earlier Danzaemon decision to permit them to beg in the same areas in which they collected the hides of dead animals (kanjinba). One line from a source about the incident summarized the ruling as follows: “it is clear that Zenshichi has used the begging grounds as a place to help sustain a living for his subordinates and [that] he should continue to do so into the future. However, hinin workers should be mobilized for leather hide collection jobs according to Danzaemon’s needs.”7 Such a ruling ostensibly meant that Zenshichi and his generals shifted from a position of direct negotiation of their relationship with authorities to a more dependent group whose position within the status order was mediated by Danzaemon. Chikamura, through this initial legal battle, had successfully negotiated a kind of status-­pocket hegemony for himself in the early modern Edo social order. Even prior to the legal battle with the hinin, it is clear that Chikamura had been concerned with the elevation of his own standing and those of his own generals. Chikamura appealed to the Edo City Magistrate in the second month of 1719 for permission to wear a sword on official business to the Magistrate’s office and to wear full kimono within the Magistrate’s compound. On the 26th day of the second month, the Magistrate agreed to the sword but forbade all kinds of extravagant clothing.8 The following day, Chikamura again petitioned to be permitted to allow his generals to also bear swords as well as wear formal samurai clothes: haori and hakama. This follow-­up request by Chikamura was approved in full.9 Presumably fitted out in formal attire, Chikamura then embarked on a request to punish the unruly hinin, asking for the death penalty for three of the hinin generals, exile for three more, and life imprisonment in his own stockade for one other. He carried out these sentences the day after the authorities agreed to his demands.10 On the day of the sentencing and execution, Chikamura embarked upon a spectacle of public punishment probably unprecedented in Edo’s outcaste community. One record tells us that on the day of the sentencing, Danzaemon officials from Asakusa went to the hall of the Senior Councillors, tied rope around the seven hinin generals, and led them

Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   127 away. Fifteen lesser officials associated with the Senior Councillors, as well as two samurai guards from Edo’s jail, then accompanied the procession to Danzaemon’s enclosure (kakouchi/kako-­no-uchi) in Asakusa. These prisoners were handed over to Chikamura once inside his gate and were then immediately put in Danzaemon’s stockade. As the shogunate officials left, one of the leading hinin generals, Sukekuro, was reported to have offered the following poem: “Winter ducks, Helpless against the elements, So cold.” The following day, the three hinin generals were executed at dusk, with an elaborate ceremony and many officials in attendance. Another poem was read, presumably once again offered up by the ringleader Sukekuro: “Nor in Hades will there be shade; my last journey.” For those not sentenced to death, firm security measures were put in place. On the day that all seven prisoners were placed in the stockade, two head guards and two lower guards came from a commoner township to keep watch. In addition, the hinin leader residing in Shinagawa, Matsuemon, who had also played a role in the legal struggles against Chikamura, but for some reason had not incurred his wrath in the same way as Zenshichi and the other two hinin leaders (Yoyogi Kubē and Fukagawa Zensaburō), sent two guards from every hut he owned within a 20 kilometre radius from Shinagawa village (a total of thirteen villages) to guard the remaining prisoners for a period of about six months. Chikamura was quick to involve himself in the restructuring of the hinin status group. He approached the Northern Edo City Magistrate on the day of the execution of the hinin generals about their estates (katoku) and secured a ruling that permitted him to do what he liked with their property. It appears that Chikamura informed the generals of this new power on the day of their execution and the following day then sent out two inspectors to examine their properties. The families of the seven generals were subsequently taken into custody, their physical property, including work tools, was divided up among family members, and the resident hinin huts they ruled over were nailed shut. The following day, Chikamura forced a new hinin leadership centring on a thirteen-­year-old Zenshichi and his mentor, as well as several new hinin generals, to sign an oath of obedience and submit it to him. It was agreed that all surviving immediate family members of the seven generals would be made “ordinary hinin” (taira hinin), and that all surviving relatives of the generals from the “hinin fraternity” (hinin nakama) would be expelled and sent off to “unofficial huts” (nogoya). Presumably worried about possible revenge attacks, Chikamura also elicited a promise that these surviving relatives would never again enter inside the eta enclosure or engage in official business with townsmen. Finally, in a move that mirrored early modern treatment of Christian families who had recanted, Chikamura ordered hinin compliance in recording the details of the surviving members of the seven generals on a detailed population register which would be submitted to Danzaemon. Two weeks later, the new Zenshichi, his three new generals, hinin chiefs from Yoyogi, Fukagawa, and Shinagawa, two local eta sub-­chiefs, and one local hinin sub-­chief were summoned to the so-­called white sands (shirasu) of the Edo City

128   Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor Magistrate. The estates of the executed hinin generals were divided up among these parties, and punishments were also meted out to the hinin lords from Yoyogi and Fukagawa. Chikamura was particularly harsh on these latter two rulers: Fukagawa Zensaburō’s estate as well as the begging grounds associated with it were confiscated and handed over to a Shinagawa hinin. Yoyogi Kubē’s estate was also confiscated in its entirety, including all non-­rice cultivation fields, and handed over to two other lower officials. All of the huts of the former generals were confiscated and destroyed and the grounds repossessed, it seems by surrounding townships. Moreover, a new go-­between official (kikiban) position appears to have been created presumably to facilitate a better flow of information between Danzaemon and the replacement officials. Interestingly, some regional eta (chōri) leaders also used the occasion of Danzaemon’s clash with the hinin leaders to attempt to bring hinin under their own control in regional areas as well. This was certainly the case in Kai (Yamanashi) Province where the logic of “Danzaemon practice” (Danzaemon shihō) was also mobilized to bring “unruly” (hidō) hinin under control.11 If Chikamura had a fear of reprisal attacks, they were certainly well-­founded. At the end of 1723, the newly appointed Zenshichi and Matsuemon were once again called before the authorities and sentenced to house confinement because of the unruliness of the hinin population. Related documents suggest that this was more than simple disorderliness, however. While the details of the new episode are unclear, the punishments meted out to those responsible were not: a total of 127 hinin were convicted of active participation in a rebellion – forty-­ three hinin labourers were sentenced to death by fire (hiaburi), ten were sentenced to beheading and exposure of the head, seven to beheading, twenty-­three to tattooing, and forty-­four to prison. It is clear that this incident was investigated thoroughly; at one point in time, a building was erected on the property of a certain Kazusaya Jirōzaemon, pegs were driven into the ground along the central walkway of the building, and hinin were bound together in twos tied back-­to-back. Some were punished severely, others were pardoned, and many more were sent back to their villages. Others had their heads shaved and were made “ordinary hinin”; others again were driven away from their huts. It appears that a total of 3,659 hinin from Asakusa, Shinagawa, Yotsutani, and Fukagawa were gathered together and had their hair forcibly cut. It was also apparently at this time that all hinin in the eight eastern provinces (kanhasshū) were thereafter forbidden from tying back their hair, thus compelling them to adopt an additional visual marker from this time that indicated their official hinin status. The imprisoned Zenshichi and Matsuemon were eventually freed from house confinement three months later. But two weeks after their release, a further request made by Chikamura to exile 226 hinin from Edo was approved, indicating that he was continuing to punish unruly groups of hinin rebels, most probably because of actions linked to the earlier independence movement and subsequent uprising. The following month, Chikamura and all of the hinin officials were once again brought before the authorities and informed that hinin

Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   129 would no longer be permitted to reside in huts behind the residences of townsmen’s buildings. A relative peace between eta and hinin officials then appears to have followed these series of incidents, and the following year, Chikamura, Zenshichi, and Matsuemon all submitted yuishogaki (records of family and lineage) as well as statements of official duties to the Edo City Magistrate. I have written elsewhere about what Chikamura sought to emphasize through these documents.12 It is clear that he was intent on expanding his control not only over Edo’s hinin communities, but also over those people currently outside of his “sphere of rule”.13 Chikamura had exchanged correspondence with the Edo City Magistrate about the policing of Edo’s homeless population as early as the second month of 1721.14 He became directly involved in this policing particularly from 1723 after numerous deliberations among officials, and was subsequently ordered to return Edo’s homeless to the places they came from and to erect a new outcaste-­run enclosure (tame) for those people whose birth places were unknown.15 Runaways were ordered to be tattooed, obedient homeless-­cum-hinin were to be found day labouring work for fixed wages, and hinin from official status groups were to operate as labour contractors if no other operators could be found. The sick, elderly, young, and women were ordered to be sent to the hinin enclosure. In 1724, soon after his attainment of these new duties, Chikamura sent a directive to all regional eta leaders declaring “policing of the homeless” to be one of his official duties.16

Eighteenth century development of unregistered policing and hinin rule One important result of Danzameon Chikamura’s successful attempt to become the legally sanctioned principal chief of Edo’s hinin community was that the scope of his leadership concerns necessarily widened to include issues directly related to hinin governance, especially in areas of poverty management and population control. The authorities were indeed quick to order Chikamura to engage in policing Edo’s burgeoning homeless population. Extant documents indicate that Chikamura was increasingly involved by authorities in the management of poverty in Edo in the 1730s. In 1733, he was ordered for the first time to arrest so-­called wild hinin (nobinin, another name for the homeless and unregistered) and to return them to their places of birth/residence (although some of these people eventually found their way into the hinin status group). Chikamura was also instructed that hinin leaders would be permitted to make “hinin servants” (hinin teka) of whomever they wished without requesting permission from the City Magistrate each time. However, mistrust of hinin status groups still abounded among chōri; hinin servants could only be handed over to the hinin leaders when Danzaemon was in attendance, and those from far-­off provinces had to come under Danzaemon’s direct supervision and rule.17 As Gerald Groemer has illustrated, the total number of unregistered beggars captured in Edo grew markedly during the 18th century.18 While it is unclear precisely how these unregistered beggars were counted, and although the

130   Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor number was probably higher in actuality than the figures really accounted for, nonetheless it is still possible to witness a significant growth in the unregistered beggar population that converged on the shogunate capital. Continued rural decline and urban drift meant that Edo authorities legislated in a way which over time increased Chikamura’s powers in matters pertaining to poverty management and population control. In the early 1740s, for example, the Edo City Magistrate again ordered Chikamura to capture all “wild hinin” (nobinin) and make them hinin servants. The authorities, referring back to their early rulings, noted that they had previously ordered Chikamura to drive away all wild hinin and that those without a place to stay were to be captured and made the servants of hinin. Now, however, they were ordering that all “wild hinin” were permitted to become the servants of hinin. Chikamura responded to this order by informing the City Magistrate that the “wild hinin” who were caught and sent back to their hometowns actually returned to Edo because they had no place to go, and he suggested that the majority of them should in fact be made hinin servants and troublemakers should simply be executed. He further noted that “wild hinin” caused problems for passers-­by and that there was a possibility that they were involved in criminal activities such as arson.19 Again in 1743, he requested permission to tattoo hinin who had absconded and subsequently been recaptured, and the death penalty for those hinin who absconded more than three times.20 In 1748, Danzaemon Chikasono (r.1748–1775) officially succeeded Chikamura. Only four years after his succession, a number of hinin again apparently tried to break free from Danzaemon’s rule. In his testimony to the shogunate, Chikasono continued to rely to some extent on the same logic employed by his father, but he also devised and relied on a new story about the origins of his family’s power, alleging that his ancestors had helped Yoritomo during the Genpei War, receiving the name Yano and permission to wear swords as a reward for loyal service. Chikasono claimed that it was none other than Yoritomo who gave his family the right to govern outcastes in eastern Japan. From the 17th century, Danzaemon had governed the hinin community, as well as policed people who descended upon the capital. The hinin leader had requested and received permission from an early Danzaemon ancestor to beg, and under his family’s watchful eye they had subsequently become involved in helping to catch homeless vagrants, a service for which they had received certain tax concession privileges.21 Chikasono’s creative rearticulation of his own powers of governance in the 1750s was a further attempt to carve out a kind of status-­pocket hegemony within the early modern Edo social order by emphasizing his ability to police the hinin status group and those who most closely resembled them: unregistered persons who had become the urban poor. But in other records it is clear that he also became involved in efforts to define the very nature of outcaste status within the Edo outcaste order. Of particular significance was the distinction that he drew between the differing degrees of permanence of outcasteness in relation to eta and hinin statuses under his rule. Official queries about the

Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   131 possibility of changing status designations emerged numerous times during the 18th and 19th centuries; and Chikasono was consulted by the Tokugawa authorities in relation to one important case emerging out of Musashi Province in 1765. The details of the case, Chikasono’s response, and the final ruling were as follows: Concerning the Elevation of Eta and Hinin 1. In the second year of Meiwa, the year of the Cock [1765], an eta with good abilities in medicine from Arai Village, Hanzawa County, Musashi-­ no-kuni, was highly valued by the surrounding villages, but because he was an eta, had difficulty in performing medical treatments. Therefore, the village elders, after first notifying the surrounding villages, petitioned to the local magistrate that the eta wished to become a doctor of commoner status. Whereupon, because this was to create a difficulty and some trouble for the local hinin leader, we enquired upon the opinion of the Finance Magistrate concerning the difficulty of the procedures of elevating eta and hinin from birth, and received instruction from the chōri Danzaemon who sent the following order: Those who are completely hinin cannot be made commoners [heinin]. This is the practice from antiquity. Those who were formerly commoners [heinin] and have become hinin for a period of less than ten years may be made commoners, after relatives inform the hinin hut leader and the hinin leader, and I myself am informed of this desire to be elevated, and after receiving the appropriate documentation. It is the practice that those who have not waited ten years may not be made commoners [heinin]. However, because being made a commoner [heinin] from a hinin is an elevation in status, in recent years, if there are hinin who have been hinin for a long time and whose relatives still petition the hinin leader [for permission for their relatives to be made commoners], and if they are informed of the above practice and they once again ask for elevation, then give them the documentation and elevate them. But first inform them of the above practice that those of hinin birth cannot be made commoners. The above is issued with regards to your enquiry. So ordered. Danzaemon (cinnabar seal) The above order was handed out and read to the village elders. The above person, because he was originally of eta birth, may not be made a commoner [heinin].22 In this case, an entire village appealed for an eta doctor to be permitted to have his status altered in order to function more effectively in his occupation of local doctor. The shogunate first consulted with Chikasono about established practice, to which he responded with firm reasons why the eta in question could not

132   Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor possibly be permitted to become a commoner. In Chikasono’s response, eta were made to represent a permanent social position at the bottom of an imagined order of human social value. This category was demarcated by birth and the rule of practice. Hinin were, however, an entirely different case to the eta. While a permanent category of hinin clearly was conceptualized, new hinin did not happen to be in a permanent state of outcasteness. To become a commoner for new hinin was simply equated with returning to a family and a former status category.

Late 18th century regional developments Hinin were also increasingly mobile in certain rural areas that came under Danzaemon rule during the closing stages of the 18th century. The second half of the 18th century was a troubled time for the Lower Wana village sub-­chiefs in Musashi Province, particularly in relation to hinin rule. Records indicate that the vast majority of hinin hut leaders absconded (kakeochi), frequently leaving the Wana area without police or guards. There were probably close to a dozen recorded cases of the hinin hut leader running away from Lower Wana village in the 18th century.23 Runaway hinin from Lower Wana village not only created internal community problems and headaches for the chōri sub-­chief Jin’emon, but they also heavily impacted the village’s relationship with the nearby peasant community, Upper Wana. Rural outcaste communities in eastern Japan during the early modern period (1600–1868) were subjected to a complex system of governance referred to by some Japanese historians as “dual rule” (nijū shihai).24 Eta and hinin were governed by Danzaemon in Edo who was himself also a direct subordinate of the Edo City Magistrate. At the regional level, however, outcaste villages were usually administered by a head peasant community. Head villages performed key tasks on the outcastes’ behalf, including the submission of village taxes and population registers. While it is not exactly clear when this political arrangement emerged, tensions began to surface within this system of dual rule from around the middle of the 18th century. In Lower Wana, a legal dispute emerged between a head village peasant leader and Jin’emon in the late 1760s over the latter’s decision not to replace a local guard of hinin status who had absconded. In 1767, Jin’emon lodged an appeal with the local authorities because his hinin guard official (Kakubē) had absconded.25 Kakubē had apparently informed Jin’emon that he had some errands to run at the town market but failed to return. One week after the above incident, Kakubē’s wife and children also ran off, leaving the hinin guard hut located on the border between Upper and Lower Wana villages completely unoccupied. Tired of hinin disruptiveness, Jin’emon left the hut unoccupied, ordering hinin from nearby communities as well as some of his own eta villagers to assist in performing guard watch duties. This decision ultimately destabilized relations between Upper and Lower Wana. The following year, in 1768, Jin’emon lodged an official complaint to the local shogunate official about an incident involving Kakubē, Upper Wana, and the submission of their own village temple register.26 Under the dual rule

Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   133 arrangement, Jin’emon was required to submit his own temple register to the village elders in Upper Wana in the fifth month every year. In 1768, however, when he tried to do so, Upper Wana officials asked why the hinin official Kakubē’s name was missing. Jin’emon at that point in time was still constructing a separate register for village hinin, so such an action would have been a glaring omission in the eyes of the peasant officials. Jin’emon informed Upper Wana officials about the reasons for Kakubē’s absence, stressing that he had followed the necessary official procedures for dealing with village runaways. He had alerted Danzaemon, searched for Kakubē for the stipulated period of time, and finally listed him as missing. Technically, therefore, he was entitled to remove Kakubē’s name from the books. The main Upper Wana leader was not impressed, however, and demanded to know what was going to be done with the duties that were now being neglected during Kakubē’s absence. He meant, of course, that Upper Wana officials required a full-­time guard in the village to protect their water supply and crops and to guard against wandering vagrants. Jin’emon refused to be pushed further on the matter, and adopted a stance that in important ways mirrored 18th century Danzaemon Chikamura’s earlier responses to hinin recalcitrance. He replied that the duties and privileges of the hut were ones that he had given to Kakubē, and pointed out, perhaps somewhat sardonically, that he could not reasonably be requested to record Kakubē’s presence in the village if the hinin hut leader did not reside there. Jin’emon’s defiance quickly brought him the wrath of the Upper Wana officials. They argued, rather dubiously, that the hut of a hinin official had existed in Wana Village since antiquity, and that the farming village would not accept the ruling of Danzaemon on this issue. They were essentially disputing the fact that Danzaemon and his subordinates were permitted to do as they pleased with hinin officials in their village. They further argued that simply handing over the duties of the workplace to hinin in other villages was a selfish act on the part of the eta villagers. They finally gave the eta villagers a terse ultimatum: decide whether they were under local rule (implying the rule of the local fief authority and therefore their rule) or the jurisdiction of Danzaemon. By way of a quick compromise, Jin’emon wrote down Kakubē’s name as well as that of his family in the register, but included the date they absconded.27 The Upper Wana village elders also rejected this, however, stating that it would be just as difficult to accept a register with the name of someone who had run away as it would be to allow Kakubē’s name simply to disappear entirely from the page. The implication was that Jin’emon should go and find another hinin guard to replace Kakubē and occupy the hinin hut. Jin’emon’s extreme reluctance to comply was probably an indication of how unruly some of the hinin guards had become. Jin’emon’s frequent emphasis on the word wagamama (selfish) in relation to Kakubē is striking as was his preference for having hinin residing in other villages perform their official duties for his village. Upper Wana’s ultimatum meant that Jin’emon and the Lower Wana residents were accountable to authorities for not having submitted population registers, and the likelihood is that an unsubmitted register would result in

134   Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor serious punishment. Regardless of whether Upper Wana refused to accept the submission of the registers, the onus was on Jin’emon to submit official documentation to the local peasant officials on time, a fear that probably brought about his drafting of the legal appeal in which the entire incident was recorded. Jin’emon formulated a careful response to Upper Wana village, replying that he was certainly under the rule of Danzaemon, but that in matters pertaining to the “earth” (jimen) he was under local rule. He remarked that he did not desire to be excluded from receiving future directives from local rulers, as was the village custom from antiquity. Jin’emon also conveyed to the peasants that eta were actually under divided rule, and they wished to maintain the status quo on this issue. The social “status” (mibun) of Lower Wana residents dictated that they were subject to Danzaemon – and, Jin’emon argued, his fellow village heads were in charge of the hinin in the area, this being the case not just for Lower Wana but for all regional eta villages everywhere. It is clear from this document that Jin’emon was intent on asserting his right to rule over the hinin in the way that he saw fit. A few days later, however, Jin’emon recorded the name of Kakubē in the register and resubmitted it. This reflected a bowing to the pressure applied to the eta village leader by the farming village authorities. A legal document drafted by Jin’emon six months later (and just before his death) reiterated his previously stated position: Jin’emon and his entire village were under the rule of Danzaemon in Asakusa with regard to “workplace” (shokuba) and “status” (mibun), but concerning “place”, they were subject to the authority of the Upper Wana village farmers (murakata).28 This clash suggests that by the third quarter of the 18th century, a period coinciding with a ratcheting up of pollution ideology in relation to eta and hinin status groups discussed in Chapter 3, Lower Wana residents were being forced to articulate their place in the local community in ways that were up to that point in time unnecessary. Their position in the local community may have always been somewhat problematic, but it had now become incomprehensible. The reasons behind the sudden need for this explanation are undoubtedly complex, related to numerous economic, political, and social trends. Certainly the increased prevalence of agricultural land passing out of bankrupt peasant hands was presumably one catalyst. Disconcerting, too, was the growing mobility of people from all walks of life and the considerable concern this caused for rural commoner communities, desperate to protect local resources and their status-­ingrained ways of life. The hardening of status divisions in the late 18th century was a way to avert this particular crisis. Keenly aware of such social problems, the Tokugawa authorities made a series of attempts to re-­enforce an increasingly redundant system of status-­based rule.

Early 19th century, the Tenpō famine, and outcaste poverty relief One of the articles in the so-­called Chōri Statutes document of 1784.2 issued by Danzaemon Chikamasu (r.1775–1790) pertained to the intriguing phenomenon

Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   135 of “migrant hinin” (watari hinin).29 The many hinin hut leaders who came to assume the title of Kakubē in Lower Wana village discussed above were probably drawn from this pool of migratory workers, but Chikamasu warned his chōri subjects in this proclamation to be careful when permitting such persons to reside and work in their villages. Despite such labour being essential to the functioning and stability of the Edo outcaste order in the late 18th century, this mobile labour force could not ultimately be trusted without proper investigation. In Edo, the Edo Town Hall (Edo Machi Kaisho), an institution designed to assist in poverty relief and related social problems, was established in 1791, more or less directly as a result of the Tenmei famine (c.1782 – c.1788), which was one of the most catastrophic in Japan’s history. Townspeople who had lost the roof over their heads and their place of business and who had not committed any legal misdemeanour could now receive loans and relief.30 Everyone else, however, was left to their own devices, living from hand to mouth and receiving relief where they could, until they were eventually detained by the Edo City Magistrate officials or by hinin under Danzameon’s leadership. 31 From the perspective of the Tokugawa shogunate, poverty could not be permitted to successfully challenge status boundaries. Ultimately even protracted poverty had to be experienced within the confines of status. The policing of the urban poor remained a core concern of the Tokugawa shogunate in the early 19th century, as did hinin resentment of Danzaemon and eta rule over them, and Danzaemon’s power and position generally expanded during this period, most frequently through a tightening of a singular ability to define standardized outcaste practices. In 1814, Danzaemon Chikamasa (r.1804–1821) responded to a shogunate query about the limitations of the punishments he could impose on his subordinates, predictably answering that he was permitted to actually impose exile or banishments on subordinates.32 In 1820, Chikamasa further outlined the correct procedures for hinin leaders who had to visit the Finance Magistrate, continuing the work of earlier Danzaemon heads who defined the Edo outcaste order in ways that conformed just as much to their expectations as to the reality of actual practices.33 Gerald Groemer has concluded that “[a]s the number of hinin duties increased and as hinin found themselves ever more firmly locked into a socio-­ political and economic system that gave them little room to manoeuvre, hinin fortunes fell.”34 In 1821, Zenshichi and Matsuemon filed a petition to permit “daily begging”: poverty, economic opportunism, and the effects of renewed stigmatization were probably having an effect on the ability for hinin to secure a living for themselves. The petition was essentially one which pointed out the ways in which hinin were struggling to scrape together a living as the avenues formerly open to them for earning became closed as townspeople themselves struggled to make a living: scrap wood was no longer being discarded in the same quantities, townspeople were cleaning rivers themselves, competition among street performers was at an all-­time high, and unofficial beggars were scraping together a better living than registered hinin.35

136   Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor Danzaemon Chikamori (r.1829–1838) came to rule in 1829 a full 18 months after his predecessor Danzaemon Chikatami (r.1822–1828) died, suggesting perhaps that there may have been some instability in the outcaste governing institutional arrangements in the early Tenpō period. Chikamori was appointed Danzaemon after a formal, private audience with the Edo City Commissioner in the 11th month, when he was taken out to the Edo Magistrate white sands fully dressed in hemp, accompanied by two aides in proper formal attire.36 Chikamori, only fifteen years of age at the time of his appointment, had a troubled tenure from the beginning. His house, which also doubled as his office, apparently burnt down in 1830, and matters pertaining to his policing of unregistered populations came under shogunate scrutiny late in the same year.37 The Finance Magistrate around this same time indicated the heightened presence of people begging illegally in the city and asked the City Magistrate to alert them to the best method for dealing with the encroachers, puzzled as to whether they were really just to be handed over to hinin and made their servants even if they were in actual fact the “sons of peasants”.38 In this case, the City Magistrate skirted around the question, confirming that the way such persons were usually dealt with was through an investigation whereby “wild hinin”, if they had “done something wrong”, were sentenced to a punishment not exceeding “banishment to a distant island”, while actual hinin who committed a crime were handed over to Danzaemon for a commensurate penalty.39 It is clear from this exchange that the idea of homelessness without criminality was becoming virtually inconceivable at the time: one was either an officially recognized member of the hinin status group who was begging legally or an unregistered person who had presumably already begged without a license (or was about to) and in doing so would act illegally. Bad frosts in the fourth month of 1833 in Tohoku and the northern Kantō led to a poor harvest producing somewhere between 30 and 70 per cent of the usual yield. This first crop failure is usually interpreted as the start of the Tenpō famine, which is said to have lasted seven years, longer than any previous famine. The famine resulted in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 people in the Tohoku region alone.40 Starvation and impoverishment resulted in large numbers of people flowing into Edo, “like a mist”, as one report would have it.41 These serious developments heavily impacted the Edo outcaste order, particularly for the Edo hinin community that was itself struggling to survive and now newly surrounded by an expanding field of unofficial beggars. In addition to the bad frosts and poor harvests mentioned above, floods and a typhoon later in the same year assisted in compounding the problems of starvation and poverty that were already being experienced.42 Concerns about the urban infrastructures employed to handle issues pertaining to urban poverty existed even before the initial crop failures, but these disastrous events and their concomitant problems placed an even more heavy strain on them. Asakusa hospice (tame) maps were reproduced as early as the fifth month of 1833, although it is not apparent that this was directly linked to expectations over the potential ramifications of the bad frosts.43 In the tenth month of 1833,

Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   137 even as it engaged in a prolonged discussion about what to do with the confiscated goods of people of eta status, the Edo City Magistrate opened an official investigation into the Edo hospices. Apparently it had heard that law and order was being maintained at the Asakusa hospice but not at Shinagawa. The report contrasted the two tame, and the hospice at Shinagawa was described as a kind of living hell. Shinagawa Tame (Hospice), under the custody of Tōzaemon Regarding the aforementioned Shinagawa tame, of late there are fewer prisoners, and while it should be the case that the sick within the tame are receiving proper care, actually the typical management practices of the tame by the elder Mosuke and the officials Tokujiro and Sukehachi are not good. The sick are not at all cared for and many die. Already, when we visited the tame on the 12th day of last month, sick prisoners by the name of Masakichi (a hinin) and Risuke (a homeless man) crawled out and told us about the extremely bad practices of the three aforementioned officials, saying that they stole their outer garments, did not allow them to go and get food, stripped them naked and poured water all over them making them get very sick in order to have them die quickly. They also mentioned that these men were exceedingly violent. Now even though it may be the case that Masakichi himself was also greedy and extremely picky, Risuke wasn’t at all dressed well and it did not appear that he had anything like a change of clothes. At that time we ordered the tame elder to properly care for the prisoners and we dressed down the hinin guard leaders. Regarding what was mentioned above, despite the fact that we ordered these men to be moved to the Asakusa tame, they soon died. The three men claimed that what we heard was not really what happened. However, regarding the allegation that the three men were exceedingly violent, it is said that when Risuke first came to the tame he was very sick and his entire body was swollen with bruises and the three men dealt roughly and violently with him. [Clearly] the management practices were exceedingly bad and it is not at all a light matter because human life is involved. Furthermore, regarding the gruel handed out to prisoners in the tame, it was first decided how many people to prepare for and then ingredients were bought based on the calculation of two meals per day. In the event that there were thirty mouths to feed, the calculation should have been enough ingredients to feed thirty people at one time, but because there were many sick people who could not eat, the elder instructed the hinin not to purchase for that many; for thirty people enough food was only purchased for twenty, and food was only provided for prisoners in the lower rung once instead of twice a day. If people complained they were beaten and the remainder of the gruel, in cahoots with the hinin, was converted into cash, brought to the tame, and was used up on their own food and drink [sake]. Recently, on numerous occasions, this kind of thing can be witnessed on almost a daily basis. While

138   Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor the prisoners on the lower rung starve to death, the hinin take the aforementioned money as payment for their hard work, they become lost in their greed which only continues to grow. As this has become a kind of creed for them, of late even Tōzaemon does not come to work, and everything is undertaken by his underlings. We have heard that everything is bad in terms of rule in the tame.44 The above report was disturbing, and shogunate officials emphasized the seriousness of the matter precisely because it “pertained to human life”.45 While the hospice designed to cater for sick prisoners and incapacitated urban drifters was cracking under the weight of overcrowding, the hinin hut system, through which much of the policing of inbound relief seekers was being conducted, was also being placed under severe strain. An 1834.1 town circular issued in Edo indicated that the city was being flooded with “many homeless-­like people” who were “collapsing and dying in the thoroughfares of the neighbourhoods” due to the poor harvests in “many provinces” which had led them to abandon their farms and move to Edo. The circular notes that “through the great benevolence of our lord, the eta head Danzaemon was ordered last month to build huts within his enclosure and take care of these people,” but despite this measure “numerous people were still collapsing and dying in the streets”. This was apparently the result of a “failure to properly patrol the neighbourhoods”: people were being allowed to die in the streets without adequate care and residents were allegedly driving them out. The circular noted the seriousness of  these actions, again because it “pertain[ed] to human life”. Thereafter, neighbourhoods were also ordered to do their bit: to “carefully do the rounds  looking out for such people in the thoroughfares, vacant lots, riverbanks, and all the other lands entrusted to them, and when a person who collapsed was discovered, they were to be taken to the office of the City Magistrate on duty that month and an official report made after first giving them medical care”.46 The initial measure the shogunate adopted to handle the problem of the mass influx of impoverished persons was to treat everyone as a non-­resident and to build relief stations within Danzaemon’s Asakusa compound where they could be cared for. These endeavours to round up the urban impoverished were generally referred to in the City Magistrate’s records as “hunts” (karikomi), borrowing from terminology employed reasonably frequently over the course of the 1830s.47 The Magistrate’s lower officials also engaged in a good deal of the legwork in patrolling the streets and investigating the sick and homeless, and Chikamori became active in issuing reports about sick people who were not being taken care of and therefore who had died of illness as well. A rather self-­ congratulatory statement issued by the City Magistrate in the eighth month of 1834 noted that the “eta leader Danzaemon” had been ordered to mobilize hinin labourers to “capture and interrogate … unregistered persons”, where­ after they were placed in huts especially built in Danzaemon’s enclosure and given medical treatment. Status still remained a basic concern for the Edo City

Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   139 Magistrate, however, for it stated that “for those who survived and requested restitution to their various statuses, such was permitted.”48 The year 1836 again saw a cold spell which produced one of the worst harvests of the period.49 In the tenth month, townspeople came forward and suggested that the huts built to care for the destitute should be relocated from Danzaemon’s enclosure to a suitable location where the Town Hall could look after these people. One reason given for this was because the destitute would apparently find it difficult to be restored to their original statuses if they were cared for by Danzaemon.50 The outcome of this request was probably successful, as additional gruel kitchens (osukuigoya) were established at several other points throughout the city in the following two years.51 Chikamori and his subordinates thereafter still continued to be engaged in patrols in the period 1836–1839: his representatives (tedai) along with a special cluster of enclosure residents known as the Yano people led hinin throughout the city and “thoroughly hunted down” (kibishiki karikomi) people increasingly referred to as “wild hinin”. These “hunts” appear to have had very little effect, however. Unregistered persons were disrupting the activities of the urban residents: standing in front of shops blocking business, touching merchandise with their “unclean hands” (fujō no te), and engaging in illegal “snacking” (tsumamigui) on store merchandise. Danzaemon was therefore ordered to reassert himself through serious-­minded “hunts”, despite their seeming ineffectiveness.52 In an 1839 document, Danzaemon Chikamori revealed that in past years he had continued to care for each person acquired through these hunts who came under his charge for an average of about ten months, after which they were escorted to the edge of the city if they expressed a willingness to return home.53 A return home was, of course, synonymous with the fiction of returning to one’s official status. Despite that, however, the number of unregistered people in the city continued to grow and apparently continued to upset the urban social order. Reports were received of all kinds of illegal activities: stealing fixings from samurai houses, disturbing the public exhibition of religious objects, robbing warrior vassals, and (in one rumour) supposedly pack-­raping an unsuspecting geisha near Yanagibashi. Hinin leaders were asserting the “prestige of the Magistrate’s Office” in order to rein in the activities of these people who had even begun to establish rival groups with their own leaders.54 The City Magistrate, to further combat such problems, ordered the hinin leaders to undertake patrols again from 1840.6 using shogunate funds, incorporating those who wished to become hinin servants into their own ranks, and driving away those who did not from the city.55 Danzaemon was also summoned to the Magistrate’s office and ordered to enforce this practice among the hinin leaders. Records now had to be kept, and in a six-­month period over 5,000 “wild hinin” wishing to return to their home provinces were apparently captured and driven from the city.56 The City Magistrate’s dōshin patrol along with the patrolling hinin were ordered to arrest everyone who had broken the law, but the disabled, sick, women, and children not guilty of illegal activities were still permitted to beg (they were literally “left to the fate of the Gods”).

140   Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor Able-­bodied men, however, even if they only looked vaguely suspicious, were to be bound with rope, confined to the hospice, and after further investigation, either handed over to an Edo resident willing to take them in or sent to the stockade as labourers. Danzaemon was ordered to write down the names and addresses of all those people he was driving out from the city, but to make sure to arrest anyone suspected of engaging in illegal activity or suspicious-­looking able-­bodied males and bring them before the Magistrate’s office.57

Conclusions Some of the earliest, more reliable records concerning Danzaemon reveal an attempt to incorporate hinin – broadly defined as the city of Edo’s impoverished denizens who were being organized into status groups – under his rule. The early 18th century proved a particularly pivotal moment in this history. Danzaemon Chikamura deployed a brand of creative historical accounting which rooted his governance in bygone shogunal sanction as well as a past history of faithful service. In the process of emphasizing his historical rule of the hinin status group, Chikamura succeeded in not only placing Edo’s hinin populations under his control, but also urging the Tokugawa shogunate to think of his outcaste order as an arm of the state to secure the management of poverty and the urban underclasses in a more general sense. Chikasono’s rearticulation of Chikamura’s powers of governance in the 1750s and 1760s were part of a larger history of status negotiation whereby successive Danzaemon heads attempted to carve out for themselves an ever-­expanding pocket of status hegemony within the early modern status order. Chikasono argued less for faithful service than successful performance of duties in relation to policing hinin, going as far as to define the essence of outcaste status distinctions for the shogunate. During the late 18th century, from around the time of the Tenmei famine, and then again in the 19th century during the more intense moments of the Tenpō famine, cracks began to appear in status designations and established status-­based thinking, not only in the city of Edo, but also in regional areas within the Edo outcaste order. During these times, status appeared less as a “mode of existence” than an outer garment worn atop a basic humanity.58 Indeed, appeals to “human life” in City Magistrate documentation, especially when placed alongside other regional relief-­related documentation from the period, suggest more sizeable fissures had appeared in this central ordering principle of early modern society. As Satō Daisuke has pointed out in his study of the Tenpō famine in Sendai, discourses of status-­based relief efforts were clearly challenged by emerging conceptualizations of “among the people” (minkan) and the need for local communities to “exert themselves” (shū no chikara).59 While the shogunate was still willing to declare the benevolence of their own particular actions during the famine-­relief process, it was clear that the scale of the problem they faced necessitated a temporary collapsing of a status-­bound logic in order to avert a greater political crisis.

Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   141 In this sense, the famine and its associated problems can perhaps be said to have served in some respects to challenge the hegemony of commonplace images of official status distinctions; and the new methods designed to combat these problems led to important ways of envisaging the socio-­political order in more humanistic terms. Rephrased in more biopolitical language, through this crisis, the Tokugawa shogunate, albeit momentarily, had begun to see the population more in terms of human life containing able-­bodied subjects in need of proper numeration and mobilization. At the same time, however, attempts to think of ways out of the problem caused by the crisis and the achievement of a firmer degree of social stability also led to a greater conservative orthodoxy in thinking about the status system, one which resulted both in greater powers for the outcaste groups as well as a growing discriminatory discourse about their place in late Tokugawa society. Impoverished urban immigrants were still being subjected to outcaste surveillance and governance, and status-­based relief policies were adopted again after the harsher effects of the famine. Humanity remained an outer garment covering status. Later records reveal that the last Danzaemon, Chikayasu, also faced a legal challenge from the hinin leader Kuruma Zenshichi.60 The oral historical record of this account suggests Zenshichi came out very strongly, declaring a desire for independence in a world that was “growing more and more open”.61 Chikayasu’s defence of his official duty of policing the poor can perhaps be described as lukewarm at best, declaring that he would either retain his position over the hinin community, or happily return his powers to the shogunate if they wished to accede to Zenshichi’s demands. While on the one hand an appeal to this rhetoric was still a calculated attempt to retain his powers because the shogunate was well aware that it could not simply assume direct control over Edo’s hinin, the incident nonetheless also revealed the relative weakness of the Edo outcaste order. Particularly when compared to other caste formations across the Asian region, the organizational structure of the Edo outcaste order contained a relational component that was susceptible to reformulation through contractual logic.

Notes   1 For a thought-­provoking discussion of the early modern status system that includes the metaphor of “containers”, see Daniel Botsman, Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan (Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005), 61. For an earlier conceptualization using the same metaphor, see John Whitney Hall, “Rule by Status in Tokugawa Japan”, Journal of Japanese Studies 1, no. 1 (1974): 45.   2 For important work on the status system and the management of poverty during the earlier Tenmei famine, see Maren Ehlers, Give and Take: Poverty and the Status Order in Early Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018), Chapter 5.   3 Hidemasa Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka (Kyoto: Aunsha, 2014), 55–56.   4 Kentarō Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū (Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 1996), 53, 56, 212.   5 For more on this incident, see Gerald Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, The Journal of Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 277–278.

142   Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   6 All of these incidents are discussed in Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, ed., Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, 5 vols., vol. 1 (Urawa: Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1977), 187–195.   7 Ibid., 190.   8 Kenji Nakao, ed., Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995), 29.   9 Ibid. 10 The history of the clash between Danzaemon Chikamura and the hinin community in this section is recreated based on documents contained in the Suzuki-­Ke Monjo and the Kyōhō Senyō Ruishū. Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 1, 187–195; Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 8 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987), 373–380. 11 Hiro’o Sekiguchi, “Danzaemon Shihai To Sono Kyōkai: Tōgoku No Senmin Mibun To Sabetsu”, in “Edo” No Hito To Mibun, ed. Tatsuo Shirakawabe and Eiji Yamamoto (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2010), 166–167. 12 Timothy D. Amos, “Genealogy and Marginal Status in Early Modern Japan: The Case of Danzaemon”, Japanese Studies 33, no. 2 (2013): 147–159. 13 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 31. 14 Ibid., 9–10. 15 Ibid., 11–12. 16 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 1, 3. 17 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 32, 34; Tomohiko Harada, ed. Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 9 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987), 257. 18 Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, 283. 19 Harada, Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, vol. 9, 515–516; Kenji Nakao, Edo Shakai To Danzaemon (Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1992), 259–263. 20 Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 35–36. 21 “Kenshōbo”, in Tomohiko Harada, Koichi Nakazawa, and Hiroshi Kobayashi, eds., Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryō Shūsei, vol. 25 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1980), 259. 22 Saitama-­Ken, ed., Shinpen Saitama-­Kenshi Shiryōhen, vol. 14, Saitama Kenshi (Urawa: Saitama-­Ken, 1991), 224–225. 23 Timothy D. Amos, “Portrait of a Tokugawa Outcaste Village”, East Asian History 32 /33 (June 2006/December 2007): 98. The incident described here can be found in more detail in this article. 24 Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū (Kobe: Hyōgo Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1987), 22. 25 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, ed., Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 3 (Urawa: Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1978), 686–687. 26 Ibid., 687–688. 27 Ibid., 160–162. 28 Ibid., 6. 29 A copy of the document can be found in Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed., Gunma-­Ken Hisabetsu Buraku Shiryō: Kogashira Saburōemon-­Ke Monjo (Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2007), 40–44. For an early analysis of this document, see Takashi Tsukada, Mibunsei Shakai To Shimin Shakai: Kinsei Nihon No Shakai To Hō (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1992), 187–188. Mention is also made of it in Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 1, 100–04. 30 Botsman, Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan, 106. 31 Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, 286. 32 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 597; Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 12 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1988), 414–415.

Eta governance, hinin, and policing of the poor   143 33 Kenji Nakao, ed., Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, 3 vols., vol. 2 (Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995), 34–35. 34 Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”, 288. 35 Ibid.; Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 273–274. See also Nakao, Edo Shakai To Danzaemon, 240–242. On gannin bōzu, see Gerald Groemer, “A Short History of the Gannin: Popular Religious Performers in Tokugawa Japan”, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 27, no. 1–2 (2000): 41–72. 36 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 2, 285–286. 37 For a reference to the burning down of Danzaemon’s mansion, see Gunma Burakuken Tomo Chiku Kinseishi Gakushūkai, ed., Shimotsuke-­No-Kuni Tarōbē Monjo (Ota: Gunma Burakuken Tomo Chiku Kinseishi Gakushūkai, 1987), 9–12. Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 365–66. 38 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 365–366. 39 Ibid., 366. 40 “Tenpō No Kikin”, in Iwanami Nihonshi Jiten LogoVista Denshi Jitenban, ed. Keiji Nagahara (Iwanami Shoten, 2016); Rizo Takeuchi and Mitsutoshi Takayanagi, eds., Kadokawa Nihonshi Jiten (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1994), 663; Katsumi Fukaya, Edo Jidai (Tokyo: Iwanami Jyunia Shinsho, 2000), 192. 41 Harold Bolitho, “The Tempō Crisis”, in The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 5: The Nineteenth Century, ed. Marius B. Jansen, The Cambridge History of Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 119. 42 Masamoto Kitajima, Bakuhansei No Kumon, vol. 18, Nihon No Rekishi (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1974), 406–407. 43 Asakusa tamezumen. No. 819–179, National Diet Library Japan. Available at http:// dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/2542384 (accessed 7 February 2014) 44 Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 14 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1992), 273–274. 45 Ibid., 274. 46 Ibid., 317. 47 Ibid., 413–414. 48 Ibid., 364–366. 49 “Tenpō No Kikin”; Takeuchi and Takayanagi, Kadokawa Nihonshi Jiten, 663; Fukaya, Edo Jidai, 192. 50 Harada, Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, vol. 14, 539–540. 51 Akira Baba, “Sukuigoya”, in Nihon Daihyakka Zensho (Shōgakkan). 52 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 2, 259–260. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid., 229–232. 55 Ibid., 1: 426–430. 56 Ibid., 2: 240–445. 57 Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 15 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1989), 527. 58 Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū, 7. 59 Daisuke Satō, 18–19 Seiki Sendaihan No Saigai to Shakai: Bessho Man’emon Kiroku, vol. 38 (Sendai: Tōhōku Daigaku Tōhōku Ajia Sentā, 2010), 61, 67. 60 David Howell, Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-­Century Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 209. 61 Anna Beerens, “Interview with a Bakumatsu Official: A Translation from Kyūji Shimonroku”, Monumenta Nipponica 55, no. 3 (2000): 195–196.

6 Transformations in urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo

Introduction This chapter examines the historical transformation of Tokyo’s largest early modern outcaste community, the Asakusa area, sometimes referred to colloquially as Shinchō (literally “Newtown”). From at least around the middle of the 17th century until the 1870s, the area was the seat of power for Danzaemon. As witnessed in the early use of terms like “the enclosure” (kakouchi/kako-­nouchi) to refer to this settlement and “eta” (chōri) to denote the status of Danzaemon and Shinchō residents, the area was a socially and administratively marginalized space within the early modern metropolis of Edo. Yet a combination of historical processes such as urbanization, status group consolidation, labour specialization, capital accumulation, and inter-­status group network creation, led to the creation of an elite stratum of neighbourhood residents who were increasingly well integrated into mainstream society, a phenomenon which helped lay important foundations for the administrative and conceptual amalgamation of the area into the broader metropolitan landscape of Tokyo. Wide-­ ranging entrepreneurial activities by members of this elite class in the early Meiji period further built on and propelled these developments so that by the late 19th century the area had even come to be spoken about in some quarters as “a normal neighbourhood broken up into three blocks”.1 Of course such a “normalization” process was not evenly distributed and was far from complete. Near the end of the 19th century, for example, the noted journalist Yokoyama Gennosuke reported that this “new commoner society … cast outside of society for the longest time and having absolutely no relations with the world, even though today the same class as ordinary commoners, is in reality, socially, a kind of orphan.”2 This quip, textually located between discussions of the olfactory offensiveness of the area, the unique social practices of its residents with respect to sexuality and marriage, family relations, labour, clothing, and high rates of illiteracy, indicates the existence of a compounded form of discrimination that was taking place along both traditional status and newly emerging modern lines. Yet at the same time, Yokoyama also recorded the absence of “capitalists” in the community and notes that in comparison with other “new commoner” communities like Watanabe village in Osaka, there was

Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo   145 a relative absence of extreme socio-­economic stratification. By the late 19th century, the elite strata no longer were conspicuous in the community and in some cases had lost their wealth or exited the neighbourhood. In addition, newcomers began to settle, and widespread general impoverishment worked to enable the neighbourhood to become more closely identified with working-­class Asakusa. This chapter is structured as follows. First, background is offered on the early history of Shinchō, particularly focusing on processes of urbanization and status­based rule. Second, l8th and 19th century developments are explained, particularly processes surrounding the accumulation of political, economic, and cultural capital within the neighbourhood among the leadership stratum. Third, late Tokugawa and early Meiji community transformations are discussed, showing how accumulated capital worked to propel the leadership stratum’s integration into mainstream society during a period of profound historical flux, as well as lay the foundations for the community’s closer association with working-­class Asakusa. And finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the broader significance of the present study to research on the economic history of early modern Japanese outcastes.

Early history: urbanization and status rule As noted in an earlier chapter, there is little that can be said with certainty about the early history of the Shinchō outcaste community based on written records. The Tenshō Period Diary (Tenshō Nikki) entries concerning the alleged early movements of Danzaemon’s residential communities have already been critically discussed. A 19th century reproduction of one of the earliest official shogunate maps of the area – a 1644 Edo map – reveals that the Imado area lay on the very outskirts of the urban capital at that juncture (Shōhō Nenchū Edo Ezu).3 The map reveals that the nearby Sanya moat – later made famous as a boating route to the Shin-­Yoshiwara district – may have already been in existence in 1644, but it does not reveal the existence of an outcaste community at Imado, neither does it confirm that Danzaemon’s outcaste community lived at the old supposed Torigoe location in Asakusa, as most histories mention. The Great Map of Meireki Edo (Meireki Edo Ōezu) dated 1657 shows the emergence of several neighbourhoods along the embankment of the Sumida River but nothing in the location which later maps ascribe to the Shinchō outcaste community.4 Strikingly, there is no mention of an outcaste community in the Shinchō area in the official maps produced after the 1657 Great Meireki Fire dated around 1670 either, and this despite the fact that the “beggar village” (kojikimura) or hinin settlement next to the Shin-­Yoshiwara pleasure quarters is clearly marked on the map. 5 The Zōhō Edo Ōezu (Enlarged Plan of Edo) published in 1680 also contains no reference to the Shinchō outcaste community, simply labelling the neighbouring area as Imado village and leaving one sizeable town space nearby blank, which is more than likely to be the area where the outcaste settlement was

146   Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo located.6 There is undoubtedly meaning in the failure to explicitly label the outcaste settlement in this and the earlier map, although what that meaning is exactly remains difficult to determine. In contrast, the Edo Hōgaku Anken Zukan (Plain Map of Edo Localities), also published in 1680, contains what is probably the first cartographic reference to the Shinchō outcaste community, cordoning off a large section of land near the Imado Bridge and labelling it as an “eta village” (eta mura).7 On maps from this time, corresponding of course with the rule of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1680–1709), well-­known for his edicts concerning compassion for living things as well as notions of pollution, the area is consistently referred to with the epithet “eta village”. Why this epithet came to be commonly used in relation to the Shinchō community is an important question. This development in naming is undoubtedly linked to changing notions of pollution influenced by Tsunayoshi’s policies, as well as to the evolving nature of the early modern Japanese status system. The Shinchō settlement probably emerged as the direct result of shogunate policies rooted in a status-­ group-based division of labour, which was then further impacted by evolving ideas of social pollution. Led by Danzaemon, the eta status group entered into an official relationship (goyō kankei) with the Tokugawa shogunate, receiving acknowledgment and economic privileges in relation to tanning and leather production in return for accepting officially prescribed duties pertaining to certain stigmatized industries such as execution duties and the policing of beggars.8 Danzaemon and his subordinates were likely to have been forced to live in a largely autonomous status-­group cluster rooted loosely in their occupation and near other low-­status groups away from the shogun’s castle. In exchange for their performance of official duties, they were also granted exemptions on the payment of land taxes. Such a settlement, in order for it to fulfil its official duties, presumably had to be located near a sizeable waterway. It was also probably the case that tanning and leatherwork were thought to be best carried out at some distance away from established residential neighbourhoods. Over time, some of the areas around the Imado outcaste settlement were settled by labourers, prostitutes, and entertainers, further accentuating the idea that the area was the natural location and indeed destination for the city’s urban underclasses and outcastes. Located on the very edge of the early modern city next to the Sumida River, the early Asakusa outcaste settlement formed an urban site that was clearly occupied by groups with fairly specific socio-­political functions, but nonetheless still perhaps best characterized by their low social status. Yagi Shigeru has argued that Watanabe village in Osaka also experienced forced amalgamation and relocation in the early 17th century – a process that arguably needs to be understood within the context of urban development in Osaka.9 Yoshida Nobuyuki has further labelled Watanabe village a “town village” (machimura), noting that the unusual character of the settlement arose from its considerable degree of autonomy.10 Given the similarities in terms of occupation, official duties, and historical experiences of geographical marginalization between the two urban outcaste communities, it is instructive to understand Shinchō’s early history in light of such scholarship as comprising one part

Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo   147 of a larger history of early modern Japanese urban development. In other words, Shinchō originated as a space allocated for the production of governmentally essential but socially disdained services. Whether or not the existence of the nearby Sensōji Temple had any bearing on the reason for the selection of this site is an intriguing question. It is possible that there is a clear geomantic rationale for the community’s location, given the fact that the northeastern gate of Edo Castle, the one closest to Shinchō, was also known as “pollution gate” (fujōmon).11 The continued use of the label “eta village” on maps from the 1680s through to the early 19th century, despite a marked urbanization in the Asakusa area, reveals how ideas of outcasteness probably served right up until the end of the Edo period to reduce such communities to completely backward entities resistant to processes of neighbourhood expansion, rendering Danzaemon’s settlement a bastion of ruralism in a sea of urban development in a society growing increasingly polis-­centric. While it is technically possible to see Shinchō as lying within, even if on the fringes, of the Edo city limits, it is clear that the land upon which the settlement rested was treated differently, never achieving the status of “titled land” (kokenchi) that could change hands.12 Besides “eta village”, moreover, Shinchō also came to be referred to as “the enclosure” (kakouchi/kako-­no-uchi) from the early 18th century, further indicating that it was conceived of as a somewhat problematic area that needed to be contained within a walled precinct, a feature it can perhaps be said to have shared with the nearby Shin-­Yoshiwara pleasure quarters.13 Here the expression “the enclosure” served to advance the accentuation of the settlement’s perceived difference, offering up the idea of a community that had to be contained inside a walled fortress which could act as a cordon sanitaire capable of protecting the townspeople and samurai living outside. A document written in 1721 specifically referred to “Danzaemon, eta, from Ya [Tani] Village, Asakusa”, indicating that Shinchō could still be denoted this way at the beginning of the 18th century.14 Within the enclosure itself, moreover, Danzaemon’s residence came to be referred to in numerous ways. In a literary work entitled Genroku Sekenbanashi Fūbunshū, discussed in an earlier chapter, Shinchō is simply referred to as “Danzaemon’s place”, although from the story itself it is clear that this was no ordinary space, but rather a locality to be feared.15 Danzaemon and his army of subordinates, as well as officialdom in general, tended to refer to his residence as the “office” (yakusho), “Asakusa office”, “Newtown office”, or “Danzaemon residence”.

Growing labour specialization, capital concentration, and cultural endeavours It was only from the end of the 18th century that Danzaemon’s settlement area came to be more commonly referred to as “Newtown, Asakusa”. Why the area came to be referred to that way is an interesting and important question, for when addressing the issue of the area’s apparently successful integration into the

148   Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo Edo cityscape, it is clear that the term bespeaks a marginal area no longer completely lost in pollution per se, but one that was in the process of newly embracing an established and therefore familiar urban structure or form. The Taisho period (1912–1926) work “Asakusa Ward History” (Asakusa Kushi) offers one possible explanation about the origins of this term already alluded to above, based on the work “Notes on the Lord’s City” (Gofunai Bikō), “a gazetteer compiled by the shogunate in the early 19th century”.16 The ward history speculates as follows: Shinchō [Newtown] is west of the Imado neighbourhood and north of the Sanya moat. Today it is Kameoka neighbourhood, itchōme through to sanchōme. It was an area wherein Danzaemon’s residence was located. In olden times he used to live in the Muromachi neighbourhood area near Nihonbashi but it is said that he moved to this area at the time that Ieyasu came to settle. [Footnote: In the Tenshō Period Diary, it has it that “he is from Torigoe,” meaning that in the beginning he lived in Torigoe Village. In the second year of Shōhō [1645], Torigoe neighbourhood was moved to Sanya, and it was said to have become known as the New Torigoe. This township then probably became known colloquially as “Newtown.” Or could it be that Danzaemon moved to the area in this year?]  The text does go on to offer another older name for Shinchō: In olden times, Shinchō, which is now today’s Kameoka neighbourhood, was a separate area called the “Great Rope Land” (ōnawachi) – it was one quarter, and within the quarter, when Danzaemon was to leave it, it is said that it [he] moved with a great procession like one of the lords.17 There are some problems with this account. First, one of the main sources quoted is the Tenshō Period Diary, already noted for its unreliability, meaning that the factuality of Danzaemon’s 1645 move to Asakusa is still an open question. Second, this explanation assumes that the term “Newtown” was probably in use since around the mid-­17th century, an idea not rooted in any available evidence, for the earliest use of the term in relation to Danzaemon’s settlement that can be determined at this point in time was in 1796. At the same time, however, the reference to Danzaemon’s area being a separate area called the “Great Rope Land” (ōnawachi) is instructive, for the term refers to the fact that the Shinchō settlement was not subject to taxation in the same way that other areas were, but was, rather, initially a piece of land granted to a group of specific people carrying out certain duties for the shogunate. While it is not yet clear whether Danzaemon’s settlement was in fact a “Great Rope Land” or simply a territory similar to those of his subordinates – usually referred to as jochi or “tax­exempted area” in other outcaste-­related records – it is nonetheless apparent that this state of tax exemption arose in response to official duties that were expected to be carried out by Danzaemon and the settlement residents.

Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo   149 By the turn of the 19th century, Danzaemon’s chōri (eta) settlement had come to be referred to with the label Shinchō, a practice that was to become particularly prevalent on maps in the 1850s and 1860, implying a process was underway whereby the area had come to be seen as embracing an established and familiar urban form. The development of an array of commonplace urban infrastructures probably contributed significantly to the emergence of the new appellation. Over time, Shinchō had developed a complex internal governing apparatus with various infrastructures not necessarily found in other inner city neighbourhoods, including shops, specialty workshops, and special inns (kujiyado) designed to house outcaste subjects who travelled to the capital for criminal trials and on official business.18 This growing urban infrastructure is highlighted in the c.1814 travel log authored by Jippōan Keijun (1762–1832) entitled Miscellaneous Notes on Wandering, which refers to the Shinchō area in the following way: “Danzaemon’s quarters in Asakusa, Shinchō, run three neighbourhood blocks from south to north and one block from east to west. To the south is a gate near the moat for travellers and there is also a gate to the north so that people with errands can pass through the area from south to north.”19 The travelogue further highlighted the unusual features of the settlement: “Within these quarters are shops lined up on both sides of the main street such as course goods shops (futomonoya), pawnbrokers (shichiya), bathhouses (yūya), and hairdressers (kamiyuidokoro) … .”20 Clearly Shinchō was developing into an area with an impressive range of highly specialized services that fronted a reasonably heavily traversed throughway and with houses that provided something of a commercial and social spectacle. But with the establishment of common infrastructures also came other commonplace features of neighbourhoods at this time: social and economic stratification. The population of Shinchō in the year 1800 stood at 232 chōri (eta) households and fifteen sarukai or “monkey diviner” households. Records indicate, moreover, that a clear stratification existed between these households: in the case of chōri households, there were seven governing assistants (tedai/ shoyaku), sixty minor officials, and 115 so-­called ordinary [chōri (eta)] (taira no mono) households. For the sarukai or “monkey diviners”, there were two leaders, five officials, and eight “ordinary [diviner]” (taira no mono) households.21 And while many Shinchō residents owned their own properties, some clearly comprised part of a rental stratum. In a 1777 document dealing with an incident where someone posing as an employee for a seller of leather goods allegedly deceived a leather broker by the name of Seisuke living in Shinchō for financial gain, Danzaemon mentioned his subordinate had a servant by the name of Seizō working for him, indicating the existence of a class of contracted labourers within the community.22 In another 1790.7 record, essentially a complaint made by the town officials concerning a certain Kane, the daughter of Jin’emon, both residents of the enclosure, an allegation was made that she had worn clothes “above her station”. One of Danzaemon’s governing assistants, Sashichi, in his response to the authorities, revealed that there were both house-­ owners and renters in the enclosure, and that Jin’emon and his daughter

150   Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo belonged to the latter group. Danzaemon further argued that although this group was poor, they were very keen to work themselves out of their poverty and to accumulate fine things, all but declaring that this was in fact what had happened in this case.23 In terms of the overall economic structure of Shinchō, it appears that tanning and leatherwork were the main occupations of most of its residents. In one 1803 record, Danzaemon noted that “all of his subordinates in Shinchō and in the various provinces engaged in leatherwork on cow and horse hides” alongside a range of other official duties for which they received payment.24 A later document, dated 1848.4.5, indicates that while members of the Shinchō community performed official duties for the shogunate, they also made their living from other occupations, particularly through the production of wicks for lamps and candles, and that in the twelfth month of every year it was the custom for Danzaemon to offer aid to his subordinates, suggesting that the wealth of the leadership stratum led by Danzaemon was particularly pronounced.25 The realities of the lives of some of the poorest strata in Shinchō are revealed in a document called “Examples of Official Pardons” (Osha Reisho) which details the crimes and punishments of various criminals eventually pardoned by the Tokugawa shogunate. In it is found the intriguing case of Yōsuke, who went by the alias Kichigorō, a runaway servant of Chōdayū, head of the monkey diviners in the enclosure governed by Danzaemon. In 1807, Yōsuke, living in Shinchō and working for the head monkey diviner as a hired underling, had apparently become destitute. As it became increasingly difficult to make a living, he took his wife, Iku, and left the enclosure. Thereafter he worked for a while on the Tōkaidō highway, making a living carrying goods while Iku begged. They then returned to Edo and, hiding their status, rented Yōsuke’s shop on the warehouse lot at Kanda’s Kyūemon-chō itchōme. However, soon after, they again became insolvent and were forced to shut their shop. Iku, once more hiding her status, went to work as a contract labourer for Tomizō in Yūshichi’s shop in Fukagawa Ami-­chō, while Yōsuke (Kichigirō) made an arrangement with a homeless man, Yoshizō, for his possessions to be stolen at Asakusa’s Keiōji Temple. The plot failed, and Yōsuke was caught, arrested, and questioned, but hid his actual status saying merely that he was “homeless”. He was tattooed and flogged and sent to the stockade for labourers (yoseba), but apparently unhappy with the prospect of hard physical labour, again ran away. He went to Ichiemon and Kinbē’s place (which was presumably in Shinchō because these men were also servants of Chōdayū) and asked them for money for a road trip. During their meeting he then proceeded to drink excessively and cause a ruckus, and for this was yet again arrested, sentenced to flogging, and banished from the city (not permitted to come within a 40 km radius of Edo). The authorities noted in this case that because he was a hinin, he was handed over to Danzaemon for a commensurate punishment.26 The case of Yōsuke suggests that in the early 19th century mobility was commonplace in the city of Edo even among outcastes, but that also life outside of one’s status group could at times be both precarious and legally and socially problematic. It is clear from such a story that the early

Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo   151 19th century was characterized by mobility in both people and goods and that this had both positive and negative effects in terms of transforming the popular image of particular urban locations. It is worth noting again here that a perception of capital accumulation among a certain stratum within the Shinchō outcaste settlement was growing during this time. Nakao Kenji has noted that eta in Tokugawa literature are constantly portrayed as wealthy. This profile emerged strongly in the 18th century: records such as the Edo Masago Rokujūchō (1748–1764) record gossip concerning eta leaders who, with bands of followers, were supposed to have revelled in the prostitutes’ quarters in Osaka for seven months consecutively.27 These literary accounts must clearly be read at one level as distorting devices rooted in growing status anxiety whereby economic transformations meant that wealth no longer directly corresponded to official status designations. But at the same time these accounts were also somewhat reflective of actual processes taking place in society where the leadership stratum within status groups in particular was able to consume in ways that made a mockery of the official sumptuary regulations as well as popular social expectations. While there is still much to be done to flesh this history out in relation to early modern outcaste groups, financial records from the 1840s and 1850s indicate several things about economic conditions within Danzaemon’s household and in Shinchō more generally. First, that Danzaemon Chikayasu’s reported total annual income in the late 1840s was about 600 ryō. Second, that Danzaemon in this same period had debts of almost 5,000 ryō, and that a good deal of this debt arose from borrowing internally from leather and sandal commercial operators located within Shinchō (a mid-­1850’s document quoted by Marius Jansen indicates that 200 ryō was already considered a substantial debt for a Tokugawa bannerman by the commoner peasants under his governance).28 Third, that while at least some of this debt was incurred unexpectedly (as noted in the previous chapter, Danzaemon Chikamori’s office-­residence burnt down in 1830), wealthy Shinchō merchants such as the leathershop owner Kaemon were able to offer loans as large as half of Danzaemon’s annual income. Fourth, that Danzaemon probably underreported his income to the authorities: in his official submission he failed to mention either the income derived from his wick monopoly or leather-­sandal production.29 Danzaemon Chikayasu, moreover, had amassed wealth and standing to the point where he was able to create and host his own literary society called the “Twenty-­Five Friends of the Apricot Grove”. Unfortunately, the few extant records about this mid-­19th century salon come from literati who largely appeared to despise its existence, but their often caustic remarks are nonetheless highly revealing of the scope of this society. Shibata Shūzō (1820–1859), for example, while lamenting that “it is indeed polluting to even hear about such a thing,” indicated in 1842 that: “Many of the said urban literati … have in recent years been mixing with the eta leader Danzaemon – something that is completely unheard of. I have heard of … 25 such people who mix with him. Danzaemon … speaks of his 25 friends of the Apricot Garden and [it] is gaining

152   Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo quite a reputation around the city.”30 The famous Meiji Restoration figure, Katsu Kaishū (1823–1899), also wrote of “several literati” seeking shelter “with the personage of the apricot grove” in an undated letter to Takegawa Chikusai (1809–1882).31 While it must be noted that Kaishū dedicated most of the space in his letter to highlighting the way in which Danzaemon and his literary circle were being cryptically lampooned by another artist (something he was clearly amused about), at the same time it is true that Danzaemon Chikayasu was developing institutions and relationships that led him and others to conceptualize and experience their locality in different ways. Groemer further notes that: “In 1860 even Danzaemon supposedly rented property on the precincts of Sensōji in Asakusa for producing a fifty-­day run of ‘Chinaman theatrical dances’, apparently a kabuki-­like revenue,” indicating a clear expansion of the scope of his cultural activism outside the Shinchō district.32 Conspicuous wealth accumulation was not a phenomenon restricted to the elite outcaste stratum in Shinchō. Eta communities in Japan’s two largest cities at the time – Osaka and Kyoto – also produced a wealthy stratum engaged in merchant activities. In Watanabe village, for example, Yagi has argued that several leather operators had borrowed land from officials on the south side of the Dōtonbori River for profit-­making purposes as early as the mid-­17th century and that at least one also operated at that time as a landlord.33 A certain Matabē from the same village was said to have accumulated 70,000 ryō by the early 19th century. This was also true of the eta community in Yanagihara, Kyoto, whose economic activities largely centred upon leather and footwear production and who produced a prominent economic elite.34 And although a subject yet to be properly researched, one might reasonably expect the same kinds of inter-­ status group cultural connections forged by Danzaemon to be witnessed among other urban elites in outcaste communities in both Osaka and Kyoto.

Late Tokugawa/early Meiji transformation of Shinchō Long-­term historical processes such as urbanization, political consolidation, labour specialization, capital concentration, and the creation of inter-­status group networks led to the emergence of an economic elite centred on Danzaemon that was well connected in Edo and that was generating considerable levels of capital which set it on par with surrounding neighbourhoods. Of course, noticeable differences in the urban culture of Shinchō compared to surrounding neighbourhoods still existed. In an 1848.4.5 statement by Danzaemon Chikayasu concerning his subordinates’ official duties and the ordinary payment for these tasks, for example, a little is revealed about some of the local characteristics of activities Shinchō residents participated in when performing official duties that were particularly significant: “Again, at the time we are ordered to re-­skin [the official drums], even before we officially present them [to the authorities], and of course also at the time when they are presented, on clear days during the 20 days between both occasions, three lots of sixteen men are called upon, with a group of thirteen men waiting in reserve in case of

Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo   153 emergency; each [group] occupies one of the three [Shinchō] guard houses in what is referred to as ‘self-­policing’; a total of 552 men are mobilized and they are paid along the lines of what has been mentioned above in terms of payment for official duties.”35 The tremendous personal reach that both Danzaemon and members of his Shinchō community had within the wider Edo community is increasingly evident in this period. On 1849.2.15, Chikayasu received permission to collect donations from the wider community to help fund the costs incurred through hinin administration of the labour stockade (an institution that came under his governance because hinin leaders also came under his rule). The document reveals Danzaemon was successful in collecting close to 1,880 ryō, a large figure by any standards. This money was collected from Edo citizens, licensed tea houses, and a large number of merchants and operators in the wider Edo area: 187 leather sandal shops; 462 geta shops; 270 leather sandal sole repairers; 98 bridle stores; 40 leather shops; 59 shamisen shops; 59 pen-­brush stores; 69 horse goods stores; and 8 leather craftsmen stores. As Nakao Kenji notes, all of these shops had in common the fact that they would presumably have had some professional relationship with Danzaemon and the Shinchō leather merchants and operators. Nakao also observes that these relationships emerged as a result of a growth in capitalist activity “from below”. He further notes that this grassroots capitalist activity in one sense probably hindered outcaste emancipation because it was not necessarily accompanied by a freeing-­up of attitudes towards the activities Shinchō residents were engaged in, yet at the same time it also served to bring the community into a more deeply integrated relationship with the wider Edo community.36 Late Tokugawa shogunate policy sparked further social transformation of the neighbourhood, especially key being the elevation of the official status of the Shinchō leadership stratum to “commoner” (heimin) status for services rendered to the Tokugawa shogunate. Danzaemon’s rise in official status in the 1860s along with all of the other Shinchō leaders can probably be directly attributed to his ability to both finance and contribute to shogunate activities including the military campaigns against Choshū Domain, which was in turn facilitated by a much longer history of working as an official arm of the Edo City Magistrate. Indeed, as he noted numerous times in his statement of 1868.1.13, Danzaemon paid for the various expenditures outlined below with his “own funds” (jibun nyūhi/jibun nyūyō).37 That year, Danzaemon as well as seventy of his closest aides had their status elevated (hikiage) to “commoner status” (heinin mibun) for several reasons including the fact that Danzaemon had assisted when the fire burnt down one of the main jails in Edo and that he had contributed outcaste troops to assist the shogunate in an attack on Chōshū Domain.38 Presuming that most of the governing assistants had their own residences, such an act probably meant that approximately one quarter of the establishments in the Shinchō area became owned by commoners virtually overnight – a full four years before any official edict of emancipation was issued by the Meiji government (more on this below). And as early Meiji maps of Shinchō reveal,

154   Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo some of the largest residences were owned by these same men who were elevated to commoner status in 1868, meaning that in terms of total square acreage, Shinchō can be said to have already made large advances towards becoming a commoner neighbourhood in spatial terms from that very same year. The emancipation of Shinchō’s elite stratum well before any official attempt was made to dismantle the early modern status system by the Meiji state significantly impacted the ways the neighbourhood’s subsequent “normalization” process was managed and clearly set its experiences apart from other major urban outcaste settlements like Watanabe and Yanagihara. Early Meiji policies had important transformative effects on Shinchō. Official statements concerning what constituted socially polluting activity (including meat-­eating) were indicative of a clear transformation overtaking Japanese society that was affecting many facets of everyday life. Several months before the promulgation of the so-­called 1871 Emancipation Edict, a national law was passed permitting people to dispose of the carcasses of dead animals as they wished (Heigyūba Katte Shochihō). Private entrepreneurs had already been engaging in cattle transportation to Tokyo/Yokohama area in the 1860s to cater to the foreign community’s culinary preferences as well as a growing domestic consumer market. The 1871 law loosened constraints on the disposal of animal carcasses, and in so doing slackened the outcaste monopoly on tanning and butchery. Danzaemon Chikayasu (now referred to by the name Dan Naoki) predictably appealed against the new law, pointing out that people were disposing of those “natural products indispensable for the nation” in wasteful ways, but ultimately to no avail.39 New government legislation also affected other industries in which Dan Naoki and his subordinates (as well as other “former outcaste” communities throughout Japan) had traditionally held monopolies; monopoly rights in the sale of lamp and candle wicks, for example, were subsequently surrendered. Official duties related to the policing of homeless persons who drifted into Tokyo discussed in the previous chapter were likewise relinquished during the early Meiji period.40 But important as these edicts were, they probably had less immediate impact on Shinchō and its residents than direct rulings targeting land ownership, taxation, and other aspects of their official existence which emerged as a result of the so-­called Emancipation Edict. On 1871.8.15, this Edict was formally promulgated and declared defunct various discriminatory labels used to refer to outcaste communities. It also pronounced equality of status between these groups and the rest of the commoner class, while outlining the need to eradicate certain customs and practices pertaining to special duties and privileges. The Emancipation Edict had of course been a policy Dan Naoki not only endorsed but officially requested in his correspondence with the new Meiji government. As mentioned in an earlier chapter, in a Dan Naoki plea for the abolition of all outcaste statuses, he referred to “several hundred years of continual abuse” during the preceding feudal era and lamented that “even though we are no different to human beings born under heaven, the fact that humane associations are [still] not possible is a truly deplorable fact.” He wrote about the need for: eradication

Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo   155 of the “two despicable Chinese ideographs” (niji no shūmei); the “outlawing of the label eta” (eta no meimoku on-­nozoki); and the “expurgation of their past bad name” (jūrai no shūmei issō).41 The following month, the Tokyo municipal government, in response to a request by Dan Naoki concerning confirmation surrounding the actual implementation of the Emancipation Edict, determined that “the enclosure known as Shinchō, a residential backwater” (kyojū no rizoku Shinchō to tonaekitari sōrō ikkaku) should be “integrated into the city” (shinai ni kumiire). It also ordered ward officials to include Shinchō in the “town neighbourhood registry” (chōseki), with neighbourhood names and the various “small land-­plot taxation rates” (komadaka) carefully recorded and communicated to the authorities. Matters pertaining to tax exemption practices for the whole neighbourhood were also to be investigated, and Dan Naoki was further instructed to give a full listing of his own land holdings. The Division of Prisons, also in response to Dan Naoki’s aforementioned query, stated that they believed it was a sound policy to hereafter have his former subjects “governed according to neighbourhood of residence” (kyochō shihai).42 These measures were ultimately approved by the Tokyo municipality on 1872.9.15 in an order addressed to Dan Naoki and three other “intermediate elders” (nakazoe toshiyori), a move which effectively worked to restrict the legal and administrative reach of Dan Naoki to his own locality.43 Three days later, a request from local officials also pertaining to the question of how to execute the Emancipation Edict was submitted to the Tokyo Municipality, after making its way around various local government agencies and the Ministry of Finance. Approved with some minor additional provisions, eta and hinin who made their living flaying animal hides (kawahagi tose) were to be formally encouraged by the Tokyo Municipality to make a living as abattoir operators (togyūba) on the condition that flaying practices conformed to regulations associated with abattoirs and an official request be issued first once a suitable location for such a place was found “away from people’s residences”.44Although not the intention of the document, this piece of legislation probably also worked to set new limits on the kinds of activities that could be physically engaged in within the Shinchō neighbourhood itself. On 1872.9.24, the intermediate elder for the 69th ward, Marusawa Kisanji, notified the Tokyo Municipal Government that Shinchō had for several generations been divided into fourteen groups, each containing between ten or twenty land allotments all owned by people within the enclosure. He further reported that none of the residents was in a position to have their land bought up, so he desired to have the regular land tax method and payment system applied to their existing properties. He also added that he wished to have the existing informal labelling system of Upper, Middle, and Lower Kameoka changed to itchōme, nichōme, and sanchōme respectively, as well as have a numbering system applied to the plots as they currently stood, despite their often negligible size.45 Records that describe in detail the land holdings of Dan Naoki within Shinchō and outline the obligation he had to return untaxed lands to the government

156   Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo indicate a complex set of arrangements that were not necessarily well-­ documented and often reliant on oral transmission. In addition, they suggest a process of steady land accumulation by elites such as Dan Naoki. Plot 8, for example, located near Dan Naoki’s main residence and measuring over 300 tsubo, or about 1,000 square metres, was sold to the widow of Genzaemon in an unspecified year, then passed into the hands of the group head Sadaemon after she remarried, before Dan Naoki took possession of it once the group head’s family line died out.46 Shinchō ceased to exist as an independent quarter with the establishment of new administrative and legal arrangements based on early Meiji interpretations of the Emancipation Edict. No longer was it primarily “tax-­exempted land”; the residents all became “commoners” (albeit “new commoners”); the area was subjected to a new form of land registration and numbering; the neighbourhood was incorporated into Asakusa Ward; and a new system of neighbourhood elders was introduced. Shinchō became the three-­block neighbourhood Kameoka; Danzaemon became the neighbourhood official Dan Naoki; and people engaged in traditional leather-­based activities such as flaying were officially encouraged to modify their labour practices to suit the legislative changes passed by the new government. In such rapidly changing times, all members of the neighbourhood, regardless of socio-­economic background, searched for ways of securing a stable economic base. It should be noted too that these changes were discussed, sanctioned, and implemented with considerable speed and with none of the “murderous violence” and indignation arising from a perceived “violation of the moral economy” found in many other regions.47 As has been pointed out in previous scholarship, Dan Naoki tried his hand at several leather businesses located outside Shinchō during the early Meiji period, although ultimately not successfully, according to one posthumous record documenting his endeavours.48 Quite apart from Dan Naoki’s activities, however, are the less well known cases of other Shinchō elites such as Noguchi Suginosuke and Kobayashi Gonshichi, who also tried their hands at various entrepreneurial activities. Noguchi lived on Plot 13 (nichōme) in Shinchō and has been described variously as a “leather broker second [only] to Takahashi Shōjirō” and as a “Kameoka landowner”.49 Noguchi joined with several people from other neighbourhoods to submit a request to the Tokyo municipal government on 1872.6.25 to establish an organization tentatively labelled the “Leather Association” (Kawa Kaisho) as well as “a factory for making shoes and other leather products”. Noguchi successfully petitioned the Tokyo Metropolitan government to be permitted to establish a company which would utilize animal hides to produce leather products, building on both earlier cross-­status group linkages developed by members of the Shinchō community as well as former outcaste networks.50 Particularly striking is Noguchi’s 1873 request, littered with language about supply and demand, profit, and “national interest” (kokueki), employing concepts committed to economic and industrial growth in his pleadings with the government authorities. Noguchi’s arguments also aimed to persuade the authorities about how capital itself could transform the lives of the

Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo   157 poor, even claiming at one point that his company’s activities would create employment opportunities for the “property-­less poor”.51 Another striking example is that provided by another of Dan Naoki’s former governing assistants, Kobayashi Gonshichi, who was involved in numerous activities including a large land reclamation and development project. Kobayashi lived on Plot 23 (sanchōme) in Shinchō and was a former sub-­leader of Dan Naoki.52 From a document dated 1874.3.17, it is clear Kobayashi (who referred to himself as Dan Naoki’s fudai kerai, or “inner vassal”) had considerable personal wealth, paying 400 yen for a three-­plus acre property in nearby Asakusa Tamachi which was then used for mulberry and tea cultivation.53 Kobayashi’s 1875.7.7 request for approval of another project (one which was ultimately rejected) is astonishing in both its language and scope: I believe what is truly profitable in terms of the national interest is the opening up of barren lands and the cultivation of goods and products. Even if barren lands are opened up, if there is an excess or shortage in water and  land, that effort will be nullified; so if I am permitted a suitable arrangement whereby I am loaned or sold the plots of land mentioned in my separate attachment, I will in turn dredge the places where stones and sand have built up from the Sumida River to Eidaibashi, and use the stones and silt to build up three areas in Nakasu, and grow things there suited to the soil … .54 The year after Kobayashi made the above request, he also addressed the following document to the authorities, suggesting the presence of lingering tensions that existed not only between Shinchō residents and members of surrounding communities, but also between members of the Shinchō elite stratum and the less fortunate within the neighbourhood. Like other “men of influence” (meibōka) during the early Meiji period, Kobayashi was not averse to directing a substantial part of the blame for the lamentable plight of his neighbours to their own backward behaviour and outlook: As for my Kameoka, [there are those] in the quarter who have long been denied human association for several hundred years, looked down upon like beasts. Those people, content with this, do not question their own self-­ loathing and subservient hearts, and very few understand the way to interact normally with others. On top of this, they are stuck in their old customs, continuing to work on official business for adjacent neighbourhoods as well as the ward office and officials from other neighbourhoods. And while there is talk of enlightenment, the outward pressure which forces upon them an inward contempt is too great. Certainly the old label [used to refer to them] is to blame and is something to be regretted. Yet why do they repay the blessing of commoner registration once bestowed on them by returning to former unclean habits? It is because they have foolish and desolate hearts, hardened, fretful, and gloomy at their core.55

158   Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo In an 1874 document, the population of Shinchō was listed at 348 households, and almost 60 per cent of the total income of these households (listed at 28,047 yen 20 sen) was derived from leather production. Income was apparently derived from work done on 12,200 hides which had entered Shinchō in some cases through the same outcaste networks that had been in operation for much of the early modern period. Moreover, a brief comparison of early Meiji period figures for total Asakusa neighbourhood economic output in yen indicates that Shinchō’s undifferentiated per capita income could be as much as three times higher than that of adjacent areas.56 This capital no doubt served to extend the wealth of many of the former elites like Kobayashi. As maps such as the 1880 Complete Enclosure Map of Asakusa’s Kameoka Neighbourhood (Asakusa Kameoka-­chō Zenkaku Zumen) illustrate, more than half the number of total residencies remaining were significantly smaller in size than the residential plots Dan Naoki, Noguchi Suginosuke, and Kobayashi Gonshichi had up to that point occupied.57 That said, however, capital invested in companies and various industries, whether those established by Dan Naoki and Noguchi Suginosuke, which built on expertise in leather production, or those by Kobayashi, which aimed to take advantage of new commercial opportunities, almost certainly also benefited local residents who were often employed in these enterprises. The relevant wealth of the Shinchō neighbourhood compared to surrounding districts facilitated inward labour migration. In 1874, 106 boarder-­labourers (yoritome) lived in Kameoka neighbourhood, a figure that was mid-­range within the surrounding neighbourhoods of Imado (0), Motoyoshi (19), Sanya (96), Hashiba (157), and Yoshino (175).58 Furthermore, the wealth and position of elites were also utilized on occasion to create and maintain schools both inside and outside the community as well as address issues pertaining to difficulties in residents attaining an education.59 Land within Kameoka also began to change hands with increased frequency during the 1870s. Some members of the former elite stratum began to sell their holdings, usually to fellow residents but also on occasion to people outside the community. Earlier in the decade Dan Naoki had been in the unenviable position of having to return a good deal of untaxed land back to the Meiji government, and by 1880 some of this land had already changed hands multiple times. Plot 8 (nichōme) mentioned above, for example, once owned by Dan Naoki, was that year transferred to Sasame Yusuke living in Asakusa’s Yoshino neighbourhood from the Kameoka resident, Higuchi Tabē.60 Also that year, a considerable portion of one of Dan Naoki’s land holdings (Plot 15) was sold off to other local residents.61 Plot 11 (nichōme), moreover, listed as belonging to Kobayashi Gonshichi in 1874, was registered under the name Fujimoto Asa, bought from a certain Koizumi Kunigorō on 1880.2.21.62 These shifts in land ownership coupled with the aforementioned expanded entrepreneurial activity of Shinchō’s elite stratum reveal a neighbourhood in real flux and a rapidly changing role for the former leadership within its structures during the decade of the Meiji period.

Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo   159 Although a lack of extant documentation and perusal restrictions make it difficult to surmise what happened in detail to various members of Shinchō’s elite stratum and their families after this time, there would appear to be enough evidence to support Yokoyama’s claim introduced at the beginning of the chapter that the “capitalists” mentioned above had departed the community by century end. Some members of the elite stratum like Dan Naoki appear to have left no conspicuous wealth to their descendants because of failed enterprises. Others like Kobayashi appear to have eventually moved to a nearby neighbourhood where they continued to pursue their various business undertakings.63 Continued settlement by newcomers as well as land purchases by people outside the community also further facilitated the “normalization” of the community from former outcaste settlement to working class Asakusa neighbourhood, although as Yokoyama’s treatise also makes clear, it took place amid a lingering discrimination wherein residents could be targeted with a compounded form of stigmatization underpinned by a combination of both old and new logics and motivations.

