A History of Discriminated Buraku Communities in Japan 9781898823971

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A HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATED BURAKU COMMUNITIES IN JAPAN

A History of Discriminated Buraku Communities in Japan 5 by TERAKI Nobuaki MOMOYAMA GAKUIN

& KUROKAWA Midori SHIZUOKA UNIVERSITY

TRANSLATED BY IAN NEARY OXFORD UNIVERSITY

A HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATED BURAKU COMMUNITIES IN JAPAN

First published 2019 by RENAISSANCE BOOKS P O Box 219 Folkestone Kent CT20 2WP Renaissance Books is an imprint of Global Books Ltd ISBN 978-1-898823-96-4 Hardback 978-1-898823-97-1 e-Book © Renaissance Books 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Set in Garamond 11 on 12.5 pt by Dataworks Printed and bound in England by CPI Antony Rowe Ltd., Chippenham, Wilts

CONTENTS 5

Translator’s Preface by Ian NEARY

xix

Foreword by TERAKI Nobuaki

xxi

List of Figures

xiii

PART I Chapter 1: Establishment of the Japanese State and the Formation and Transformation of Status x Status in the small states of pre-history x Status in the Yamato state x The creation of the Yamato state and the formation of clans and ranks Chapter 2 : Formation of the Ritsuryō State Structure and the Status System x The formation of the ritsuryō structure x The creation of a senmin system beneath the status system of the ritsuryō structures x Senmin in the ritsuryō system x The disruption and dismantling of the ritsuryō status system x The role played by immigrants and their social position x Strategies and attitudes to those living on the islands to the North, the North-east and the South x The strengthening of discrimination based on ideas of pollution in the Heian period x The origins of occupational discrimination against butchers and leather workers v

1 1 5 6 8 8 9 10 11 12 15 17 20

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Chapter 3 : Formation and Development of Society in the Middle Ages and the Lifestyle and Culture of Discriminated People x The structure and development of society in the Middle Ages x Features of the status system of the Middle Ages x Formation and living conditions of the eta – kiyome, saiku, kawaramono – in the early Middle Ages x Hinin of the early Middle Ages and their way of life x Sanjo and their lives in the early Middle Ages x Transformation of society in the Middle Ages x Work and livelihood of the kawaramono: eta, kiyome and saiku in the late Middle Ages x The work of hinin, sanjo (shōmoji) and their lives in the late Middle Ages x Kawata in the era of Warring States (Sengoku Jidai) Chapter 4 : Establishment of Kawata and Chōri Status – the Buraku of the Early Modern Period x Rule of the Toyotomi, the early Tokugawa regime, and the kawata/chōri x Bakuhan structure of rule and the status system x Formation of the kawata and chōri – the Buraku of the early modern period x Reality of the status regulations of the Edo Period x Control of discriminated people and the discrimination policy of the feudal lords in the early Edo Period x Occupations of the kawata and chōri in the early Edo Period x Responsibilities of kawata and chōri in the early Edo Period

24 24 25 26 31 36 38 40 46 48

54 54 58 61 66

67 73 77

CONTENTS

Chapter 5 : Discriminated Groups of the Early Modern Period x Formation of hinin status groups and their responsibilities x Other discriminated groups Chapter 6 : Development of Early Modern (Kinsei) Society and Discriminated People x Social trends in the mid-Edo period and the discrimination policies used by the Bakufu authorities and feudal lords to control discriminated groups x Occupations of the kawata and chōri in the mid-Edo period x Social context of discriminated people in the mid-Edo period x Religion and kawata/chōri in the mid-Edo period Chapter 7 : Dislocation and Collapse of Early Modern Society and Discriminated People x Social trends in late-Edo Japan and discriminated people x Changes in the occupations of the kawata and chōri in the later Edo Period x Demographic change among the discriminated communities and its impact x Struggles of discriminated groups and the development of emancipatory thought x Discriminated people and social change on the verge of the Restoration – the eve of the liberation edict

vii

81 81 83 89

89 93 98 100 103 103 105 107 108

111

PART II Chapter 8: What was the ‘Buraku Problem’ in the Modern Period? x Questioning society x Buraku – discriminated Buraku – Dōwa districts

113 113 115

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x x x x

The boundaries that replaced status Start of the modern Buraku problem – the Liberation Edict Debate in the Kōgisho Promotion by the Minbushō and the Treasury

117 118 121 122

Chapter 9 : Signs of Discrimination Invented x Maintenance of ‘old customs’ x Rejection of discrimination by the ‘Japanese Enlightenment’ x Freedom, people’s rights movement and the ‘Buraku problem’ x New ‘signifiers’ – hotbeds of poverty, filth and disease x The look that says ‘different’

125 125

Chapter 10 : Discriminated Buraku are ‘Discovered’ x Excluded from the new village system x Barrier of the ie family system that impeded (and impedes) marriage x Okura Toro’s Biwako (Song of Biwa) x How ‘one’s origins’ stand in the way – from Hakai x Sweeping away signs of discrimination x The start of Buraku improvement policies x The ‘race’ line

137 137

Chapter 11 : Seeking Unification of the Empire x Racism and moral training x From ‘Special Buraku’ to ‘Buraku of Poor People’ x Formation of Yamato Dōshikai x Constructing an Origins Theory for ‘Harmonious Reconciliation’ x Formation of the Imperial Way Society x New lands – movement and migration x Inversion of ends and means – Yamato Dōshikai and Imperial Way Society x Enlightenment of ordinary Buraku people

149 149 151 152

127 129 131 133

138 140 142 143 145 147

154 156 158 159 161

CONTENTS

ix

Chapter 12 : Rice Riots and Racial Equality x Emergence of the rice riots x A focus of repression x Images of the rioters and ‘special people’ x ‘Compassionate conciliation’ x Demand for abolition of racial discrimination and discrimination against Burakumin x Crushing of the racial origin theories x Creation of the Dōaikai

163 163 165 166 167

Chapter 13 : Liberation by Our Own Efforts x Investigating ‘self-awareness’ x Swallow Association (Tsubamekai) – seeking a discrimination-free society x Recovery of pride – the formation of the national Suiheisha x The Suiheisha Declaration x Experiences of discrimination mount up x Women of the Buraku – patience and submission x Formation of the women’s Suiheisha x The Hyongpyongsa and Kaiheisha

175 175

Chapter 14 : Liberation or Conciliation? x Aiming for socialism x Reactions to the Suiheisha – the Serada village incident x The ‘same’ proletarian class? x Stubborn defence of ‘Buraku’ consciousness x From the Central Social Project Council Regional Improvement Division to the Central Project Council x A moral movement or an economic movement?

192 192

Chapter 15 : ‘National Unity’ and its Contradictions x Economic problems rise to the surface x Suiheisha dissolution theory and its modification x Joining the nation

204 204 205 208

169 170 171

176 180 181 183 185 187 188

193 195 197 199 201

x

A HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATED BURAKU COMMUNITIES IN JAPAN

x x x x x x x x

Onset of total war in China and the wartime collaboration of the Suiheisha Subordination of ‘National Unity’ to the ‘Building of a Greater East Asia’ Start of Yūwa education Implications of race – minzoku Discrimination as unpatriotic activity IRRA and the formation of Dōwa Hōkōkai ‘Resource regulation projects’ and migration to Manchuria Extinction of the Dōwa movement

Chapter 16 : Post-war Reforms and the Re-launch of the Buraku Liberation Movement x Formation of the Buraku National Liberation Committee (BNLC) x Against the Emperor System x ‘As long as there are aristocrats there will be outcastes’ x Discrimination Buraku get left behind x Requesting a national policy – the formation of BLL x Women rise up x Creation of the National Dōwa Education Research Association Chapter 17 : Making Citizens: Becoming Citizens x Making citizens x Acknowledging the state’s responsibility – the Dōtaishin x New limits x Sayama Incident x BLL grows and broadens x The ‘alley’ swindle – the tree country and root country

211 212 213 215 216 217 218 219 221 221 223 224 226 227 231 233 237 237 238 240 242 243 247

CONTENTS

Chapter 18 : Absorption and Exclusion into ‘ Civil Society’ x Dōwa policy – re-examination of the BLL x What are ‘Burakumin’? x Talking of ‘pride’ x Minority group solidarity x From Dōwa to human rights – the end of the Special Measures Law

xi

250 250 252 253 256 257

Chapter 19 : Looking at the Buraku Problem Now x Recent opinion poll data x Retrograde step or negation? x Looking at ‘civil society’ x Acquiring an understanding of universal human rights

259 259 260 264

Afterword Bibliography Index

267 269 289

265

List of Figures 5

Chapter 1

1. Aomori prefecture Sannai Maruyama excavation. [Courtesy, Jomon Jiyukan, Aomori prefecture]

3

Chapter 2

2. Manuscript showing a list of absconded slaves. [Courtesy, Shōsōin Kunaichō] 3. Fifth-century pot made using techniques imported from the Korean peninsula. [Courtesy, Kyoto National Museum]

12 14

Chapter 3

4. The first known example of the use of the term ‘eta’ – Chiribukuro [Courtesy, National Diet Library] 5. ‘Eta children’ of the Kamokawara, Kyoto. Tengu Zoshi. [Courtesy, Chūō Kōronsha] 6. Images of hinin from the Middle Ages (Ippen Shonin Eden). The group on the left are hinin and beggars receiving alms. [Courtesy, Tokyo National Museum] 7. Senshū Manzai – from a scroll depicting 32 occupations. [Courtesy, Tenri University Library] 8. An eta woman in the late Middle Ages stretching a leather hide – Shichijuichiban Shokuin Utawase [Courtesy, Osaka Human Rights Museum] 9. Gardens of the Ginkakuji temple which were originally constructed by kawaramono

26 29 36 37 40 43

Chapter 4

10. Use of ‘Kawata’ in the Taikō Land Survey, 1598. (Kōchi boku, Tanhoku-kōri, Saraike-mura)

56

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11. A buraku located outside the walls in Kyoto at the start of the early modern period [Courtesy, Kyoto National Museum] 12. Sketch of the Watanabe-mura, Settsu (Osaka) at the start of the early modern period [Courtesy, Osaka Museum of History]

70 71

Chapter 5

13. Stand-up comedians (manzai) and a musician [Courtesy, Osaka Human Rights Museum] 14. A monkey trainer [Courtesy, Osaka Human Rights Museum]

84 85

Chapter 6

15. Shogunal regulations on senmin, 1778 16. Setta – from the raw material to the finished product [Courtesy, Osaka Human Rights Museum] 17. Gravestone enscribed with a discriminatory posthumous name [Courtesy, Suheisha Rokūjunenshi, Kaihō Shuppansha, 1982]

91 94 102

Chapter 7

18. Stone marking the site on the riverbank where the Shibuzome rebels gathered 19. Regulations of the Isshindan [Courtesy, Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives]

110 112

Chapter 8

20. Text of the Liberation Declaration (Kaihōrei) [Courtesy, National Archives of Japan] 21. Records of the Kōgisho showing the speech of Nakano Itsuki from Fukuchi [Courtesy, Osaka Human Rights Museum]

120 122

Chapter 9

22. Tōun Shimbun – article entitled ‘World of the Shinheimin’ by Nakae Chōmin [Courtesy, Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute]

131

LIST OF FIGURES

xv

Chapter 10

23. Covers of Biwa no Uta published 1905 24. Cover of Hakai, first published 1906

141 144

Chapter 11

25. Meiji no Hikari – journal of the Yamato Dōshikai 26. Kōdō – journal of the Teikoku Kōdokai [Courtesy, Meiji Shimbun Zasshi Bunko, Graduate School for Law and Politics, University of Tokyo] 27. Proposal to the Teikoku Kōdōkai on Buraku migration to Hokkaido [Courtesy, Ueda Seichi Archive]

154 157 160

Chapter 12

28. Minzoku to Rekishi edition on Special Buraku, July 1919 172 29. The fifth anniversary edition of the Dōai journal of the Dōaikai, No. 35, June 1926. [Courtesy, Osaka Human Rights Museum] 173 Chapter 13

30. Members of the Tsubamekai, October 1920 [Courtesy, Suiheisha Museum] 176 31. ‘For a New Day’ – the proposal to create the Suiheisha, 1922 [Courtesy, Suiheisha Museum] 179 32. The Suiheisha Declaration 181 33. Basic Principles and Founding Resolutions of the first Suiheisha conference 181 34. Founding members of the Suiheisha. From left to right (front): Hirano Shoken, Minami Umekichi, Sakamoto Seichirō, Sakurada Kikuzō. From left to right (back): Yoneda Tomi, Komai Kisaku, Saikō Mankichi 182 35. The Suiheisha flag – known as the Keikanki, Crown of Thorns flag. It was adopted at the second conference in 1923 and used by the organization throughout the 1930s 182 36. Women’s Suiheisha, Fukuoka prefecture branch [Courtesy, Suiheisha Rokujūnenshi, Kaihō Shuppansha, 1982] 186 37. Poster advertising the Eighth Hyongpyongsa (Kōheisha) conference [Courtesy, The Ohara Institute for Social Research, Hōsei University] 189

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Chapter 14

38. Tokushū Buraku Issenshi by Takahashi Sadaki, first published in 1924 [Courtesy, Osaka Human Rights Museum] 193 39. Leaders of the Suiheisha inspecting the damage caused in the Serada incident [Courtesy Asahi Shimbun] 195 40. Commemorative photograph of the opening of the Mie branch of the National Farmers Union 197 Chapter 15

41. Proposal to dissolve the Suiheisha [Courtesy Suiheisha Museum] 42. Photograph of the conference held to discuss the Takamatsu discriminatory court case, 28 August 1933, at the Tennōji Kōkaidō, Osaka, [Courtesy, Matsumoto Ryu] 43. Ten-Year Plan for the Resolution of the Yūwa Problem [Courtesy, Matsumoto Jiichirō Kinenkaiken] 44. Declaration of the National Suiheisha central committee, 7 February 1938 [Courtesy, Buraku Kaihō Dōmei Nagano-ken Rengōkai] 45. Members of the Kutami settlers group [Courtesy, Toyoda Mikihiko]

206 208 210 213 220

Chapter 16

46. Commemorative photograph of the inaugural meeting of the Buraku Liberation National Committee, February 1946 [Courtesy, Fukuoka Human Rights Research Institute] 47. All Romance – the edition which carried the article ‘Special Buraku’ [Courtesy, Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute] 48. First meeting of the Buraku Liberation National Women’s Committee, March 1956 [Courtesy Niho Yoshio] 49. Ninth conference of the National Dōwa Education Research Association, October 1957

222 229 232 235

Chapter 17

50. March demanding a national policy for Buraku liberation departs Fukuoka city hall bound for Tokyo, September 1961 [Courtesy, Niho Yoshio]

240

LIST OF FIGURES

51. Newspaper articles about the Sayama incident [Courtesy, Buraku Kaihō Dōmei Ōsaka-fu Rengōkai] 52. One of the Chimei Sōkan (Buraku address lists) [Courtesy, Buraku Kaihō Dōmei Ōsaka-fu Rengōkai]

xvii

244 246

Chapter 18

53. Founding conference of the IMADR, January 1988 [Courtesy, International Movement Against Discrimination and Racism, Tokyo]

255

Translator’s Preface 5

IT CAN NO longer be said that Burakumondai is ignored by overseas scholars working on Japan. In the last few years historians Amos, McCormack and Groemer, sociologist Bondy, social anthropologist Hankins, political scientist Tsutsui and scholar of cultural studies Cangia have each published English language monographs on different aspects of the issue. In addition, there are studies of the novels of Nakagami Kenji by Anne Helene Thelle, Anne McNight and Eve Zimmerman.1 Moreover in most cases these volumes are re-workings of their doctoral dissertations so we can expect more from them over the coming years. Apart from anything else this means that there is no reason any longer to omit the study of Buraku issues from university level courses about Japan due to a lack of high-quality scholarship written in English. However, there is nothing in English that provides an overview of the history of the Buraku communities and their antecedents which is based on the most recent work published in Japan, nothing that can provide a place to start for the serious student of Japan interested in the Buraku issue. For this reason, I was delighted to be invited by Professors Teraki and Kurokawa to become a member of the small group that planned the publication of this current volume. The aim was to produce a general history of Buraku history that would make use of the most recent scholarly publications guided by the principle of making this work available to the general reader. It was always intended that the initial publication would be in Japanese because of the need for a new introductory volume based on the historical research that has developed rapidly in the first decades of the twenty-first century. But at the same time, it was also the intention that it would be translated into English to make it available to an international 1

For details of these books see the final section of the bibliography. xix

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readership. This text is the result of that translation process. Precisely at a time when more is being produced about the issue in both languages it is important to ensure that those writing in both English and Japanese know what is being published in the other language. This volume is a first step in that direction. As far as possible it is a direct translation of the text that was published as a monograph in spring 2016 with all the references to the Japanese texts included as footnotes. Readers in Japan will be able to follow up the sources for themselves if they wish. Where appropriate I have also added footnotes to explain to the nonspecialist reader terms she may find unfamiliar and to refer her to specialist texts in English. I have not done this as systematically or as extensively as I might have done and this is a task that might be re-visited at a later point. In the final section of the bibliography I have added a relatively brief list of English language sources, mainly monographs, published this century. There is also a growing volume of work about this topic that has been published in the scholarly journals about Asia and Japan which proliferated in the later twentieth century. However now that it is possible to use the internet to search for articles by topic and author, it is not necessary for me to provide an exhaustive list. I can leave that to the reader. We are grateful for the encouragement from Paul Norbury that has led to the publication of the English translation of this volume and the support from the Kaihō Shuppansha in waiving copyright restrictions and giving us access to the illustrations. I am very grateful to Professors Teraki and Kurokawa for inviting me to take part in this project and hope that it will not be our last. I have learned a great deal. Most of the work on the translation was done during the first half of 2015 while I was in Japan on sabbatical leave funded by the Japan Foundation to whom I would like to express my appreciation. I would like finally to express my gratitude to Matsumoto Shinji for his encouragement across the many years of this project and to Anai Suzuko for her help with the translation of some of the more difficult passages.