Conclusions Shinchō began its life as a marginalized space in the city of Edo beyond the city limits. The relationship Danzaemon formed with the Tokugawa authorities later in the 17th century, however, whereby he ruled over a highly centralized status group which performed certain duties for the shogunate in return for special privileges, offered a firm basis for economic development. The economic activities of Shinchō residents subsequently intensified and reached a point where extensive city-­wide economic relationships became commonplace. Despite the clear existence of institutional and popular discrimination towards Shinchō residents because of their outcaste status, the Shinchō leadership, in particular Danzaemon, also increasingly mixed with the cultural elite in the 19th century. These cultural activities helped cast both the leadership and the area in which they resided in a very different light. Such cultural capital, once developed, was then used both to help generate further political and economic capital during the late Tokugawa period, and in many ways probably became an important determining factor in the decision to raise Danzaemon and his seventy assistants to commoner status in the late 1860s. At the same time, the highly centralized system of outcaste governance in Shinchō centring on the hereditary figure of Danzaemon clearly set this area apart from its urban counterparts in Osaka and  Kyoto. The pre-­Restoration elevation of the status of Dan Naoki and his many sub-­leaders, moreover, greatly impacted both the speed and smoothness of the later measures introduced to “normalize” the area after the Emancipation Edict. The study of marginalized space in relation to the history of the Edo outcaste order is important, for through it one is able to gain a better understanding of the changing markers of difference that emerged in relation to the main chōri (eta) community in Edo, which was without a doubt the subject of processes of

160   Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo social marginalization. Although this chapter has focused on Edo, there is ample evidence to demonstrate that rural communities also faced similar kinds of marginalizing processes, and that the pathways to modernity for members of the Edo outcaste order were uneven and disparate. Although there is insufficient space to give full treatment to the problem here, modern discourses of difference, in relation to both the external and internal work of construction that transpired to erect ideas of modern Japanese nationality and citizenship, also greatly impacted the spatial and temporal axes of outcaste life, with the latter axis coming to dominate the former in the modern period.64 Concepts such as race and ethnicity, moreover, built on the back of earlier indigenous practices of racialization, were imported and developed to explain a difference that was imagined to exist geographically between nations and societies, and these ideas then combined with concepts such as civilization that increasingly came to frame difference in terms of historical backwardness. Early Meiji government policies, focused on strengthening the military, building up industry, and removing potential eyesores that would denigrate the nation in the eyes of foreign observers, determined that both Shinchō and its residents were urban sites to be “normalized”. Shinchō’s leadership stratum in important ways spoke the same language and indeed shared many of the same aspirations as early Meiji leaders, and they generally weathered the transition from feudal to capitalist state well, although some more successfully than others. Through their commercial endeavours, other settlement residents also began to enjoy economic benefits and a slightly enhanced status within the wider Asakusa area, particularly as older notions of pollution began to recede into the past. Shinchō’s rapid transformation was at an important level facilitated by the development and permeation of capitalism, although the benefits of the economic transformations certainly cannot be said to have trickled through to the lowest strata of the neighbourhood. Yet at an important level, capital also worked to alienate the outcaste underclasses as society responded to these changes with a compounded form of stigmatization, which drew on both old and new discriminatory logics.

Notes   1 Munejirō Murata, Tokyo Chiri Enkaku-­Shi (Tokyo: Inagaki Josaburō, 1890), 423–424.   2 Gennosuke Yokoyama, ed., Yokoyama Gennosuke Zenshū, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Shakai Shisōsha, 2001), 331; Jeffrey Paul Bayliss, On the Margins of Empire: Buraku and Korean Identity in Prewar and Wartime Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013), 53–56.   3 Shōhō Nenchū Edo Ezu. National Archives of Japan Digital Archive, 1853. Available at www.digital.archives.go.jp/das/meta/F1000000000000000827 (accessed 3 March 2019)   4 Korejio Henshūbu, ed., Meireki Edo Ōezu (Kokubunji: Korejio, 2007).   5 Shimpan Edo Ōezu, Unpublished. Available at National Archives of Japan Digital Archive, www.digital.archives.go.jp/das/meta/M2010021620190647005 (accessed 3 March 2019)

Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo   161   6 Zōhō Edo Ōezu: Hitsuji Sangatsu Aratame Goyaku Eiri, 1682. National Diet Library Digital Collection. Available at http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1286182 (accessed 3 March 2019)   7 Edo Hōgaku Anken Zukan, 1680. Waseda University Library. Available at www.wul. waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/ru11/ru11_01312/index.html (accessed 3 March 2019)   8 Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Mibunsei Shakai No Toraekata: Yamakawa Shuppansha Kōkō Nihonshi Kyōkasho Wo Tōshite (Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 2010), 10.   9 Shigeru Yagi, “Yasuike Monjo Kara Mieru Namba Mura Jidai No Watanabe Mura”, Osaka Rekishi Hakubutsukan Kiyō 33 (2001): 10. 10 Nobuyuki Yoshida, Dentō Toshi, Edo (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 2012), 60. 11 I wish to thank Takeshi Moriyama for pointing this out to me in a highly thought-­ provoking email sent some years back. 12 Hiro’o Sekiguchi, “Danzaemon Shihai to Sono Kyōkai”, in “Edo” No Hito To Mibun, ed. Tatsuo Shirakawabe and Eiji Yamamoto (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2010), 162–163. 13 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, ed., Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, 5 vols., vol. 1 (Urawa: Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1977), 194. 14 Kenji Nakao, ed., Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, 3 vols., vol. 2 (Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995), 174. 15 Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Genroku Sekenbanashi Fūbunshū (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1994), 37. 16 Takashi Kato, “Governing Edo”, in Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era, ed. James L. McClain and John M. Merriman (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 45. 17 Asakusa-­Ku, ed., Asakusa-­Kushi, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Bunkaido Shoten, 1914), 739. 18 Takashi Tsukada, Mibunsei Shakai to Shimin Shakai: Kinsei Nihon No Shakai To Hō (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1992); Mibunron Kara Rekishigaku Wo Kangaeru (Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 2000), 52–74. 19 Edo Sōsho Kankōkai, ed., Edo Sōsho, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Edo Sōsho Kankōkai, 1916–1917), 33. 20 Ibid. 21 Kenji Nakao, ed., Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995), 199–201. 22 Edo Shakai To Danzaemon (Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1992), 170–171. 23 Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 202–204. 24 Edo Shakai To Danzaemon, 168. 25 Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 2, 437–446. 26 Ibid., 3: 442–443. 27 Edo Jidai No Sabetsu Gainen: Kinsei No Sabetsu Wo Dō Toraeruka (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1997), 12, 57. 28 Marius B. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), 230. 29 Nakao, Edo Shakai To Danzaemon, 163–166. 30 Keiichi Tanaka, Shibata Shūzō Nikki (Niigata: Chōshikankō I’inkai, 1971), 297–298. 31 Mitake Katsube, ed., Katsu Kaishū Zenshū, vol. 10 (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1978), 37. 32 Gerald Groemer, Street Performers and Society in Urban Japan, 1600–1900: The Beggar’s Gift (Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2016), 94. 33 Yagi, “Yasuike Monjo Kara Mieru Namba Mura Jidai No Watanabe Mura”, 14–15. 34 Noah McCormack, Japan’s Outcaste Abolition: The Struggle for National Inclusion and the Making of the Modern State (New York: Routledge, 2013), 40–41, 127. 35 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 2, 446. 36 Edo Shakai To Danzaemon, 172–173.

162   Urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo 37 Toshiyuki Hatanaka, “Mibun Hikiage To Shūmei Jokyo: ‘Dannaiki Mibun Hikiage Ikken’ No Saikentō”, Ritsumeikan Gengo Bunka Kenkyū, no. 90 (2007): 201. 38 Timothy D. Amos, Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011), 46–47. 39 Nakao, Edo Shakai To Danzaemon, 183. 40 Amos, Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan, 125–126. 41 Ibid., 47; Nakao, Edo Shakai To Danzaemon, 180–181. 42 Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed., Shiryōshū Meiji Shoki Hisabetsu Buraku (Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1986), 256. 43 Ibid., 258–259. 44 Ibid., 259–261. 45 Ibid., 265–266. 46 Ibid., 516; Asakusa Kameoka-­Chō Dan Naoki Haishaku Makari Ari Sōrō Unun. Daisanka, 1874. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 07–011 [D] D038. 47 David Howell, Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-­Century Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 89; Bayliss, On the Margins of Empire: Buraku and Korean Identity in Prewar and Wartime Japan, 35. 48 Nakao, Edo Shakai To Danzaemon, 175–186; Tsuishō No Ken Ko Dan Naoki. Kanbō, 1899. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 32–094 [D] D059. 49 Sen’ichirō Shiomi, Asakusa Danzaemon (Tokyo: Hihyōsha, 1988), 361; Nakao, Edo Shakai To Danzaemon, 188. 50 Edo Shakai To Danzaemon, 188–197. 51 Asakusa Kameoka-­Chō Itchōme Noguchi Suginosuke Hoka Hitori Heigyūba Seizōgaisha Shutsugan Shoken Ōfuku Shorui. Daisanka, 1873. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 06–029 [D] D273. 52 Satoshi Uesugi, “Meiji Yonnen Senminsei Haishirei No Hōteki Naiyō: Sono Shikō Katei No Kenkyū”, Buraku Kaihō Kenkyū 29, no. 3 (1982): 140–141. 53 Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, Shiryōshū Meiji Shoki Hisabetsu Buraku, 465. 54 Ibid., 567; Asakusa Kameoka-­Chō Sanchōme Kobayashi Gonshichi Sumidagawasuji Sankasho Chūsu Onharaisage Mata Wa Haishaku To Ryōsama Negaisagemodoshi. Dai’ikka, 1875. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 08–027 [D] D039. 55 Tomohiko Harada and Satoshi Uesugi, eds., Kindai Burakushi Shiryō Shūsei: Kaihōrei No Seiritsu, vol. 2 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1985), 136. 56 Tokyo-­Fu Shiryō Kan No Nijūni. Tokyo-­Fu, 1872–1875, vol. 22. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, E-­chishirui-085 [35]; Nakao, Edo Shakai To Danzaemon, 168–170. 57 Asakusa Kameoka-­Chō Zenkaku Zumen. Kubukakigae, 1880. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 13–084 [D] D230. 58 Ibid. 59 Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, Shiryōshū Meiji Shoki Hisabetsu Buraku, 383–386, 635–636. 60 Ibid., 516; Asakusa Kuchō E Kameoka-­Chō Chizu No Gi Kaitō. Sozeika, 1880. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 13–010 [D] D226. 61 Asakusa Kameoka-­Chō Zenkaku Zumen. 62 Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, Shiryōshū Meiji Shoki Hisabetsu Buraku, 467; Asakusa Kuchō E Kameoka-­Chō Chizu No Gi Kaitō. 63 Minoru Inagawa, “Kutsu No Rekishi Sanpo”, Kawa To Hakimono, no. 111 (December 2013): 1. 64 Tessa Morris-­Suzuki, Re-­Inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation, Japan in the Modern World (Armonk, New York; London: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), 79–109.

7 Outcaste status and the leather monopoly

Introduction This chapter examines Danzaemon’s monopoly over an item that was central to the formation process and subsequent identity of the Edo outcaste order: leather. Danzaemon and people of chōri (eta) status under his rule in eastern Japan were primarily identified by other members of society in relation to their leatherwork, and as we have seen in the previous chapter, there was potential to earn considerable income from leather procurement and leatherwork. For Shinchō residents, income earned from leatherwork was substantial, listed at about 60 per cent of total neighbourhood income in 1874.1 Seven leather wholesalers and sandal-­making shops were actually located within the grounds of Shinchō in 1810, becoming, moreover, an important indicator of the centrality of leather to chōri life even prior to the 19th century.2 Despite leather production being such an important economic activity within the Edo outcaste order, however, surprisingly little has been written on this economic aspect of Danzaemon rule in relation to the Edo outcaste order. A more comprehensive view of the various activities of Danzaemon and his subordinates is made possible by focusing on leather production. In this chapter, the central focus will be placed on understanding the larger historical transformations that took place in relation to chōri engagement with leather production and what this reveals about the dynamics of outcaste rule. Of particular interest here is examining the ways in which a system built on notions of official duties and privileges as well as occupational monopolies came to be transformed by commerce, market development, and economic enterprise. While this is in many ways an older academic question and paradigm, embedded in such an analysis are important clues about the nature of early modern caste/outcaste society in early modern Japan and the potential for its modern dissolution. Important historical processes underpinned the transformation of outcaste leather-­related activities in early modern Japan. As Morishita Tōru has demonstrated in relation to the stevedores of Osaka, the process of status commodification clearly impelled core changes in early modern society, and such a trend is also conspicuous in the early modern outcaste leather industry in eastern Japan. Both status groups and non-­status groups alike sought a stabilization of labour

164   Outcaste status and the leather monopoly practices that could guarantee some form of economic privilege in early modern Japan. These economic benefits were then developed into privileges (the extent to which one may say “rights” in earlier periods can be debated) which were subsequently commodified by the people involved. With such commodification came a “bifurcation” of actual labour practices and status-­based privileges within a particular social group.3 In the case of leather, these same processes produced numerous contradictions for chōri, including the evolution of non-­chōri-based groups that insisted on engaging in similar pursuits. Moreover, early modern Japan further witnessed a slow evolution in relation to increased labour specialization, which led to the rise of new social groups whose labour and practices in many ways undercut the economic domain of Danzaemon and his subordinates. Conspicuous among these groups were those such as leather-­sandal makers (settatsukuri) and horse traders (bakuro), which engaged in practices that in important ways challenged the logic and practice of the Edo outcaste order.4 A growing demand for leather products over the course of the early modern period, and the emergence of a variety of practices that sought to profit from the private sale of cattle and horses, encouraged a semi-­normalization of the activities required to acquire them.5 Stigmatization of leatherwork and livestock specialists in important respects probably weakened over time, although pollution ideology was still mobilized in different ways to target eta, as seen in earlier chapters. Accompanying these changes, moreover, was a slow transformation in the relationship of rule between the Tokugawa shogunate and Danzaemon from duty-­privilege to duty-­right. Terms such as shokubun (official function) and yakutoku (privilege derived from duty) dominated Edo outcaste order discourse in relation to their specified socio-­economic roles in the early modern social order for much of the Tokugawa period, but notions of kagyō/shogyō/shokugyō (occupation), tose (livelihood), and ribun (profit margin) came to be increasingly utilized by members of chōri communities to refer to their own activities by the end of the period.6 This chapter first outlines the nature of the early modern leather trade in Japan, before highlighting the ways in which leather production in eastern Japan differed from other regions both inside and outside Japan. The chapter next discusses the development of leather production in eastern Japan under Danzaemon rule, with a particular focus on the ways in which the tension between the duty of leather supply to the warrior class and the economic development of the leather trade and its increased profitability engendered important changes in relation to Danzaemon rule. The subsequent section then explores the problem of increased specialization in the leather trade, as well as the emergence of groups which engaged in activities that sought to benefit from the industry. It examines competition between communities within the Edo outcaste order, tensions between centre and periphery, as well as external competition that challenged the livelihoods and monopolies of Danzaemon and his subordinates.

Outcaste status and the leather monopoly   165

Danzaemon’s place in the early modern leather trade As Nobi Shōji has pointed out, there is actually little historical documentation available to help us better understand medieval leather workers and the leather trade; even what we can know about it in relation to the 16th and 17th centuries is quite limited.7 Existing evidence points to a gradual division of labour and specialization, but these processes were unevenly felt across the Japanese archipelago. The leather trade in early modern Japan also developed on the back of various constraints rooted in the emerging status system in the 17th century, but this system, at the same time that it was conceptually coloured with both ongoing and newly arranged ideas of high and low and polluted and non-­ polluted, also generated a system of privileges which came to be protected by status.8 Leather was in high demand among medieval warriors and its demand intensified during the period of warring states. During this period it was primarily a military good; 16th century warlords sought to monopolize leather production within their territories, with most decrees stipulating that leather was not to cross territorial domain borders. Leather workers were grouped together, required to supply leather exclusively to their lord, and forbidden from moving to other regions. By the beginning of the early modern period, a division of labour between flaying and simple leatherwork on the one hand, and fully fledged artisanal crafting of leather on the other, was also taking place, albeit differentially, in areas outside central Japan. The former activities were still widely considered polluting, associated as they were with the polluting effects of death, but the latter tasks began to emerge as a relatively stigma-­free artisanal trade. Noted regional differences existed of course, such as the division of labour taking place within the eta status group in early modern Kyoto in contrast to that between separate status groups in places like the developing city of Edo.9 Constraints placed on leather production in the 17th century continued to emerge out of local practices rooted in ideological convictions about the stigmatized acts of skinning, flaying, and tanning. Some of these ideologically driven social practices had longer histories, while some are perhaps best conceived of as newly emergent, or at the very least practices given a new lease of life in the changing political climate of the late 17th century. It appears, for example, that there was a medieval superstition concerning leather skin procurement during daylight hours – how widespread this was is difficult to determine – and that such a superstition was clearly reinforced or resurrected in some areas, including Minami Ōji village in Izumi Province in the late 17th century, a practice that apparently continued until the end of the early modern period.10 This was, of course, only one of the ways in which local leather procurement and production were socially constrained at this time. Available evidence, again mostly from central Japan, points to kawata (eta) communities often having to produce and transport hides according to the whims and demands of nearby peasant communities, being forbidden to take certain routes between places and prohibited from tanning hides in certain locations.11

166   Outcaste status and the leather monopoly Leather procurement and production in 17th century Japan was not merely a domestic affair, however; this period coincides with the commencement of a striking international deerskin trade, one that Japan was included in primarily as an importing territory. Japan imported considerable amounts of leather that included cow, shark, bird, and deer skins, as well as already procured skins, in the second quarter of the 17th century. Almost 276,217 deerskins from Siam (Thailand), Cambodia, and Taiwan were reported to have entered the port of Nagasaki through the Dutch trade in the year 1638 alone. Moreover, at least some of the treated hides entering Nagasaki originated from the Coromandel Coast, indicating that the skin trade had linked southern Indian and Japanese outcastes in a productive network by the 17th century.12 Skins also entered Japan through other trade windows such as Korea via Tsushima. As Tsukada Takashi has pointed out, one of the most important import items for Tsushima Domain from the late 18th century was cow hide. In unprofitable years, Tsushima imported about 11,000 skins, but in good years this number could reach as high as 25,000 skins, and evidence suggests Tsushima was always looking to expand this trade.13 Tsukada argues that such import expansion was at least initially linked to a growth in the domestic leather­sandal (setta) market.14 When sourcing the skins, it appears that Tsushima Domain officials working at the Japanese mission (yamatokan) in Pusan relied on Korean merchant traders with nation-­wide networks who dealt with the Baekjeong, a group strikingly similar to the eta in Korea and responsible for hide production.15 Furthermore, many of the imported skins ended up in Osaka’s main outcaste settlement, Watanabe village, again indicating that the leather trade was linking Korean and Japanese outcaste communities within a larger productive network economy in the 19th century. Osaka’s Watanabe village was at the epicentre of the early modern leather trade in Japan. A record written in a later period suggests that in the early 18th century about four times as many overseas skins as those produced locally were coming into Watanabe village.16 In 1842, the Osaka City Magistrate, Abe Shōzō, claimed that 100,000 skins from central Japan and the provinces further west annually entered Watanabe village, and that despite the famines in recent years, it was still processing 70,000 skins annually.17 A later record from 1862 indicates that there were twelve leather wholesalers within Watanabe village, and that representatives from these wholesalers went to Nagasaki annually to attend auctions for leather, staying in the houses of townspeople in Nagasaki while making their purchases.18 In the early years, these merchants purchased large numbers of deer, cow, and shark skins, but it is likely that, as Anan Shigeyuki has pointed out, the focus over time shifted from skins obtained through international trade to skins acquired domestically.19 Although cows were the primary source of leather procurement in western Japan, the numbers of bovine skins procured in eastern Japan paled in comparison to horse hides.20 This division was one with a long history. With the rise of warrior clans in late antiquity, numerous farms designed for the specific purpose of raising warhorses for important families emerged in the eastern provinces.

Outcaste status and the leather monopoly   167 These territories, moreover, probably had links to an “international horse trade”.21 Horse markets also emerged in the central cities of Kyoto and Nara, but these animals primarily came from the northeast. Warriors in the northern provinces, particularly Nanbu, sent large numbers of horses as a kind of quasi-­ tribute to the Ashikaga shogun, serving as an important basis for the forging of political and cultural ties.22 Horses were also used in the transportation of goods across land, and elite warriors and court nobles made great efforts to secure lands in different localities for the maintenance of horses. While clearly weapons of war and a crucial means of enhancing economic production, horses nonetheless remained potent objects of political and religious symbolism, as did their hides.23 Minegishi Kentarō’s work on documents related to 16th century leather production in the wider Kantō area indicates that warring-­states-period daimyo listed their demands for leather from groups (variously called kawata, kawaya, and kawazukuri and usually associated directly with later eta communities) as leather duties (kawa no yaku), urgent duties (kyūyō), and official duties (kōhō goyō), and that payment was made to these groups based on a fixed rate for each type of hide.24 While it is impossible to know the frequency with which these orders were made, it is probably the case that warriors exerted a monopoly grip over leather in the regions in which they governed, and that the numbers of skins sold privately by leatherworkers remained comparatively small. Unified control over large swathes of eastern Japan was initially made possible by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who toppled the Odawara Hōjō and some of the other smaller regional warlords.25 Although little can be directly known about the process, the Tokugawa affirmed Danzaemon’s Edo-­based community in the first part of the 17th century in two basic ways: as a leather-­producing outcaste community within a fixed location in a developing urban centre; and as a leather-­producing, trans-­regional status group with which the shogunate forged a special relationship of rule involving various duties and privileges. The relative lack of skins available in the immediate Edo vicinity for military use probably meant that Danzaemon needed to source skins from regional leatherworkers to meet shogunate demand. This sourcing (and the need to maintain a constant supply of leather) was an important initial catalyst that prompted a more formalized relationship of rule to emerge between Danzaemon and further outlying leather-­producing communities. Minegishi further describes a process by which leather-­producing groups in eastern Japan became captive in their occupations through the restrictive policies of feudal lords. Of course Danzaemon initially probably did have regional competitors, such as the little-­understood figure of Tarōzaemon, and it was certainly never a foregone conclusion that a chief with the official title of Danzaemon would emerge as a successful victor during a struggle with other regional leatherwork group leaders in the attempt to monopolize the production of leather in the early 17th century.26 Receiving the official backing of the Tokugawa shogunate, moreover, was clearly what allowed Danzaemon to emerge as the solitary ruler of chōri (eta) in eastern Japan. It was also a process that

168   Outcaste status and the leather monopoly included bringing regional tanners such as Lower Wana village’s Suzuki family under centralized rule through a formalization of relationships, and involved arranging these relationships into a hierarchy that probably in some cases existed in embryonic form prior to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo.27 All chōri households were required to pay a fixed household tax to Danzaemon every year (ie betsuyaku gin). Those who derived profit because they secured rights to engage in local leather procurement through their day rights were also required to pay a “workplace tax” or “bridle tax” (shokuba nengu gin/ hanzuna); and a tax was also levied on each skin that was actually procured (gyūbakawa kuchigin). Rural hinin were also required to pay Danzaemon a “hut duty tax” (koyayaku gin), which presumably offered them a portion of the income they derived through their activities as a hinin resident operating within chōri territory. Chōri involved in the production of the raw materials for candle-­ wick production also submitted most of their wares to Danzaemon in kind, which were then sold in Edo. In addition to this fixed income derived from rural sources, Danzaemon also received taxes from other groups whom he governed through community group heads. He received, for example, a “hut duty” (koyayaku gin) tax in Edo which was collected by the hinin leaders. Some taxes, initially submitted in kind, over time came to be paid in cash; the “bridle tax”, initially linked to Danzaemon’s official tribute of horse bridles to the shogunate, for example, became an annual tax paid in silver by his subordinates probably at some time during the 18th century.28 It also appears that Danzaemon received “operational charges” (unjōgin) from local chōri who were managing day rights that had been confiscated from other chōri due to criminal offences.29

Official duties and commercial developments Early 17th century references to leather workers, such as those found in Vocabulario Da Lingoa De Iapam (Japanese–Portuguese Dictionary), list “yetta” as those “poor people who skin dead horses and oxen and make various things with the skins”, while acknowledging that they also often had other duties.30 Such skins were clearly valuable. Living horses were certainly valuable: one 17th century philosopher cautioned samurai to take good care of their horses, labelling them as the “legs of men of mettle”.31 Even in death, however, horse skins were utilized in the production of products such as war drums that were vital to the functioning of the military. By the beginning of the early modern period, the division of labour between flaying and simple leatherwork on the one hand, and fully fledged artisanal crafting of leather on the other, was becoming more pronounced than ever in ever-­broadening expanses of the country. Increased demand for leather in the preceding century had helped accelerate this process. The former activities were still widely considered polluting, associated as they were with death and the pollution that this was perceived to bring, but skilled leatherwork was increasingly also seen as a fully fledged artisanal endeavour. Japanese engagement with overseas hides and leather products probably provided

Outcaste status and the leather monopoly   169 increased opportunities to consider leatherwork as a more widely practised artisanal craft that relied on various specialized techniques. The official statements Danzaemon Chikamura (r.1709–1748) issued to the ruling authorities specified that leather procurement and supply to the shogunate itself was a crucial part of official chōri duties. As seen in Chapter 4, the earliest list of chōri duties supplied by Danzaemon to the shogunate was the document penned by Chikamura in 1725. Confining the discussion here to relevant articles about leather contained in those records, Chikamura elaborated on the official duties (onyaku/goyō/yakume) he performed, stating that he supplied bridles for horses from the shogunate stables. He also claimed that the supply of certain leather products fell into his field of official duties, listing among them the reskinning of drums, as well as leatherwork for military personnel (gojin no kawa goyō), which apparently involved first taking receipt of a copy of a desired leather item and then commencing work to produce something comparable.32 Leather procurement and supply to the shogunate was clearly considered by Chikamura as one of several actions that he performed for the shogunate which determined his place in the Tokugawa political and social order. But Chikamura and subsequent Danzaemon heads also simultaneously recognized that these actions were rooted in hereditary occupations; 18th century documents usually refer to it as “shokubun”, a term difficult to translate but perhaps best rendered as something like official function or occupational obligation/responsibility rooted in hereditary practice.33 This official function, of course, was not merely part of an arbitrary reformulation of a relationship already present in nascent form in the period of warring states. The Tokugawa shogunate further defined this relationship through subsequent measures that produced an early modern political and social order embedded in a more formalized system of duties and privileges. As seen in Chapter 2, the “workplace” (shokuba) in which early modern leather workers in eastern Japan operated also preceded the emergence of the early modern political and social order, as did many of the groups themselves. Medieval leatherworking groups were organized around their common occupation even before the promulgation of dictates by warring states daimyo.34 When procuring skins, leatherworkers in the 16th century engaged in a range of rendering activities including flaying and tanning hides that were then sold to local warrior lords. On occasion, local warlords also ordered that skins already in their possession be handed over to leatherworkers for dressing, tanning, and reworking into specified products.35 These activities historically underpinned the occupation of leatherworkers, and continued to comprise the basis for their occupation in the early modern period as well. In Chikamura’s aforementioned statement, however, the emphasis was placed not so much on the delivery of skins per se, but on the supply of certain secondary products made from leather to the authorities. Moreover, the production and supply of these leather goods were themselves only one function within an expanding array of official functions that chōri were required to perform.

170   Outcaste status and the leather monopoly The day-­to-day mechanics of leather procurement at the village level have been described in Chapter 2. What happened after the skins had been locally procured is more difficult to discover. In other regional domains such as Kaga in the early part of the Tokugawa period, officials simply issued a statement to local kawata leaders about how many skins they needed, and it was apparently the responsibility of those leaders to supply the stipulated number.36 It is likely that this was also the practice of the shogunate in the 17th century as well, meaning that the delivery of hides to Danzaemon to permit the fulfilment of official duties was probably standard practice during this period. In addition, a smattering of examples of local eta (chōri) communities in private domains providing bridles, horse nose-­guards, and similar such products to their local lords during the late 17th century, suggests that payment of taxation in kind was also commonplace during the initial period around the time of the establishment of the Edo outcaste order. These examples also reveal that not all leather was actually leaving rural outcaste villages in eastern Japan – at least some of it was being reworked into products that when not offered as tribute to local lords may have been sold commercially to supplement income.37 This said, Danzaemon rule was also based on the obligation of local chōri (eta) to supply him with hides from their communities, and Danzaemon’s clear insistence on this principle continued right through to the end of the early modern period. Danzaemon Chikashige (r.1793–1804), in 1803, for example, appealed against the practice of peasants burying the dead carcasses of animals on their land, stating that chōri livelihood was being endangered. Danzaemon went on to argue that although chōri under his jurisdiction did perform many duties such as farming and execution guard duties, they derived their livelihoods predominantly from leather production. All chōri, he argued, would starve if this practice was permitted to continue.38 In an 1851 memo from Danzaemon Chikayasu (r.1840–1871) to the Edo City Magistrate, moreover, a concern was raised about incorrect disposal of an animal carcass by an urban warrior official household. In this document, the last Danzaemon, Chikayasu, argued that the aforementioned sourcing practice applied just as much to Edo as to rural villages.39 While few studies can help give a sense of the overall size of the business of leather hide acquisition within the Edo outcaste order, the number has been listed by one reference work as 10,000 skins per annum.40 If this figure is accurate, it is possible to speculate that the leather trade under Danzaemon was roughly one-­tenth the size of that taking place in Watanabe village at its height, meaning that leather acquisition was probably a negligible source of income for the majority of chōri (eta) subordinates living in regional centres in eastern Japan. Just taking the case of Lower Wana village as an example, when the number of people with day rights (Table 7.1) is juxtaposed with the total village population (Table 7.2), it is clear that only a handful of members of the chōri community could have directly benefited from leather procurement and supply. Given the propensity for these rights to become increasingly split between community members over time, and the fact that people from outside the village

Table 7.1  Eighteenth century changes in “day rights” (Banichi), Lower Wana village 1748

1781

1794

Day

Right holder

Day

Right holder

Day

Right holder

1st to the 5th 6th to the 9th 10th to the 13th 14th to the 16th 17th to the 19th

Jin’emon Hanshichi Tokubee Hikojirō Heiemon

1st to the 4th 5th to the 8th 9th to the 11th 12th to the 13th 14th to the 16th

Jin’emon Mohachi / Sōhachi Yaheiji Yahachi / Rihachi Hikojirō

1st to the 4th 5th to the 8th 9th to the 11th 12th to the 13th 14th to the 16th

20th to the 21st 24th to the 26th 27th to mo. end

Sebee San’emon Den’emon

17th to the 19th 20th to the 22nd 23rd to the 25th 26th to mo. end

Giemon Jin’emon Jin’emon / Sōemon Sebee / Jin’emon / Heihachi / Motoemon (Kumeta village) / Mataemon (Kumeta village) / Sōemon

17th to the 19th 20th to the 22nd 23rd to the 25th 26th to mo. end

Jin’emon / Kojirō Mohachi / Sōhachi Yaheiji / Jin’emon / Shōjirō Yahachi / Rihachi Gentarō / Genroku / Tomoemon / Yohee Kuhachi Jin’emon Jin’emon / Shinzo Yaheiji / Jin’emon / Heihachi / Motoemon / Mataemon / Shinzo / Genroku

Source: “Shokuba”, in SDKK, ed., Suzuki-Ke Monjo: Saitama-Ken Buraku Mondai Kankei Shiryōshū, vol. 1; Suzuki-Ke Monjo, #224

Table 7.2  Chōri population of Lower Wana village, 1766–1795 Year

1766 1768 1778 1783 1784 1786 1787 1789 1791 1792 1795

Under 15

15–60

Above 60

Households

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

15 14 12  9  9 10 14 13 11 11 19

 7  8 16 15 16 16 13 15 17 17 16

30 33 40 42 43 42 33 34 29 30 28

35 32 34 40 39 38 39 35 31 34 37

3 3 7 7 5 7 8 10 9 8 12

2 4 5 7 8 6 10 10 9 10 8

17 22 22 23 23 23 23 23 21 21 21

Total population Male

Female

48 50 59 58 58 58 58 57 53 50 62

44 47 55 62 65 57 61 60 64 63 62

Total

  92   97 114 120 123 115 119 117 117 113 124

Source: “Suzuki-Ke Monjo Shūmon Aratamechō”, in Saitama-Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, ed.,Suzuki-Ke Monjo: Saitama-Ken Buraku Mondai Kankei Shiryōshū, vol. 3; Suzuki-Ke Monjo, #155, #183

Outcaste status and the leather monopoly   173 also came to hold these rights, it is probably safe to conclude that only powerful regional tanners and entrepreneurs or Shinchō residents stood to really profit from leather procurement and supply in eastern Japan. The majority of chōri under Danzaemon’s governance most likely made the majority of their income through agriculture, a pursuit from which Danzaemon could not really extract any direct benefit. Some subordinates were able to earn income from the skins and the leftover parts of the animals they flayed, while others branched out into closely associated industries such as sandal-­making. Although documentation is scarce, at least some skins stayed in rural outcaste communities. The leather broker Hayashiya from Kuragano, for example, operated well outside of his home workplace to buy up a range of horse, deer, and boar skins and animal parts from right across the northern Kantō area. These items were probably not sold to Danzaemon’s leather wholesalers in Asakusa: all evidence points to the likelihood of them being sold to chōri groups that required skins and animal parts for their own secondary industries.41 Toriyama Hiroshi also notes that a chōri made his way from Hachiōji (Musashi) to Oiso (Sagami) in 1859 to buy leather and that this individual was a “prior acquaintance” of another member of the community, offering further possible evidence of the existence of a broader leather trading commercial network in that part of the Edo outcaste order.42 With regard to the remaining parts of the animal carcass after leather was procured, several documents from Lower Wana village hint at what was being extracted and reused. Orders were issued strictly forbidding or severely restricting the permissible routes for the sale of cow horns, hair, horse nails, and leather, indicating that side industries had developed as a result of the official duties of flaying animal carcasses.43 Jin’emon from Lower Wana village also developed a successful side business involving the sale of medical cures for illnesses including venereal diseases such as syphilis, and Minegishi surmises that the sale of cures was a significant contributing factor in permitting him to accumulate a considerable amount of land and wealth during the last quarter of the 18th century.44 While it is unclear whether parts of cows and horses carcasses made their way into Jin’emon’s medicinal blends, the possibility seems high given the practice of bezoar extraction for such purposes in other kawata communities.45 Nor does this appear to have been an isolated case: Hachirōemon, a chōri from Oiso in Sagami province, also produced popular medical potions that apparently included customers from Edo.46 The commercial relations Danzaemon built with urban leather workers through his wholesalers located in Shinchō, as well as the money extracted from the wholesalers themselves, grew in significance over time.47 What the exact relationship was between Danzaemon and the Shinchō-based wholesalers is uncertain, but as mentioned in the previous chapter, late Tokugawa records indicate that a large proportion of Danzaemon debt originated in loans received from these wholesalers.48 Such indebtedness clearly had the potential to alter the power dynamics within the Edo outcaste order. But attempts by regional chōri to expand their own economic base in relation to the leather trade also

174   Outcaste status and the leather monopoly destabilized centre-­periphery relations. Acquiring and supplying leather as an official duty was a practice that was rapidly transformed during the 18th century by such economic developments. A growing demand for leather products in Edo and the development of a commercial rural economy for objects such as leather sandals began to heavily impact the relationship between Danzaemon and his subordinates. While exact records concerning prices are difficult to come by, Arimoto notes that the price for hides in eastern Japan was originally about one-­fifth to one-­sixth the price of that in western Japan, but that the overwhelming trend in eastern Japan in the second half of the Tokugawa period was for a significant increase in leather hide prices. Arimoto further notes, for example, that the price of horse hides quadrupled in Matsumoto Domain between the years 1773 and 1821, but that in general, horse hides still remained worth only about two-­thirds the value of cow hides throughout the Tokugawa period in eastern Japan.49 Chōri worked out ways of profiting from this booming sector of the early modern economy, even if it came at Shinchō’s expense. In the 1784.2 Chōri Statutes, Danzaemon Chikamasu expressed concern that he had heard reports that “leather fees” or “labour costs” were being demanded when horses and cows owned by peasants were burnt to death during fires or when they were drowned in floods and the owners requested chōri to dispose of the carcasses. Chikamasu reprimanded his chōri subordinates for these actions, declaring that such incidents were different in nature to when an animal simply fell ill or collapsed on the side of the road. Chikamasu argued that when hinin flayed the carcass and chōri used the hide to make certain things, they were merely carrying out their official functions (shokubun), and that they should not demand extra money depending on the state of the carcass. Danzaemon also reminded his subordinates that they “should not buy up ailing beasts and make them collapse so that they could skin them”, suggesting the emergence of new local practices designed to maximize profits such as encouraging the premature demise of cattle and horses.50 In 1791, the Danzaemon office issued another circular notifying subordinates that due to inflation, the shogunate had ordered that all leather prices should come down by 20 to 30 per cent, and that eta villagers should sell their products accordingly. Shogunate price controls also clearly impacted the profits chōri could generate from leather procurement, supply, and secondary production. Local chōri (eta) were ordered to sell their leather and products to Danzaemon’s wholesalers at the newly stipulated prices, and villagers were forbidden to sell their leather produce directly to other people or to buy and sell among themselves in the village. As if to reinforce his position at the top of the Edo outcaste order, Danzaemon referred to himself in this document as the “honourable source of duty” (onyakumoto).51 Such orders, however, are probably best seen as indications that the stipulated route for leather procurement and supply within the Edo outcaste order was perhaps basically being ignored, and with increasing frequency. As I have highlighted elsewhere, one late 18th century incident pertaining to a stage production (hana shibai) was in fact an

Outcaste status and the leather monopoly   175 elaborate ruse concocted by a local eta (chōri) village leader in Musashi Province and a Danzaemon official to line their own pockets, with the scandal involving the imprisonment of the Lower Wana village head when he tried to act as whistle-­blower.52 Such tensions between the central ruling bodies in Asakusa and rural chōri chiefs became more conspicuous precisely because wealth was beginning to pool among some of the rural village leadership stratum and was not making its way to the political centre of the outcaste order. Commodification of various aspects of the leather procurement process also emerged in the latter half of the Tokugawa period. In response to an 1833 request for information about what to do with the property of eta (chōri) convicted of crimes that involved confiscation, for example, Danzaemon Chikamori (r.1829–1838) noted that the workplace was a place for flaying cattle hides and begging among the peasants, with the day rights being labelled by local eta as “stock” (kabushiki). Chikamori noted that in the event that one of his subordinates had their property confiscated, he would take care of the sequestration himself and then entrust the right to the local chōri head with an operational charge paid to him in silver (unjōgin). Chikamori further noted that when chōri leaders had their goods confiscated, the workplace was to be entrusted to the village representative or the nearest village sub-­chief until a suitable successor was appointed.53 These documents illustrate the reality of the bifurcation of status in eastern Japan. As McCormack has noted, “An important trend in leather production through the Tokugawa period was the gradual accumulation of stock rights not just by one or two prominent members of each community, but also by one or two communities in a wider area.”54 Workplace day rights were originally privileges that came to members of chōri communities as a result of their belonging to an occupational community and their assent to work within a hierarchical system which required them to perform certain duties for Danzaemon and fulfil certain obligations within the resident village itself. In the process of bifurcation, however, status-­embedded rights came to be severed from their association with a particular chōri group, and were bought and sold more generally as transferable rights that were economically of value and able to produce profit. As can be seen in Table 7.1, moreover, residents of different villages over time also came to purchase day rights for Lower Wana village’s workplace. Rural chōri economic activities continued to threaten the stability of the Edo outcaste order right through the 19th century. Refusal to pay taxes and underreporting income was identified by Danzaemon as a problem among his rural chōri households. Chikayasu wrote specifically to censure the regional actions of chōri who were contributing to the breakdown of the order in these ways in 1857: I insisted last year that the silver tax for cow and horse carcasses be paid by all of my subordinates, and after that the subsequent tax payments were in fact paid in full. But I hear that these payments were made by some who are engaging in secret buying and selling and therefore they are not [in fact]

176   Outcaste status and the leather monopoly fully paying their taxes. This is disgraceful. Even as I know that there should not be such people, as I have [now] caught wind of it, I order that when discovered these eta should be reprimanded, and after careful investigation, they be set back on the right track. I also hear reports that cow horns, horse hooves and tails, and the like, are secretly sold to commoners. This kind of thing should also be corrected. Particularly admonish those in Shimotsuke, Kōzuke, and Musashi provinces.55 While the refusal to pay taxes to Chikayasu is an intriguing problem in and of itself, the larger point is that the economic activities of regional chōri in relation to leather production came to destabilize Danzaemon rule and the Edo outcaste order. Local chōri communities worked out ways to extend their incomes by moving beyond flaying, skinning, and tanning to engage in secondary industries related to leather work as well as side industries that utilized remaining animal parts. Members of rural chōri communities saw opportunities to apply a range of charges for services that were not covered in official legislation. Entrepreneurial chōri found ways of profiting from the leather and animal parts trade by circumventing the regulations pertaining to cow and horse hides, and entered into markets for skins and animal parts that had not been regulated by Danzaemon or the shogunate. Leather wholesalers, originally designated to be the pooling point for hides that were handed up to the shogun, also made profits from the selling and working of surplus skins in ways that increased their own wealth but not necessarily that of Danzaemon. Moreover, Danzaemon became indebted to these wholesalers, and it appears that they also came to wield a certain amount of political power within the Edo outcaste order as a result.

Complications and competition in outcaste production The above processes were at the same time exacerbated by both inter-­chōri competition and the emergence of rival groups that engaged in economic activities challenging the ordinary functioning of the Edo outcaste order. Leather was valuable and its price and value continued to rise during the second half of the Tokugawa period, although not perhaps at the rate Danzaemon would have desired. The industry was important enough, moreover, that the shogunate also engaged in price control policies in relation to leather. Industries associated with leather, even those sometimes at some relational distance such as bamboo sheath (takekawa) production, came into the sphere of chōri (eta) economic production. And as they became a promising source of profit, non-­outcaste communities or other marginalized groups also entered these markets in search of similar returns. Outcastes came to work closely with horse handlers (bakurō) from at least the middle of the 18th century in eastern Japan, either identifying and delivering ailing horses to these specialists or working at these professions themselves. In Lower Wana village, the village elders Jin’emon and Sebē recorded in 1759 that the outcaste leader Danzaemon had been notified nineteen years earlier

Outcaste status and the leather monopoly   177 that twelve local villages in their regional communities had set up a specialist group of horse handlers (nakama bakurō). Danzaemon appeared to have been in agreement with the decision, and a set of laws (hatto) were summarily drawn up. Two horse handlers located in the villages of Takō and Yatsubayashi were eventually approved by the twelve villages in the greater Wana area, and local outcaste residents identified and delivered sick horses to these men. The 1759 document, however, also effectively served as a complaint by the Lower Wana residents to Danzaemon, protesting that local residents were not following the stipulated rules and were thereby denying local chōri a valuable source of extra income.56 It is clear that in some cases these horse handlers must have emerged from the ranks of the chōri themselves – this is certainly the case in relation to Hachibē from Ueno village (Gunma) whose skills as a discerner of good horses apparently led to nearby peasant villagers requesting his services. After being turned away from a sale at a horse wholesale yard because of his eta status in 1800, Hachibē appealed to Danzaemon with the backing of his local chōri sub-­chiefs and was eventually granted permission to engage in uninhibited horse trading.57 An important late 18th century case from Hitachi province offers a window into the frequency with which various groups sometimes tried to gain access to markets that were claimed by chōri groups as monopolies originating out of performance of official duties. In this 1793–1794 case, “outsider villagers” (gaison no mono) attempted to enter into various industries the local chōri in Yuki township in Hitachi Province insisted were their own exclusive preserve. The incident is difficult to interpret at points, but the basic gist of the case is that the chōri leader Gon’emon and some of his fellow Yabushita villagers had been summoned by the domain lord because the market monopoly they held over certain items was alleged to have led to the impoverishment of other chōri both inside and outside the village. In his own defence, Gon’emon claimed that more than two hundred years earlier they had received the right to produce and sell bamboo sandals, whetstones, and evil-­dispelling bows (decorative bows sold as lucky charms at New Year) at the market in exchange for the performance of fire patrol, torture, and execution duties (which they actually made hinin perform in the castle town). About a century later, they had been informed by the domain lord that they had now been given the exclusive right to produce and sell bamboo sandals, whetstones, and evil-­dispelling bows at the market instead of receiving a fixed stipend from the domain. In 1743, however, chōri villagers from Oyama Domain also made an attempt to engage in these trades, as did another nearby chōri village in 1760. Due to an absence of documentation attesting to the fact that Yabushita had in fact been awarded exclusive rights in place of a domainal stipend, eleven other outside villages were thereafter permitted to sell straw sandals at the Yuki town market.58 In an interesting twist to the above case, Danzaemon Chikashige (r.1793–1804) was also subsequently approached to answer a question raised by the same local domain lord to the Edo City Magistrate about the possibility of peasants and townspeople also engaging in making bamboo sandals, bamboo

178   Outcaste status and the leather monopoly hats, straw sandals reinforced with leather, evil-­dispelling bows and arrows, and candle wicks. On 1794.2.20, Chikashige informed the Edo City Magistrate that the making of bamboo-­sheath sandals and sandal reinforcement remained the exclusive preserve of his subordinates, and that when a peasant or townsperson was found to be engaging in these tasks, a complaint was made and the action stopped. Danzaemon made an argument based on the fact that farmers and townspeople had other main occupations whereas people under his rule did not – “making a living through leather and sandals” (kawarui narabini zōrinado tose) was all they had. He acknowledged that people under his rule did have some agricultural land, but that what was earned through that was insufficient, and that even what was earned through leatherwork was negligible. Chikashige requested that the shogunate authorize bamboo sheath-­based sandal production as well as sandal leather reinforcement to be the exclusive preserve of his chōri subordinates. Chikashige also expressed concern in relation to bamboo hat production, especially in relation to the possibility that diverting bamboo sheaths to hat-­making would decrease the supply necessary for sandal production for his subordinates, which was already minimal in eastern Japan. Chikashige also acknowledged that his subordinates did not make ceremonial evil-­dispelling bows, although some communities under his rule were engaged in production of the arrows, and they did this in addition to trades such as sandal-­making.59 In sum, it is clear from Chikashige’s response that he was opposed to peasant and townsperson engagement in the kinds of tasks that the upper leadership stratum of Yabushita village claimed were their exclusive right and preserve. While the Edo City Magistrate ultimately ended up permitting peasants and townspeople to involve themselves in the production of evil-­dispelling bows, they nonetheless recognized that the other activities were the “official function” (shokubun) of chōri under Danzaemon rule.60 In the above case, numerous challenges were issued to a chōri market monopoly in northern Kantō from groups both inside and outside the Edo outcaste order, beginning from the early decades of the 18th century. By the 19th century, chōri encroaching on the blossoming economic activities of other chōri seems to have been reasonably commonplace. These activities worked to create numerous tensions between the centre and peripheries of the Edo outcaste order. Minegishi notes that in 1796 Danzaemon Chikashige (r.1793–1804) forbade local chōri from making straw sandals and trying to sell them independently in Edo. The following year, however, probably because the above law was having little or no effect, Danzaemon ordered chōri to utilize bamboo sheaths for the straps of sandals and only horse leather for the soles, an action Minegishi interprets as an attempt by Danzaemon to protect the upper end of the sandal market which would still permit Shinchō’s monopoly of more expensive and therefore lucrative cow hides. This ruling drew a complaint from a cluster of chōri villages in Musashi, however, who subsequently secured permission to again utilize leather for the straps as well.61 In 1810, Danzaemon Chikamasa established the seven sandal wholesalers in Shincho and ordered regional chōri to sell only to them, excepting the small

Outcaste status and the leather monopoly   179 amount that they could move in their village and at local markets, although the relative success of this new policy is also debatable, as Minegishi notes.62 Tensions further arose in relation to taiko drum production and reskinning. The taiko drum guild in Shinchō expressly forbade chōri in Fujisawa (Sagami) from engaging in “taiko carpentry” (taiko daiku), for example, declaring that “henceforth, rural communities shall certainly not engage in new practices, including the reskinning of drums and the like.”63 Commoners also came to infringe on the economic rights and monopolies of chōri in the latter half of the Tokugawa period. The so-­called Musashi Sandal Strap Disturbance (or, as Herman Ooms labelled it, the “The Clog Thongs Riot”) of 1843 was in many ways a peasant backlash to a growth in both scale and scope of eta economic activity.64 As Ooms notes, the catalyst for the incident was a chōri villager by the name of Tatsugorō from Nagase village in Musashi Province being harassed by commoners when he attempted to sell leftover straps (hanao) for sandals at a market in Ogoseimaichi village to a certain Hinoya Kihē. Forced to sell his straps at a heavily reduced rate, Tatsugorō returned to his home village and eventually with a group of chōri went and forced their way into Hinoya’s home. The tense situation settled for a brief time, but lawsuits were filed with the Kantō Bureau of Investigations, and Danzaemon’s chōri were subsequently banned from the aforementioned market. The incident further blew up, however, after a group of peasants took it upon themselves to go into the chōri village and take Tatsugorō into their custody. This led to a rounding up of the perpetrators by approximately 500 armed chōri in response. Eventually the peasants were released, but a heavy-­handed official from Edo soon arrived and mobilized large numbers of peasants to round up chōri and escort them to the prison in Edo, where they waited two years for a trial and verdict. In the end, 102 chōri were sentenced (Tatsugorō was sentenced to medium deportation after flogging), while only a handful of peasants were found guilty and sentenced. The removal of chōri from local markets was occurring elsewhere during the 19th century as well. Lower Wana villagers, for example, were forbidden to sell their wares in the Kōnosu postal town in 1864 upon threat of fine.65 But attempts to restrict chōri economic activity were not simply limited to access issues; commoners could and would on occasion proactively look to benefit by utilizing resources that were supposed to be the chōri’s exclusive preserve. One particularly intriguing example in this regard is the phenomenon of kiriarashi, or the indiscriminate cutting up of an animal carcass. One documented example of this pertains to an incident from 1849 when a chōri villager by the name of Ubē complained about neighbouring peasants appearing to cut meat off a dead cow carcass. There are numerous interesting features in the complaint Ubē made to the authorities, such as the hinin in charge of skinning the carcass being referred to as a “flaying official” (kawatori yakunin), but perhaps the most instructive part of the complaint is the statement of the peasants’ purported motive: a desire to obtain beef for medicinal purposes.66

180   Outcaste status and the leather monopoly

Conclusions Danzaemon Chikamasa informed the Tokugawa shogunate in 1819.2 that “those eta under my rule both in and outside the eight provinces of Kantō put cow and horse leather on the back of sandals, fix drums, and sell candle wicks; they also own rice lands and pay taxes to make a living.” This statement, while still somewhat incomplete as a picture of the fuller picture of outcaste economic activities, nonetheless provides a list that included secondary work such as sandal-­making as an important industry for chōri.67 Throughout the early modern period, leather procurement and official supply remained one of the most defining official duties of chōri (eta) within the Edo outcaste order, even as it did not always or uniformly remain the primary means by which chōri secured a living for themselves. At the same time, leather procurement and delivery, first to Danzaemon and then to the warrior authorities as part of an official duty-­privilege relationship, was significantly hollowed out by commercial and economic developments that took place across the early modern period. Status privileges came to be commodified; regional efforts to develop industries resulted in profits but also competition and conflict between chōri and commoners; and by-­industries developed by non-­outcastes threatened supply chains and the economic privileges of chōri. These processes revealed inherent contradictions in the logic and function of the Edo outcaste order: Danzaemon was increasingly expected to fulfil his official duties to the shogunate and protect the economic livelihoods of his subordinates at the same time as they engaged in activities that threatened the viability of the Edo outcaste order and his rule. By the end of the Tokugawa period, the extent to which leather procurement and official supply was still considered to be a core, defining official duty of chōri in eastern Japan is questionable, although recent work by John Porter indicates that such a perception was still strong.68 The way leather procurement, supply, and production were increasingly referred to at the end of the Tokugawa period was “occupation” (kagyō/shogyō/shokugyō), and references to “livelihood” (tose) and “profit margin” (ribun) can be found liberally scattered throughout related documentation. As Jin’emon, the chōri sub-­chief of Lower Wana village noted, while differences in status may exist, everyone was equal when negotiating for gold or silver.69 A gradual transformation had certainly taken place in the relationship of status rule existing between the Tokugawa shogunate and Danzaemon and within the Edo outcaste order, one that had shifted from notions of duty and privilege to something closer to the language of occupation and rights. Terms such as official function (shokubun) and privilege (yakutoku) that had previously dominated Edo outcaste order discourse in relation to chōri socio-­economic roles in the early modern social order came to lose their relevance and hold. The Meiji government, pursuing policies of industrialization, came to remove the outcaste monopoly on leather production, opening the way for entrepreneurs from other status backgrounds. On 1870.11.18, Dan Naoki requested of the new Meiji government that his former subordinates be

Outcaste status and the leather monopoly   181 permitted to retain their occupations under his rule, variously labelled as “impure industries” (sengyō) and “occupation” (shokugyō).70 And it was, of course, “occupation” (shokugyō) that found its way into the so-­called Emancipation Edict of 1871, mirroring the language of the last Danzaemon’s 1870 request.

Notes   1 Tokyo-­Fu Shiryō Kan No Nijūni. Tokyo-­Fu, 1872–1875. Vol. 22. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, E-­chishirui-085 [35]. Kenji Nakao, Edo Shakai To Danzaemon (Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1992), 168–170.   2 Yuriko Yokoyama, Edo Tokyo No Meiji Ishin (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2018), 141.   3 Tōru Morishita, “Stevedores and Stevedores’ Guilds”, City, Culture and Society 3, no. 1 (2012): 30.   4 Michael Thomas Abele, “Peasants, Skinners, and Dead Cattle: The Transformation of Rural Society in Western Japan, 1600–1890” (University of Illinois at Urbana-­ Champaign, 2018), particularly Chapter 5.   5 Daniel Botsman, “From ‘Sacred Cow’ to Kobe Beef: Japan’s Bovine Revolution”, (2014), 29.   6 Olivier Ansart (University of Sydney) raised the issue of privileges and rights with me at a conference in Singapore in September 2018 and then subsequently discussed the issue again with me over Skype in January 2019.   7 Shōji Nobi, Kawa No Rekishi To Minzoku (Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 2009), 30–31.   8 Shigeyuki Anan, “Osaka Watanabe Mura Kawa Shōnin No Kōeki Nettowāku: Kyūshū Wo Chūshin Ni”, in Kokka No Shūen: Tokken, Nettowāku, Kyōsei No Hikaku Shakaishi, ed. Airi Tamura, Takashi Kawana, and Hidemi Uchida (Tokyo: Tousui Shobō, 2015), 171.   9 Yūko Nishimura, “Eikoku Ni Okeru Hikakugyō No Shakaishi: Hikaku Bunkashi No Shiten Kara”, Komazawa Daigaku Gaikokugo Ronshū 14 (2013): 71. 10 Nobi, Kawa No Rekishi to Minzoku, 32–33. 11 Ibid., 33–39. 12 Kazuhiro Yukitake, “Kinsei Nichiran Bōeki Ni Sūryōteki Torihiki Jittai: 17 Seiki Zenki Oranda Shōkan Sakusei ‘Kaikei Chōbo’ No Kaidoku /Bunseki”, Shakai Keizai Shigaku 72, no. 6 (2007): 39. 13 Takashi Tsukada, “Ajia Ni Okeru Ryō To Sen: Gyūkawa Ryūtsū Wo Tegakari Toshite”, in Ajia No Naka No Nihonshi, ed. Yasunori Arano, Masatoshi Ishii, and Shōsuke Murai (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1992), 252. 14 Ibid., 256. 15 Ibid., 263. 16 Anan, “Osaka Watanabe Mura Kawa Shōnin No Kōeki Nettowāku: Kyūshū Wo Chūshin Ni”, 156. 17 Ibid., 149. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., 148. 20 One record from an eta community in northern Kantō from late Tokugawa/early Meiji does not list even one bovine skin; apparently the community dealt exclusively with horse hides. Lower Wana and Sano, two chōri (eta) villages for which records also exist, indicate that horse skins were the predominant ones acquired in their communities as well. Shūichi Sandō and Tetsuo Ōkuma, “Kita Kantō Ni Okeru Hikaku Wo Chushin to Suru Ichinakagai Shōnin No Katsudō Ni Tsuite: Bakumatsu/Meiji Shoki No Yorozuchō No Bunseki Kara”, in Higashi Nihon No Kinsei Buraku No Seigyo To Yakuwari, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1994), 221.