Ian Neary New Yatt, Oxfordshire April 2019

Foreword TERAKI NOBUAKI

5

THE PUBLICATION OF this volume has two main aims. The first is to produce an introductory overview of Buraku history based on the most up-to-date research on discriminated people which in recent years has advanced significantly. This will contribute to Dōwa education, human rights education and indeed to the project of Buraku liberation. Secondly, to transmit internationally the historical outlines of the Buraku issue that have become clear in the process of the development of this research in recent years. To briefly explain the process that led to publication: in 2011 the Buraku Liberation Human Rights Research Institute (BLHRRI) began to support a research project to consider carrying out these twin aims through the writing, editing and publication of a ‘New Edition – History of Discriminated Buraku’ (draft title). This research activity was supported by the Harada Tomohiko Memorial Fund. Professor Nobuaki Teraki was assigned responsibility for the pre-modern section and Professor Kurokawa Midori for the modern section but the research committee also positively engaged with the opinions of other researchers working on Buraku history, researchers working on Dōwa and human rights education and activists in the Buraku liberation movement. Moreover, it consulted with overseas researchers in order to better enable the international transmission of ideas. In particular the committee received valuable advice from Tomonaga Kenzō (emeritus director of the BLHRRI), Ian Neary (professor, Oxford University) and Nishimura Hisako (at the time Head of Education and Sales, BLHRRI).

xxi

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A draft was produced on the basis of two years of research group activity which then benefited from a further round of criticism to mould it into a single volume. It was first published in 24 monthly instalments in the journal Human Rights between January 2014 and December 2015. Then it was revised drawing on the opinions and advice of readers and we sought to make it easier to understand through the inclusion of drawings, diagrams and photographs. The resulting volume has been translated into English by Ian Neary to enable it to be widely read overseas. We would like once more to express our deep gratitude to the Harada Tomohiko Memorial Fund committee which supported the BLHRRI in the planning and execution of this research project. The authors will be delighted if this book succeeds in promoting even the smallest step in the direction of serving the needs of those engaged in human rights education whether in schools, in human resources training programmes in administrative bodies or in corporate enterprises, activists connected with the Buraku liberation movement and those overseas with an interest in Japan’s Buraku problem. Teraki Nobuaki 29 January 2016

PART I: THE PRE-MODERN PERIOD TERAKI NOBUAKI CHAPTER 1

The Establishment of the Japanese State and the Formation and Transformation of Status Discrimination 5

Buraku discrimination is an issue that is difficult to define and there are several rival theories to explain its roots. However, what is certain is that its origins are connected to the status discrimination that has existed since the pre-modern era. So, when we start to consider the history of Buraku discrimination it is important and necessary to pin down the process of the formation of this status discrimination and its subsequent historical transformation. Moreover, Buraku discrimination is not something that came into existence in isolation but rather is a phenomenon that we need to understand in the context of the development of the Japanese people as a whole and something that has evolved on multiple levels. It is important then to understand it from the origins of the Japanese people in relation to discrimination among the aboriginal races. STATUS IN THE SMALL STATES OF PRE-HISTORY

Homo Sapiens, the human beings who are the direct ancestors of all mankind including the Japanese people, first inhabited the islands of Japan some 35–40,000 years ago in the late old stone 1

2

A HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATED BURAKU COMMUNITIES IN JAPAN

age (Palaeolithic period) according to the most recent research (Ueda, 2012a). This was a time of a lesser ice age when sea levels were much lower than they are now so that the region from the Indo-China peninsula across South East Asia was connected to the Asian continent and is referred to as Sundaland.2 The period around 20,000 years ago was particularly cold and the Yellow Sea, West and South China seas had all more or less dried up so that the islands of Japan were connected to the Asian continent. There is an influential theory which suggests that the people of Japan have their roots in the palaeolithic peoples of South East Asia who lived across Sundaland and who reached the Japanese archipelago from the Asian continent (Hanihara 1995). There were also other proto-mongoloid people in North East Asia in the late Palaeolithic era so it is possible that they too crossed into the islands of Japan (Omoto 1996). Whichever the case it is their descendants who formed the Jōmon people.3 The Jōmon period begins around 15,000 years ago and continues until around the fifth century BCE when the Yayoi period starts.4 At the height of Jōmon culture as represented by the Sannai Maruyama artefacts in Aomori prefecture, there was no evidence of paddy-rice cultivation, no sign of bronze or iron tools and no indication of defence facilities, either moats or fences surrounding the settlements. Although the Jōmon era lasted more than 10,000 years, rather than stagnating it continued to evolve producing a rich culture. However, it did not develop much beyond a society based on gathering, hunting and fishing. It was a society where surplus production did not exist and was only able to produce sufficient goods for everyday life. For that reason there was no private wealth, class or status distinctions and it is thought that even if there may 2

3 4

Sundaland (also called the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of Southeastern Asia which encompasses the Sunda shelf, the part of the Asian continental shelf that was exposed during the last ice age from approximately 110,000 to 12,000 years ago. It included the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland, as well as the large islands of Borneo, Java, and Sumatra and their surrounding islands. The Jōmon period is usually dated from 13,000–300 BCE There are various rival theories about the early Yayoi period but it is usually dated from around 300 BCE to 300 CE

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JAPANESE STATE

Figure 1

3

Aomori prefecture Sannai Maruyama excavation.

have been elders who served as leaders there was no relationship of ruler to ruled. Moreover there were no wars or battles between communities or groups so defensive facilities were not needed. From around 500 BCE, wet (paddy)-rice agriculture and the use of metals began. The production of a surplus now became possible, private property emerged and the gap between the poor and wealthy greatly increased resulting in a relationship being created between the ruler and ruled. Excavations of settlements like Yoshinogari in Saga prefecture show that defensive facilities such as moats and fences surrounded Yayoi settlements and wars and battles were starting to take place. There are rival theories as to whether paddy-rice culture arrived in Japan from the islands to the south or through the Korean peninsula. As for metal implements it is thought that they mainly entered via the Korean peninsula. Around the end of the Jōmon period some groups of people had crossed into north Kyushu and the western tip of Honshu from North East Asia, mainly the Korean peninsula, but the number of these migrants increased rapidly into the Yayoi period and before long they spread as far as the Kinki region and

4

A HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATED BURAKU COMMUNITIES IN JAPAN

would create the basis of Yamato culture. Later on, they spread into eastern Japan, Shikoku and south Kyushu and according to the currently dominant hypothesis, it is thought that they intermingled with the groups of Jōmon residents there to create the ‘mainland Japanese’. The Ainu people and Okinawans for geographic reasons did not inter-mingle so freely and for this reason they both retained elements of Jōmon culture (Hanihara 1995, Omoto 1996). If a Jōmon man from around 6500–7000 years ago migrated from Kyushu to the islands of Amami and Okinawa of up to around 5000 years ago they would not have noticed much difference between their cultures (Asato 1993). Research locates the origins of the Japanese language in the Tamil people of southern India. These people may have arrived in Japan from south India several centuries before the start of the Christian era bringing with them what was then the leading edge of technology: rice cultivation, metal goods and weaving. Later on, this language and culture became established among the people living here (Ono 1994). However, what is important for our purposes is that from its very beginnings Japanese society was made up of groups who came from across both South East and North East Asia. Moreover, from the late Jōmon period North East Asians came over in large numbers and mixed with those already there. So the Japanese people were definitely not formed from a single ethnic group. Even after this time the Ainu peoples, based mainly in Hokkaido and mainly of a Jōmon lineage, did not mix much with the immigrants and lived out a history in which they develop their own language and culture. Further, and in a similar way, we should not forget that the Okinawans too have formed and developed their own culture. In addition, we should not overlook the existence of groups given the rather contemptuous names of Kumaso, Hayato, Kuzu and Tsuchigumo (Obayashi 1975, Nakamura 1986, Okiura 2002) who, it is thought, were absorbed into the ‘native Japanese’ population having been subjugated and absorbed by the Yamato court (Hanihara 1995). Furthermore, it is important to note that not only paddy ricebased culture but also non-paddy rice-based cultures – based on

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JAPANESE STATE

5

fisher-folk and mountain-dwellers who fished, hunted and practised ‘slash and burn’ agriculture – continued to exist and thrive in every region of the islands of Japan. Around 2000 years ago it seems as though small states existed across what became the islands of Japan. At that time it is recorded in a Chinese geographical manuscript5 that off the coast of the Korean peninsula the Wajin lived in a region divided into about 100 states. According to the History of the Later Han,6 the king of Nakoku which was probably located near Hakata in Fukuoka prefecture, sent a mission to the Emperor Kōbu [Emperor Gwangwu of Han]. In 107 the king of Wakoku is recorded to have despatched 160 prisoners of war [⏕ཱྀ seikō]. There are various theories about these prisoners but it is thought that they were little more than slaves (Inoue 1987). Thus, according to these records we can see that within these small states there existed social classes – royalty, stewards and slaves. STATUS IN THE YAMATAI STATE

According to the Sankokushi (Chronicles of Three Kingdoms, compiled 280–9 CE) in the Yamatai state there was a class structure composed of a queen, nobles, commoners, servants/ prisoners of war. When the queen, Himiko, died a large burial mound was built and around 100 servants ‘followed’ her. This ‘following’ is thought to indicate that they were buried alive with her (Inoue 1987). It seems that these servants, too, led a slavelike existence much the same as the prisoners of war mentioned earlier. Moreover, when a commoner met a nobleman on the road he had to step aside and kneel down respectfully placing both hands on the ground. Since kneeling was considered a sign of penance or respect it is clear that there were profound status distinctions between the classes. This class stratification was solidified by the administrative system and the legal/taxation systems of officials of the central and local governments called Hiko and Hinamori. These social groups described above can be 5 6

₎᭩Chronicle of the early Han dynasty in China 206 BCE to 8 CE. ᚋ₎᭩Chronicle of the later Han dynasty 25 to 220 CE.

6

A HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATED BURAKU COMMUNITIES IN JAPAN

thought of as classes defined by reason of, ‘natural social status fixed and inherited over many generations’ (Teraki 1992). These status distinctions were not enforced by a single form of political action supported by the authority of the state but rather were created based on concepts connected with political relations within the communities, social division of labour (occupation), class relations, customs/habits, religious teachings and ruling ideas. Moreover, it is thought that as these changed so status distinctions were transformed (Yokoi 1962, Ishimoda 1963, Yagi 1969, Kuroda 1972, Okiura/Noma 1983, Teraki 2009). As well as thinking about the process through which Buraku discrimination was formed it is important to enquire about these complex views, elements and choices and their inter-connections. According to the Gishi Wajinden – a Chinese history, part of the Sankokushi – it was the custom in early third-century Japan that when someone died mourning had to be observed for ten days. During this period meat should not be eaten and after the body was buried the whole family should bathe. We can infer from this that even before the arrival in Japan of Buddhism, Confucianism or Taoism there were prohibitions (taboos) on meat eating during mourning and later there were customs linked to purification ceremonies.7 THE CREATION OF THE YAMATO STATE AND THE FORMATION OF CLANS AND RANKS

It is difficult to decide between the various theories that locate the Yamato state in north Kyushu, in the Kinki regions (possibly Nara prefecture) or indeed somewhere else. However, whatever the case, at some point between the mid-third and mid-fourth centuries imperial tombs were built centred on the north east of Mount Miwa, now Sakurai city, Nara prefecture. So at this point the base for the Yamato kingdom was in this area. The Yamato kingdom while spreading a more advanced culture from China 7

When the body had been polluted by a sin or some kind of contamination it was cleansed by river water or something similar before important religious ceremonies.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JAPANESE STATE

7

and Korea gradually placed powerful clans and statelets under its control as its power expanded. The clear manifestation of this greatly extended authority is the Daisen burial mound created for Emperor Nintoku (313)-399 CE. This is said to be the largest burial mound in the world measured by area. At its maximum it is 486 metres long and totals 470,000 square metres – twelve times the size of the Kōshien baseball stadium. It is estimated that using contemporary methods of construction would have required 2000 workers and taken more than fifteen years to build. The Yamato rulers from around the fifth century began emulating the kings of Koguryō (one of the three ancient kingdoms of the Korean peninsula that existed between the first century BCE and 668 CE) and started to refer to themselves as ‘kings’ (኱⋤ ōkimi). An iron sword has been excavated from the Inariyama burial mound in Gyōda city, Saitama, and something similar from Etafunayama in Nagomi town, Tamana-gun, Kumamoto. They both have engraved on them ‘Wakatakeru’ which is thought to refer to Emperor Yūryaku (456–479). From this we can conclude that this kingdom’s rule extended from Saitama in the east to Kumamoto in the west. There is much that we still do not understand about the ruling structures of this kingdom but it seems to have been maintained by a system of departments based on hereditary occupational groups (bumin). It is thought that this bumin system was one of family, property-based, labour service which was first formed within the imperial court around the fifth century and established with reference to the public official system of the Paekche/ Kudara kingdoms on the Korean peninsula. This form of social organization spread across the country, gradually being applied even to people who were owned by the regional clans. Furthermore, the emperor gave hereditary titles to uji that indicated rank and political standing – Omi, Muraji, Kimi, Atai, Obito, Suguri. Uji themselves were groups who believed themselves to be related by blood although in fact they had many members who had no such relationship.

CHAPTER 2

The Formation of the Ritsuryō State Structure and the Status System 5

THE FORMATION OF THE RITSURYŌ STRUCTURE

There were three or four waves of migration from the Korean peninsula (Inoue 1999) but one of the biggest took place from the end of the fifth to the start of the sixth century. On the Korea peninsula, Koguryō at the end of the first century and Kudara/ Paekche and Silla in the fourth had completed the process of state formation and during the late fifth and early sixth centuries migrants to Japan from these states brought with them their knowledge of state organization and administration. From the start of the fifth century the Koguryō state grew in power, began to coerce Paekche and Silla and the peninsula entered a period of upheaval. The Wa kingdom8 could not avoid being influenced by this; however, through the creation of a united state with central authority, it tried to keep out of this international crisis. The creation of the state proceeded on the basis of knowledge about state formation brought by immigrants from the three states of Korea. Preparations for the ritsuryō9 structure began in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. It was the Empress Suiko (592–628) who despatched the Kenzui embassy which brought 8

9

Nihon, ᪥ᮏ, ‘Japan’ did not start to be used as the country’s name until the second half of the seventh century in the reign of emperor Temmu, (673)–686. The ritsu was a code-based system for criminal punishments, the ryō were administrative regulations following Chinese models. 8

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9

back knowledge about the unification of the Chinese state. Later another embassy sent to Tang China (618–907) brought back information about the organization of the state there and the final development of the ritsuryō system took place during the reign of the emperor Temmu after the rebellion of 672 through partial reforms led by the Taika reformation. It is possible that the system of imperial names was used from the time of emperor Tenji (662)–671 but it was definitely in use at the time of Temmu (673)–686 (Ueda 2012b). A civil, criminal and administrative system was complete by the time of the implementation of the Asukaki Yomihara edict of 689 and the Taihō edict of 701–702. This system continued with changes, disturbances and decay for around five hundred years until the end of the Heian era.10 Its influence remained until the time of the Meiji restoration and even affected the names given to bureaucratic structures after the restoration. THE CREATION OF A SENMIN SYSTEM BENEATH THE STATUS SYSTEM OF THE RITSURYŌ STRUCTURES.

Within the status system created by the ritsuryō structures people were divided into ‘good’/higher or ‘base’/lowly status according to definitions brought from China. Beneath the emperor who had a transcendent existence there were the noble government officials who were the emperor’s retainers, the common people who were ‘citizens’, farmers, artisans and assorted others who were designated as ‘good’, finally there were those designated as ‘base’ – imperial tomb guards – kanko (a low status title) – vassals – government owned slaves and privately owned slaves. This system was established by the Asukasho Mihara decree of 689 but at first lowly status was split into public and private slaves and the status of slaves was defined by a decree of the following year, the Koinnenjaku. Slavery was made hereditary, marriage with people of higher status was forbidden and slaves were not permitted to take family names. These slaves originated 10

The Heian period dates from 794 to 1185.

10

A HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATED BURAKU COMMUNITIES IN JAPAN

in a class which had been oppressed for several generations or who had been deprived of their personhood in punishment for a crime. Mainly they were people generated from within their communities. On this point the situation is quite different from that in the ancient period in the West where slaves usually came from outside the community following conquest in battle or through purchase. In 693 commoners were made to wear yellow garments and slaves black so that their status was obvious at a glance.11 Following the Otakara edict of 701 public slaves were divided into two categories: public and administrative, and private slaves into family vassals and personal slaves. From the time of the Yōrō edict of 718 the tomb guards who took charge of the cleaning and protection of the imperial tombs were re-assigned to the ‘base’ or lowly status. These arrangements emulated regulations in Tang China and seem to connect the notion of ‘base’-ness to the polluting nature of death (Jinno 1996b). Whatever the case, with this the senmin system was in place with its so-called ‘Five Kinds of Senmin’. SENMIN IN THE RITSURYŌ SYSTEM

Administrative and public slaves enjoyed their own official status and were under the control of the government. Administrative slaves were attached to servants of the Shinto ministry and carried out miscellaneous duties. They were permitted families and were granted rice fields just like people of higher status. Public slaves were attached to other ministries, were regarded as of lowly status and were also given a variety of tasks. They could be bought and sold, were not allowed families and only allocated one third the amount of paddy land compared to higher status citizens. Retainers and personal slaves were people who depended on aristocratic families or shrines and temples. Retainers were permitted families and, it would seem, could not be bought or sold. Their rice paddy allocation was one third the normal. Personal 11

According to the Nihon Shoki, second day, first month, seventh year of the reign of Emperor Jitō.

RITSURYŌ STATE STRUCTURE AND THE STATUS SYSTEM

11

slaves were people who also belonged to aristocrats or shrines and temples, were not permitted families, were bought and sold and were treated much like animals. Their rice paddy allocation was also one third. All of these senmin enjoyed ‘same colour marriage’ – that is to say that they were only permitted to marry people of the same status. We might note that the Buddhist temples Daianji (኱Ᏻ ᑎ) and Yakushiji (⸆ᖌᑎ) had special temple buildings in the northeast corner of their grounds and an entrance specifically for slaves and senmin. Public officials in charge of the administrative slaves were also located in the northeast corner of the Fujiwara and Heian Shinto shrines. This is the corner of the demon’s gate, where hidden evil is thought to gather and the direction from which demons enter and leave. Furthermore, the main duties of temple slaves were to exorcise, cleanse the ground by sprinkling water and sweeping up the rubbish (Jinno, 1996b). THE DISRUPTION AND DISMANTLING OF THE RITSURYŌ STATUS SYSTEM

Towards the end of the Nara period and the start of the Heian era, that is from the end of the eighth to the start of the ninth century, the manor system12 developed and, along with the destruction of the system of publicly owned land and people, the ritsuryō status system was also disrupted and in the end, fundamentally dismantled. Driven by these changes the senmin system too decayed and collapsed. Already in the Nara era slaves were absconding and disappearing into higher social groups. For example, in 767, eighty senmin men and seventy-five women attached to the Kashima shrine in Hitachi region (present day Ibaragi) were emancipated and enrolled as ‘good’ citizens. Marriage between the good and the base was already being tolerated and among them people appeared who married slaves 12

This manor system lasted from the late eighth to the late sixteenth century. In the period between the late eleventh and late fifteenth centuries the manor system defined the basis of political, economic and social life.

12

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Figure 2

Manuscript showing a list of absconded slaves.

and became exempt from duties.13 We should not ignore the fact that such changes took place among the masses and also took place within the ancient imperial system. Previously, children born from marriages between good and base were all base,14 but this was reviewed in 789 to make the children of such mixed marriages designated as ‘good’.15 In 907 the status of ‘slave’ itself was suspended.16 However even after this the records contain here and there references to slaves so it would seem that slaves were not completely emancipated by this law. Nevertheless, the destruction of the ritsuryō status system had begun (Jinno 1986). THE ROLE PLAYED BY IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR SOCIAL POSITION

As already mentioned, there were a number of waves of immigration from the Korean peninsula among which the most significant was that which came in the late fifth to early sixth century 13 14 15 16

Slaves were exempt from such duties as tax payment. Nihon Shoki Taika, 645, first day, eighth month. Shoku Nihongi eighteenth day, fifth month 789. Seiji Yōrō Volume 84.

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13

at which time the Yamato kingdom was being created and its administrative structures put into place. Many of these immigrants brought with them high levels of cultural and technical abilities so that, rather than being subject to discriminatory treatment, they were appointed to key posts. For example, the Yamato no Aya and Kawachi no Fumi families played an important role in the production of records, accounts and diplomatic documents. Furthermore, some belonged to the clothing, Korean metal work or pottery guilds and assisted with the development of these various handicrafts. Some of these immigrants were given one of the eight hereditary titles, including that of court historian. There were even some who married into the imperial family. For example, the mother of emperor Kammu (781–806) was Takano no Niigasa, a migrant of Paekche lineage and wife of Emperor Kōnin (770–781). Kuninaka no Kimimaro, director of Buddhist images and responsible for the construction of the Kinkomyō temple, the predecessor of Tōdaiji, and high priest Gyōgi in the Nara period were also immigrants. There are place names reflecting this immigration – Kudara, Shiragi, Koma, Uzumasa etc. – which remain all over Japan, testimony to their activities (Inoue 1997; 1999). It is clear that their activities had a major influence on Japan from politics to economics, crafts, culture and art. And even if we can identify some elements of discrimination or lack of respect towards these immigrants, we should bear in mind that this was created by the rulers of ancient Japan and that it did not exist among society at large. In ancient Japan immigrants from the Korean states were called kikajin – naturalized people – but originally the meaning of this was not so much simply ‘naturalized’ but rather those who idolized the virtue of the emperor. As the historical background is quite different, it is not used in the case of migrants from China and regarded as disrespectful towards Koreans. Because the phrase reflects the feelings of the rulers of Japan at the time these days it is thought more appropriate to refer to them as toraijin17 – those who crossed the sea (Inoue 1997). 17

For more about toraijin see Ueda 1965.