182   Outcaste status and the leather monopoly 21 Alexander Bay, “The Swift Horses of Nukanobu: Bridging the Frontiers of Medieval Japan”, in Japanimals: History and Culture in Japan’s Animal Life, ed. Gregory M. Pflugfelder and Brett L. Walker (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2005), 103. 22 Ibid., 101–105. 23 Medieval Buddhism had also brought with it particular religious understandings of horses. Hayagrīva, for example, a cult centring on a tutelary deity who was half-­man and half-­horse, developed in Japan. Damien Keown, “Hayagrīva”, in A Dictionary of Buddhism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 106. 24 Kentarō Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū (Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 1996), 159. 25 Hiroshi Kawane, “Shimozuke No Kuni Ōyama Shuku Hisabetsumin No Seikatsu”, in Kantō/Tōkai Hisabetsu Burakushi Kenkyū, ed. Kōjirō Arai (Tokyo Akashi Shoten, 1982), 81. 26 For a relatively recent discussion see, for example, Masao Arimoto, Kinsei Hisabetsumin No Higashi To Nishi (Osaka: Seibundō Shuppan, 2009), 65. For the first point, Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 20–22. 27 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 72; Tsutomu Yoshida, “Bakuhan Taisei No Seiritsu to Kinsei Senmin Seido: Shakaiteki Senshi Kara Seidoteki Sabetsu E”, Ōmiya Shiritsu Hakubutsukan Kenkyū Kiyō 2 (1990): 63. 28 Yokoyama, Edo Tokyo No Meiji Ishin, 141–142. Arimoto, Kinsei Hisabetsumin No Higashi to Nishi, 65. Arimoto, pointing to an example from Sagami Province at the end of the 18th century, demonstrates that the bridle tax also came to be paid in cash by regional chōri leaders to Danzaemon during the 18th century as well. 29 Kinsei Hisabetsumin No Higashi to Nishi, 70. 30 Nippo Jisho: Pari-­bon = Vocabvlario da lingoa de Iapam/Kaidai Ishizuka Seitsū (Tokyo: Benseisha, 1976), 641. 31 Thomas Cleary, Samurai Wisdom: Lessons from Japan’s Warrior Culture (Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2009), 111. 32 Kenji Nakao, ed., Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995), 24–26. 33 See, for example, the reference in Danzaemon’s response to a request for information from the Edo City Magistrate concerning animal carcass rights. Quoted in Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 125. 34 Takashi Tsukada, Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū (Kobe: Hyōgo Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1987), 51. 35 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 160. 36 Ibid., 161–162. 37 For these examples see ibid., 162–163. 38 Nansenyō Ruishū, vol. 86 (Dai Nijuhachi No Ni) (Hinin, Danzaemon, Eta No Bu), 64–73. National Diet Library Japan. Available at http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/ pid/2550495 (accessed 28 August 2019) 39 Nakao, Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho, vol. 1, 541–544. 40 Shigeo Kobayashi et al., eds., Burakushi Yōgo Jiten (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1985), 260. 41 Sandō and Ōkuma, “Kita Kantō Ni Okeru Hikaku Wo Chūshin To Suru Ichinakagai Shōnin No Katsudō Ni Tsuite: Bakumatsu/Meiji Shoki No Yorozuchō No Bunseki Kara”, 231–232. Sandō and Ōkuma note that a late 18th century regional record in Sano prohibiting the sale of bamboo sheaths for sandal production emphasized the need to eradicate the practice of selling to “other [chōri] groups” (takumi). 42 Hiroshi Toriyama, “Kanagawa”, in Higashi Nihon No Burakushi: Kantō Hen, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūkai, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 37. 43 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, ed., Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, 5 vols., vol. 1 (Urawa: Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1977), 129. Also, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, no. 2693, Saitama Prefectural Archives.

Outcaste status and the leather monopoly   183 44 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 80. 45 Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 8 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987), 380–381. 46 Toshio Komaru, “Sagami-­No-Kuni Ni Okeru Kinsei Senmin Shakai No Kōzō”, in Kinsei Kantō No Hisabetsu Buraku, ed. Ryōsuke Ishii (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1978), 239. 47 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 126. Also Arimoto, Kinsei Hisabetsumin No Higashi to Nishi, 70. 48 Minegishi, Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū, 127. 49 Arimoto, Kinsei Hisabetsumin No Higashi To Nishi, 73, 156. 50 Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed., Gunma-­Ken Hisabetsu Buraku Shiryō: Kogashira Saburōemon-­Ke Monjo (Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2007), 40–44. 51 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 1, 7–9. 52 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, ed., Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 3 (Urawa: Saitama-­ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1978), 187–189; Timothy D. Amos, Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011), 89. 53 Tomohiko Harada, ed., Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei, 21 vols., vol. 14 (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1989), 303–309. 54 Noah McCormack, Japan’s Outcaste Abolition: The Struggle for National Inclusion and the Making of the Modern State (New York: Routledge, 2013), 41. 55 Quoted in Arimoto, Kinsei Hisabetsumin No Higashi To Nishi, 68. 56 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 3, 155. 57 Tetsuo Okuma, “Gunma”, in Higashi Nihon Burakushi: Kantō-Hen, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 239–240. 58 Tsutomu Tomotsune, “Ibaragi”, in Higashi Nihon No Burakushi: Kantō Hen, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūkai, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 133–134. Also Kawane, “Shimozuke No Kuni Ōyama Shuku Hisabetsumin No Seikatsu”, 104–107. 59 Hidemasa Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka (Kyoto: Aunsha, 2014), 155–157. 60 Yasuto Sakai, “Tochigi”, in Higashi Nihon Burakushi: Kantō-Hen, ed. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017), 186. 61 Kentarō Minegishi, “Danzaemon Yakusho No Keizai Shihai To Sono Dōyō”, Buraku 36, no. 5 (1984): 74–75. 62 Ibid. 63 Toriyama, “Kanagawa”, 37. 64 Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 261–264. 65 Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, Suzuki-­Ke Monjo, vol. 3, 365. 66 Tetsuo Okuma, “Danzaemon Shihai No Kōzō To Seikaku: Zaikata No Jittai Wo Fumaete”, in Danzaemon Taisei to Kashira Shihai: Burakushi Kenkyū Yon, ed. Zenkoku Burakushi Kenkyū Kōryūkai (Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 2000), 31, 46–52. 67 Maki, Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka, 14. 68 John Porter, “Cattle Plague, Livestock Disposal, and the Dismantling of the Early Modern Status Order”, paper presented at Revisiting Japan’s Restoration: Interregional, Interdisciplinary, and Alternative Perspectives Conference, National University of Singapore, September 26–28, 2018. 69 Quoted in Minegishi, “Danzaemon Yakusho No Keizai Shihai To Sono Dōyō”, 75. 70 Toshiyuki Hatanaka, “Mibun Hikiage To Shūmei Jokyo: ‘Dannaiki Mibun Hikiage Ikken’ No Saikentō”, Ritsumeikan Gengo Bunka Kenkyū, no. 90 (2007): 60.

Epilogue

Danzaemon and the Edo outcaste order comprised a central element of the status system that emerged in eastern Japan during the early modern period. It was a core component in the sense that the order initially emerged out of shogunate concerns for a leather supply monopoly in the wider Kantō area, and that it came to perform tasks such as execution (in place of the shogunate throughout areas directly under or closely affiliated to its rule) and policing of the poor in the burgeoning city of Edo (the seat of shogunal power). In a very real sense, status rule in eastern Japan was directly enabled by, and subsequently maintained and reinforced through, chōri and hinin performance of official duties led by the figure of Danzaemon. In this sense, the Edo outcaste order was located within the strictures and logics of the early modern status system. At the same time, however, Danzaemon and his subordinates also came to function as scapegoats within the early modern social order. They were outcastes, both conceptually and practically speaking, forcibly located on the margins of the early modern social status system. Chōri and hinin were located on the outer extremities of the social order through pollution ideology that was (at times consciously and sometimes not) appropriated and redefined at regular intervals to address both historical circumstances and economic transformations that weakened status distinctions and therefore shogunate power. Conceptual scapegoating was clearly linked to other more tangible practices of marginalization, such as physical relegation and social practices of cordon sanitaire, as chōri and hinin were made to occupy the physical peripheries of both urban and rural settlements, and excluded from participation in various religious, cultural, and social realms in everyday life. Failing to locate the above processes of status group and social outcaste formation within a larger history of caste, however, leads to a misrecognition of the nature of the Edo outcaste order. Caste in Japan first emerged in the ancient period and was reinvented and re-­energized in various ways throughout the medieval period. Clan formations and subsequent distinctive regional kinship networks built around ideas of households that to some extent drew on earlier clan-­based logics, as well as hierarchical relations that emerged out of a historical division in labour and were further defined by notions of ritual pollution that spread out unevenly from centre to periphery across the archipelago,

Epilogue   185 significantly redefined occupational groups’ societal status and the kinds of relations they could conduct with other social groups. The Tokugawa shogunate incorporated Danzaemon and regional chōri sub-­chiefs and their residential communities into the early modern social order, as part of a process that is perhaps best understood as a re-­energizing and reimagining of a caste system already in existence, however “loose” it may have been in comparative terms.1 During the early modern period, economic transformations, on occasion brought about by the political dictates of shogunate administrators, at times through new developments in labour specialization, and also sporadically through natural disasters such as famines, triggered moments of acute destabilization of the early modern social order, whether in the form of tensions in regional social orders or problems in the city of Edo itself. Such processes and instances are linked to subsequent explicit attempts to reinscribe caste categories in eastern Japan, in ways that often reverberated across the archipelago, creating what might be termed pseudo-­national caste categories. While generally speaking such movements and moments tended to work against Danzaemon and his subordinates, particularly when viewed from the perspective of the desirability of a complete and irreversible social emancipation from outcaste status, it is also clear that they provided opportunities for members of the Edo outcaste order to secure forms of economic and social advancement. A good deal of work has been done in recent years on the dismantling of the status system in 19th century Japan.2 This fine work points to, among other things, the comparative relative ease with which outcaste status categories were dismantled in eastern Japan during the early Meiji period. While this is a complex topic and much research on it is still to be done, my preliminary views on this important subject are as follows. The Edo outcaste order had significant differences with the outcaste community formations found in other parts of the archipelago. Confining the discussion here to central Japan, this region historically speaking saw stronger ties between the imperial court, religious institutions, and medieval outcaste communities, higher levels of technological advancement and higher degrees of labour specialization, longer histories of geographically anchored leatherwork occupational communities, more firmly established village-­based kinship networks, and the emergence of higher population densities and larger-­sized settlements. Combining this with the fact that central Japan was either directly governed by or administered by assigned Tokugawa shogunate officials who often relied on local knowledge and practices to inform their decision-­making, it is not really difficult to see how the legacy issues from this region might be in many ways far more substantial than in eastern Japan. Edo-­based outcaste groups experienced the transformative nature of capital more fully than probably any other location in Japan, assisting the elite strata as well as lower class residents in Shinchō to more successfully integrate into the  wider urban classes. Edo, as a template city for Japanese modernization, actually served as a model for all kinds of reforms, including the building of infrastructures and institutions designed to eradicate poverty and outcaste

186   Epilogue unemployment, and these changes occurred at a rate and on a scale not really witnessed elsewhere on the archipelago, working further to enhance the ultimate possibility of outcaste emancipation in Japan’s largest megalopolis. In regional areas throughout Kantō, moreover, outcaste populations tended to be smaller, meaning that the legal annulment of the Edo outcaste order permitted a more ready collapse of the outcaste order, especially given the impact modifications in economic behaviour such as product diversification and labour mobility could have on these smaller communities. From a more global perspective, what seems remarkable in the case of Japan is the fact that a so-­called Emancipation Edict was promulgated at all, or even that there was a belief in some circles that the generation of such a legal pronouncement might be able to have a significant effect on dismantling the early modern status system. Although a counter-­causal claim and therefore ultimately unprovable, one wonders if a similar such pronouncement could have existed even in rhetorical form on the subcontinent. Important reasons for this development in Japan, apart from the obvious economic developments alluded to above and in this book, are probably linked to the nature of “secularization” in 19th century Japan, as well as the significant changes that occurred in relation to acceptable ways for thinking about occupation and duty. Secularization in the early Meiji period involved the seemingly contradictory twin aspects of explicitly locating the real source of legitimation for Japan’s emerging polity in the person of the Emperor while simultaneously rendering him sacrosanct and therefore above politics. Secularization was effective as a tool for emancipation to the extent that it did not target the person of the Emperor, the nature of the Imperial institution, or raise questions pertaining to the suitable basis for the modern polity. This development meant that occupations could be (relatively speaking) successfully stripped of their historical association with more classical notions of pollution, for example, particularly in places such as Edo/Tokyo that in many respects served as both model and engine room for Japanese Enlightenment. To the extent that former outcaste communities in eastern Japan could avoid emerging modern stigmata such as criminality, poverty, and disease, they were able to be liberated from their former statuses and the treatment that they commonly entailed. Importantly, notions of occupations and duties also became divorced in the Meiji period, as modern forms of taxation and service came to underpin claims to be legitimate citizens within the emerging modern state, and occupation theoretically became a matter of choice for all segments of society through the pervasion of liberal democratic ideas and ideas of occupational choice. Of course earlier economic developments had already begun to strip away the potential for reoccurring discrimination in relation to some occupational communities, but probably not to the point that early modern forms of seeing social difference were completely eradicated. Nonetheless, the status-­based logic of early modern Japan, despite initially serving as a tool for reenergizing a caste dynamic, ultimately also contained within it the seeds of a contractual revolution that caused the entire system to disintegrate.

Epilogue   187 Danzaemon and the chōri who lived under his rule can and should be placed within a larger history of outcastes who endured status-­based rule within a caste society. They are linked to India’s Dalits, as well as other groups throughout Asia and beyond, not only conceptually, but also through the social tasks and official duties they performed, the privileges they secured, the abuses they endured, and the achievements they celebrated within a larger historical division of labour that was experienced differently according to region and period. These groups were linked in many ways, whether through an emerging international trade of skins or through similarities generated by particularities in caste dynamics. This is more than sufficient ground to inspire renewed efforts to further develop transregional studies and activism among people who have survived this kind of history and who are now struggling to find a more unified path forward in their fight for liberation from the legacies of caste and the tyranny of its remaining bonds.

Notes 1 Kyōhei Ōyama, Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai: Chūsei Nihon (Tokyo: Hasekura Shobō, 2003), 13. 2 The work of three scholars in particular can be singled out here. Yokoyama Yuriko has perhaps done more than any other scholar to shed light on the ways in which the Edo outcaste order was dismantled in light of Meiji reforms. Daniel Botsman’s work also continues to illuminate the processes surrounding and complexities underpinning various 19th century transformations that greatly impacted the lives of Japan’s former outcaste communities. The recent work by John Porter has also contributed much to our understanding of the complex continuities and discontinuities that can be witnessed in the ways old and new organizational logics worked to give shape to Edo-­ based eta and hinin communities in the early years of the Meiji period. See, for example: Yuriko Yokoyama, Edo Tokyo No Meiji Ishin; Meiji Ishin To Kinsei Mibunsei No Kaitai (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppankai, 2005); Daniel Botsman, “Flowery Tales: Ōe Taku, Kōbe and the Making of Meiji Japan’s ‘Emancipation Moment’ ”, in Values, Identity, and Equality in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-­Century Japan, ed. Peter Nosco, James E. Ketelaar, and Yasunori Kojima (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 262–289; Jon Pōtā, “Kinsei Mibunsei Kaitaiki Ni Okeru Kachiku Densenbyō To Heiju Shori”, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 229 (2019): 1–23.

References

Abele, Michael Thomas. “Peasants, Skinners, and Dead Cattle: The Transformation of Rural Society in Western Japan, 1600–1890”. PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign, 2018. Amos, Timothy D. Embodying Difference: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011. Amos, Timothy D. “Genealogy and Marginal Status in Early Modern Japan: The Case of Danzaemon”. Japanese Studies 33, no. 2 (2013): 147–159. Amos, Timothy D. “Outcaste or Internal Exile? Ambiguous Bodies in the Making of Modern Japan”. Portal: 2, no. 1 (2005). Amos, Timothy D. “Portrait of a Tokugawa Outcaste Village”. East Asian History 32/33 (June 2006/December 2007): 83–108. Amos, Timothy D. “The Subaltern Subject and Early Modern Taxonomies: Indianisation and Racialisation of the Japanese Outcaste”. Asian Studies Review 41, no. 4 (2017): 577–593. Anan, Shigeyuki. “Osaka Watanabe Mura Kawa Shōnin No Kōeki Nettowāku: Kyūshū Wo Chūshin Ni”. In Kokka No Shūen: Tokken, Nettowāku, Kyōsei No Hikaku Shakaishi, edited by Airi Tamura, Takashi Kawana and Hidemi Uchida, 147–176. Tokyo: Tousui Shobō, 2015. Anonymous. “The Pariah and Inferior Castes of India”. In The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, edited by H.C. Sirr, 283–292. London: Wm. H. Allen & Company, 1836. Arai, Kōjirō. “Kinsei Usui Sekisho-­Noke/Yamagoe Toganin To Gyōkei Yakunin”. In Kinsei Kantō No Hisabetsu Buraku, edited by Ryōsuke Ishii, 421–430. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1978. Arimoto, Masao. Kinsei Hisabetsumin No Higashi To Nishi. Osaka: Seibundō Shuppan, 2009. Asakusa-­Ku, ed. Asakusa-­Kushi. Vol. 2. Tokyo: Bunkaidō Shoten, 1914. Asakusa Kameoka-­Chō Dan Naoki Haishaku Makari Ari Sōrō Unun. Daisanka, 1874. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 07–011 [D] D038. Asakusa Kameoka-­Chō Itchōme Noguchi Suginosuke Hoka Hitori Heigyūba Seizōgaisha Shutsugan Shoken Ōfuku Shorui. Daisanka, 1873. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 06–029 [D] D273. Asakusa Kameoka-­Chō Sanchōme Kobayashi Gonshichi Sumidagawasuji Sankasho Chūsu Onharaisage Mata Wa Haishaku To Ryōsama Negaisagemodoshi. Dai’ikka, 1875. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 08–027 [D] D039.

References   189 Asakusa Kameoka-­Chō Zenkaku Zumen. Kubukakigae, 1880. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 13–084 [D] D230. Asakusa Kuchō E Kameoka-­Chō Chizu No Gi Kaitō. Sozeika, 1880. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 13–010 [D] D226. Asakusa Tamezumen. No. 819–179, National Diet Library Japan. Available at http:// dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/2542384 Asao, Naohiro. Asao Naohiro Chosakushū. Vol. 7, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2004. Asao, Naohiro. “ ‘Mibun’ Shakai No Rikai”. In Nihon Rekishi No Naka No Hisabetsumin, edited by Nara Jinken/Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 71–100. Nara: Nara Jinken/Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 2001. Asao, Naohiro, ed. Mibun To Kakushiki. Vol. 7. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1992. Asao, Naohiro. “The Sixteenth-­Century Unification”. In The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 4: Early Modern Japan, edited by John Whitney Hall. The Cambridge History of Japan, 40–95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Atsuo, Masamune, ed. Chiribukuro. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Nihon Koten Zenshū Kankōkai, 1934–1935. Baba, Akira. “Sukuigoya”. In Nihon Daihyakka Zensho: Shōgakkan. Bay, Alexander. “The Swift Horses of Nukanobu: Bridging the Frontiers of Medieval Japan”. In Japanimals: History and Culture in Japan’s Animal Life, edited by Gregory M. Pflugfelder and Brett L. Walker, 91–124. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2005. Bayliss, Jeffrey Paul. On the Margins of Empire: Buraku and Korean Identity in Prewar and Wartime Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013. Bayly, Susan. Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. The New Cambridge History of India, edited by Susan Bayly and Gordon Johnson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Beerens, Anna. “Interview with a Bakumatsu Official: A Translation from Kyūji Shimonroku”. Monumenta Nipponica 55, no. 3 (2000): 369–398. Befu, Harumi. Japan: An Anthropological Introduction. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1971. Berry, Mary Elizabeth. Hideyoshi. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982. Berry, Mary Elizabeth. “Public Peace and Private Attachment: The Goals and Conduct of Power in Early Modern Japan”. Journal of Japanese Studies 12, no. 2 (1986): 237–271. Bhaba, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 2006. Bharti, Kanwal. “Marx in Ambedkar’s Thoughts”. Forward Press, August 19, 2017. Blomberg, Catharina. The Journal of Olof Eriksson Willman. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Bolitho, Harold. “The Tempō Crisis”. In The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 5: The Nineteenth Century, edited by Marius B. Jansen. The Cambridge History of Japan, 116–167. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Botsman, Daniel. “Flowery Tales: Ōe Taku, Kōbe and the Making of Meiji Japan’s ‘Emancipation Moment’ ”. In Values, Identity, and Equality in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-­Century Japan, edited by Peter Nosco, James E. Ketelaar and Yasunori Kojima, 262–289. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Botsman, Daniel. “From ‘Sacred Cow’ to Kobe Beef: Japan’s Bovine Revolution”. Unpublished Paper. 2014. Botsman, Daniel. Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005. Botsuman, Danieru. “Kāsuto Seido To Mibun Seido: Hikaku Rekishigaku No Kanōsei Nitsuite”. Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 195 (2011): 29–46.

190   References Botsuman, Danieru, and Waka Hirokawa. “Shiryō Sanpo: Iēru Daigaku Shozō No Yamada Asaemon Kyūzō Monjo”. Nihon Rekishi, no. 818 (2016): 78–80. Brooks, William Lyman. “Outcaste Society in Early Modern Japan”. PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1976. Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed. Shiryōshū Meiji Shoki Hisabetsu Buraku. Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1986. Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed. The Invisible Visible Minority: Japan’s Burakumin. Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1977. Buyō, Inshi. Lust, Commerce, and Corruption: An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard, by an Edo Samurai. Translated by Mark Teeuwen, Kate Wildman Nakai, Fumiko Miyazaki, Anne Walthall, and John Breen. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. Carroll, Lucy. “ ‘Sanskritization’, ‘Westernization’, and ‘Social Mobility’: A Reappraisal of the Relevance of Anthropological Concepts to the Social Historian of Modern India”. Journal of Anthropological Research 33, no. 4 (1977): 355–371. Chikamatsu, Monzaemon. Chikamatsu: Five Late Plays. Translated by Andrew Gerstle. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Cieslik, Hubert. “The Great Martyrdom in Edo 1623. Its Causes, Course, Consequences”. Monumenta Nipponica 10, no. 1/2 (1954): 1–44. Cleary, Thomas. Samurai Wisdom: Lessons from Japan’s Warrior Culture. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2009. Cooper, Michael, ed. They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543–1640. London: Thames and Hudson, 1965. Cornell, John B. “Dozoku: An Example of Evolution and Transition in Japanese Village Society”. Comparative Studies in Society and History 6, no. 4 (1964): 449–480. Danford, Richard K., Robin Gill, and Daniel T. Reff, eds. The First European Description of Japan, 1585: A Critical English-­Language Edition of Striking Contrasts in the Customs of Europe and Japan by Luis Frois, S.J. London: Routledge, 2014. “Dannaiki Mibun Hikiage Ikken”. In Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryō Shūsei, edited by Tomohiko Harada and Hiroshi Kobayashi, 259–284. Vol. 14. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1971. De Vos, George. “Toward a Cross-­Cultural Pyschology of Caste Behavior”. In Japan’s Invisible Race: Caste in Culture and Personality, edited by George de Vos and Hiroshi Wagatsuma, 353–384. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. De Vos, George, and Hiroshi Wagatsuma, eds. Japan’s Invisible Race: Caste in Culture and Personality. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Deal, William E. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Dirks, Nicholas B. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Dobbins, James C. “Editor’s Introduction: Kuroda Toshio and His Scholarship”. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23, no. 3/4 (1996). Edo Hōgaku Anken Zukan. 1680. Waseda University Library. Available at www.wul. waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/ru11/ru11_01312/index.html Edo Sōsho Kankōkai, ed. Edo Sōsho. Vol. 3. Tokyo: Edo Sōsho Kankōkai, 1916–1917. Ehlers, Maren. Give and Take: Poverty and the Status Order in Early Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. Japanese Civilization: A Comparative View. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

References   191 Eliot, Charles Norton Edgecumbe. Japanese Buddhism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1924. Fujimoto, Seijirō. Kinsei Senminsei To Chiiki Shakai: Izumi No Kuni No Rekishizō. Osaka: Seibundō, 1997. Fujisawa, Seisuke. “Chōri/Kawata No Seigyō To Yakuwari”. In Higashi Nihon No Burakushi, edited by Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 115–142. Vol. 3. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017. Fujisawa, Seisuke. “Kantōhen ‘Jobun’ ”. In Higashi Nihon No Burakushi, edited by Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 3–7. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017. Fukaya, Katsumi. Edo Jidai. Tokyo: Iwanami Jyunia Shinsho, 2000. Girard, Rene. The Scapegoat. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Glassman, Henry Joseph. “The Religious Construction of Motherhood in Medieval Japan”. PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 2001. Goble, Andrew Edmund. Confluences of Medicine in Medieval Japan: Buddhist Healing, Chinese Knowledge, Islamic Formulas, and Wounds of War. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011. Goodwin, Janet. “Outcasts and Marginals in Medieval Japan”. In Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History, edited by Karl F. Friday, 296–309. London; New York: Routledge, 2017. Gordon, June A. “Caste in Japan: The Burakumin”. Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 40, no. 1 (2017): 265–287. Gotō, Shinpei. Edo No Jichisei. Tokyo: Nishōdō Shoten, 1922. Gouge, Kevin L. “The Ties That Bind: Kinship, Inheritance, and the Environment in Medieval Japan”. PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2017. Groemer, Gerald. “A Short History of the Gannin: Popular Religious Performers in Tokugawa Japan”. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 27, no. 1/2 (2000): 41–72. Groemer, Gerald. Street Performers and Society in Urban Japan, 1600–1900: The Beggar’s Gift. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2016. Groemer, Gerald. “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order”. The Journal of Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 263–294. Gunma Burakuken Tomo Chiku Kinseishi Gakushūkai, ed. Shimotsuke-­No-Kuni Tarōbē Monjo. Vol. 1. Ota: Gunma Burakuken Tomo Chiku Kinseishi Gakushūkai, 1987. Gurukkal, Rajan. “The Making and Proliferation of Jāti: A Historical Inquiry”. Studies in History 31, no. 1 (2015): 30–50. Habib, Irfan. Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception; With the Economic History of Medieval India: A Survey. London: Anthem Press, 2002. Hall, John C. “Japanese Feudal Laws III: Tokugawa Legislation, Part IV, the Edict in 100 Sections”. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 51, no. 5 (1913): 683–804. Hall, John Whitney. Government and Local Power in Japan, 500 to 1700: A Study Based on Bizen Province. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966. Hall, John Whitney. “Rule by Status in Tokugawa Japan”. Journal of Japanese Studies 1, no. 1 (1974): 39–49. Hanaki, Nobuyuki, and Satomi Kurosu. “Marriage Relationships Among Households in the Mid-­19th Century Tama, Japan: Socioeconomic Homogamy, Geographical Endogamy and Kinship Networks”. The History of the Family 15, no. 3 (2010): 333–347. Hane, Mikiso. Peasants, Rebels, and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon, 1982. Harada, Tomohiko, ed. Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei. Vol. 6. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987.