14

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Figure 3

Fifth-century pot made using techniques imported from the Korean peninsula.

RITSURYŌ STATE STRUCTURE AND THE STATUS SYSTEM

15

STRATEGIES AND ATTITUDES TO THOSE LIVING ON THE ISLANDS TO THE NORTH, THE NORTH-EAST AND THE SOUTH

The ancient ritsuryō state structure laid out a system of status discrimination in which the Emperor and the imperial family led a ‘sacred existence’ while at its bottom were senmin who led a ‘miserable existence’. Alongside this ‘Japan’ was regarded as the ‘homeland’ under the rule of the imperial state, existing in a ‘golden summer’ at the centre of the world. It referred to the people living in the north of the archipelago which was not under its control as ‘emishi’18 and called the islands to the south west the ‘place of the savages’ in both cases inflicting on them images of being barbarian (Jinno 1986; 1996a). The Nihon Shoki19 records that in the 27th year of the reign of Keikō (98 CE?) the people who live in the east and north of the archipelago are emishi and in a report to the emperor by Takechi no Sukune he recommends that ‘…their land is wide and fertile, we must attack them and take it’ (page 484 para 4, Aston p. 20 and online version). Some thirteen years later the Emperor Keikō reports, ‘...the emishi have rebelled to a man and frequently carried off people.... the Eastern savages are of a violent disposition and are much given to oppression’ (online p. 490 para 2). At this point the emperor’s name was not yet used to name eras. That is something that was only thought of somewhat later in the eighth century at the time of the ritsuryō state. People were of course living in the north east of Honshu and Hokkaido from the earliest times as evidenced by the Sannai Maruyama historic ruins in Aomori prefecture. In the Hokkaido region, intermixing with Yayoi people did not take place for geographical reasons and although paddy-rice culture had reached as far as the Tsugaru plain by the third century it apparently did not 18

19

The word emishi – ⼎ዀ – is formed from ⼎ prawn or shrimp, and ዀ a character that in Chinese thought expresses contempt for those who live in the east. The Nihon Shoki, compiled 720, sometimes translated as The Chronicles of Japan, is the second oldest book of classical Japanese history. The book is also called the Nihongi.

16

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cross the Tsugaru straits and spread into Hokkaido. This culture is regarded as an extension of Jōmon culture – and it is the same one that spread into the north of Tōhoku. In the Hokkaido region after this time a unique culture was formed known as Satsubun or Okhotsk culture. Naturally exchanges and trade took place between the people who lived in Honshu and those who lived on Hokkaido (Kudo 2001). The ancient ritsuryō state despised the emishi people of the Tōhoku and Hokkaido regions who led a way of life with a unique culture. It established a stockade at Netari no Ki (present Niigata castle) in 647 and Taga castle, Miyagi prefecture in 724 in order to invade Tōhoku. In the years following 658, Abe Hirafu led several expeditionary forces against them. Naturally enough the people of Tōhoku resisted these invading forces and took part in uprisings. In 789 a military force led by Aterui defeated an army from the Yamato court. However, in 802 he succumbed to the army of the Shogun Sakanoue no Tamuramaro and was cruelly murdered at Kawauchi. To anticipate our narrative a little: the residents of the south of Tōhoku gradually came under the control of the Japanese state. By the end of the Heian period, we can imagine a line between the cities of Morooka and Akita to the north of which was outside the control of the ritsuryō state which used the word emishi to refer to those who lived there. The reading of the characters for emishi changed to Ezo (Hokkaido) by the Tokugawa period but at first the word referred to not the place but its residents including those who lived in the north of Tōhoku. After the late Heian and Kamakura20 periods the rule of the Japanese state extended to the north of Tōhoku. In the end the Hōjō clan seized the northern tip of Honshu leaving only the region lying across the Tsugaru straits beyond the government’s control. The residents of the area centring on Hokkaido then began their own history and began to form the Ainu ‘race’ (Takahashi 1986, Kaihō 1987, Kudo 2001, Siddle 1996).

20

Kamakura period, 1185 to 1333.

RITSURYŌ STATE STRUCTURE AND THE STATUS SYSTEM

17

Those who were captured in the wars of conquest in the north were referred to as ‘prisoners of war’, fushū, and were despatched all over Japan by the ritsuryō state. This may be the origin of the theory that ‘prisoners of war’ were the original members of the discriminated Buraku. However, they disappear along with the dissolution of the ancient status system when the expression fushū itself also disappears. Whether these ‘prisoners of war’ were subject to discrimination cannot be verified so this explanation for the origin of Buraku communities is unlikely to have any foundation (Inoue 1997). However, if we turn to consider the history of the Ryūkyū region in the extreme south of the archipelago, the discovery of human remains from the palaeolithic period, the bones of the so-called ‘Minatogawa man’,21 suggests an extremely ancient history. As mentioned earlier, about 6500–7000 years ago Jōmon man is thought to have moved from Kyushu into the islands of Amami and Okinawa and until around 5000 years ago they were within the sphere of Jōmon culture but, just as in the extreme north, for geographical reasons intermixing with the Yayoi people did not take place. So cultural idiosyncrasies enabled the people to develop an individual culture. It is known from documents and the Mokkan22 that in the seventh and eighth centuries they developed regular links with the Yamato state (Arashiro 2008). THE STRENGTHENING OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON IDEAS OF POLLUTION IN THE HEIAN PERIOD.

Mori comments on the concept of defilement, ‘at the time of the ceremonies …they carried out purification rituals and approached the gods in a cleansed state because they would be angry if they were in an impure condition. That would inter21

22

Found in a fissure of the Minatogawa lime stone quarry in Okinawa Island in 1970, they comprise one male and three female partial skeletons and other isolated bones. They have been dated between 16,000 and 14,000 years BCE. Mokkan: narrow, long, thin pieces of wood strung together and used to write on in ancient times.

18

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fere with the administration of the country and result in crop failure’ (1996). In the ancient period the gods detested impurities such as that caused by contact with dead bodies both human and animal, burial, reburial, miscarriage, bleeding, menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, illness, eating meat and outbreaks of fire.23 It was feared that if you came into contact with such defilement it would lead to misfortune and unhappiness. As already mentioned, in Japanese society as early as the early third century when someone died there was the custom of the whole household bathing and following the burial people entered a period of ten days mourning during which time they did not eat meat. We can surmise that there were developments afterwards connected with these ideas of taboos about meat eating and dead bodies. The Shoku Nihongi recorded an imperial decree of 757 defining someone convicted of a serious crime as a ‘defiled slave’ which suggests a connection between criminal defilement and slavery but at this time defilement did not exist as a fixed concept (Ōki 2013). However, entering the Heian period we can see very similar definitions of defilement in the text of the Koninshiki code of 820 (original text unfortunately lost) and the Engishiki code created in 927 and enforced forty years later. In the latter code the periods of defilement during which people should be avoided following contact with impure things was defined as: the death of a person thirty days, birth seven days, the death of one of six animals – cow, horse, sheep, hen, dog, pig – five days, the birth of one of these animals three days, eating meat three days. Other articles make the extinguishing of a fire something to be avoided and the code stipulates three degrees of pollution. These regulations strengthened occupation-based discrimination. It disadvantaged funeral workers because of the regulations 23

It was thought that when there was contact with contamination (kegare) something unfortunate would occur such as an accident, illness or death. For more on the concept of kegare see Yamato 1997, Miyata 1996, Okiura & Miyata 1999.

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covering contact with the death of human beings. It strengthened the prohibitions on women connected to childbirth and menstruation. In addition, there were regulations concerning contact with dead animals connected to their slaughter and tanning which amounted to occupation-based discrimination.24 A different section of the same code decrees that even though it is outside the shrine proper, former priests and butchers must not dwell ‘to the south of the Kamono Mioyayashiro (an area in Kyoto)’. In other words, former priests (those not ordained and therefore ‘improper’ priests) and slaughterhouse workers should not live in the precincts of the shrine in the area where the Kamo river meets the Takano river – and should be driven out. The definitions of defilement found within both of these codes were influenced by the ‘Collection of Sendara Sutras’ [Darani Jukkyō] which was a sacred book of esoteric Buddhism which introduced Buddhism to Japan. In section 17 of volume 9 it declares that simply to see a dead body, or blood resulting from childbirth or the birth of one of the six animals was defiling. This set of sutras was brought into Japan during the Nara era and from 736 was frequently copied. It is generally accepted that the regulations on contact with defilement were established in the early part of the Heian period (Omoto 2013). The Myōhōrengekyō [Hokkekyō] Collection of Sutras which was the most important text of Mahayana Buddhism as it was transmitted to Japan, explains that Boddisatvas should ‘not become familiar with those of bad integrity: sendara or those who fish, hunt, or keep dogs, boar, cows and hens’ (Anraku Kohin section 14). Sendara is an approximation of the Chinese pronunciation of the Sanskrit word – candaala. This was the word used to refer to those of the very lowest status, the bottom of the lowest sub-caste within the caste system of ancient India. In other words, it was written in the sutras that priests should not have close contact with those who ‘lacked integrity’ – those of the lowest caste, those who worked with domestic animals, including butchers, hunters and fishermen. There were other texts of 24

These later would become linked to Buraku discrimination.

20

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the Mahayana tradition which also referred to sendara, butchers and those who eat meat as ‘wicked people’. The influence of these teachings in the texts of Mahayana Buddhism which were based on Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures at first only extended among the imperial family, the aristocracy and intellectuals but in the later Heian period they gradually spread among common people and from the capital into the more peripheral regions. In this way we can conjecture that discrimination against butchers – at this time not always differentiated from tanners – grew stronger due to the influence of these two codes. They included definitions of defilement, the teachings of the main texts of Mahayana Buddhism especially those in the sendara sutra collection, and definitions on fasting and restrictions on movement. THE ORIGINS OF OCCUPATIONAL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST BUTCHERS AND LEATHER WORKERS

Since the relationship between occupational discrimination against butchers and leather workers is extremely important in connection to the origins of Buraku discrimination I want to consider it in some detail. Needless to say, it is not the case that the taboo against meat eating was originally found within the societies located on the Japanese archipelago. Moreover, those people connected to animal slaughter and the leather industry did not at first suffer discrimination. If we begin by looking at animal slaughter and meat eating: Jōmon people appear to have liked venison and wild boar and ate rabbit, fox, wolf, otter, flying squirrel and even monkeys. It is quite likely that domesticated pigs were brought from the Asian continent along with paddy rice in the Yayoi period. The existence of cows and horses can be confirmed from around the fourth century (Matsui 1993). In ancient times there even existed a belief in the sacrifice of cows and horses.25 In the fourth month of 675 an edict banning the eating of meat was issued but this only outlawed the eating of beef, horse, dog, monkey and chicken from the 25

See Nihonshoki, Seventh month 642.

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21

fourth to ninth months. Outside this period there was no ban on eating it and there was no prohibition on eating boar, venison or rabbit at any time. Until the Nara period the Inabe and Ikaibe guilds existed to pay tribute in the form of boar meat and fat. They raised wild boar and slaughtered them (Kano 1976). According to the Kumaku edict of the Yōrō codes (717–724) ‘when publicly owned horses and oxen die take out the hide, skull, horn and gall bladder. If there is a bezoar make a special presentation of it.’26 It is believed that there were stockmen who engaged in the dismembering of horses and oxen at each stock farm and pasture. In 744 the ‘guilds responsible for raising horses in the kingdom.... were made commoners.’27 From this we can understand that those who raised horses had until then been regarded as being engaged in something socially shameful. The Wamyōruijusho, a dictionary compiled in the early tenth century (931–938) lists, ‘Toji – ᒕඣ – the Japanese for slaughterers, etori.’ But this does not seem to suggest a discriminatory description of butchers. However, in article 12 of the Miyoshi Kiyoyuki produced around the same time, 914, we find in the criticism of a bad priest that ‘his appearance resembled that of a wandering monk but his heart was the same as a toji’, which suggests a degree of prejudice existed at this time. Because leather is an organic material it quickly decays in the ground and so it is almost never found in excavations. It seems though that in the fourth and fifth centuries leather was being made from the hide of oxen, horses, boar and deer. There was a fragment of deer leather found near to a stone coffin excavated in the Fujinoki Kofun in Nara prefecture. This would be around 700 (Deguchi 1999). The Nihon Shoki records that in 493 (the sixth year of the reign of Ninken) ‘Hitaka no Kishi was sent to Korea to fetch skilled artizans’ (on line translation). It is possible that around the end of the fifth century leatherworkers were 26

27

A bezoar is a hard mass sometimes found trapped in the gastro-intestinal systems of animals. Some traditional medical systems believe they have the power to neutralise poisons. Shoku Nihon Shoki, Tempyo 12 sixteenth day, second month.

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invited to Japan from the Koguryō state on the Korean peninsula and that they began to produce leather of a better quality than hitherto. At the time of the Taika reforms (645) the Toribe from Paekche/Kudara and Momabe from Koguryō were located in the storehouses of the Treasury and made to follow the leather working profession. According to the Yōrō code the administration and making of footwear and saddles was located in the Okurashō – Treasury. According to the provision of Kumokuryo of the Yōrō regulations already quoted, since the taking of the leather of publicly owned cattle and horses was regulated, it is possible that those raising them were also charged with the duty of skinning them when they died. In the tax records of several areas we can see many reports of leather made from horse, ox and deer hides. Those assigned to deal with the dead cows and horses were referred to as the ‘horse care guild’, Komabe or Paekche (Niunoya 1993). In the eighth month of 780, Emperor Kōnin ordered the tanning of leather to make strong and durable armour and helmets and ten years later in the third month of 790 he ordered the production of 2000 suits of leather armour as part of the campaign to suppress the emishi (Shoku Nihongi). It is thought that until that time specialist leather workers existed in every area and no distinction was made between those who killed the animals and leather workers. However, from the Nara period leather workers also began to be placed in ‘areas of shame’. After the tenth century animal slaughterers/butchers and leather workers suffered discrimination and were excluded from their contemporary social groups mainly due to ideas of defilement and discriminatory teachings that came from Mahayana Buddhism. From around the thirteenth century, especially in Kyoto, they were gradually cut off from normal public intercourse. This discrimination was the product of a specific culture and society and as explained in the latter part of the previous chapter across the Japanese archipelago we can observe three specific circumstances that led to this: the regulations on defilement in the two codes, the Koninshiki and the Engishiki, the teachings of the Mahayana scriptures especially the sendara sutras, and the

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23

fact that these people were restricted to areas where the regulation of the shrines was particularly strong. For example, concerning the taboo on meat eating, Harada points out that ‘Pre-modern Hokkaido and Ryūkyū had the common features of being places where the taboo on meat eating was non-existent and focus on rice cultivation weak’ (1993, 216). Linked to this is the fact that in both regions there was no discrimination against those who slaughtered animals or who produced leather. Even at that time there were parts of mainland Japan where rice cultivation had not developed such that ‘slash and burn’ agriculture and hunting were still the main forms of subsistence as well as regions where the influence of the discriminatory aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and the taboos of Shinto were weak such that prejudice against butchers and leatherworkers was relatively unusual.

CHAPTER 3

Formation and Development of Society in the Middle Ages and the Lifestyle and Culture of Discriminated People 5

THE STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The system of land holding is basic to any social structure. The ancient system of publicly held land was eroded by the development of the manor (shōen)28 system and the manor/principality system was created.29 Meanwhile the Taira political system30 evolved from one of regents and advisors to court politics until at the end of the twelfth century the Kamakura Bakufu31 government was created. However, Bakufu rule was mainly confined to the territory occupied by the low-ranking samurai centred around Kamakura. To the east of Japan around Kyoto the imperial court maintained its influence so that, excluding Hokkaido and the Ryūkyū regions, Japan was effectively divided into two realms (Amino 1997a). Moreover, particularly in the west of Japan, major temple compounds such as Kōfukuji and 28 29

30

31

See note 11 chapter 2. This was a system where the basic elements of the land system were both the manor and principality = under state control. At the end of the eleventh century the Taira clan, also known as the Heike family, monopolized high positions as imperial court officials, governed almost half of all the provinces and owned more than 500 manors. However, in 1185 the clan was destroyed in the sea battle of Dannoura. The Bakufu was the military government of Japan between 1192 and 1868, headed by a shogun. 24

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25

Enryakuji exercised independent authority as rulers of manor estates. They even possessed military power in the form of soldier monks. Japanese society in the early middle ages was quite complex. The Kamakura court which had held political power in the east was extinguished in 1333 and there followed a period of sixty years of internal conflict: warfare and rivalry between courts in the north and south as the Godaigo emperor created new political authority. Amid that conflict Japanese society underwent great change so we will next consider social changes in the early middle ages, that is the Muromachi era and Warring States (Sengoku) period of the later fourteenth century which followed the end of this period of internal warfare. FEATURES OF THE STATUS SYSTEM OF THE MIDDLE AGES

The first main feature of the status system of the middle ages is that it was not defined legally on a national scale in the way it had been under the ancient ritsuryō system. Apart from the emperor, the imperial family, the court nobles, powerful samurai families and heads of temples and shrines it was a very fluid system.32 The phenomenon of the ‘retainer supplanting his lord’ (gekokujō) is typical of the later middle ages. Secondly, reflecting the complex social structure of the middle ages, the status system was not unified across the country and there were various types of system. For example, Kuroda distinguishes four types: the village (resident – servant – beggar), the manor (main family/ruling family – manor official – farmer – poor farmer – servant), the ruling structure of powerful families (in the case of the military families of the Bakufu: steward – administrator – vassal – other) and the state structure (noble-officials – samurai – officials – commoners – ‘eta’) (Kuroda 1972). There were significant differences between the west and east of the country, between regions around Kyoto, 32

There was, for example, no family register system either like that which had existed in ancient times nor similar to the temple register system of the early modern period.

26

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Figure 4

The first known example of the use of the term ‘eta’ – Chiribukuro

Nara and Kamakura, between different status distinctions and practices, and differences between the early and later middle ages. THE FORMATION AND LIVING CONDITIONS OF THE ETA – KIYOME, SAIKU, KAWARAMONO – IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

When we focus on the discriminated people of the middle ages, we can broadly speak of three groups: eta,33 hinin and sanjo34 (Niunoya 2005, Hattori 2012). There is an influential explanation that classifies all these discriminated groups under the general name of hinin (Kuroda 1972, Niunoya 2005) but another view suggests that, narrowly defined, hinin and eta were 33

34

Also called kiyome ‘cleaners’ or saiku ‘craftsmen’ and some who would later be called kawaramono ‘riverside folk’. There were some sanjo who did not suffer discrimination and in the later middle ages there were street performers called shōmoji or maimai.