192   References Harada, Tomohiko, ed. Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei. Vol. 7. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987. Harada, Tomohiko, ed. Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei. Vol. 8. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987. Harada, Tomohiko, ed. Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei. Vol. 9. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987. Harada, Tomohiko, ed. Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei. Vol. 10. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1988. Harada, Tomohiko, ed. Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei. Vol. 11. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1988. Harada, Tomohiko, ed. Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei. Vol. 12. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1988. Harada, Tomohiko, ed. Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei. Vol. 14. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1989. Harada, Tomohiko, ed. Hennen Sabetsushi Shiryō Shūsei. Vol. 15. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1989. Harada, Tomohiko, and Satoshi Uesugi, eds. Kindai Burakushi Shiryō Shūsei: Kaihōrei No Seiritsu. Vol. 2. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1985. Harada, Tomohiko, Koichi Nakazawa, and Hiroshi Kobayashi, eds. Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryō Shūsei. Vol. 25. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1980. Harrington, Joel F. The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013. Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. Genroku Sekenbanashi Fūbunshū. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1994. Hatanaka, Toshiyuki. “Kawata” To Heijin: Kinsei Mibun Shakai Ron. Kyoto: Kamogawa Shuppan, 1997. Hatanaka, Toshiyuki. “Mibun Hikiage To Shūmei Jokyo: ‘Dannaiki Mibun Hikiage Ikken’ No Saikentō”. Ritsumeikan Gengo Bunka Kenkyū, no. 90 (2007): 200–220. Hatanaka, Toshiyuki. Mibun/Sabetsu/Aidentitii: “Burakushi” Wa Hakajirushi To Naruka. Kyoto: Kamogawa Shuppan, 2004. Hatano, Jun. “Edo’s Water Supply”. In Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era, edited by James L. McClain, John M. Merriman, and Kaoru Ugawa, 234–253. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. Hayashi, Yoshinaga. Zōho Edo Ōezu, Hitsuji Sangatsu Aratame Oyaku Eiri. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Library, 1680. Available at http://resolve.library.ubc. ca/cgi-­bin/catsearch?bid=2804096. Hearn, Lafcadio. Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation. New York: Macmillan, 1905. Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, ed. Gunma-­Ken Hisabetsu Buraku Shiryō: Kogashira Saburōemon-Ke Monjo. Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2007. Hiramatsu, Yoshirō. Kinsei Keiji Soshō No Kenkyū. Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1960. Hiramatsu, Yoshiro. “Tokugawa Law”. Law in Japan: An Annual 14, no. 1 (1981): 1–48. Hirota, Masaki, ed. Sabetsu No Shosō. Vol. 22. Nihon Kindai Shisō Taikei. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1990. Honjō-Shi Kyōiku I’inkai, ed. Honjō-Shi Shiryō. Vol. 4. Honjō: Honjō-Shi Kyōiku I’inkai, 1988. Hōseishi Gakkai, ed. Tokugawa Kinreikō: Zenshū Dai Yon. Vol. 10. Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1961. Hōseishi Gakkai, ed. Tokugawa Kinreikō: Bekkan Ichi. Vol. 11. Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1961. Howell, David. Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-­Century Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.

References   193 Hurst III, G. Cameron. “The Structure of the Heian Court: Some Thoughts on the Nature of ‘Familial Authority’ in Heian Japan”. In Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History, edited by John Whitney Hall and Jeffrey P. Mass, 39–59. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. Ibaraki-­Kenshi Hensan Kinseishi Dai’ichibukai, ed. Ibaraki-­Ken Shiryō: Kinsei Seiji Hen 1. Mito: Ibaraki-­Ken, 1970. Ikegame, Aya. “Karnataka: Caste, Dominance and Social Change in the ‘Indian Village’ ”. In The Modern Anthropology of India: Ethnography, Themes and Theory, edited by Peter Berger and Frank Heidemann, 121–135. London; New York: Routledge, 2013. Inagawa, Minoru. “Kutsu No Rekishi Sanpo”. Kawa To Hakimono, no. 111 (2013). Available at www.hikaku.metro.tokyo.jp/Portals/0/images/shisho/shien/public/173_1.pdf Itō, Tasaburō. “Tenshō Nikki to Kana Seiri”. Nihon Rekishi, no. 196 (1964): 2–13. Jaffrelot, Christophe. “Sanskritization vs. Ethnicization in India: Changing Identities and Caste Politics before Mandal”. Asian Survey 40, no. 5 (2000): 756–766. Jansen, Marius B. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000. Jikata Hanseiroku. Vol. 13. Waseda University. Available at http://archive.wul.waseda. ac.jp/kosho/wa03/wa03_06628/ Jodhka, Surinder S., and Ghanshyam Shah. “Comparative Contexts of Discrimination: Caste and Untouchability in South Asia”. Economic and Political Weekly 45, no. 48 (2010): 99–106. Jones, James. “On the Punishment of Crucifixion in China”. Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London 3 (1865): 138–139. Kaempfer, Engelbert. Kaempfer’s Japan: Tokugawa Culture Observed. Translated by Beatrice M. Bodart-­Bailey. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999. Kanagawa-­Ken Kikaku Chōsabu Kenshi Henshūshitsu, ed. Kanagawa-­Kenshi Shiryōhen 7: Kinsei. Yokohama: Kanagawa-­Ken, 1975. Kanai, Tatsuo. Nakasendō Usui Sekisho No Kenkyū. Vol. 2. Tokyo: Bunken Shuppan, 1997. Kato, Takashi. “Governing Edo”. In Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era, edited by James L. McClain and John M. Merriman, 41–67. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. Katsube, Mitake, ed. Katsu Kaishū Zenshū. Vol. 10. Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1978. Kawane, Hiroshi. “Shimozuke No Kuni Ōyama Shuku Hisabetsumin No Seikatsu”. In Kantō/Tōkai Hisabetsu Burakushi Kenkyū, edited by Kōjirō Arai. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1982. Keian Nikki. Dainihon Shiryō Sōgō Dētābēsu, Historiographical Institute, The University of Tokyo. Available at wwwap.hi.u-­tokyo.ac.jp Keibatsu Daihiroku. 1836. National Diet Library, Japan. Available at http://dl.ndl.go. jp/info:ndljp/pid/1365404/11 Keizai Zasshisha, ed. Konjaku Monogatari. Vol. 16. Kokushi Taikei/Keizai Zasshisha. Tokyo: Keizai Zasshisha, 1901. “Kenshōbo”. In Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryō Shūsei, edited by Tomohiko Harada, Koichi Nakazawa, and Hiroshi Kobayashi, 251–278. Vol. 25. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1980. Keown, Damien. “Hayagrīva”. In A Dictionary of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Kinsei Shiryō Kenkyūkai, ed. Edo Machibure Shūsei. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Hanawa Shobō, 1994. Kitagawa, Morisada. Kinsei Fūzokushi: Morisada Mankō. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1998. Kitajima, Masamoto. Bakuhansei No Kumon. Nihon No Rekishi. Vol. 18. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1974.

194   References Kobayashi, Shigeo, Noboru Haga, Kei’ichi Miura, Sugio Mori, and Osamu Wakita, eds. Burakushi Yōgo Jiten. Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1985. Kobayashi, Shigeru, ed. Kinsei Hisabetsu Buraku Kankei Hōreishū: Tenryō Wo Chūshin Toshite. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1981. Komaru, Toshio. “Sagami-­No-Kuni Ni Okeru Kinsei Senmin Shakai No Kōzō”. In Kinsei Kantō No Hisabetsu Buraku, edited by Ryōsuke Ishii, 237–264. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1978. Korejio Henshūbu, ed. Meireki Edo Ōezu. Kokubunji: Korejio, 2007. Kotani, Hiroyuki. Indo No Fukashokumin: Sono Rekishi To Genzai. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1997. Kotani, Hiroyuki. “Shakaiteki Bungyō to Mibunteki Joretsu Kankei: Ōyama Kyōhei No ‘Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai’ Ron Ni Yosete”. Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 189 (2009): 49–62. Kotani, Hiroyuki. Western India in Historical Transition: Seventeenth to Early Twentieth Centuries. New Delhi: Manohar, 2002. Kreiner, Josef. “The First Symposium on Civilization Studies”. In Japanese Civilization in the Modern World: Life and Society, edited by Tadao Umesao, Harumi Befu, and Josef Kreiner, 117–125. Osaka: Minpaku National Museum of Ethnology, 1984. Kujirai, Chisato. “Hifu No Yamai To Kyōkai No Kami: Nihon ‘Senmin’ Shikenkyū He No Ichikaitei (Chō/Ō/Kin/Ju No Minzokushi)”. Kokuritsu Minzoku Hakubutsukan Kenkyū Kiyō 174 (2012/03 2012): 145–182. Kuroda, Toshio. “Buddhism and Society in the Medieval Estate System”. Translated by Suzanne Gay. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23, no. 3/4 (1996): 287–319. Kuroda, Toshio. “Persons, Monks, Children, and Non-­Persons”. Translated by Charles Woolley. Studies in Japanese Literature and Culture 1 (July 2018): 89–120. Kuroda, Toshio. “Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion”. Translated by James C. Dobbins and Suzanne Gay. Journal of Japanese Studies 7, no. 1 (Winter 1981): 1–21. Kuroda, Toshio. “The Development of the Kenmitsu System as Japan’s Medieval Orthodoxy”. Translated by James C. Dobbins. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23, no. 3/4 (1996): 233–269. Kuroda, Toshio. “The Imperial Law and the Buddhist Law”. Translated by Jacqueline I. Stone. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23, no. 3/4 (1996): 271–285. Kyōhō Senyō Ruishū (Nijōnojō). Vol. 5. National Diet Library Japan. Available at info:ndljp/pid/2572760 Larimer, Tim, and Toko Sekiguchi. “Social Outcasts: Japan’s Untouchable Class the Burakumin Live on the Fringes of Society”. Time Asia, March 28, 2001. Machida, Tetsu. “Mita Satoko Cho ‘Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō’ Ni Manabu: Sonrakuron No Tachiba Kara (Shohyō Mita Satoko Cho ‘Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō: Senshū Minami Ōji Mura Wo Chūshin Ni’)”. Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 228 (2019): 49–60. Maki, Hidemasa. Mibun Sabetsu No Seidoka. Kyoto: Aunsha, 2014. Makihara, Shigeyuki. “Kawata Mura To Chiiki Shakai: Bushū Shimowana to Shimo Yoshimi Ryō”. In Tokyo Daigaku Nihonshi Kenkyūshitsu Kiyō Bessatsu: Yoshida Nobuyuki Sensei Taishoku Kinen Kinsei Shakaishi Ronyō, edited by Tokyo Daigaku Daigakuin Jinbun Shakaikei Kenkyūjo, 129–144. Tokyo, 2013. Makihara, Shigeyuki. “Kinai No Taikō Kenchi To Kawata Mura: Mita Satoko Cho ‘Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō: Senshū Minami Ōji Mura Wo Chūshin Ni’ ”. Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 228 (2019): 38–48.

References   195 Makihara, Shigeyuki. “Kita Kantō No Chōri Kogashira To Shokuba/Yuisho”. Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 185 (2008): 4–35. Makishima, Terutake, and Enji Shimokawa. Kanhasshū Kosenroku. Genpon Gendaiyaku; 28–29. 2 vols. Higashi Murayama: Kyōikusha, 1981. Maruyama, Masao. Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan. Translated by Mikiso Hane. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974. Marx, Karl. “The Future Results of the British Rule in India”. New-­York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works. Vol. 5. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1976. Mass, Jeffrey P. Lordship and Inheritance in Early Medieval Japan: A Study of the Kamakura Soryō System. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989. Mateer, S. “Art. X. – the Pariah Caste in Travancore”. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland 16, no. 2 (1884): 180–195. Matsuzaki, Kin’ichi. “Edo Ryōtenmachō No Dōchū Tenmayaku Un’ei”. Shigaku Kenkyū 42, no. 1 (1969): 31–71. McCormack, Noah. “Buraku Immigration in the Meiji Era – Other Ways to Become ‘Japanese’ ”. East Asian History, no. 23 (June 2002): 87–108. McCormack, Noah. Japan’s Outcaste Abolition: The Struggle for National Inclusion and the Making of the Modern State. New York: Routledge, 2013. McCullough, William H. “The Capital and Its Society”. In The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 2: Heian Japan, edited by Donald H. Shively and William H. McCullough. The Cambridge History of Japan, 97–182. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. McCullough, W.H., and H.C. McCullough. A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japanese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period. Vol. 1. Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1980. Mieken Kōseikan, ed. Mieken Burakushi Shiryōshu. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1974. Minegishi, Kentarō. “Danzaemon Yakusho No Keizai Shihai To Sono Dōyō”. Buraku 36, no. 5 (1984): 73–75. Minegishi, Kentarō. “Kegare Kannen To Buraku Sabetsu (Ge): Sono Fukabunsei To Kegare Kannen No Itchi”. Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 162 (2002): 97–119. Minegishi, Kentarō. Kinsei Hisabetsuminshi No Kenkyū. Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 1996. Mita, Satoko. Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Sonraku Kōzō: Senshū Minami Ōji Mura Wo Chūshin Ni. Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 2018. Mitani, Hiroshi. Meiji Ishin to Nashonarizumu: Bakumatsu No Gaikō to Seiji Hendō. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Shuppansha, 1997. Morishita, Tōru. “Stevedores and Stevedores’ Guilds”. City, Culture and Society 3, no. 1 (2012/03/01/ 2012): 29–33. Morita, Yoshinori. Kawara Makimono. Tokyo: Hōsei Daigaku Shuppankyoku, 1978. Morris-­Suzuki, Tessa. Re-­Inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation. Japan in the Modern World. Armonk, New York; London: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. Motoori Norinaga. 1794. Tama Katsuma. Eirakuya Shutten. National Institute of Japanese Literature, 47. Available at www.nijl.ac.jp/ Motoori, Uchitō. “Senjakō”. In Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryō Shūsei, edited by Tomohiko Harada and Hiroshi Kobayashi, 489–526. Vol. 14. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1971. Murata, Munejirō. Tokyo Chiri Enkaku-­Shi. Tokyo: Inagaki Josaburō, 1890. Nakamura, Shin’ichi, ed. Takada Hansei-­Shi Kenkyū: Shiryōhen. Vol. 5. Tokyo: Kazama Shobō, 1970.

196   References Nakao, Kenji, ed. Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho. Vol. 1. Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995. Nakao, Kenji, ed. Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho. Vol. 2. Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995. Nakao, Kenji, ed. Danzaemon Kankei Shiryōshū: Kyūbakufu Hikitsugisho. Vol. 3. Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 1995. Nakao, Kenji. Edo Jidai No Sabetsu Gainen: Kinsei No Sabetsu Wo Dō Toraeruka. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1997. Nakao, Kenji. Edo No Danzaemon: Hisabetsu Minshū Ni Kunrin Shita “Kashira”. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1996. Nakao, Kenji. Edo Shakai To Danzaemon. Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1992. “Naniwa Buraku No Rekishi” Hensan I’inkai, ed. Watanabe, Nishihama, Naniwa: Naniwa Buraku No Rekishi. Tokyo: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1997. Nansenyō Ruishū (Dai Nijuhachi No Ni). Vol. 86. National Diet Library Japan. Available at http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/2550495 Nelson, David. “The Consolidation of Place and Punishment in Seventeenth-­Century Japan: Kanazawa Prisons and Criminal Justice”. Southeastern Review of Asian Studies 30 (2008): 188–195. Newell, W.H. “The Comparative Study of Caste in India and Japan”. Asian Survey 1, no. 10 (1961): 3–10. Nippo Jisho: Pari-­bon = Vocabvlario da lingoa de Iapam/Kaidai Ishizuka Seitsū. Tokyo: Benseisha, 1976. Nishiki, Kōichi. “Kinsei Kantō No Chōri To Dannadera: Sabetsu No Rekishiteki Ichizuke Wo Mezashite”. Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 99 (1989): 43–60. Nishimura, Yūko. “Eikoku Ni Okeru Hikakugyō No Shakaishi: Hikaku Bunkashi No Shiten Kara”. Komazawa Daigaku Gaikokugo Ronshū 14 (2013): 65–109. Nobi, Shōji. Kawa No Rekishi To Minzoku. Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 2009. Okada, Asako. “Kinsei Kantō Ni Okeru Chōri No Ichiakinaiken To Dannaba”. Kokushigaku 177, no. 5 (2002): 61–85. Okiura, Kazuteru, ed. Suihei: Hito No Yo Ni Hikari Are. Tokyo: Shakai Hyōronsha, 1991. Okuma, Tetsuo. “Danzaemon Shihai No Kōzō To Seikaku: Zaikata No Jittai Wo Fumaete”. In Danzaemon Taisei To Kashira Shihai: Burakushi Kenkyū Yon, edited by Zenkoku Burakushi Kenkyū Kōryūkai, 4–58. Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 2000. Okuma, Tetsuo. “Danzaemon Taiseika Ni Okeru Chōri Dannaba”. In Dannaba: Kinsei Hisabetsumin No Katsudō Ryōiki, edited by Tetsuo Okuma, Yōichi Saito, Yasuto Sakai, and Seisuke Fujisawa, 9–78. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2011. Okuma, Tetsuo. “Gunma”. In Higashi Nihon Burakushi: Kantō-Hen, edited by Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 219–260. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017. Okuma, Tetsuo. “Kinsei No Burakushi Ni Okeru Danzaemon Taisei”. In Higashi Nihon Burakushi: Kantō-Hen, edited by Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 350–377. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017. Omvedt, Gail. Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anticaste Intellectuals. New Delhi: Navayana, 2008. Ooms, Herman. Tokugawa Ideology: Early Constructs, 1570–1680. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Ooms, Herman. Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Osaka No Burakushi I’inkan, ed. Osaka No Burakushi. 10 vols. Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Jinken Kenkyūkai, 2005–2009.

References   197 Ōto, Osamu. “Life and Death, Funeral Rites and Burial Systems in Early Modern Japan”. Early Modern Japan: An Interdisciplinary Journal 19 (2011): 3–20. Ōyama, Kyōhei. “Mibunteki Shūen Wo Megutte: Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai”. Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 159 (February 2002): 18–41. Ōyama, Kyōhei. Yuruyakana Kāsuto Shakai: Chūsei Nihon. Tokyo: Hasekura Shobō, 2003. Paramore, Kiri. Ideology and Christianity in Japan. New York: Routledge, 2009. Paramore, Kiri. Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pollock, Sheldon I. The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Porter, John. “Cattle Plague, Livestock Disposal, and the Dismantling of the Early Modern Status Order”. Unpublished Paper. 2018. Pōtā, Jon. “Kinsei Mibunsei Kaitaiki Ni Okeru Kachiku Densenbyō To Heijū Shori”. Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 229 (2019): 1–23. Price, John. “The Economic Organization of the Outcasts of Feudal Tokyo”. Anthropological Quarterly, no. 4 (1968): 209–217. Ramaswamy, Vijaya. Historical Dictionary of the Tamils. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 2007. Ravina, Mark. “State-­Building and Political Economy in Early-­Modern Japan”. The Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 4 (1995): 997–1022. Roberts, Luke S. Performing the Great Peace: Political Space and Open Secrets in Tokugawa Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2012. Saitō, Gesshin. Zōtei Bukō Nenpyō. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1968. Sakai, Yasuto. “Tochigi”. In Higashi Nihon Burakushi: Kantō-Hen, edited by Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 171–208. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017. Saitama-­Ken, ed. Shinpen Saitama-­Kenshi Shiryōhen. Vol. 14. Urawa: Saitama-­Ken, 1991. Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, ed. Suzuki-­Ke Monjo. Vol. 1. Urawa: Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1977. Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, ed. Suzuki-­Ke Monjo. Vol. 2. Urawa: Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1977. Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, ed. Suzuki-­Ke Monjo. Vol. 3. Urawa: Saitama-­Ken Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, 1978. Saitama-­Ken Kyōiku I’inkai, ed. Kurihashi Sekisho Shiryō. Vol. 1. Saitama: Saitama-­ Ken, 2002. Sandō, Shūichi, and Tetsuo Ōkuma. “Kita Kantō Ni Okeru Hikaku Wo Chūshin To Suru Ichinakagai Shōnin No Katsudō Ni Tsuite: Bakumatsu/Meiji Shoki No Yorozuchō No Bunseki Kara”. In Higashi Nihon No Kinsei Buraku No Seigyō To Yakuwari, edited by Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 217–250. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1994. Sasahara, Kazuo. Nihonshi Kenkyū. Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1977. Satō, Daisuke. 18–19 Seiki Sendaihan No Saigai To Shakai: Bessho Man’emon Kiroku. Vol. 38. Sendai: Tōhōku Daigaku Tōhōku Ajia Sentā, 2010. Scott, James C. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. Sekiguchi, Hiro’o. “Danzaemon Shihai To Sono Kyōkai: Tōgoku No Senmin Mibun To Sabetsu”. In “Edo” No Hito To Mibun, edited by Tatsuo Shirakawabe and Eiji Yamamoto, 156–181. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2010. Seymour, Susan. “Caste”. In Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, edited by David Levinson and Melvin Ember, 177–181. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1996.

198   References Shakushi Bobiku [Anon]. “Etori no koto”. In Jinten Ainoshō. Vols. 5–6. Handwritten manuscript, No. 1002120838, Okinawa Kenritsu Toshokan Kichō Shiryō Dijitaru Shoko. Available at http://archive.library.pref.okinawa.jp Shimpan Edo Ōezu. 177–0647. National Archives of Japan Digital Archive, Available at www.digital.archives.go.jp/das/meta/M2010021620190647005 Shiomi, Sen’ichirō. Asakusa Danzaemon. Tokyo: Hihyōsha, 1988. Shiomi, Sen’ichirō. Danzaemon To Sono Jidai: Senmin Bunka No Doramatsurugii. Tokyo: Hihyōsha, 1991. Shōhō Nenchū Edo Ezu. National Archives of Japan Digital Archive, 1853. Available at www.digital.archives.go.jp/das/meta/F1000000000000000827 Singh, Bageshwar. “Sanskritization: An Appraisal”. Indian Anthropologist 8, no. 2 (1978): 119–126. Sirr, Henry Charles. Ceylon and the Cingalese: Their History, Government, and Religion, the Antiquities, Institutions, Produce, Revenue, and Capabilities of the Island: With Anecdotes Illustrating the Manners and Customs of the People. London: W. Shoberl, 1850. Sorensen, André. The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty-­First Century. London; New York: Routledge, 2002. Srinivas, M.N. “A Note on Sanskritization and Westernization”. The Far Eastern Quarterly 15, no. 4 (1956): 481–496. Srinivas, M.N. Caste in Modern India: And Other Essays. Bombay: Media Promoters & Publishers, 1989. Stanley, Amy. “Adultery, Punishment, and Reconciliation in Tokugawa Japan”. The Journal of Japanese Studies 33, no. 2 (2007): 309. Stuart, Kathy. Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Sugiyama, Seiko. “Kinsei Kantō Ni Okeru ‘Hisabetsu Buraku’ No Mibun Kōshō Ni Tsuite: Suzuki-­Ke Monjo Yori”. Minshūshi Kenkyū, no. 26 (1984): 1–18. Suzuki-­Ke Monjo. In the possession of Saitama Prefectural Archives, Saitama. Suzuki, Ryō. Suiheisha Sōritsu No Kenkyū. Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 2005. Takahashi, Bonsen. Buraku Kaihō To Dan Naoki No Kōgyō. Shakai Jigyō Kenkyūjo Hōkoku. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Chūō Shakai Jigyō Kyōkai Shakai Jigyō Kenkyūjo, 1936. Takahashi, Hirobumi. “Mito Han No Buraku No Seiritsu to Sono Shokugyō/Yakuwari”. In Higashi Nihon No Burakushi, edited by Higashinihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo, 160–170: Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017. Takahashi, Masaaki. “Chūsei No Mibunsei”. In Kōza Nihon Rekishi 3: Chūsei 1, edited by Rekishigaku Kenkyūkai and Nihonshi Kenkyūkai, 293–334. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1984. Takahashi, Toru. “ ‘Rajput’, Local Deities and Discrimination: Tracing Caste Formation in Jammu”. In Mapping Social Exclusion in India: Caste, Religion and Borderlands, edited by Paramjit S. Judge, 129–145. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Takeuchi, Rizo, and Mitsutoshi Takayanagi, eds. Kadokawa Nihonshi Jiten. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1994. Talbot, Cynthia. Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Tanabe Dōwashi Hensan I’inkai, ed. Tanabe Dōwashi. Vol. 1. Tanabe: Tanabe City, 1995. Tanaka, Keiichi, ed. Shibata Shūzō Nikki. Vol. 2. Niigata: Chōshikankō I’inkai, 1971. Tennent, J.E. Ceylon: An Account of the Island Physical, Historical and Topographical, with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities, and Productions. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859.

References   199 “Tenpō No Kikin”. In Iwanami Nihonshi Jiten LogoVista Denshi Jitenban, edited by Keiji Nagahara: Iwanami Shoten, 2016. Teraki, Nobuaki. Kinsei Buraku No Seiritsu To Tenkai. Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 1986. Teraki, Nobuaki. Kinsei Mibun To Hisabetsumin No Shosō: “Burakushi No Minaoshi” No Tojō Kara. Osaka: Kaihō Shuppansha, 2000. Teraki, Nobuaki, and Yutaka Yabuta, eds. Kinsei Osaka To Hisabetsu Shakai. Osaka: Seibundō, 2015. Toby, Ronald P. “Rescuing the Nation from History: The State of the State in Early Modern Japan. Review of Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan, Mark Ravina; Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain: The Merchant Origins of Economic Nationalism in 18th-Century Tosa, Luke S. Roberts”. Monumenta Nipponica 56, no. 2 (2001): 197–237. Tochigi-­Kenshi Hensan I’inkai, ed. Tochigi-­Kenshi Shiryōhen: Kinsei. Vol. 1. Utsunomiya: Tochigi-­Ken, 1974. Tokyo-­Fu Shiryō Kan No Nijūni. Tokyo-­Fu, 1872–1875. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, E-­chishirui-085 [35]. Tomotsune, Tsutomu. “Ibaragi”. In Higashi Nihon No Burakushi: Kantō Hen, edited by Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūkai, 121–159. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017. Toriyama, Hiroshi. “Kanagawa”. In Higashi Nihon No Burakushi: Kantō Hen, edited by Higashi Nihon Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūkai, 21–56. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 2017. Tsuishō No Ken Ko Dan Naoki. Kanbō, 1899. Tokyo Metropolitan Archives, Fumei II Mei 32–094 [D] D059. Tsukada, Takashi. “Ajia Ni Okeru Ryō To Sen: Gyūkawa Ryūtsū Wo Tegakari Toshite”. In Ajia No Naka No Nihonshi, edited by Yasunori Arano, Masatoshi Ishii, and Shōsuke Murai, 249–284. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1992. Tsukada, Takashi. Kinsei Mibunsei Shakai No Toraekata: Yamakawa Shuppansha Kōkō Nihonshi Kyōkasho Wo Tōshite. Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 2010. Tsukada, Takashi. Kinsei Mibunsei To Shūen Shakai. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1997. Tsukada, Takashi. Kinsei Nihon Mibunsei No Kenkyū. Kobe: Hyōgo Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1987. Tsukada, Takashi. Mibunron Kara Rekishigaku Wo Kangaeru. Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 2000. Tsukada, Takashi. Mibunsei Shakai To Shimin Shakai: Kinsei Nihon No Shakai To Hō. Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1992. Tsukada, Takashi. “Stratification and Compositeness of Social Groups in Tokugawa Japan: A Perspective on Early Modern Society”. Acta Asiatica, no. 87 (2004): 85–100. Tsukada, Takashi. “The Urban History of Osaka”. City, Culture and Society 3, no. 1 (2012): 1–8. Tsukada, Takashi, and Kinsei Osaka Kenkyūkai, eds. Ōsaka Oshioki Okakidashi No Utsushi/Ōsaka Oshioki Todome. Osaka: Osaka Shiritsu Daigaku Daigakuin Kenkyūka Toshi Bunka Kenkyū Sentā, 2007. Tsukamoto, Manabu. Shōrui O Meguru Seiji: Genroku No Fōkuroa. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1983. Uesugi, Satoshi. “Meiji Yonnen Senminsei Haishirei No Hōteki Naiyō: Sono Shikō Katei No Kenkyū”. Buraku Kaihō Kenkyū 29, no. 3 (1982): 113–141.