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‘quite different in their occupations and the extent of prejudice towards them varied so much that they had few features in common’ (Hattori 2012). The present writer agrees with this latter view and considers that there are problems with regarding eta as the same as the hinin of the middle ages and in restricting discussion to ‘hinin’. If we first focus on eta: the Chiribukuro which was compiled in the late thirteenth century talks of kiyome as eta.35 The word is described as being derived from ‘etori’ – a catcher of feed for animals and birds of prey. It says, ‘Those called sendara in India are butchers. They are wicked people, in appearance like eta, who kill and sell living things.’36 According to this, eta are connected to kiyome and are butchers (animal slaughterers) confined to places where they are unable to mix socially. According to the Tengu Soshi, thought to have been written in the late thirteenth century, the eta of Kamono Kawara in Kyoto captured birds and dried their skins in the fields. This suggests that people called eta were working as tanners at this time. As described in the previous section, before the Nara period butchers and tanners were thought not to have been subject to discrimination but during that period they were considered to have lived in ‘places to be ashamed of ’. Moreover, as mentioned already, the Engishiki suggests that in Kyoto at the start of the Heian period, butchers who lived at the confluence of the rivers just south of the lower Kamo shrines began to be excluded from society and gradually became subject to discrimination. In a record of the first month of 1016 it is written that the kawaramono who are thought to have lived near the banks of the Shimo river were producing leather from cattle but it is also said that they discovered bezoars.37 They seem to have not only produced leather but also 35

36

37

࢚ࢱ, katakana were originally used here. The use of the Chinese characters ✧ከ can be considered to have been a subsequent inclusion. Chiribukuro (ሻ⿄) literally, ‘rubbish bag’ was an 11–scroll book on the origins of things that makes use of an innovative question-and-answer format much imitated throughout the medieval period. This quote is from Vol. 1, Ed. Harutaka Oishi and Noriko Kimora, Heibonsha 1998, p. 289. See n. 24.

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sold meat. The eta of the Kamakura period are thought to have close connections to these kawaramono. In the sixth month of 1080 two ‘etori’ were consigned to the Daikōji temple by Kudashifumi of the Police and Justice Department.38 Their duties were payment of saddle flaps (leather-made items which hung down the sides of horses protecting them from mud) and uranashi (a kind of zōri)39 – in addition to cleaning duties. These etori are thought to be the same as what were later called kawaramono (Niunoya, 1986). They undertook butchery and leather work, bore the same duty of cleaning as kiyome and, we should note, they made payment to government in the form of zōri. In 1200 when the Fujiwara clan was on its the way from Saga (near Nara) to Kyoto they came across some human bones and people called kiyome who lived nearby were ordered to tidy them up (Yamamoto 1995). The Police and Justice Department had previously been connected to the management of pollution and cleanliness and the ‘control of hinin’ but the role of this department played a crucial role in the formation and structure of hinin communities in the middle ages (Niunoya 1993). All the above applies to examples from Kyoto and its environs. If we move on to look at Nara and the Yamato state, we first see eta and the word with similar meaning, saiku, in a document of the twelfth month of 1265. When Kanpaku40 Ichijō Sanetsune visited Nara in order to pay homage at the Kasuga shrine, it was the yokkō and saiku who took charge of cleaning the graves of the Hannyaji-zaka amid the general cleaning of the Kōfukuji temple and its surroundings as part of the preparations for his welcome (Narakenritsu Dōwa Mondai Kankei Shiryō Sentaa, 2001). A record of 1282, the Shōza Yoriudo of the Ichijōin, refers to the honza41 and shinza of Uranashi and it is possible that the shōza of uranashi was formed around 1075. The uranashi guild was also 38

39 40 41

Government office established in the early Heian period to supervise the police and military. As a new office that did not exist in the Nara period it was called an ‘external’ office. Zōri – a flat, thonged sandal usually made of straw, cloth and leather. Chief adviser to the emperor. Honza, shinza and shōza are all names given to guilds in Kyoto.

FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY

Figure 5

29

‘Eta children’ of the Kamokawara, Kyoto. Tengu Zoshi.

formed at this time. By looking at the situation in Nara during the Muromachi period we can see that the ‘enta’ or saiku presented an itajori (pieces of wood to fix to the sole of a zōri) and from this we might conclude that this guild was formed by saiku. The fact that in 1310 the saiku of Kasehino beheaded a thief who had been caught at the Gorakuji also shows that by this time saiku were employed to carry out punishments. Nevertheless, the people who are referred to as eta, as far as we can tell from the literature, followed the trades of butchers and leather workers (including the making of footwear such as zōri) and those who did this work were workmen with their skills, specialist knowledge and tools of their trade. It is difficult to imagine that these eta came from the commoner community because of poverty, or chronic illness as is sometimes suggested (Wakita 2002). People did not move to live on the banks of a river after experiencing some kind of misfortune but rather it was living by rivers that was necessary for those involved in the process of tanning leather which required access to both water and drying places such as the embankments. Of course there may have been some people who entered the butcher and tanning communities located on the riversides having suffered ill-fortune but it is doubtful that ‘those who inherited leather work business.... were

30

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excluded from the general community’ and therefore became residents of the riverside ‘engaging in funeral rites and grazing’. It is probably more natural to think that although there may have been cases where leather workers were excluded from society and came to live on riverbanks, the leather workers themselves chose to settle on riverbanks because it was relevant for their work and later found themselves called kawaramono ‘riverside people’ as discrimination against leather workers strengthened. What appears in the literature about the eta, saiku and kawaramono (‘riverside people’) pertains to Kyoto, Nara and the nearby areas. Moreover, sources about the early period are very scarce compared to those from the later years. The first use of eta at nearby Ōsaka castle does not occur until the latter part of the era, in the first month of 1420 (Nunobiki, 2009). There have been no confirmed usages in the historical records of Kamakura, the location of the Bakufu government, or the surrounding area. This may be connected with the nature of the military regime in the eastern part of the country. Of course, there is confirmation that leather workers existed in other parts of the country. A record from Higo province (Kumamoto) in Kyushu dated the first month of 1389 talks of kawata which is thought to indicate leather workers (Hattori 2012). In the Kanto district of Hitachi there is another reference in the records of 1345 to kawata (Hattori 2012). Elsewhere there are references to leather industry workers in the provinces of Aki (Hiroshima), Higo and Kii (Wakayama). However, we cannot tell very much about the nature of discrimination from these sources (Hattori 2012). In the Kantō and Tōhoku areas there were more horses, which do not make good leather, than cattle, which do and so the number of leather workers in these areas was probably always rather low (Arimoto 2009). Most examples of exclusion and discrimination against the butchers and leather workers in the early middle ages were based on ideas of impurity that came from the ancient capital, an influence restricted to Nara, Kyoto and surrounding area where the imperial family and aristocracy lived. When we are considering the process of the formation of Buraku discrimination it is

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31

important to explain very clearly how the regional characteristics affect the situation. THE HININ OF THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES AND THEIR WAY OF LIFE

The second of the main discriminated communities of the middle ages are the people called hinin – literally ‘not human’. As explained in the previous section there are some who would regard those with hinin status as the only discriminated community of the middle ages. However, the present writer thinks that there are some problems that arise from including eta and kawaramono into this group. Moreover, there is the problem that later on the eta separate off from the hinin community such that I think the two groups had quite different historical origins from the start. At the risk of repetition, the eta people who had deep links with the kawata of the early modern period were originally mainly butchers or leather workers and it is thought that they did not have origins linked to the ill, orphans or the poor. However, there is evidence that some of those called sanjo were regarded as hinin42 and I will refer to them again later. I have no particular objection to including these among hinin, very broadly defined, but the hinin that I want to discuss here are those using a narrow definition, mainly those we might call ‘outcast hinin’. The word hinin originally was a word used in Buddhist writing to refer to those who were ‘not human’ such as evil spirits. In the early Heian period it came to be used to indicate criminals and in the early Kamakura period it was used to refer to someone who had entered the priesthood but gradually it came to be used to mean someone whose life had been ruined in some way (Wakita 2002). In Kyoto in the early Heian period the Tosai Hidenin community was established under the control of the Sayukyoshiki43 and from early on its inhabitants conducted funeral ceremonies. It also had 42

43

There are entries in the Monyōki of the fifth month 1363 about the Sanjōhinin, that they were treated as ‘hinin’ and in the Kimihirakōki of the Gofukakusain Hogyōki of twentieth day, eighth month, 1304. A local government office in Kyoto.

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connections with the people who lived on the river banks. In 896 it was responsible for the sick people and orphans from across the capital and distributed cotton cloth and tatami44 from the Treasury and imperial palace. It had become difficult for the state to support the Hidenin by the eleventh century and sick people, in particular those suffering from Hansen’s disease (leprosy) and serious skin ailments, and orphans had to make a living as beggars (Amino 1994). Buddhist texts in the Mahayana tradition, for example the Chinese translation by Kumarajū of the Lotus Sutra (Hokkekyō) teach true believers in the Lotus Sutra that the censure of extreme evil results in ‘the disease of white leprosy’ and it regards leprosy as retribution for those who have slandered the Lotus Sutra.45 In this way it promoted discrimination. However, in the original Sanskrit the same section reads, ‘Spots will appear on the bodies of those who are critical of the male entrants into the priesthood who are the culmination of true believers’ (Ueki translation 2008, 569). It should be born in mind that the translation of the Lotus Sutra which was transmitted to Japan in ancient times was not the Sanskrit version but a Chinese translation. Sick people, orphans and the destitute began to congregate at the foot of the hill by Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto and in particular they gathered at the entrance to the Toribeno graveyard which became regarded as a central area for beggars. These places were called ‘shuku’. In 1158 the ‘Kiyomizu hinin’ requested donations of rice at the place where Nakayama Tadachika was conducting a memorial service on the third anniversary of his mother’s death. At that time the sick people, orphans and poor people living below the Kiyomizu hill were called hinin. We can conjecture 44

45

Tatami ␚ is flooring material used in traditional Japanese rooms made from rice straw to form the core with a covering of woven soft rush, igusa. Hansen’s disease, leprosy, is transmitted by a virus. It is treatable through drugs and now a complete recovery is possible. However, it is likely that many of those referred to in these documents as ‘lepers’ (raisha) were in fact suffering from serious skin ailments and not Hansen’s disease. Nevertheless, in this text we will refer to them as lepers. This is a reference to Lotus Sutra, chapter 28, Encouragement of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra.

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33

that they were starting to form a community and there existed a leader in charge of it – later called the chōri. In the early Kamakura period they would be dependent on the Kiyomizu temple. Later in 1070 the Gion shrine,46 also in Kyoto, recognized their possession of land to the east of the Kamo river between sanjo and gojo (the names of two streets in central Kyoto), and the hill below Kiyomizu was located to the south of the Gion temple. For this reason, afterwards the hinin of Kiyomizu saka shita had a close connection with the Gion shrine (Yamamoto 1995). As the hinin status and community were in the process of formation they supported themselves by begging. They received alms not only from their daily begging but also at times of funeral services or other Buddhist services. Moreover, they acquired the paraphernalia and offerings used at funerals which they gradually began to regard as theirs by right. The extent of these rights, their territory, was known as the begging area – kotsuba. The chōri who was the head of this community controlled the main shuku in the Kiyomizu area and gradually it was recognized as the most important of the shuku that formed across the Kinki region. The head of the most influential one was permanently located in Kiyomizu and consultations took place at a place called the ‘chōri no shimoza’ [lit. head of the lower step]. In each shuku there was a ‘nirō’ – boss – placed under the chōri and he controlled all the subordinate hinin. Some of the Kiyomizu hinin belonged to the Gion temple and as people who removed contamination from the temple grounds were called inujinin – literally, dog-god-people. They were used as a military force destroying the housing of those who had not paid their rent and to attack rival religious groups (Taryojima 1995). They were discriminated against not only because they were orphans or poor but because they lived close to the entrance of the Toribeno graveyard where cleaners undertook work connected with pollution and who were regarded as ‘lepers and therefore themselves polluted’.47 46

47

From the tenth century dependent on the Tendai sect Enryakuji, now the Yasaka Jinja. Konjaku Monogatari Vol 20.

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The ‘Kitayama hinin’ of Nara first appear in a historical record of 1209. This is about half a century later than in Kyoto. They are also referred to as the Nara hanshuku hinin. They lived close to the Kyūryōji temple to the north of the town near to the road which connects Kyoto and Nara, beyond the Hanyaji temple. An entry in Fujiwara Teika’s Meigetsuki for the 12th day of in the third month of 1225 describes a corrupt Buddhist priest ‘as a handsome Buddhist priest’ who did not have ‘that disease’ (presumably leprosy) suggesting that there was an expectation that a corrupt priestly boss from Nara Kitayama would be a leper. A corrupt priest in this sense is a beggar priest who has not been properly ordained and was regarded at the same as a hinin (source: Chiribukuro). According to Hattori, at the time of the Shōmu Emperor (724–749) there was a public leprosy sanatorium in Kitayama and we can suppose that a small community of lepers developed close to these religious institutions by the side of the Kyoto road in Nara which provided treatment facilities (Hattori 2012, 139). In Nara too the basis of the lives of the ‘hinin’ was ‘begging from morning till night’. Apart from that, they undertook the cleaning of the paths as an obligation to the Kyōfuku temple and Kasuga shrines, they arrested criminals, and dealt with the bodies of dead people and deer.48 They called themselves wakasa in central Japan, Tosa (Shikoku) and Chikugo (south of Fukuoka) and had the same duties as land-owning peasants, they owned houses and land and passed them on to their children. Within these groups lepers and those who managed them – non-lepers – existed side-by-side. The Nara hanshuku was in a way rather similar to the Kiyomizu hanshuku in Kyoto. While dependent on Kyōfukuji temple it was gradually included into the web of control in the region as the top shuku and came to control it. During the Kamakura period seven shuku existed in the Yamato area including Narahan shuku, Wakatabe shuku and Sanrin shuku. In addition, we can assume that there were another ten scattered around Yamashiro (near 48

Deer roam freely around the city of Nara even today.

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35

Kyoto), Izumi (Ōsaka), Omi (Shiga), Iga (Mie), Tamba (near Kyoto) and Kii (Wakayama). It is known that frequent disputes broke out between the Kiyomizuzaka shuku hinin of Kyoto and the Narasaka shuku hinin of Nara. The petition that the Narasaka submitted to the Rokuhara Commissioner in a legal dispute of late spring 1244 provides not only the details of the incident but also shows that the two main shuku ruled many of the shuku of the Kinai region, that hinin control was based on a different logic than just control of the land, that both main shuku possessed military influence, that they both possessed the ability to sue and that they held the power to investigate and make judgements about their internal affairs (Oyama 1976a, Wakita 2002). But what about the hinin who lived in areas outside Kyoto, Nara and the Kinai regions? Ninsho who studied Ritsu Buddhism as a follower of Eison was invited by Hōjō Tokiyori and Sanetoki to establish the Gokurakuin in Kamakura in 1267. He constructed the Hidenin and Ryōbyōin in Gokuraku temple and while in Kamakura established a bathing room, a hospital room, and a place for hinin. Moreover, since we can see there was a hinin bath at the Hidenin in nearby Kamakura we can conclude that hinin, mainly ‘lepers’, were living in Kamakura and thereabouts. Hattori suggests that under the ritsuryō administration there were not only the Hidenin, but also other hospitals, the Enmeiin (prolongation of life), the Zokumeiin (continuation of life) and the Kyūkyūin (emergency). He has suggested that a Zokumei was constructed even in Dazaifu (near Fukuoka) and that they were created in the offices of the central government in each region. In fact the Ryōbyōji and Gokurakuji of Chikuzen province (Fukuoka) are mentioned in the Kanto law code of 1286 (Hattori 2012). So, as we can surmise from the above, hinin communities began in the area around Kyoto and Nara from the early middle ages or the late ancient period and existed near to government offices in every region in both east and western Japan over a fairly broad area. This is quite different to the way in which the eta in

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Figure 6

Images of hinin from the Middle Ages (Ippen Shonin Eden). The group on the left are hinin and beggars receiving alms.

the early middle ages were mainly restricted to the area around Kyoto and Nara. This difference, as will become even more apparent as we continue, is due to the fact that eta/kawaramono were mainly focused on the leather industry, a trade which thrived in the west of Japan. On the other hand, hinin were centred on ‘lepers’, orphans and poor people who, while also concentrated in Kyoto and Nara, existed quite widely across the country. SANJO AND THEIR LIVES IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

I would like to comment briefly on the third of the main discriminated groups – the sanjo ᩓᡤ. Sanjo had the meaning originally of ‘not regular’, compared to the main place, ‘secondary’ or ‘scattered about’. For example, people while attached to a government agency who were sent somewhere else were called sanjonin. Sanjo attendants are examples of this. Accordingly, not all sanjo suffered discrimination. In the early middle ages, the ‘garden sweeper sanjo’ who kept gardens clean … led a discriminated existence’ (Nyūnoya 1993, 2005, Yamamoto 2004). In Kyoto we can find in 1103 a reference to ‘garden cleaners’ in the temples of Tobaden, Hosshōji and Sonshōji.49 The mountain 49

Tamefusakyoki entry for twelfth day, eighth month, Kōwa 5.

FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY

Figure 7

37

Senshū Manzai – from a scroll depicting 32 occupations.

sanjo are related to the senzumanzai50 which can quite likely be traced back to the end of the eleventh century (Nyūnoya 2005). There were many cleaning sanjo based in temples and shrines who we can suppose were organized by the beggar groups who lived in Kyoto (Sanro 1995). The duties of the cleaning sanjo were first, as the name suggests, to clean the influential temples and shrines – particularly dealing with the disposal of impurity such as dead animals. Secondly, they performed songs and dances to celebrate New Year. Thirdly, they made mud walls in gardens which in the later middle ages became a job of the eta. There do not appear to be any cleaning sanjo in Nara but rather the ᶓ ⾜ existed although the appropriate reading of these characters is not known. They first appear in 1265 and with the saiku they under took the cleaning of the Sakanobe – a graveyard of the Hannyajizaka – on the orders of the Kōfukuji. Since a group called the shōmoji [literally specialists in speaking and listening] in the later middle ages also lived in the same location as this group they were probably the same social class. Shōmoji were performers who read sutras and sang songs 50

Performing artists who sang and danced and called to offer New Year greetings, expressed congratulations at weddings. They thrived from the late Heian to Muromachi eras.

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connected to Buddhist temples. It is thought that these sanjo, since they later are called shōmoji and the ᶓ ⾜ of the Yamato area, had a similar kind of life as the sanjo of Kyoto and its environs. And they are also to be found in the areas close to the Jōkeiji and Eikyuji temples (Narakenritsu Dōwa Mondai Shiryō Sentaa, 2001). These cleaning sanjo (and ᶓ ⾜) seem to be restricted to the Kinai region: Yamashiro, Yamato, Omi and nearby. However, Hattori notes references to the existence of sanjo in north Kyushu in the land register, Chikuzenkoku Hakozaki Nemoto Sharyō Tsubotsukechō in the eighth month of 1187 (Hattori 2012). In the early middle ages there were not only these three classes – eta (kiyome and kawaramono, ‘riverside folk’) hinin and sanjo but there were other kinds of discriminated people such as prisoners, and homen/hoben,51 and disgraced priests. These too can be regarded as hinin if we use a broader definition. How are we to locate these various groups of discriminated people within the status hierarchy of the middle ages? Kuroda regards hinin status as something restricted to the middle ages, ‘a status outside status’, outside the system. Oyama (1976a) suggests that the hinin are a special kind of commoner, people of low status. Amino takes the position that the hinin of the middle ages can be regarded as an ‘artisan’ status. Nyūnoya’s (2005) theories we can regard in general terms as an extension of the broader definition of ‘hinin’ and an extension of the theories of Kuroda. However, since these are all important points that relate to the theories about the origins of the discriminated Buraku I propose to return to these issues when considering the state of discriminated people in the later middle ages. THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

In the fifth month of 1333 the emperor Godaigo overthrew the Kamakura Bakufu which had authority in the east of the 51

Hōben were prisoners who had been released and occupied the lowest ranks in the Kebeishichō.

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country and created the new Kemmu government under the leadership of the emperor, thus uniting the country. However quite soon the Ashikaga Takauji opposed the new system, created the Muromachi Bakufu, and war broke out between the rival northern and southern courts lasting several decades. During this period of civil warfare Japanese society underwent great change. Even after the unification of the two courts in 1392, the Muromachi Bakufu remained unstable until in 1467 the country entered into the Era of Warring States following the outbreak of the Ōnin wars.52 Meanwhile there were improvements in technology that increased economic productivity and created a material basis for social change. Double cropping began in the Kamakura period and gradually spread from west to east during the Muromachi period (1392–1568). Farming techniques developed. New forms of manure other than cut foliage and ashes of grass and wood were developed, for example, human excreta was mixed with compost. Irrigation techniques became more sophisticated. Commerce developed significantly. Refining technology progressed and mining and manufacturing developed. The cash-based economy percolated into society both in breadth and depth. Based on these remarkable economic developments, selforganization by ordinary people began in both towns and villages. Soon there were frequent rebellions and uprisings such as the Ikkō ikki.53 This was ‘a turning point in the cultural and social 52

53

The Ōnin War (ᛂோࡢ஘ Ōnin no Ran) was a civil war that lasted from 1467 to 1477, during the Muromachi period in Japan. Ōnin refers to the Japanese era during which the battles were fought. A dispute between Hosokawa Katsumoto and Yamana Sōzen escalated into a nationwide war involving the Ashikaga shogunate and a number of daimyo in many regions of Japan. The war initiated the Era of Warring States (Sengoku period) which saw a long, drawn-out struggle for domination between the various daimyo houses to control the whole of Japan. Ikkō-ikki (୍ྥ୍ᥡ) were mobs of peasant farmers, Buddhist monks, Shinto priests and local nobles who rose up against daimyo rule in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Japan. They followed the beliefs of the Jōdo Shinshū (True Pure Land) sect of Buddhism, which taught that all believers are equally saved by Amida Buddha’s grace.

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Figure 8

An eta woman in the late Middle Ages stretching a leather hide – Shichijuichiban Shokuin Utawase

history of the archipelago’ (Amino 1997). What changes took place among these major upheavals to the discriminated people that we have described as having existed in the early middle ages? THE WORK AND LIVELIHOOD OF THE KAWARAMONO: ETTA, KIYOME AND SAIKU IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

The people we have referred to as riverside folk kawaramono (also as etta, kiyome, saiku) continued to work in the leather production which had been their main occupation since the early middle ages. A picture of eta in the ‘71 artisans tanka competition’ which was produced at the end of the fifteenth century (probably between 1492–1501) clearly shows leather being stretched out to dry. The Ainoshō, an encyclopaedia of the Muromachi period

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which was completed in the middle of the fifteenth century, talks of kawaranomono as etta and writes the word using the characters ✧ከ. Since it refers to etori as ‘people who are polluted’ we can infer that they were engaged in butchering. There can be no doubt that the expert landscape gardener, Kawaramono Matashiro, was originally from a butcher household as he said so himself.54 In the eleventh month 1566 there was a legal dispute about a boar hide between of the court kitchen-treasury Saga, a supplier of the imperial court, and Noguchi kawaramono who was part of the house of Konoe. The background to this was that until then the kawaramono had held a monopoly over the production and distribution of leather made from dead cattle, horses and boar (Kawashima 1995). The main occupation of eta was butchery and the production of leather. They were leather workers who flayed the dead animal, whether ox, horse or other beast, and tanned their hides although these communities would also include people who worked in other occupations. As I will mention later, in the Kanto and Chūbu regions during the Sengoku period these groups were referred to variously as kawata, kawasaku and kawaya. Eta, according to the Chiribukuro compiled in the late thirteenth century during the Kamakura period, are regarded as ‘bad people’ and the Ainoshō mentioned in the previous section also refers to them as ‘defiled people’. In his Kennaiki diary Madenokōji Tokifusa, a court noble of the Muromachi period, refers to kawaramono as unclean.55 Kawaramono Matashiro in the historical source referred to above wrote ‘I greatly regret the fact that I was born into a butcher family’, suggesting that there was severe social discrimination. A kawaramono who visited the Konoe household to present his New Year’s greetings in 1487 gave as presents a broom and an obuto – a type of zōri.56 After this there are frequent references to kawaramono and sanjo presenting these items as New Year and 54 55 56

Rokuon Nichiroku fifth day, sixth month, 1489. Entry for tenth day, sixth month, 1428. These are zōri with no sole, a thick thong and made from rushes.

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mid-summer presents which suggests that they were involved in the manufacture of brooms and zōri as well as leather goods. Since brooms are connected to sweeping, these eta seem to be connected to the social function of kiyome – cleaning. There is also an hypothesis that the presenting of zōri may have been connected to an imported Chinese custom in which shoes were used in Shinto shrine rites to ask for long life (Kawashima 1995 141–3). Further, because zōri were regarded as being in some way magical, connected to the curing of disease and amulets, we cannot discount the view that there is some deep connection to discriminated people (Tsujimoto 1995). It is well known that in the later middle ages kawaramono were actively involved in landscape gardening. In particular Zeami is famous for having been a special favourite of Ashikaga Yoshimasa. He was involved in the landscaping of the garden at the Muromachi residence and there is no doubt that both his son and grandson Matashiro took part in the creation of the gardens around the Jishōji temple in Ginkakuji (Wakida 1988, 2002). They also were involved in the digging of wells. Hattori points out that well-digging was regarded as a specialist task for kawaramono. It involved divination because it was thought that the dogujin were present.57 The work was feared because ‘it [well digging] infringed the dogujin taboo’ (2012). Landscape gardening was similar. Dogujin were said to tour gardens between the tenth to twelfth months of the old calendar the old calendar so it was thought that doing any gardening especially moving trees during that period would touch on the dogujin taboo. It was thought that kawaramono could somehow avoid this taboo although why people subject to discrimination should possess this unusual ability is not clear. I would suggest that ‘the boundaries of this world’ – the boundaries between the human world, the natural world and the worlds of religion and magic – which on the one hand have a productive cultural meaning at the same time are also connected to discrimination (Fuijsawa 2013). 57

ᅵබ⚄ࠉGods or spirits that were thought to take a special interest in land and landscape.

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Figure 9

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Gardens of the Ginkakuji temple which were originally constructed by kawaramono

These were the main occupations of kawaramono but they also captured dogs for use in hunting (Hattori 2012), they were engaged in agriculture (owning land to develop and then sell for profit) and worked as couriers and horse doctors (Kawashima 1995b). In the eleventh month of 1441 when Akamatsu Mitsutsuke was defeated in the Kakitsu rebellion58 the attendants attached to the Muromachi Bakufu and a thousand kawaramono were taught the use of military weapons and manned the prisons. In the fourth month of 1481 several hundred kawaramono were assigned to guard criminals sentenced to decapitation. Here firstly we can see here two lines of management: [court noble – kebiishi – kawaramono] and [military family – samurai – kawaramono] and, secondly, the bringing together 58

The Kakitsu uprising was a peasant revolt that took place in Kyoto and surrounding areas including Ōmi Province demanding debt cancellation that occurred in 1441, the first year of the Kakitsu era.

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of such a large number of kawaramono meant that they could no longer be governed individually. (Niunoya, 2005). Next there is the implementation of punishments. Until 1488 kawaramono had the duty of decapitating condemned prisoners (Kawashima 1955a). Under the ritsuryō system this task was carried out in markets by the Mononobe [a clan sometimes also known as the Corporation of Arms or Armorers] but from the eleventh century it came to be carried out by the police and judicial authorities on the ‘river bank’ and gradually it became a duty of the kiyome or the kawaramono taking on the social functions of the kiyome. The change in who carried out the beheading occurred because of the emergence of ideas suggesting the defilement was caused by both the crime and the death of a criminal (Niunoya 2005). Further, we have already mentioned hunting dogs. They – the kiyome/kawaramono – also had the tasks of looking after the dogs in the kennels, managing them in the contests and dealing with them when they were finished (Hattori 2012). Most of the above examples are taken from Kyoto and nearby so let us next turn to consider Nara and Yamato. The earliest use of the word kawaramono in Nara appears in 1398 in a standard record of priests and soldiers attached to Kōfukuji (Narakenritsu Dōwa Mondai Kankeishiryō Sentaa, 2001). There is a reference to saiku in the third edition of the record. There are three forms of deeds concerning the sales and transfer of kusaba which shows the extent and authority of dealing with dead horses and cattle (more details later) so we can conclude that in Nara too the main occupation of kawaramono was connected to the leather industry. Apart from that, and other than the making of zōri which had begun at the start of the middle ages, just like in Kyoto they worked in landscape gardening, agriculture (owning fields and rice paddy), dog hunting and as horse doctors. As for their social functions it seems as though they carried out executions from the early middle ages (Narakenritsu Dōwa Mondai Kankei Shiryō Sentaa, 2001). Incidentally, according to the evaluation of the Kōfukuji temple priests in 1398, hinin were of lower status than monks,

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kawaramono and shrine guards of Kōfukuji and Yamato and were ordered to faithfully obey the shuku. As this is something that was not seen in the early middle ages it seems likely that it was due to the organization of the discriminated people of the region near Yamato by the Kōfukuji temple. However, this did not always go quite as the Kōfukuji temple intended. The following year the santō were requisitioned as carriers of timber at the Kōfukuji temple. These ‘santō’ are thought to be part of a new system that the Kōfukuji had devised in the midst of deepening confusion between the shukunin, ᶓ⾜, and saiku. Next to discuss the topic of the kawaramono (eta, kiyome, saiku) outside Kyoto and Nara. In Kawachi the Kōfukuji temple records for the 16th day, first month of 1420 noted that ‘eta hung a leather target as a tribute’ (Ōsaka no Burakushi Vol 1), from which we can gather that they were involved in the leather industry. In Ōmi (Shiga) the Nagahama Hachimangu Tokuyohokachō record of 1439 lists sanjōmono and saka no mono alongside kawaramono; in Kii in 1498 we can find kawaramono pictures listed in the archives connected to Fujinamisho in Arita gun (Fujimoto 2011); in 1505 in the records of the Tomofuchi Hachimangu we can see sakanomono listed along with kawaramono (Hattori 2012). Even in the late middle ages there is historical material concerning the kawaramono (eta, kiyome, saiku) which were centred mainly in the Nara and Kyoto areas. They existed in small numbers elsewhere in the Kinnai regions but they are hardly to be found anywhere else. It is possible that deeper archival research may result in some more being discovered but they will be few in number. Still there is a passage in the Tsuruoka Jisho Nikki of the Tsuruoka Hachimangu in Kamakura of 1395 which mentions inujinnin, lit. dog-god-men. This seems to be the earliest reference to them in the Kanto area in the middle ages. These dog-god-men ‘deal with the hides of horses and cattle and so possess the same special features as the kawaramono of the Kinnai area’ (Fujiwara 2013). So although the name is different – in Kyoto it would have been shukuhinin – they can be thought to be in fact kawaramono. It is also thought that the saka no mono

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of Tosa worked in the leather industry and so the same can be said of them.59 There were leather workers in areas outside the Kinnai region from the early middle ages as suggested in earlier chapters. In those cases there is no evidence in the historical record of discrimination. The kawata and chōri status of the early modern period – the early modern buraku – can be thought to have deep links with the kawaramono (eta and kiyome) of the middle ages and the communities of leather workers so we need to consider the situation in the late middle ages in the areas around the capital and elsewhere. In particular we should recall the differences between those areas still practicing ‘slash and burn’ agriculture and hunter-gatherer lifestyles in the Tōhoku regions and those practising paddy rice-based agriculture and how these differing living conditions of leather workers (and butchers) influenced views of cleanliness, impurity and discrimination. THE WORK OF HININ, SANJO (SHŌMOJI) AND THEIR LIVES IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES.

I would like to write briefly about the work and lives of hinin in the later middle ages. The functions connected to funeral attendance of the Kiyomizu Hanka hinin that they had held since the early middle ages developed remarkably in the later period to include the right to possess funeral equipment. There were agreements between the shuku hinin and the priests of major temples such as Tōji (Shingonshū) and Bukkōji (Jōdoshinshū), concerning ownership of these funeral accessories. However, when the code was decided by the priests of Daitoku temple in 1525 the shuku hinin did not participate in the decisions that divided up the rights to funerals and alms between those more powerful who were backed by the sacred power of the Senbonrendaiji temple and the kawaramono. The shuku hinin who had farmed land and paid in kind for it from the earlier period in two areas close to Kyoto, Soraku gun and Otokuni-gun, had their rights to work in agriculture  Between 1573 to 1611 references to saka no mono hi(kawa)kyu can be found in the Chosokabe land registry.

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recognized. The Nishioka shuku in Otokokuni-gun was selling salt from the latter part of the fifteenth century. From all of this we can gather that there had been substantial change in the circumstances of the hinin shuku whose main source of income in the earlier period had been from begging (Tarashima 1995, 104–113). How did the shuku hinin of Nara change? There was no significant change in the management of ‘lepers’ by the Kitayama shuku even in the later middle ages but serious rivalry broke out between the Kitayama shuku and Gokashō and Tōza (at one time ᶓ⾜ and monks) over rights. As for their work they cleared up dead deer and dried their hides. Moreover, there were some people in the shuku who owned land and cultivated it (Nara Kenritsu Dōwa Mondai Shiryō Centaa, 2001). In Kyoto sanjo cleaners in the later period began to take up drums and cymbals as they took on the ceremonies as low status religious celebrants with magical powers. They were called shōmoji. Outside Kyoto these shōmoji acquired skills in recitative dance and came to be called maimai. As well as taking on the functions of the kiyome connected with the prayers at fire prevention ceremonies (chinkasai)60 or prayers said prior to the commencement of any construction work, they distributed the calendars and came to be thought of as having the work of shamans (Yamaji 1995b). In Nara the group that was called ᶓ⾜ in the early period, by the mid-Muromachi period had come to be called the shōmoji. They had already been organized by the Kōfukuji and Daijōin into the Gokashō and Tōza. They had various types of work. In Kyoto they worked as porters of heavy goods, laboured on building sites, worked as plasterers, carried trees and stones for gardens, and dug post holes. As dancers and drummers they performed various arts and took on tasks similar to shamans.61 At the time of the Ōnin wars there were some among the shōmoji of the Gokashō who refused to obey the Daijōin and insisted on building their own shelter. So, Kyōhate and Kaizuka which had been the addresses of 60 61

Chinkasai are held in several Shinto shrines. Entry for third day, fifth month 1477 Daijoin Jisha Zōki.

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shōmoji soon came to have none of them living there (Narakenritsu Dōwa Mondai Kankei Shiryō Sentaa 2001, 36–44). KAWATA – ⓶ከ, 㠉ከ – IN THE ERA OF WARRING STATES (SENGOKU JIDAI).

The Ōnin Wars broke out in 1467 and continued until 1477 during which time Kyoto was razed to the ground and the authority of the Muromachi Bakufu destroyed. During the era of warring states the barons of rival statelets would defend and seek to extend their local authority. Already in this period villages and towns were acquiring greater autonomy. For example, Sakai became a self-governing city and ordinary people came to exercise a great deal of control. Peasant rebellions took place in every area followed by the outbreak of uprisings led by the Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist priests. The barons of the warring states became seriously concerned when the uprisings involved priests. Japan was entering into a period when a ‘retainer could supplant his lord’. The development of greater self-governance in towns and villages on the one hand strengthened the autonomy of the residents (through the foundation of village meetings, formation of village bye-laws and selection of village officers) but on the other hand also saw the emergence of quite severe discrimination. While the more influential strata including the established farmers could take part in the village meetings and shrine events, those who possessed less land, and the servant class could not play any part at all. Moreover, there was an increase of exclusionism towards those who came from other regions or manors (Yokoi 1975). How, then, did the kawaramono (eta, kiyome, saiku) who had already been subject to social discrimination and the leather workers who were called kawata fare in the Kinki regions during the Sengoku period? Archive material from the Tokai, Kanto and Koshin (Yamanashi/Nagano) areas is comparatively extensive. There, ruling families controlled a variety of craftsmen in order to manage their estates and military facilities: blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, scabbard makers, grinders, fletchers and dyers. Itame leather was used to make various military goods including

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armour plate and the guard (tsuba) on long swords. This leather is first dried over a flame then soaked in water into which glue has been dissolved and then beaten with a hammer. For horses, there was the hazuna – a cord that fastened on to the horse’s bit, and saddle-flaps that stretched down both flanks of the horse protecting it from mud. It was essential during the era of warring-states for lords to control their leather working artisans so as to ensure a stable supply of these essential goods. In this part of Japan the first time we see evidence of this is on the twelfth day, sixth month 1526 when Imagawa Ujichika of the Suruga fiefdom ordered Oi shinuemonojo to make sure that the kawata Hikohachi is reminded every year about his obligation to supply leather goods and pay his taxes promptly.62 In 1528, in an emergency, Hikohachi was ordered to procure leather from across the fiefdom which shows that the region was a unit of kawata organization.63 Gohōjō of Odawara in the third month of 1538 ordered the kawata Kurosaemon of Izu Nagaokato quickly to finish off the leather goods that he had been given by all the twenty-one people of kawata status across the fief.64 In the third month of 1565 there is a reference to leather-working the east, central and west kōri 65 of this region and a regulation notes breaches of the law by people flaying animals who are not authorized to do so. The hides so acquired should be confiscated and reported to the authorities.66 This suggests that skinning already was considered a kawata monopoly and that an organization and market structure had been created based on the kōri (or gun) as a geographical unit. References in the archive data for the tenth month of 1591 and the first month of the following year show that in Takeda of the Kai region too kawata were organized on the basis of the community suji 67 as a unit (Sasamoto 2004). 62 63 64 65

66 67

Shizuokakenshi Shiryōhen Vol 7 Middle Ages 3, item 920. Ibid, item 1025. Ibid, item 1025. Gun or kōri – 㒆- sometimes translated as county is a local government unit that is located between the village and the fief government of the local lord. Kaitei Shinpen Sōshu Komonjō, Vol 5, 239. Suji strictly speaking is a community which has a road running through it.