200   References Umihara, Ryō. “Shohyō: Tsukada Takashi Hen ‘Mibunteki Shūen No Hikakushi: Hō To Shakai No Shiten Kara’ ”. Shidai Nihonshi, no. 15 (2012): 178–189. Urabe, Manabu. “Bushū Shimo Wana Chōri No Shitchi Ukemodoshi Hantai Tōsō”. In Buraku No Seikatsushi, edited by Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 225–230. Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1988. Uramoto, Yoshifumi. Edo/Tokyo No Hisabetsu Buraku No Rekishi: Danzaemon to Hisabetsu Minshū. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2003. Vajpeyi, Ananya. “A History of Caste in South India: From Pre-­Colonial Polity to Bio-­ Political State”. In Shared Histories of Modernity: China, India and the Ottoman Empire, edited by Huri İslamoğlu-İnan and Peter C. Perdue, 299–320. London; New York: Routledge, 2009. Vaporis, Constantine Nomikos. Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1994. Vijaisri, Priyadarshini. Dangerous Marginality: Rethinking Impurity and Power. Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research in association with Primus Books, 2015. Wakayama Jinken Kenkyūkai/Wakayama No Burakushi Hensankai, ed. Wakayama No Burakushi. 7 vols. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2013–2015. Wakita, Osamu. Kawara Makimono No Sekai. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1991. Watanabe, Hiroshi. Mikaihō Buraku No Genryū To Henkan: Kishū Wo Chūshin Toshite. Kyoto: Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1994. Weber, Max. The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism. Translated by Hans H. Gerth and Don Martindale. Glencoe: The Free Press, 1958. Whigmore, John Henry, ed. Law and Justice in Tokugawa Japan. Vol. VIII-­B. Tokyo: Japan Foundation, 1983. Whitman, James Q. Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide between America and Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Yagi, Shigeru. “Yasuike Monjo Kara Mieru Namba Mura Jidai No Watanabe Mura”. Osaka Rekishi Hakubutsukan Kiyō 33 (2001): 9–16. Yamagata-­Ken Keizaibu, ed. Dewa Hyakushō Ikkiroku. Yamagata: Yamagata-­Ken Keizaibu, 1935. Yamaguchi, Keiji. “Mondai No Shozai”. In Saiban To Kihan, edited by Keiji Yamaguchi, 2–16. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987. Yanagisawa, Haruka. A Century of Change: Caste and Irrigated Lands in Tamilnadu, 1860s–1970s. New Delhi: Manohar, 1996. Yokota, Fuyuhiko. “Kinseiteki Mibun Seido No Seiritsu”. In Nihon No Kinsei 7 Kan, edited by Naohiro Asao, 65–78. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1992. Yokota, Fuyuhiko. “Senshi Sareta Shokunin Shūdan”. In Nihon No Shakaishi, edited by Naohiro Asao, 285–322. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987. Yokoyama, Gennosuke, ed. Yokoyama Gennosuke Zenshū. Vol. 2. Tokyo: Shakai Shisōsha, 2001. Yokoyama, Yuriko. Edo Tokyo No Meiji Ishin. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2018. Yokoyama, Yuriko. Meiji Ishin to Kinsei Mibunsei No Kaitai. Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppankai, 2005. Yoshida, Nobuyuki. Dentō Toshi, Edo. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 2012. Yoshida, Tsutomu. “Bakuhan Taisei No Seiritsu To Kinsei Senmin Seido: Shakaiteki Senshi Kara Seidoteki Sabetsu E”. Ōmiya Shiritsu Hakubutsukan Kenkyū Kiyō 2 (1990): 39–66. Yoshida, Tsutomu. “Mibunron Kara Sabetsuron: Kegareron, Kyōkairon, Chi’iki Shakairon He”. Buraku Kaihō Kenkyū, no. 200 (2014): 71–80.

References   201 Yoshida, Tsutomu. “Shohyō Fujimoto Seijirō ‘Kinsei Mibun Shakai No Nakama Kōzō’ ”. Buraku Kaihō Kenkyū, no. 197 (2013): 70–78. Yoshimi-­Chō Chōshi Hensan I’inkai, ed. Yoshimi-­Chōshi. Vol. 2. Yoshimi-­Chō: Yoshimi-­ Chō (Production by Mokujisha), 1979. Yukitake, Kazuhiro. “Kinsei Nichiran Bōeki Ni Sūryōteki Torihiki Jittai: 17 Seiki Zenki Oranda Shōkan Sakusei ‘Kaikei Chōbo’ No Kaidoku/Bunseki”. Shakai Keizai Shigaku 72, no. 6 (2007): 673–693. Zasshisha, Keizai, ed. Konjaku Monogatari. Vol. 16. Kokushi Taikei/Keizai Zasshisha. Tokyo: Keizai Zasshisha, 1901. Zōhō Edo Ōezu: Hitsuji Sangatsu Aratame Goyaku Eiri. 1682. National Diet Library Digital Collection. Available at http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1286182

Index

Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji 28, 40n44 Anan, Shigeyuki 166 Amino, Yoshihiko 45 An’ei Edict 9, 22, 36, 78, 84, 93n52, 116 Arimoto, Masao 174, 182n26 Asakusa: bureaucratic centre 12, 18, 19, 21, 42, 56, 80; crucifixion 99, 100, 106, 108, 112, 122n44, 126–128; Danzaemon 8, 11, 134; hospice 136, 137; leatherwork 173, 175; relief stations 138; transformation 144–150, 152, 156–160; see also Shinchō Asao, Naohiro 14n18, 53, 54, 61, 67n62, 73, 79, 92n5, 93n57 autonomy 20, 21, 50, 64, 91, 146 Bakin, Takizawa 84 Bayly, Susan 28, 40n41 Befu, Harumi 71, 86, 87 beggar/begging 5, 17; beggar village (kojikimura) 60, 145; division of labour 48, 49; execution duties 73, 78, 84, 126, 128, 129, 130, 135, 136; hinin livelihood 58; legislation 20–22, 33; pollution and punishment 146, 174; rights 35, 46; ritual 56 Berry, Mary Elizabeth 99 Botsman, Daniel 98, 99, 120n5, 123n70, 123n74, 141n1, 187n2 Buraku 3, 6, 24, 38n22, 46 Burakumin 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 13n6, 13n10, 14n21, 65n15 cadastral survey 8, 38n22, 48, 52, 54, 55, 85 Can. d. āla 26 capital 6, 11, 28, 144, 145 capital accumulation 11, 144, 151

carcass disposal 25, 26, 45, 46; heigyūba suteba 49, 50, 56, 74, 75, 154, 170, 173, 174, 179, 182n33 Caron, Francois 57 Carroll, Lucy 96n111 caste/caste form 1–5, 7; Edo status system 33, 36, 37, 40n40, 40n56, 42; features of caste 9, 11, 13n1, 14n21, 15; India and Japan 26; occupational caste groups 45, 48; re-energising and dissolution 185–187; resistance to 86, 90, 141, 184; systematization 59, 71, 72, 76; untouchability 28, 32; see also outcaste caste society 1–7, 15, 28, 90, 163, 187 Chambhar 25, 30 Chiribukuro 27, 31 chōri 5, 7; An’ei Edict 22, 23, 25, 38n14; Asakusa 144; early modern life 15–17, 19, 20; execution tasks 108–111, 114; governance 21; hinin clash 128, 129; historical legacies 42–44; infractions 81, 83, 85, 86, 87; pollution ideology 70, 71, 75, 76; power attempts 116, 117, 124, 124; power relationship 89, 90, 91, 97, 101, 106; records 53–55, 57, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 66n32; roles and labour specialization 46–51; Tenpō famine 134; term 12, 13; under 1778 Edict 80; see also eta Chōri Statutes 81, 97, 109, 110, 134, 174 clan (uji) 7, 43, 44, 46, 51, 57, 63, 166, 184 colonial/colonialism 15, 25–28, 31, 90 commoner (heimin) 21, 23, 38n22, 73, 76–78, 80–83, 85, 86, 94n57, 113, 116, 117, 127, 131, 132, 134, 144, 151, 153, 154, 157, 159

Index   203 crucifixion (haritsuke) 10, 35, 97; ceremonial political symbolism 115–119, 129n4, 120n6, 120n8, 120n16, 121n18, 121n37, 122n44, 123n66; Chōri Statutes 108; Danzaemon participation 101; in Early Tokugawa period 98–100; eta, hinin, daimyo roles 102–104; inconsistency 112; Keibatsu Daihiroku (The Great Secret Record of Punishment) 113; offences 105; role elaboration, Tenmei Senyō Ruishū 107 daimyo 33, 87, 88, 100, 102, 104, 105, 167, 169 Dalit 5, 187 Danzaemon 2–5; area of rule (kanhasshū) 19; autonomy 64, 66n32; “chief of eta” 16, 17; clan breakdown 7–9; commoner status 86; comparison with caste 31, 32; competition 176; dual economy 21; economic elite 152; “Edo outcaste order” 23; execution duties 97, 98; fabricated genealogies 87; hinin legal battle 124–128; instruments of Tokugawa punitive power 117; Jin’emon 132–134; Kujikata Osadamegaki 105; Kuruma Zenshichi 58, 59, 63; leather monopoly 56, 163; leather procurement and supply 169–174; leather production privileges 146; legislation 78–81; methodology 10–12; origin story 52; Osha Reisho 150; outcaste governance 15; policing unregistered persons 130; pollution ideology 71, 72, 75, 76; poverty relief 138, 139, 142n10; power expansion 135; procedures 108–113; ritual world 47; role in crucifixion 100–103; salon 85, 151; samurai mimicry 89, 90, 92n26, 95n109; samurai values 67; scapegoat function 35, 36, 37n8, 38n22, 39n23; Shinchō 144; shogunate backing 167; status elevation 153; status enhancement 118; stax exemption 148; stigma 22; sub-chiefs 20; Tenmei Senyō Ruishū 107; tensions 175; the Twenty-Five Friends of the Apricot Grove visual display 116; workplace 49, 50 Danzaemon Chikamasa 12, 19, 88, 100, 101, 135, 178, 180 Danzaemon Chikamasu 12, 79, 109, 110, 111, 184, 135, 174

Danzaemon Chikamori 12, 136, 138, 139, 151, 175 Danzaemon Chikamura 12, 37n8, 52, 56, 87, 97, 101, 106, 124–130, 133, 140, 142n10, 169 Danzaemon Chikasono 12, 101, 107, 108, 111, 112, 124, 130, 131, 132, 140 Danzaemon Chikayasu (Dan Naiki, Dan Naoki) 12, 37n8, 86, 89, 103, 141, 151–154, 170, 175, 176 De Vos, George 14n21 Dirks, Nicholas 27 disaster 36, 57, 58, 64, 125, 185 discrimination 1, 5, 22, 24, 31, 39, 40n56, 72, 75, 78, 86, 93n16, 93n35, 144, 159, 186 division of labour 5, 7, 16, 28, 29, 37, 42, 45, 48, 71, 115, 146, 165, 168, 187 Dumont, Louis 28 duty/duties (goyō) 4, 5; cohesion in breakdown 70, 73, 75, 76, 78, 86, 88, 90; execution 97, 102, 106–107, 61, 64, 66n32; inconsistency 112, 114–117; leather production 146, 164, 168, 174, 180, 186; legislation 20–24; older duties and modern state 53–56, 58, 60; policing 124, 129, 132, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 141; rights 26, 28, 32–34; stigmatized labour 6, 9, 10 Edo 8, 11, 17; Danzaemon administrative office 19, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59; execution records 99, 120n4; karigoya 62, 64; laws 78, 81, 84, 85, 87; maps 145; overcrowding 138; poverty management 129, 135; reorganization 75, 76; sectarian rule 60; Shinchō 144; Tenpō famine 136 Edo outcaste order 8, 15, 20, 21, 23; contradictions 180, 184–186, 187n2; Danzaemon control 118, 125, 126, 130; leather monopoly 163, 164, 170, 173; legal struggle 63, 64, 66n14; marginalized space 150, 160; military regimentation 89, 90, 93n35, 97, 98; mobile labour force 135, 136, 140, 141; pollution ideology 69, 71, 73, 77, 78, 80; Pre-Tokugawa practices 42, 46, 47; rival groups 176, 178, seventeenth century establishment 31, 35, 36; transformations 83, 86; workplace 49, 55, 56, 60

204   Index Ehlers, Maren 141n2 Eisenstadt, Shmuel 7, 43, 55 Emancipation Edict: equality 154; Shinchō 155, 156, 159, 181, 186 Emoto, Yazaemon 58, 102 endogamy 2, 9, 16, 28, 32, 76 eta 4, 5, 7, 9, 12, 13n6; Chiribukuro 31, 35, 36, 38n14, 38n22; continuity 51; crucifixion 103, 106, 107, 109, 112; Danzaemon 56, 59; elevation 131; Emancipation Edict 155, 159; emerging legal code 78, 79; eta mura 146, 147; “four peoples” 61; hinin goya 64, 66n32, 68; hinin resentment 136, 141–144; infractions 81–86; Jinten Ainōshō 27; leatherwork 163–167, 170, 174, 175, 176, 179, 180, 181n20; legislation 73; numbers 19, 22, 102; outcastes and commoners 70, 71; population 149; in pre-Tokugawa Japan 44, 46, 47; regional practices 75–77; rights 49; symbolic power 116, 118, 119, 122n44, 122n58, 124; terminology 23, 25; wealth accumulation 152, 153, 154 etori 27 execution 5, 9, 10, 20, 21, 35, 53, 54, 56, 59, 64, 73, 75, 85, 86, 88, 97–104, 105, 120n4; outsourcing 163; symbolic containment in 161 famine 10, 36, 49, 57, 125, 134–136, 140, 141n2, 166, 185 feudal/feudalism 6, 7, 14n24, 19, 30, 33, 41n63, 43, 76, 87, 89, 122n44, 122n54, 154, 160, 167 “four peoples” 61, 73, 80 Frois, Luis 51, 103, 120n8 Fujimoto, Seijirō 46, 92n5 Girard, Rene 14n20 Glassman, Henry (Hank) Joseph 44 Goble, Andrew Edmund 45 Goodwin, Janet 44 Gordon, June A 17n4 Gouge, Kevin L. 44 goyō kankei 5, 146 Great Meireki Fire 58, 145 Groemer, Gerald 8, 21–23, 38n12, 62, 65n15, 67n61, 78, 84, 93n35, 129, 135, 152 Gurukkal, Rajan 33

Habib, Irfan 9, 14n22, 15, 28, 29, 32, 36, 45, 76 Hall, John C. 122n44 Hall, John Whitney 43, 141n1 Harrington, Joel 115 Hayashiya, Tatsusaburō 45 Heian period 22 hereditary 16, 19, 20, 23, 28, 29, 31, 38n14, 43–45, 64, 115, 159, 169 heinō bunri 52 hierarchy/hierarchical 5, 8, 9, 15, 19, 21, 25, 27, 28, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 42, 58, 76, 82, 87, 99, 168, 175, 184 hinin 5, 17, 20, 21; begging rights 49, 50, 53; Danzaemon governance 57, 58; execution duties 106, 108–113, 116, 119, 122n58, 123n66; independence movement 124–128; iyashikimono 76, 77; Kakubē 132–135; karigoya 62, 63, 64, 70; Kuruma Zenshichi 60, 61; legislation 78, 79, 80; marginalizing terminology 22, 23; patrols 139, 140, 141, 142n10, 145, 150, 153, 155, 168, 174, 177, 179, 184, 187n2; pollution ideology 71, 73, 75; racialization 81, 82, 84, 89, 101; scapegoating 25, 31, 35, 36, 45; “wild hinin” 129, 130 homeless, -ness 36, 61, 64, 81, 111, 129, 130, 136, 138, 150, 154 hospice (tame) 63, 129, 136–138, 140 Howell, David 59, 83 human (being/life) 11, 28, 38n14, 93n57, 132, 137, 138, 140, 141, 154 ichizoku 44 ie 44, 168 Ihara, Saikaku 76 Imado area/Bridge/village 59, 145, 146, 158 Inshi, Buyō 82, 94n71 Jansen, Marius B. 87, 151 jati 4, 29, 30, 45 Jin’emon 16, 80, 89, 106, 132, 133, 134, 171, 173, 176, 180 Jinten Ainōshō 27 Kaempfer, Engelbert 103 Kaiho, Seiryō 83 kaitō shūraku 48 kakouchi/kako-nouchi (“the enclosure”) 144, 147 Kakubē 184–187

Index   205 Kamakura shogunate 44, 45, 65n10 kanhasshū 19, 37n8, 49, 128 kāsutoteki keitai 2 kawaramono 27 kawata 12, 46–48, 51, 53–56, 68n71, 72, 75, 83, 94n72, 102, 165, 167, 170, 173 kawazukuri 51, 57, 167 Kiheiji 16, 17, 19–23, 31, 32, 42, 80 kinship 4, 7, 17, 30, 42–45, 63, 65n10, 65n14, 71, 184, 185 Kiroku Binran (The List of Records) 112 kiyome 46 Kobayashi, Gonshichi 156–159 Konjaku Monogatarishū 26 Kotani, Hiroyuki 15, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36 Kuroda, Toshio 30, 40n51, 43, 45 labour specialization 11, 48, 144, 152, 164, 185 leatherwork 29, 38n22, 38n26, 40n40, 46, 47, 48, 51, 56, 57, 64, 73, 146, 150, 163, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 178, 185 Lower Wana village 16, 17, 18, 20, 47, 80, 81, 84, 106, 109, 116, 132, 135, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 179, 180 Machida, Tetsu 54 Maki, Hidemasa 63, 72, 73, 75, 78, 93n52 Makihara, Shigeyuki 42, 54, 166 marginalize/marginalization 4, 8, 21, 25, 26, 29, 31, 45, 49, 59, 62, 91, 144, 146, 159, 160, 176, 184 Marx, Karl/Marxist 27, 28, 40n43, 40n44, 40n45 Maruyama, Masao 14n24, 123n75 Matsuemon 20, 58, 63, 84, 127, 128, 129, 135 McCullough, William 43, 65n5 Meiji 5, 6, 23, 66n42, 89, 101, 144, 145, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 160, 180, 181n20, 182n28, 182n41, 185, 186, 187n2 Minami Ōji village 54, 72, 83, 165 Minegishi, Kentarō 2, 16, 30, 31, 42, 74, 88, 92n9, 92n16, 102, 125, 167 Mita, Satoko 54, 72, 83 Mitani, Hiroshi 66n42 Mito Domain 46, 50, 85, 107

Morita, Yoshinori 76 Motoori, Norinaga 27 Motoori, Uchitō 27 Nakao, Kenji 84, 88, 151, 153 Ninsho oath 46 Nishiki, Kōichi 60 Ochiboshū (Collection of Gleanings) 59 Ogyū, Sorai 76, 77, 83 Okuma, Tetsuo 49, 181n20 Omvedt, Gail 41n59 Ooms, Herbert 8, 14n18, 69, 75, 87, 93n57, 105, 106, 123n74, 179 Osaka 52, 53, 84, 85, 107, 115, 144, 146, 151, 152, 159, 163, 166 Ōto, Osamu 46, 74 outcaste: administrative units 48; begging rights 49; caste 27, 31; constraints 23; Edo outcaste order 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; emancipation 184–186; emergence 35; execution 109–114; genealogies 76; Kaiho Seiryō 83; Kiheiji 16, 21, 22; markers of difference 159; moral outrage 70; older communities 46; policing 124, 135; pollution 72; political symbolic potential 117; racialization 81; rebellion 86; registration 53, 56, 57, 59, 60, 64, 65n14, 65n18; scapegoat 36, 38n12; senmin mibun 24; social distance from samurai 89, 91, 92n16, 92n23; see also Danzaemon outcasteness 2, 9, 24, 27, 28, 32, 35, 42, 69, 70, 77, 78, 80, 113, 130, 132, 147 Ōyama, Kyōhei 13n1, 14n21, 30, 32, 44, 45, 47, 144, 159, 177, 187n2; Kyoto 73, 75, 104, 152, 159, 165, 167 Paramore, Kiri 14n18 pariah 27, 28, 38n14, 29, 29, 30 policing 4, 9, 20, 33, 34, 35, 36, 56, 57, 81, 124, 135, 184 pollution (kegare) 1, 5, 8, 9, 13n6; comparison with India 15, 25, 29, 30, 31, 35; death pollution 74, 75–77; dual grave system 46, 47, 48; laws 78, 79, 82–86; leather demand 168, 184, 186; notion re-established 36, 37, 39n26; pollution ideology 69–73; ritual pollution 42, 43, 45; samurai mimicry 90, 91, 114, 115, 119, 134, 146, 147, 148, 160

206   Index poverty management 129, 130 poverty relief 58, 124, 125, 134, 135 privileges 5, 24, 49; guarantee 71, 75, 91, 114, 124, 130, 146, 154, 163–165, 175, 180, 181n6, 187; workplace 50, 55, 56, 64, 70 punishment 34, 41n64, 44, 82, 99, 100, 104, 105, 106, 113, 119, 122n58, 126, 134, 136, 141n1 Ravina, Mark 7, 47 Rodiya 25 rural decline 36, 130 samurai 57; mimicry 70, 71, 77, 86–88, 90, 91, 99, 100, 103, 110, 113, 115, 139, 147, 168 samuraization 71, 86, 89 sanjo 45 Sanskritization 10, 86, 89, 90, 96n11 Satō, Daisuke 140 scapegoat/scapegoating 5, 8, 9, 10, 14n20, 14n21, 15, 25, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 70, 81n91, 124, 184 Sedan (Discourse of Government) 77 Seji kenmonroku (Observations of Worldly Affairs) 82 Senjakō (Thoughts on Lowly Persons) 27 Shinchō (Newtown) 17, 59, 60; “the enclosure” 144, 143–148; personal reach within Edo 153, 154–160, 163, 173, 174, 178, 179, 185; stratification 149, 150; “The TwentyFive Friends of the Apricot Grove”151; wealth accumulation 152; see also Asakusa shogunate 7; group incorporation 54, 65n10; kinship axes 44, 45, 47; laws 78, 82; military-style organization 8; outcastes as instruments of power 9, 10, 20; see also Tokugawa shogunate shogunate maps: Complete Enclosure Map of Asakusa’s Kameoka Neighbourhood (Asakusa Kameokachō Zenkaku Zumen) 158; Edo Hōgaku Anken Zukan (Plain Map of Edo Localities) 146; Great Map of Meireki Edo (Meireki Edo Ōezu) 145; Zōhō Edo Ōezu (Enlarged Plan of Edo) 145 shusei 45; see also varna status (mibun) 3–13, 17, 18, 22; anxiety 150–154; bifurcation 175, 184–187;

caste 28–33; commodification 163, 164; duty 34, 38n22, 39n23, 40n40, 41n64; clan 43, 44, 47, 48, 50; group consolidation 144, 146; mibun dantai 54; networks 156, 158, 159; privileges 165; regional developments 132, 134, 135, 137, 138; samuraization 89, 92n26, 93n57, 99, 116–118; senmin mibun 24, 25–27; status negotiation 140, 141n1, 141n2; Sword Hunt Edict 51, 52; systemization 59–61, 70, 71; threats to status categories 124–126, 130; Tsunayoshi policies 74, 76, 80, 86, 87, 88 stigma/stigmatized/stigmatization 5, 6, 9, 10, 22, 35–36, 39n26, 98; privileges 114, 116, 117; renewed 135, 146, 159, 160, 164, 165, 186 Tama Katsuma 27 tanning 40n40, 45; guilds 51, 56, 146; Shinchō 150, 154, 165, 169, 176 tax exemption 55, 56, 60, 146, 148, 155 Tenmei famine 36, 135, 140, 141n2 Tenpō famine 10, 36, 125, 136, 140, 187, 189, 195, 199 Tenpō period 14; Cadastral Survey 85; crucifixions 117 Tenshō Nikki (Tenshō Period Diary) 59, 145, 148 Teraki, Nobuaki 38n22 Tokugawa Ieyasu 33, 50, 53, 59, 87, 93, 120n8 Tokugawa shogunate 10, 20, 33; eta legislation 73, 103; “independent authorities” 47; leather monopoly 56, 60, 64, 69; “106 Articles” 105, 116; Osha Reisho (Examples of Official Pardons) 150; “pathos of distance” 117, 118, 124; policing the poor 135, 141, 146; shift in relationship with outcastes 180, 185; social transformation 153, 164, 167–169; see also shogunate Tokugawa Tsunayoshi 35, 62, 74, 92n6, 146 Tokugawa Yoshimune 35 Toriyama, Hiroshi 173 Toyotomi Hideyoshi 48, 50–55, 99, 120n8, 167 Tsukada, Takashi 5, 13n11, 38n12, 39n23, 41n64, 51, 58, 61, 63,

Index   207 68n93, 79, 92n5, 93n53, 97, 101, 106, 120n4, 122n58, 122n59, 142n29, 166 Tsukamoto, Manabu 74 Uesugi (clan) 51 untouchability 1, 3, 5, 28, 31, 32, 77 untouchable 1, 29 unregistered 4, 10, 78, 81, 124, 129, 130, 136, 138, 139 Urabe, Manabu 81 Uramato, Yoshifumi 12, 102 urbanization 11, 144, 145, 147, 152 vagrant 20, 57, 63, 79, 130, 133 varna 4, 26; shusei 45, 76 Vijaisri, Priyadarshini 32 Wakayama 13n14 Wakita, Haruko 45 Wakita, Osamu 76 warrior 6, 7, 8, 21; Confucian social division 73, 76, 87, 88, 89, 93n57; distance from the ruled 98, 103, 104,

110, 112, 114–116, 139, 164–167, 169, 170, 180; genealogies 34, 35, 36, 43, 44, 46, 51, 52, 55, 57, 59, 60; preservation of privilege 23, 24, 29, 30, 32 Watanabe, Hiroshi 31, 92n5 Watanabe village 53, 54, 68n74, 144, 146, 152, 153, 166, 170 Weber, Max 27, 26, 40n40 workplace (kusaba) 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 64, 78, 133, 134, 168, 169, 173, 175 workplace rights (banichi) 48, 49, 171 Yagi, Shigeru 146, 152 yake 44 Yamaguchi, Keiji 44 Yanagisawa, Haruka 31 Yokoi, Kiyoshi 47 Yokota, Fuyuhiko 48–49, 66n29, 92n16, 93n57, 104 Yokoyama, Gennosuke 144 Zenshichi, Kuruma 20, 58, 60, 62, 63, 84, 108, 111, 125–129, 135, 141