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Once the warring state lords had established their estates, the kawata communities created their own organizations through which they could secure, maintain and pass on their craft techniques. The lords controlled them through the heads of their organizations. As far as the kawata were concerned, by establishing this link with the local lord they could ensure their monopoly over their craft at the same time as stabilizing their income. They were given licences like other artisans, for example similar to blacksmiths or metal workers who were given whole or partial exemption from paying taxes and with the feudal lord recognizing their status as craftsmen. They were ruled in just the same way as groups such as carpenters. There is a record that suggests that Anayama Nobukimi exempted the Suruga kawata of the obligation to take part in construction and work in paddy fields indicating that there were some who did have or had had that obligation. Nevertheless, there were some major differences among the kawata. Prejudice against the craftsmen who skinned and tanned the skins was strong whilst feelings of discrimination against those who worked the tanned leather was weaker. However once more we must stress that there were considerable regional differences. At least in Kai (Yamanashi) and Shinano (Nagano) there was only a mild awareness of feelings about the defilement entailed in killing animals and this was connected to feelings towards hunters and kawata. The central area of Japan was under the rule of the Mori (ẟ฼) family and is depicted in the Maps of the Arrangements in the Eight Fiefdoms compiled in the late sixteenth century which provides five examples of ‘kawaya’ along with pictures of ‘kawaya’ in the neighbouring regions. Mori paid salaries to ensure a constant supply of leather and set up an organization to control it. In Suō (Higashiyama) kawaya were regarded equivalent to low ranking Shinto priests who had the duty to provide services to the Tenmangu (we can speculate that they also had to deal with dead horses and oxen) and at the same time it is thought that they were also forced to serve the Mori clan. In this case rule was not enforced

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through the community chiefs but it was done in a more liberal, individual way (Fujimoto 1983, 60–2). In Tosa too, as commented on earlier, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century we can observe leather industry workers who were called Sakanomono. There is not much documentation of kawata being organized by lords in the Kinki regions at this time even where there is much archive material about the kawaramono (eta, kiyome, saiku). Fujisawa suggests that, ‘It was quite different to the east of Japan and, frankly put, it was probably due to the procurement of leather through trade routes. Nobunaga and Hideyoshi tried to manipulate the merchants and their cities (Sakai, etc.) rather than the artisans. Already leather making was widely developed and some of their products were in the hands of influential merchants while the rest were being traded through the hands of the leather merchants of Watanabe village in Ōsaka who had already acquired considerable power’ (Fujisawa 2013, 72). So, how can we best locate the status positions occupied by the eta (later called kawaramono, kiyome and saiku) who we have already shown to have existed from the early Middle Ages and the kawata, kawatsukuri, kawaya of the later middle ages and era of warring states? As mentioned earlier, Kuroda (1972) regards ‘hinin’ as a group of discriminated people who include the eta of the middle ages and talks of them as occupying a ‘status beyond status’ or a ‘status outside the system’. Oyama (1976a,b) defines ‘hinin’ status as ‘a special kind of ordinary person or farmer’. Amino (1994, 1998) takes the position that hinin in the middle ages are just one ‘occupation’ status. Niunoya (2005) inherits the Kuroda thesis and continues to use the term hinin quite broadly defined. However, Nagahara (1992) points out that the approach taken to discriminatory status systems by Kuroda and Oyama is a static status structure theory when it is a dynamic analysis that is needed. Hosokawa advocated thinking about it as a two-stage process of development: primary hinin (hinin as a ‘status outside status’ that develops spontaneously) and secondary hinin (shukuhinin who are formed as a specialized group as a status within

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the system from the hinin groups of stage one). The shukuhinin, who are secondary hinin, and the kawaramono are systemically and from the start quite different. We should notice that whilst the shukuhinin mainly declare themselves at times of success in life, kawaramono regard themselves as commoners. Whereas the former appear in the literature as dropouts who have no occupations, the latter appear as objects of control by the ancient state accompanied by the occupation of kiyome. ‘Whether the word hinin is a historical remnant of an inclusive status title applied in the middle ages to discriminated people including kawaramono and eta is connected to the problem of whether hinin as a group are sufficient as a historical precursor for the Buraku of the early middle period. This is something that remains for further consideration’ (Hosokawa 1994, 124). Teraki’s view is that kawaramono were not formed from ‘dropouts who had no occupation’ but rather were mainly formed from leather workers and butchers amid a process of strengthening ideas of impurity and defilement so that there were great differences in the background to and formation of the shukuhinin and kawaramono. It is not appropriate to regard them as part of the hinin status. As far as can be seen from the written archives and the pictorial sources we can consider the kawaramono and kawata as the status given to discriminated occupations and as such they are quite different from the discriminated status occupied by the ‘hinin’. The reasons for this are firstly that the kawata were the leather workers working for daimyo during the period of warring states and were treated by them as occupational specialists along with carpenters and blacksmiths. Secondly, kawaramono from the early middle ages were consistently engaged in leather work or the butcher trade. Finally, eta are mentioned as leather workers in the Collection of Poems about 71 Tradespeople – Nanajūichi Banshokunin Kagō.68 68

However, we need to set on one side the fact that 'occupation' of the middle ages refers not only to craftsmen but is also the word used to refer to a wide range of petty officials in government offices and on private estates that had the common features of being family occupations and even included gambling.

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We have already described how in the Kinki region including Kyoto and Nara there was severe discrimination against kawaramono. However, I do not think that this was status discrimination against the senmin status but rather that it had the strong characteristic of being occupationally based discrimination founded on notions of defilement and directed towards leather craftsmen because of their occupation.

CHAPTER 4

The Establishment of Kawata and Chōri Status – the Buraku of the early modern period 5

THE RULE OF THE TOYOTOMI, THE EARLY TOKUGAWA REGIME AND THE KAWATA/CHŌRI

In the fourth month of 1585 the rebels who had been confined to Ōta castle in Kii finally surrendered to Hideyoshi’s army having been flooded out.69 Hideyoshi then subjugated Shikoku and Kyushu, in 1590 he overthrew the Hōjō family, made Dateshi surrender and united the country under his rule. Immediately after defeating Akechi Mitsuhide and following a survey carried out in the Yamashiro region, Hideyoshi enforced a land survey on the entire country, called the Taikō land survey.70 Although there 69

70

The siege of Ōta Castle was one of a series of assaults made by Toyotomi Hideyoshi against the Ikkō-ikki religious zealots towards the end of Japan’s Sengoku period. Due to the topography of the area, Hideyoshi decided that he could not easily burn this fortress so instead he flooded it. He constructed a palisade and series of dikes roughly 300 metres from the castle, began isolating the castle from supplies, and then flooded it, a process bolstered by heavy rains. By the twenty-second day of the fourth lunar month, the garrison could hold out no longer and surrendered; fifty samurai committed seppuku. As Hideyoshi took over the castle, he ordered all those from samurai families to be killed, while peasants were simply disarmed of all weapons, and sent back to their lords’ fields. See: Turnbull, Stephen (1998). The Samurai Sourcebook, London: Cassell & Co. With all of Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s control, a new structure for national government was set up. The basis of power was the 54

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were some differences in the way it was carried out in different parts of the country, basically it promoted the separation of the soldiers from the farmers in the countryside and the merchants from the farmers in the towns. In the Taikō land survey reports we can see entries that use such titles as kawata (seen all across the country), kawaya (frequent in the Ise region), kawaramono, saiku and chōri (in the Kanto area, Fujisawa 2013). In the seventh month of 1588 the Sword Hunt decree was issued with the twin aims of disarming the farmers in order to prevent peasant revolts and tying them more firmly to their land. In 1591 in anticipation of the invasion of the Korean peninsula a status regulation was issued and the following year the ’Sixtysix Country Edict’ was produced which enforced status distinctions between farmers and merchants.71 Throughout the Warring States period until the late sixteenth century castles had been constructed across the country and merchants and craftsmen had gathered in the towns that formed around them. Meanwhile farmers continued to live in the villages thus further promoting this separation of classes although there were some merchants and craftsmen who also remained in the countryside. Under the Tokugawa regime, no distinction was made between how regions were governed whether they be under the rule of the central Bakufu government, local lords, or temples and shrines. As well as applying almost the same policies to control the mass of the people, a religious census was introduced as a way of suppressing the Christian religion and this gradually came to have

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distribution of territory as measured by rice production in units of koku, where one koku was sufficient to feed one person for a year, about 150 kg. In 1598, a national survey was instituted which assessed total national rice production at 18.5 million koku, 2 million of which was controlled directly by Hideyoshi. These surveys which became the basis for the taxation system were carried out under him. Shortly after he took the title of taikō ኴ㛷Imperial Advisor and they have come to be known as the Taikō surveys. Japan in ancient times was considered to comprise of sixty-six discrete units so to describe an edict as such indicated that it was distributed across the whole country.

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Figure 10

Use of ‘Kawata’ in the Taikō Land Survey, 1598. (Kōchi boku, Tanhoku-kōri, Saraike-mura)

the character of a census of individuals. The register of individuals and their religions was compiled using towns or villages as the basic units (very similar to the koseki, the modern family register system). People who were of kawata or chōri 72 status or who had some other discriminated status were listed at the end of these registers or in completely different ones. In this way, by the early part of the Edo period, around the early to late seventeenth cen72

Indicates eta status. In general, kawata, written in various ways, was used in the west and chōri in the east.

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tury, although there were some differences according to region and in the timing of its creation, the early modern status system was established with farmer, town dweller and the discriminatory statuses of kawata/chōri. In the early modern period, feudal lords controlled each area and the farmers lived in village units. Once the value of the village crop had been decided, the local lords (daimyo) enforced the payment of an annual tax by the farmers and insisted on the provision of certain duties. The urban dwellers were controlled on the basis of the area of the town in which they lived and they paid a land tax based on their residential land. The daimyo controlled the townsmen through the payments related to their status (Fukaya, 1993). The same basic principles of control were applied to the kawata and chōri communities – the early modern Buraku. The kawata/chōri villages who mainly dealt with raw leather in the early years of this period were controlled in principle as branches of the main village through payment of dues owed for the land on which the leather workers lived. The daimyo exerted control over them as kawata/chōri, people of discriminated status, and imposed on them the duties of tax payment, cleaning functions and carrying out punishments – these being same duties and punishments that kawaramono had been carrying out until then. So, even though the farmers in Saraike kawata village in Tanboku kōri Kawachi had a crop value estimated at the time of the Taiko land survey of over 18 koku, they also had to fulfill the duties as residents in a kawata village or a kawata residence (Mori 1975). Hidamura village in Naka kōri, Kii han in 1601 was assessed to be worth 194 koku but this was not an ordinary village but a kawata village and controlled as such. We can think of them as being controlled not on the basis of their farming function but their kawata status (Vol 1 Uchidachoshi – historical material). Incidentally of the 186 villages in the same kōri there were thirty-four villages which were valued at less than 194 koku and among them one with only 56 koku which suggests that kawata villages were not necessarily poorer than their neighbours (Wakayama-ken-shi Early Modern Historical material 3).

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The kawata/chōri communities were established with their discriminatory status in the period from the late-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries and, although there may have been some genealogical connections with the kawaramono and kawata of earlier times, these kawaramono and those with kawata discriminated occupation status were qualitatively different.73 THE BAKUHAN STRUCTURE OF RULE AND THE STATUS SYSTEM

The Bakuhan structure of rule, simply put, was one with the Tokugawa Shogun as the dominant feudal lord who, while granting a certain degree of political and economic autonomy to each of the daimyo, held overall control. In turn the shogun and the local lords held complete control over the lives of the masses of the people. In the middle of the Edo period the country as a whole was estimated to have a value of 26,000,000 koku of which 7,000,000 was within the Bakufu’s domain. Since the most powerful single lord, Kaga Maeda, held an estate valued at 1,020,000 koku, the extent of the Bakufu’s economic superiority was clear. The shogun’s political power was also immense: he changed the rank of many of the 260 feudal lords including confiscating the estates of some, cutting down the size of others or moving a daimyo from one fief to another. The Tokugawa regime continued Toyotomi’s policy of suppressing Christianity. It imposed some very cruel punishments on Christian believers and following the Amagusa/Shimabara rebellion74 of 1637–1638 it implemented the so-called Closed 73

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As I have explained earlier, although for example in the Shinano and Kai regions there were some feelings that kawata were in some way defiled, they were weak and it was probably similar in many areas of Tōhoku. Buraku discrimination as status discrimination or communities that suffered such kinds of discrimination were formed at this time. The Shimabara Rebellion was an uprising in Kyushu lasting from the seventeenth day of the twelfth month 1637, to the fifteenth day of the fourth month 1638. It involved more than 20,000 peasants, most of them Catholic Christians. In the wake of the Matsukura clan’s construction of a new castle at Shimabara, taxes were drastically raised, which provoked anger from local peasants and rōnin (samurai without masters). Religious

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Country (Sakoku 㙐ᅜ) policy. This did not close the country off completely. It left the Bakufu with a monopoly on trade with only five windows on the world remaining open. Formal diplomatic relations continued to exist with Korea75 and the Ryūkyū kingdom (Okinawa). From the start of the Edo period there were twelve embassies sent from Korea which travelled via the island of Tsushima and then on land through Kyushu to the shogun’s court in Edo (modern Tokyo). They engaged in various kinds of interaction with Japanese people and received a warm welcome from some daimyo along the way. China (controlled by the Ming, then Chin dynasties) and Holland were recognized as trading partners and finally there was the trade that took place with the Ainu. However, in 1604, with the permission of Ieyasu, Lord Shimazu of Satsuma attacked the Ryūkyū kingdom and placed it under his control causing the inhabitants great suffering. In the same year Ieyasu granted a monopoly over trading rights with the Ainu to the Matsumae clan who occupied the extreme south of Hokkaido. Having received this they forced the Ainu to trade only with them and they created an exploitative relationship with them through a trading post system – a system that sub-contracted to merchants both trade and fishing rights in exchange for payment of taxes. The Ainu people led by Shakushain rebelled against this in1669 and then again in 1789 in the rebellions in Kunashiri and Menashi but both of them were crushed by the Matsumae clan. As already mentioned the Bakufu held immense political and economic power but both the daimyo and the religious estates were allowed a certain degree of political and economic autonomy. Although the basic structure of rule was broadly common to all, we can see considerable regional differences and this was also

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persecution of the local Catholics exacerbated the discontent, which turned into open revolt in 1637. The Tokugawa Shogunate sent a force of over 125,000 troops to suppress the rebels who were only defeated after a lengthy siege of Hara Castle. There had been two invasions of the peninsula under Toyotomi which brought back Koreans to Japan as slave labour.

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true for the status system. The emperor (Tennō) – court nobles, samurai-farmer, townsman – discriminated status: these distinctions and this order was common across the Bakuhan structure and the various daimiates although of course the emperor and court nobles resided in Kyoto. But for example, in the Koyasan fiefdom in Kishū (Wakayama, valued at 21,300 koku) the samurai class did not exist – and in its place priests ruled over the local population. We can see particularly great variety in the names given to those with discriminated statuses that were related to the ways in which they were formed and the time when they were created. For example, just thinking of people with eta status: in Kanto, Shinano (Nagano) and Hizen (Nagasaki) there are many cases of the use of the word chōri (㛗ྣ) whereas in western Japan it is more common to find the use of kawata (written using various kanji). In the Hiroshima area kawata (㠉⏣㸧was commonly used but we can also find chasen. In the Satsuma han until 1784 eta was not used at all but shiku (ᅄⱞ㸧was. In the fiefdoms of the Tohoku area in the north-east of Japan there were few communities with eta status, the number of their households and their population was small. In Echigo (Niigata), Shinano and Iyo (Ehime) there were many small-scale kawata villages whilst in the Kinki area there were relatively many, large kawata villages. In the Kanbe han of Ise (Mie) there were hinin but no eta. In the tobichi76 of Musashikoku Oshihan in the Ise area there were eta but no hinin (Wada 1982, 282). On the island daimiate of Sado there were hinin but no eta. In the Kaga han (Ishikawa) there were more tōnai (⸨ෆ) both in terms of population and households than kawata. In the Kaga han, Kyoto and the Izumi area there were monoyoshi (≀ྜྷ) who in the south Kyushu han of Takanabe were called seirai (㟷Ⓜ). In the Tokai area including Ise there were sasara (⠾) and in Yamato and Mikawa areas there were banzai (୓ṓ). Apart from this: in the Sanrin area 76

A tobichi lit. ‘detached territory’ was an area of land controlled by one daimiate but located entirely within another.

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there were chasen (Ⲕ➸ , in the San-in region tetsuya㕲ᒇ , in Chōshu (Yamaguchi) miyabanᐑ␒ , in Satsuma keiga (៞ ㈡ and in Takanoyama han there were tani no mono (㇂ࡢ⪅ people of the valley). In all these areas we can find saruhiki (monkey trainers), in Edo and surrounding area there were komune (beggars). In the Kinki region some shuku villages still existed. THE FORMATION OF THE KAWATA AND CHŌRI – THE BURAKU OF THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

Recent research has demonstrated how the eta/chōri – the buraku of the early modern period – have many direct lineage links to the eta – kawaramono, kiyome, saiku, kawata, all of who were employed in the leather or meat industry in the middle ages. For example, in Kyoto we can assume that there are direct links between Amabe village (a kawata community) and the saiku community of the Shijō riverside of the middle ages, between the Kawasaki kawata and the kawaramono of Kawasaki of the late middle ages, between the Noguchi kawata and the Noguchi kawaramono of northern Kyoto in the middle ages (Tsuji 1979, 1986). We can show that the kiyome residences listed in the Kenchuchō77 of 1396 are geographically contiguous with the kawata communities of the early modern period in Otokuni kōri Yamashiro (Tarashima 1985). The Minaminouchi kawata village is connected to the Katabira no tsuji kawaramono which appears in an historical record of 1517 (Tsuji/Yamamoto 1995). The kawata village in Nara, Higashi no saka, is thought to be linked to the ‘saka no eta’ who appear in an entry of the Tamonin Nikki for the sixteenth day of the eighth month 1567 and the Higashi no Saka chōri had been closely connected to the Kofuku temple since the middle ages. Traces of the ashes of bones that have been found in archaeological excavations and evidence from a temple within Shimamura village, Minami kōri, Izumi suggest that the community turned from digging holes to working with animals. A link 77

The name of the land survey under the manor system of the middle ages, called after the name of the register used to compile it. The basis for taxation.

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developed between the meat and leather industries after the middle ages (Ōsaka Burakushi Iinkai 2009). At least some of the ancestors of the kawata community in Saraike village Tanboku no kōri, Kawachi who are depicted as residents of housing near to ‘kawata graves’ and the ‘kawata bone repository’ on the map of 1676 (which was intended to show the situation in the village as at the time of the Taikō land survey) were engaged in the disposal of dead animals and the manufacture of leather in the late middle ages. Watanabe village which was called Settsu Yakuin mura is thought to have a connection by lineage to the eta people of the Kizu castle who had been active in the seige of the Ishiyama Honganji in the late 1570s.78 The kawata of Taga village, Ubara kōri in Settsu too seems to have a direct relationship to the ‘kiyome’ village which appears in a record of 1447. In Harima the residential area of the kawaramono of the Iwa shrine is thought to later have become a kawata village in the early modern period (Iryū no Burakushi Kankōkai, 1978). In the Kii region the Okajima kawata village which neighbours on to Wakayama castle is thought to be connected to the saiku of the middle ages (Fujimoto 2011) and the people of Ito kōri Hiranumata kawata community are thought to be descended from the people who hunted animals such as boar and deer, skinned their hides and tanned them (Maeda 1994). The chōri of Gokuraku temple in Kamakura in early modern Kanto are considered to have been descendants of the inujinnin (dog-god-men) referred to in chapter 3 and similar in status to kawaramono. Danzaemon who adopted the title of eta chieftain in the Kanto area was simply the leader of a kawata group during the warring states period who later was patronised by the Tokugawa government and confirmed in the position of leader (Nakao 1992).

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This involved followers of the Jōdo Shinshū sect who gathered at the Ōsaka Honganji temple to oppose Oda Nobunaga. After ten years the fighting came to a halt and the temple made an agreement but in truth it was defeated.

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As we can see from this small number of examples, a substantial proportion of those with eta or chōri status in the early modern period were directly descended from the eta – kawaramono, kiyome, saiku, kawata – of the later middle ages. And we can see the occupation name kawata – (leather worker) being used to describe individuals in the Taikō land survey in every part of the country (in the Kanto regions the title chōri, variously written, is also used) which suggests that these eta/chōri people have close connections with the leather workers and butchers of the middle ages. To sum up, the eta/chōri of the early modern period, no matter whether they were located in an area governed by the Bakufu, a feudal lord or a religious organization, had the right to deal with dead horses and cattle and in western Japan they also actually engaged in the dismembering of the carcasses. We can observe a close connection with the leather and meat industries. The leather and meat trade, just like any other specialist occupation, is one which requires a high level of knowledge and skill. They are not the kind of trades that someone from outside the industry could pick all of a sudden at the start of the Edo period. Furthermore, all over the country from the middle ages they had strong links with shrines and temples where they had the duty to provide leather targets or act as forerunners in temple and shrine processions.79 This is quite important when thinking about the evolution of the eta/chōri communities so I would like to mention a number of examples. In Minami Ōji village, Izumi kōri, Izumi han a leather target was presented to the Shinto shrine as part of the archery rituals which took place in the second month each year (Minami Ōjimura Bunshō Vol 5 material dated 1622). In the Kuwana Fukaya region of Ise they presented leather tabi (socks) on the occasion of the festival (matsuri) held in the fifth month at the Tado shrine (Kuwana-shi 1995). In the Watanabe village, referred to already, there probably was a holy person associated with the Zama shrine (Nakao 2001, 107). It is said that in the leather 79

They had the role of shooing away passers-by and removing the defilement ahead of the procession led by a mikoshi – portable shrine.

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target ceremonies of the 17th day of the first month of the Tatta Shingū in Tatta village Heguri kōri, Yamato the leather target was presented by the kawata community of Tatsunomura Edagoshimonosho (Narakenritsu Dōwa Mondai Kankei Shiryō Sentaa, 2001). In Kanto, the Hōjōe festival was held in the Tsuruoka Hachimangu shrine in Kamakura and took place each year until the Meiji restoration on the fifteenth day of the eighth month according to the old calendar. It is said to have had a Goraku temple chōri walking at the front of the procession probably taking on the role of the forerunner (Fujisawa 2013, 206). These chōri were also involved in the leather industry. The presentation of leather targets, leather tabi or leather itself indicates that these people were originally in the leather industry (as tanners or craftsmen) and the role of acting as a forerunner in religious ceremonies suggests the role of the kiyome – cleaners. Leather workers and butchers dealt with dead horses and cattle (their skinning and dismemberment) against a background of strengthening notions of ritual defilement. In that context these actions took on the meaning of purifying the defilement which it was thought was created by the dismemberment of horses and cattle. They gradually took on a purifying function. Looking at the distribution of the population and discriminated communities it is clear that there are more of both in the west of the country than the east. There remains much more work to be done on this topic but Arimoto speculates that since western Japan is the region that mainly used cattle which produces hides that can be made into excellent leather this enabled the development of leather commodities and a leather industry that provided the basis for the expansion of the kawata population. In contrast the east was mainly an area where horses were used and since their hides produce poorer quality leather the production of leather commodities and the development of the leather industry did not take place. We do not see population growth here to the same extent as in the west (Arimoto 2009). As we saw in earlier chapters, there were regional differences in the formation of Buraku communities but since they were composed of groups of leather

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workers who were beginning to encounter work-based discrimination at the end of the middle ages period, we should note Arimoto’s findings and consider the results of his important research efforts as the basis for the development of further evidence-based research on the topic of population trends. In Ōmi (Shiga) there are about ten areas with kawata villages that have close connections with Buddhist temples. It is thought that they were probably people dependent on (possibly slaves of ) the temples of the middle ages. ‘Buraku formed in this way are generally very old. They are peculiar in that during their early history they did not pursue occupations connected with dealing with horses and cattle’ (Shigaken Burakushi Kenkyūkai, 1974). There is a need for more evidence here but this is an important point. There are some who think that, ‘In Shinano, Tosa and elsewhere it was not dealing with dead horses and cattle that was the basis of discrimination but being jailers or policemen, patrolmen or cleaners and moreover they themselves considered this interpretation to be the basis of their communities’ identity’ (Fujisawa 2013). In the Takada han in the Echizen region (Fukui) the kawata areas were located at the front entrance or at the rear of the community in towns or villages that lie on important roads or by-roads, or at the point where a mountain area joins the plain. They existed at every relay station from Hachizaki Sekisho under the control of Echizen to the Seigawa Sekisho on the Echizen Shinano border. Moreover, apart from Takada Nishimuramachi (a kawata town) we can see that in the mid-1680s most of these communities had only one or two households registered in each settlement. From this we can conclude that here they were organized mainly around guard duty rather than dealing with dead horses and cattle or the leather industry (Kinoshita 1983). Buraku discrimination today involves around 6,000 communities across the country. Among them not many are thought to have been formed after the start of the seventeenth century, and so we can conclude that at least 4–5,000 existed at the start of the early modern period. Historians have so far been able to describe the course of the formation of only a few kawata or

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chōri communities but I look forward to a fuller picture emerging as a result of more detailed research in each region. THE REALITY OF THE STATUS REGULATIONS OF THE EDO PERIOD

The Edo period status system has usually been described using a diagram showing the samurai, merchants, artisans, farmers: eta, hinin in descending order of status. However, these days we recognize that there are problems with that simple explanation and even in primary and middle school textbooks the section on the status system instead talks of ‘farmers and merchants’. Here I want to describe how the status system was formed in the seventeenth century and evolved over the course of the Tokugawa period to become much more complicated than this simple model suggests. This was also true of the discriminated status groups. In the previous section I outlined a status system of emperor and court nobles at the top, samurai and farmers, merchants – and those with discriminated status. However, this diagram was different to the actual status designation and ranking within society at that time. The collocation shi, nō, kō, shō(ኈ㎰ᕤၟ soldier, farmer, artisan, merchant) had been used in China since before the Christian era and the words indicated rather different occupations. For example, ኈ– shi – indicated not a soldier/ samurai but an official. At the start of the Edo period the intellectuals of the time used the same character to refer to a different status. They transposed it to refer to samurai. The standard model excludes not only the emperor and court nobles but also fisherfolk and woodcutters. ‘Farmer’ (ⓒጣ) too is a word transmitted from China that originally was used to indicate all sorts of common people. Even though during the Edo period in Japan it gradually came to exclusively mean farmer, its original nuance suggested not only farmers but also wood cutters, fisherfolk and, depending on the area, it could sometimes include even merchants and artisans. That is to say, the word for farmer, ⓒጣ, in the early Edo period was used to indicate people who lived in a village – whether that be farming village,

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fishing village or forest village. Meanwhile town dweller – ⏫Ẹ chōmin – was a word that at its broadest indicated all the people who lived in an area called a town under a feudal lord, usually a castle town. As for discriminated people, as previously discussed they were not only called kawata, chōri or hinin, many other names were used. Later I will describe the living conditions of some of these discriminated groups. Moreover, not all kawata/chōri in every area were regarded as of higher status than hinin. In Kansai there were many cases where the two did not stand in a hierarchical relationship to each other. Priests at Shinto and Buddhist shrines, doctors and scholars did not easily fit into this system either. Moreover, among the samurai class there were hatamoto and gokenin, both vassals serving the shogun plus retainers and foot-soldiers of various kinds who served the daimyo – kachu, kachi, ashigaru. Among farmers there were the ‘true’ farmers and then poor peasants and there were low-class people who were dependent on their employer’s farming household with various names such as fudai, kadoya, gehō, monzen among others. Among the merchants, for example in Edo, there was a very complicated status system whose complete explanation remains a topic for future research. CONTROL OF DISCRIMINATED PEOPLE AND THE DISCRIMINATION POLICY OF THE FEUDAL LORDS IN THE EARLY EDO PERIOD

The feudal lords and Tokugawa regime attempted to control the discriminated groups from the early Edo period in various ways. Danzaemon was called the ‘Eta Chieftain’ of Kanto and he later ruled over almost all the chōri, hinin and saruhiki (monkey trainers) across the eight provinces of the Kanto region as well as some of those in Izu and Suruga (Shizuoka). In the early part of the seventeenth century (between 1596 and 1624) he was appointed by the Tokugawa shogun to a ‘core position’ in control of leather production (Minegishi 1983). At the time of the Great Fire of Edo in the first month of 1657, Danzaemon ordered the hinin boss to clear up the burnt dead bodies and, complying with this, Kuruma

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Zenshichi sent out labourers. This shows how the control of hinin bosses was reinforced by Danzaemon’s authority.80 The Matsudaira han in Shinano in the eleventh month of 1598 ordered Magoroku, ‘chief of all the kawaya’, to pay a tribute of brooms and reins/fetters and also expected him to provide jailers and cleaners in the castle (Banhane 1960). In the Kyoto region Shimomura Hikozō was given the post of Eta Chief in 1624 (Nakasawa, Kobayashi 1969). In Kii province too a ‘cleaning boss’ (i.e. chief jailer) was appointed in the early modern period as a representative of the community to act as an intermediary between the residents of the kawata villages in the han and its ruler (Fujimoto 2011). When Okayama castle was being constructed by Ukita Naoie, the kawata of Amahara village, Akasaka kōri were forced to move to live in Kunimori village Minō kōri by the ‘eta chief of the whole region’ (Yokoyama 1970 64). Both the Tokugawa and the local lords in most areas would appoint a kawata/chōri leader and organize their control of the people with kawata, chōri or hinin status through him. The Bakufu in 1656 sent out an ‘Enquiry on Thieves’ seeking to control the activities of thieves and burglars through the goningumi of the villages in the Kanto area. In its four supplementary clauses it lists ‘itinerant and begging priests, eta, beggars and hinin, etc.’ as likely to give shelter to thieves and suggests these unreliable people should not be allowed in the villages.81 This defines those with a status below priests as people who should usually be investigated but this regulation does not regard eta and hinin as being of senmin status (Fujisawa 2013).82

80 81 82

Gofunai Binkō Vol 20, Asakusa no hachi. Tokugawa Kinreiko, Vol 5. Gonin gumi (஬ே⤌ࡳ literally ‘five member groups’). During the Tokugawa period all households belonged to groups of five households or more whose members were held jointly responsible for the good conduct of all of the others, and of their dependents. This included responsibility for crime and for non-payment of taxes. They were headed by a leader who was usually elected from within, but sometimes appointed from above. In some districts, the groups could comprise six, or even ten households.

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A survey of 1644 of the shogun controlled region of Saraike village, Kawachi Tanboku kōri (now part of Matsubara city, Ōsaka prefecture) found twelve houses in the main village (one a temple) but thirty-seven houses in the kawata community (one with no land assigned to it) – so in the end out of forty-eight houses, thirty-six are ‘eta’ houses.83 In the first month of 1664 the Bakufu, as part of its policy to suppress Christianity, imposed an obligation on daimyo to conduct an annual religious investigation within their han. This religious survey was carried out on a national scale using towns and villages as the unit and it gives a clear record of status distinctions. In Saraike village an earlier religious investigation of 1660 listed the kawata in a separate register.84 In 1695 there was a written note attached explaining that the houses of the kawata within Saraike village were enclosed by a bamboo fence and its residents were not permitted to go past the ceremonial rope used in Shinto ceremonies having to observe them from outside.85 The Amabe village in Kyoto (a kawata village) was moved from the west bank of the Shijō Kamogawa river to the east of Sanjō river at the time of the construction of defensive earthworks by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the development of the temple town into housing. Rokujō village which was near the ruins of the Kangikōji temple on the east bank of the river was also moved at this time (Tsuji and Yamamoto 1995). Watanabe village too (now part of Ōsaka), which was called Settsu Yakunin village, was ordered to move several times in the early modern period and did not settle onto its present site until 1701 (Teraki 2014). The fact that the maps of Japan produced in the early Edo period – such as the Settsu Kuni Ezu (Nishinomiyashi shiritsu Shiryōkanzō) and the Keichō Harimano kunizu (Tenri Daigaku Fuzoku Tenri Toshokan) – record the presence of kawata villages (written using various characters) indicates that the ruling 83 84 85

Kawachikuni Saraikemura Bunshō Vol 1 43–51. Ibid. 54–63 Ibid. Vol 2 29–30

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authorities were adopting different means of controlling them compared to the villages comprised of farmers. Fujimoto who has analysed the maps of Izumi province points out that, ‘from the way the maps record the communities they confirm the way the state took charge of and recorded the status of kawata villages and kawata settlements’ (Fujimoto 1997, 86). The edicts on mourning issued by the Bakufu strengthened the concepts of impurity and defilement which were connected to popular awareness of discrimination. The Bakufu established and promulgated the Mourning Edict in 1684 (Hayashi 198, 46). When it was revised in 1686 it listed the number days to be spent mourning for the death of relatives and family members and then it lists the number of days of impurity caused by other events: birth, menstruation, abortion, death. Then, in the twelfth month of 1688, rules were issued in Edo on the number of days of abstinence from visits to the Kaneiji and Zōjuji temples and rules on

Figure 11

A buraku located outside the walls in Kyoto at the start of the early modern period

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Figure 12

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Sketch of the Watanabe-mura, Settsu (Osaka) at the start of the early modern period

the impurity incurred by accompanying people. As well as listing the impurity caused by birth, blood, and contact with dead horses, cattle, poultry, dogs and goats, it goes on to set rules concerning the impurity caused by eating: horse or cattle 150 days, deer/boar/monkey 70 days, rabbit/tanuki86/poultry 5 days.87 These regulations added to the discrimination against women and towards those involved with funerals. They strengthened discrimination based on ideas of impurity towards those people of kawata and chōri status who were involved with the disposal of dead horses and cattle. At this time a key policy of the fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi, was the ‘Mercy on Living Creatures’ edict.88 In the fourth month of 1687 it imposed strict controls on the disposal of sickly horses and made the death penalty an appropriate punishment in some cases. The edict on the disposal of horses and cattle was much more severe than in the case of dogs. In fact, in 1689 a ‘horse 86 87 88

‘Raccoon dog’, badger, scientific name: Nyctereutes procyonoides. Gofushō Hoshuse, 497–503. Tsunayoshi (1646–1709), the fifth Tokugawa shogun, is notorious for policies that were deemed eccentric, extreme, and unorthodox. His Laws of Compassion, which made the maltreatment of dogs an offence punishable by death, earned him the nickname Dog shogun.

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trader’89 from Bizen (Okayama) was subject to an investigation by the shogunal administrator of Osaka concerning his disposal of a dead cow and he was sentenced to prison (Ōsaka Burakushi Vol 1 materials 67). Through these policies control over the kawata and chōri who dealt with dead horses and cattle was strengthened and feelings of discrimination against them amplified (Yokota 1988). At this point neither the Toyotomi regime nor the Edo government had produced specific edicts to control the discriminated groups or enforce discrimination but we should not ignore the development of the various ways that were being devised to control the kawata, record their status and enforce discriminatory policies towards them. Next to look at the policies devised by various han to control their discriminated communities and the discriminatory regulations they used. In Chōshu han in the third month of 1604 the kawata of Yamaguchi Kakinouchi were ordered to take on the night-watchman role within the district and in the third month of 1645 Yoshisaemon was ordered to take on the role of chōri kawaya of the two regions of Suō and Nagato. In Chōfu (a sub-district of Chōshu) eta were only permitted to wear cotton clothes above and below the waist. Their unlined summer kimono had to be of linen. They were not permitted to wear any other kind of clothing.90 In Awa han (Tokushima) in 1699 it was ruled that eta clothing should be plainer than that of farmers91 (Tokushima Burakushi Kankei Shiryō shu, Vol 3). When undertaking the religious investigation in Ōgaki (Gifu) in the sixth month of 1693 a separate register was ordered to be prepared for the eta/hinin ‘as every year’,92 and in Uwajima (Ehime) in 1696 a separate register of the religious investigation was requested (Ehime Burakushi Shiryō). 89

90

91 92

They also treated disease in domestic animals and acted as agents for prostitution. Yamaguchiken Dōwa Mondai Kankeishi Shiryō Kinsei, Yamaguchiken Kyoikuiinkai 21–2. Tokushima Burakushi Kankei Shiryōshu, Vol 3. Zauhikan Vol 3, Sources in Early Modern Economic History, Vol 7.

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OCCUPATIONS OF THE KAWATA AND CHŌRI IN THE EARLY EDO PERIOD

We will begin by discussing the treatment of dead horses and cattle which is the precursor to leather production. In the Edo period when a horse or cow that belonged to a farmer collapsed and died the social custom was that the kawata or chōri who held rights in that territory acquired that carcass free of charge. The territory was known variously as hishūba [skin taking place, skin place], hiba, shokuba [workplace] or sōba [grass place]. In the Kinki and Kanto regions from the middle ages into the early modern period the workers in leather connected professions (kawata, hisaku, kawaramono, eta and saiku) held rights in these areas. Many feudal lords guaranteed this practice – these dead bodies were regarded as highly polluting and so their disposal had the social function of purification. In some areas this practice was not properly established. For example in Chikuzen (Fukuoka) in the first month of 1602 some people concealed the disposal of dead cattle so a fine was imposed and guarantees were given of ‘pasture rights’ so that in the future all dead horses and cattle should definitely be disposed of by kawata.93 Similarly in Kaga (Ishikawa) in the fourth month of 1611, two kawaya were ordered to skin dead cows in villages of the Noko peninsula and the villagers were forbidden to dispose of them into the river or sea, bury them in the soil or skin the dead animals themselves.94 However the Kumamoto han in 1634 indicated that they did not mind whether the owner of a dead animal dealt with it himself or gave it to the kawata.95 These kusaba in many cases could double up as areas for acquiring the yagurasen – a kind of entertainment tax or shiba sen – a payment for use of the place levied on merchants etc. Sometimes they were used as areas to sell setta or similar goods. In the Shinshū region they were areas where you could be given 93 94

95

Chikuzen kuni Kakuza Kiroku, Vol 1 48–9. Kawakita kōri, Asano village Kawata Shozō Monjō Kagahan Shiryō Vol 2. Hanhōshū 7 Kumamoto han.

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bunches of rice seedlings (Saito 2011). Along with this they were sometimes called dannaba. In the west of Japan kawata would hold the rights over a kusaba in which cattle died – depending on the area it might be sub-divided – and people of kawata status would dismember the animals there. In Kanto the rights to a kusaba were divided up according to days and in a certain kusaba there would be chōri who had the rights on certain days for cattle that had died there. However, in Kanto those who actually did the dismemberment were the people of hinin status who controlled these places. The chōri acquired the hide, hooves, horns and hair (Okuma 2011). In the Miharu han in Tohoku people of eta status had a monopoly on the sale of the hide of dead horses which had been skinned by lepers (Ouchi 1992). The process of dismemberment of the cattle was not simply about the hide. They also took the hooves, horns, fur, bones and meat. In Aki (Hiroshima) after 1697 a cow hide was worth about 40–50 momme in silver (about one ryō in gold, roughly equivalent in value to one koku of rice) and at the same time a horse hide was worth about 7–8 momme (Arimoto 2009). At this time in the kawata village in Shindo mura Ishikawa kōri Kawachi (east of Osaka) they dealt on average with 80 dead cows and 15 dead horses each year so even allowing for some differences between areas we can see that there was quite a steady income just from hides (Teraki 2014). According to a survey of 1882 there were more horses than cattle in eastern Japan (with the exceptions of Izu [Shizuoka], Awa [Chiba] and Sado) and cattle were more common than horses in the west (apart from in Tosa [Kochi], Chikugo [Saga], Higo [Kumamoto], Satsuma, Osumi [Kagoshima] and Tsushima). This basic pattern will not have been much different in the earlier period. All over Japan cattle hides were worth considerably more than those of horses (Arimoto 2009, 11, 157). When analysing the leather industry of the early modern period it is important to bear these facts in mind when taking into account the regional differences. But kawata and chōri villages were not only engaged in the leather industry. They took part in a wide

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range of economic activity including the manufacture of setta,96 the production of drums, agriculture, making bamboo goods, the production of grindstones, lampwick making, the practice of medicine, making medical drugs. Once the hide has been taken from the animal’s body the tanning process begins. This uses physical and chemical processes to stop the raw hide decaying and give it the pliability and flexibility to enable various uses. Tanning technology was most advanced during the Edo period in the Seiban region (now part of Ehime prefecture) and there the process involved among other things: soaking (in river water), removal of the hair, stripping back the fat, covering in salt, trampling, drying in the sun, kneading with oil, washing, dyeing, drying out, remove salt, kneading again. The leather that was produced by these complicated processes, apart from being used as the basic material for armour, helmets and saddles was also used to make setta, leather haori (trousers), socks, lacquered leather boxes, cases for botanical specimens (that could be fastened to the waist) and flint stone bags. The setta in particular were produced and sold as a monopoly of kawata/chōri villages all over the country and were a major source of income. Other kinds of footwear included the production and sale of tsunanukikutsu – these were a form of leather footwear worn in the rain and snow and used for work in paddy fields and mountains. The production of drums prospered from the early Edo period onwards. In areas like the Awa region (Tokushima) and Iyo Komatsu (Ehime) they advertised the re-covering of drums. In Kyoto the Amabe village undertook the re-covering of the time drum at Nijōjō97 and the Watanabe village did the same for Osaka castle. The records about the drum at Osaka castle show that Haridaiku Sakonno Shōgen Hachishige Yukimune and Haribashi Hashimura Matarokusaku were involved in its manu96

97

A form of footwear that used split bamboo sheath on the uppers and leather on the sole made from ox or horse hide. Nijō-jō – ஧᮲ᇛ – was the palace built in 1600 by Tokugawa Ieyasu in Kyoto and used by the Tokugawa shoguns as their residence throughout the Edo period.

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facture in 1616 (Hashimura was originally from Amabe). The passage also lists Hashimura as involved in the leather replacement done in Watanabe village in 1659. The repairs of 1701 show the joint signatures of three elders of Watanabe village (Nobi 2007,196). The ‘guarantee’ given by the drum makers of Amabe village in 1672 was three years and in 1691 five years, ‘Showing that they had confidence in the conscientious way they worked’ (Tsuji 1989, 147). Agriculture. From the start of the early modern period people with kawata and chōri status both owned land and farmed it as is obvious from the many examples from Kanto to west Japan that we can see recorded in the Taikō land survey. There were some kawata villages which at the start of the early modern period were quite well endowed. The Saraike kawata village in Tanboku kōri, Kawachi at the time of the Taikō survey was assessed at 135 koku including the land farmed in the neighbouring village. Two people are listed as owners of land worth 18 koku and one of land worth 10 (Mori 1975 17). In the Kinnai area there were kawata landowners – mochidaka – who belonged to the middle range of farmers. In 1713 in Minami Ōji village, a kawata community in Izumi there was one wealthy villager who held land worth 43 koku.98 Shushukumura, a kawata village in the Kii region (Wakayama) at the time of a land survey in 1601 had land valued at 369 koku.99 Kishikami-mura, another kawata village in Kii, according to the Kiishu Kenchi Mokuroku, was worth around 393 koku. These are quite comparable to other neighbouring villages. Ando-mura kawata village, in the Heguri kōri, Yamato region at the time of the Taikō survey lists eight households with an average holding of around 10 koku (Narakenritsu Dōwa Mondai Kankei Shiryō Sentaa, 2001). We might conclude that in this district many kawata belonged to a middle class farmer group. If we look at the fields and rice paddies of the kawata of Chikuzen in Kyushu in the early years of the seventeenth century 98 99

Okudake Bunsho, Vol 1. Shushukumura Kenchichō, Naka Chōshi, Shiryōhen.

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we can see: Sawara-kōri, Noaku-mura – 592 koku, Naka-kōri Katakasu-mura – 360 koku, Sawara kōri Hashimoto-mura 134 koku, Kurate no kōri Kusuhashi-mura – 100 koku, Sawara kōri Uchino-mura 100 koku (Matsuhita 1985). Of course, even in these districts there were some kawata villages that had smaller holdings of land and both in the Kinnai and Chikuzen regions there were many cases where the total land ownership of kawata villages was less than their neighbours. Moreover, in some han by the later Edo period the possession of land by kawata and chōri communities was forbidden or its sale to them prohibited. For example, the Kaga han in the second month of 1801 bought up all the land owned by kawata/tōnai and they were forbidden to possess any thereafter.100 In the second month of 1818 the Tosa authorities forbad the sale of land to people with kawata status.101 There can be no doubt that at the start of the early modern period in many regions of Japan people of kawata and chōri status possessed agricultural land and were positively engaged in farming, and, of course paying the appropriate taxes. In the Edo period both kawata and chōri people had many other sources of income: the manufacture and sale of osa [a bamboo guide used on looms], mainly in the Kanto area, the sale of lampwicks102 which was virtually a monopoly of Danzaemon, the sale of whetstones mainly in Kanto, medical treatment, production of medicines, forestry, marine products industry. However, the historical evidence for this is not plentiful until the mid- to late-Edo period so I will return to this in later sections. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF KAWATA AND CHŌRI IN THE EARLY EDO PERIOD

The forms of labour obligations which can be confirmed historically in the early Edo period are: the payment of leather, cleaning, jailer and executioner, police functions. 100 101 102

Ueda Gensuke’s Inventory, Kagahan Shiryō Vol 11. Kochi no Burakushi, Shiryōhen, Vol 1. Made from the white pith within rushes.

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Payments of leather as tax. In the Matsumoto han in 1594 kawata were ordered to pay one hide each ‘as previously’ (Tsukada 1986, 17–18). In Fukuoka a regulation of the first month of 1602 compelled kawata to make an annual payment of 100 horse hides and 200 cowhides (Matsuzaki 1976). There were similar regulations in Chōshu and Kaga.103 According to the list of duties (Onyakume Aitsutome Sōrō Oboegaki) that was presented to Danzaemon by the Edo magistrate in the ninth month of 1725, the Bakufu ordered Danzaemon to provide leather for use as halters, the straps that fasten to a horse’s mouth.104 This was possibly a duty from early Edo. The Matsudaira han ordered the kawaya leader Magoroku to give 5 ken (= 6 feet) of halters along with brooms and gun cases (Tsukada 1986, 17–19). In Fukuoka han too the previously cited regulation specified that each kawata community provide of halters. The Ueda han in Shinshū in 1648 imposed the obligation on the chōri group in the town of Mukai machi to provide halters.105 In Kii too from the early years of the seventeenth century kawata had the obligation to provide halters (Fujimoto 2011). The re-covering of drums without payment was another form of leather payment. The Bakufu imposed on Danzaemon ‘the regular re-covering of our drums’ (Onyakume Aitsutome Sōrō Oboe).106 In both Awa and Komatsu han as well as in Kyoto and Osaka, kawata were ordered to re-cover drums as we have already seen. Cleaning duties. The five kawata villages in Kyoto – Amabe, Rokujō, Kawasaki, Rendaino, Kitakōji had, as well as the duty to carry out executions and guard outside prisons, the duty of cleaning inside Nijō-jō (until 1708) and to clean inside and outside the prisons (Nakasawa and Kobayashi 1969; Tsui and Yamamoto 1995). The duty to deal with those who died in prison and the bodies of those who drowned in the outer moat of Nijō-jō 103

104 105 106

Okakitsuke Sonohoka Kokishu, Yamaguchiken Dōwa Mondai Kankei Shiryōshi (Kinsei), Chojitsukei, Kagahan Shiryō, Daiyonten. Goyuisho, Shiseki Zassan, Daisan. Eta Hinin no Rei, Naganokenshi, Vol 2 See n 98

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were also part of their cleaning duties because of the defilement considered to be associated with these dead bodies. Similarly, in Kii at the start of the Edo period the kawata had the duty to keep Wakayama castle clean and tidy (Fujimoto 2011). Even in Iwata (Shizuoka) there was a levy of the duty to keep the castle clean.107 Jailer and executioner108 The Bakufu had the chōri who served Danzaemon carry out executions. In many han the kawata/chōri acted as either jailers or executioners (Teraki 1989). To list a few examples in other areas: Ueda – jailer, Awa – preparing the branding and carrying out executions, Iyama – executions and jailer, Okayama – work surrounding crucifixion, Uwajima – crucifixion, preparation of the torture table, Tsuyama – decapitation and carrying out beating, Chōshū – jailer, Tottori – executions, etc. Kii – the Robangashira Nakama leaders (kawata) served as executioners and jailers who had the additional duty of giving prisoners medical treatment.109

These duties of executioners had been undertaken by the kawaramono and discriminated communities during the middle ages – as described above. This continued into the Tokugawa period and seems to have become more common. The roles of executioner and jailer were public duties that had to be carried out by someone but it seems that kawata were chosen because the tasks involved defilement caused by contact with crime or the dead bodies of those executed. Their obligation to carry out these duties alongside disposing of the carcasses of horses and cows further strengthened the ideas of impurity and the antipathy that people felt towards them. 107

108 109

Izumikoku kawata mura shihaibunsho Azukari Shoya no Kiroku, Shiryō 165, Ōsaka Burakushi Vol 1 Kinsei Shiryō 53. Kōchi no Burakushi, Shiryōhen, Vol 1. Oshiro Royagoyokinkata Hikaecho, Jōkamachi Robantonakama no Seikatsu, Seibundō.

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Policing. The Bakufu imposed on Danzaemon the duty to organize patrols for the pursuit of suspected criminals (Otazunemono Goyō) and the giving alms, i.e. the task of providing food to the poor.110 In Kii jailers also had the job of patrolling the town and capturing criminals.111 We should not forget that these people from the kawata/chōri communities acted as a professional police force carrying out their obligations in order to ensure the safety and peace of mind of the common people and without considering the danger to themselves.

110 111

See n 98. Jōkamachi Keisatsu Nikki, Seibundō.

CHAPTER 5

Discriminated Groups of the Early Modern Period 5

THE FORMATION OF HININ STATUS GROUPS AND THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES

HININ were the other typical discriminated status group of the Edo period. Apart from the Hideninkaito in Osaka, the Hokujūman of Sakai and the Hidenin of Kyoto, it is thought that most residents of hinin communities in the early modern period were unrelated to the hinin of the middle ages and were formed from people who had migrated into cities because of disturbances to their lives caused by war or poverty. In Edo they were governed from the so-called ‘Four Places’: Kuruma Zenshichi in Asakusa, Matsuzaemon in Shinagawa, Zentarō in Fukagawa and Kyūbei in Yoyogi – the four hinin leaders. Another, Kyūbei of Kinegawa appears briefly in the records as the name of a hinin leader but not necessarily at the same time as those in the other ‘Four Places’. Moreover, not all of the four other hinin leaders were together at the start of the early modern period. The oldest of these leadership positions is Kuruma Zenshichi. According to a statement that Kuruma Sendaimatsu presented in 1839, his ancestor came from Mikawa Atsumi village and he was appointed as a hinin leader by the city shogunal administrator. Matsuzaemon of Shinagawa, according to a petition submitted in 1854, is said to have been appointed in 1660 by the shogunal authorities in the town and ordered to deal with the influx of ‘field hinin’ from 81

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the countryside.112 These four leaders first appear together in the historical records in 1721. From then on, the organization of the hinin gradually developed to create a hierarchy: hinin leader Ѝ hinin sub-leaders Ѝ hinin hut leaders Ѝ hinin subordinates.

The control of Kuruma Zenshichi by Danzaemon grew stronger from around 1652 but Zenshichi continued to resist it submitting a written complaint in the seventh month of 1719. In the second month of the following year Danzaemon filed a suit against Zenshichi. Danzaemon was successful in that law suit in the eleventh month of 1721 and thereafter was able to exercise control over Zenshichi. In other words, Danzaemon’s authority over the hinin under Kuruma was officially recognized at this time. In Osaka, because the people of hinin status lived in four different locations, they were called the Yonkasho [four places]. These communities and settlements were also called Kaitō – beyond the fence. The Hidenin Kaitō can be traced back to the middle ages and are linked with the Shin Tennōji hidenin. The formation of the hinin village of the early modern period is dated to 1594. The other communities are said to have been founded in: 1609 – Tobita Gaitō, 1622 – Dotonbori Gaitō and 1626 – Tenma Gaitō. In Sakai too the hinin were organized in four places among which the Kitabo Hidenin was established by the Jōdoshū temple in 1490. The destitute and ‘lepers’ were supported by the temple and we can surmise that from around the start of the modern era it was organized as one of the four places for hinin in the city (Yamamoto 2002). In Kyoto the Kamihidein – a hinin community – had existed next to the Agui temple since the middle ages. In 1645 the Agui Hidenin moved to its present site of the Sennyuji temple but at that time the hinin people were given tax free land within Okazaki 112

Name given to the impoverished people who moved into towns and villages.

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village to the east of the city and they moved there. It was called Hideji or Hidein village (Yamamoto 1995, 230–1). In the Kansai examples, apart from in Kii, the kawata leaders or their intermediaries did not control the hinin leaders or the hinin. The responsibilities imposed on the hinin people in Edo began with the nōhinin seido – this was the duty to round up destitute people who had migrated to Edo. If they still had relatives in their home towns they were sent back to them. Where there were no relatives it was a matter of setting them to work as ‘employed hinin’. Secondly, there was picking up the unsanitary material from the river. This was a cleaning function. Thirdly, operating the ‘tame’ [literally, cesspits] – mainly facilities that received prisoners who were seriously ill. Fourthly, to work as labourers in prisons (only Kuruma Zenshichi had this duty). Fifthly, workers with the police (this too was only Zenshichi). Apart from this they provided the people who tattooed prisoners as a punishment or who led punished people around (Nako 1992). In Osaka, working on the authority of the shogun, the ‘hinin of the four locations’ had the duties of rounding up the ‘field hinin’, arresting criminals and thieves, inflicting punishments and acting as jailers in the prisons. Apart from this they pursued criminals who had fled outside Osaka city and investigated rumours (Tsukada 2001; Matsunaga 2007). The Hidenin village of Kyoto also had duties relating to the arrest of criminals, patrolling the town, escorting prisoners, leading criminals around, flogging them and inflicting torture in prisons (Yamamoto 1995). People of hinin status could receive alms going from house to house among their usual clientele (within their area of jurisdiction) whether at a time of celebration or funerals. Moreover, as in Edo and Osaka there were areas where they were ragpickers. OTHER DISCRIMINATED GROUPS

There is a great deal of regional variation among other discriminated groups. Amongst them the Hininban (Banhinin) existed over a comparatively broad area. There were some places where they occu-

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Figure 13

Stand-up comedians (manzai) and a musician

DISCRIMINATED GROUPS OF THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

Figure 14

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A monkey trainer

pied the status position of hinin but elsewhere they occupied an independent status. They existed in Kii in 1686 and they appear in the historical record in Izumi in 1687, in Kawachi in 1688 and in Settsu in 1721. Their original function was to carry out the nōhininseido – to catch those destitute people who had moved in to the villages and towns and drive them back to their places of origin. Hinninban have been shown to have existed in nineteen out of the twenty-two villages surrounding the castle town of Minō which is located to the north of Osaka. As of 1871, all seventeen villages in Kii han, Matsusakaryo Higashi Kishiegumi were served by hininban though in some cases one hininban served two-to-four villages. These people were not only responsible for the nōhinin seido, but they also disposed of the corpses of people who fell dead on the road, carried out patrols to prevent gambling and the outbreak of fire, were responsible for the capture and arrest of thieves, the prevention of theft, the seizure of illegal rice. They acted as guards for convoys of prisoners and on the highways and captured feral

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dogs among other things. In Minō castle and the Matsusaka region, the Hininban received a salary from the villages and were even provided with accommodation. In other words, they were employees of the village. Hininban were regarded as one degree lower than farmers or townspeople as shown by the fact that in the Matsusaka region when they entered the house of a townsman they had to remove their shoes (Teraki 2014). There were groups of ‘lepers’ – Hansen’s disease patients and others suffering from skin diseases – plus their children in Zenkō temple of the Kaga han, Kyoto, Nara and Shinano. In Kaga they were called kattai or monoyoshi and it is thought that they were people who looked after the Hansen’s disease patients. They received gifts of money on auspicious occasions from samurai and town dweller’s households. They made thongs for bamboo footwear and ashida [high geta for wearing in the rain] (Takasawa 1983). It is said that the Kyoto monoyoshi community was formed in the process of the break up and dispersal of the Kiyomizu Saka hinin community of the middle ages and from ‘lepers’ who had lived in the Chotodo of Kiyomizusaka. The name monoyoshi is said to have its origins in words of strolling singers who would visit the central and suburban areas of Kyoto and nearby villages at the start and end of the year and other auspicious occasions, saying ‘monoyoshi’ [congratulations!] – giving good luck to the households. Apart from making temple solicitations they made straw sandals and engaged in small-scale horticulture. In Nara, lepers lived in Kitayama Jūhachi Kenbō and Nishiyama Kōmyōin temple. The former group had some links to part of the community of hinin of the Narasaka of the middle ages and it had the northern half of Nara as its territory for seeking alms. The rest had the area to the south of Nara. Some of the ‘lepers’ of the ‘Dōkinbō’ in Shinano Zenkōji temple too are thought to have originated in the ‘hinin group’ of Zenkōji in the middle ages. They had the right to collect a fee from the merchants on entering the market in the seventh and twelfth months and to beg in the temples and the town, to nurse people who became ill on the road, dispose of the bodies of those who died on the

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road and patrol the nearby paddy fields (Suzuki 1996, 106–10). Elsewhere in the Izumi region monoyoshi owned paddy fields and at times tried to establish themselves as farmers but the barrier of discrimination was very high (Shimomura 1995). Tōnai existed in Kaga and Toyama. They were employed as jailers, to capture thieves, to act as informers for the major village headmen, and to control hinin. Their occupations included conducting funerals (cremations), practising medicine, making wicks and manufacturing zōri. When there were celebrations in the house of a samurai or townsman they would receive money. In Toyama in 1774 there were 762 tōnai compared to just 65 kawata (Takasawa 1983, 16, 51–62; Tanaka ed. 1986). In the Tokai region including Ise there were sasara ⠾. Their name is said to have originated in the name of the musical instrument used in ancient music, dance and in festivals.113 Sasara then became the name given to the artists who sang verses accompanying Buddhist sermons using this instrument. During the Edo period the sasara were under the control of the Konshōji temple in Omi and Ōtsu. When the semimaru (god of performers) was celebrated by a group of musical performers in Sekisemimaru shrine which was attached to Konshōji temple every year, the people of sasara status from all over would gather for the festival and pay the fee for the ‘votive light’. In the Tamaru area of Kii (to the south of Ise) the duties of the sasara included cleaning inside the Tamaru castle, serving as jailers, and guard duties at times of memorial services or festivals in the shrines or temples (Wada, 1982). In the Kinki region there were shuku – ኧ – villages. They seem to be related to the shuku hinin of the middle ages. In the Edo period they engaged in agriculture and some of them were employed making saké. Their status was ‘equivalent to commoners’ but the shuku were regarded as lower class people within gen113

Sasara is a traditional Japanese percussion instrument used in folk songs, rural dances and kabuki theatre. The instrument uses many pieces of wooden plates strung together with a cotton cord. With handles at both ends, the stack of wooden plates are played by moving them like a wave.

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eral society and they were discriminated against in daily life and marriage.114 Chasen – Ⲕ➸ – existed in the Chūgoku region. In the Sanin115 region they were called hachiya 㖊ᒇ. They were originally followers of the Gokurakuin Koyado in Kyoto (Koshōji) who rang a hachi [metal bowl] while travelling round selling chasen, the whisks used in the tea ceremony. In the Tanabe area of Kii they were called hachibō. There, their main occupations were performing, bamboo crafts, making fans and zōri, and agriculture. They also organized funerals (Fujii 2013). In Yamato and Mikawa there were mansai ୓ṓ, in Chōshū there were miyaban ᐑ␒, in Awa (Tokushima) sōji ᤲ㝖 in Satsuma keiga ៞㈡, in Koyasan tani no mono ㇂ࡢࡶࡢand yama no dō ᒣஅᇽ. In other areas there were various discriminated folk called: saruhiki (monkey trainers), onbō (funeral and crematory workers), sanmaihijiri (funeral attendants similar to the onbō under the control of Tōdaiji), ganjin (who originally worked as people offering prayers as substitutes at Buddhist or Shinto temples but gradually turned into street preachers), torioi (street musicians). The kōmune ஒ⬚ who lived in Edo and nearby had the status of townsmen but were under the ultimate control of the hinin leader Kuruma Zenshichi who controlled them through the kōmune chief, Jidayu. Their family trades were to put on performances such as cat’s cradle, clowns (saruwaka), Edo-style comic dialogues, string puppets (ayadori) and ballad-dramas. If they ceased their family trade they were no longer treated as senmin (Nakao 1996, 152–9). We can see among these activities the origins of many of Japan’s performing arts. As can be seen from the above, during the Edo period there was a wide variety of discriminated groups in all parts of the country and they developed various activities carrying out several kinds of social functions. 114 115

Ishii Ryōsuke hen, Kinsei Kantō no Hisabetsu Buraku, Akashi Shoten, 1978. In modern Japanese usage this generally refers to the prefectures of Shimane, Tottori and northern area of Yamaguchi.

CHAPTER 6

The Development of Early Modern (Kinsei) Society and Discriminated People 5

SOCIAL TRENDS IN THE MID-EDO PERIOD AND THE DISCRIMINATORY POLICIES USED BY THE BAKUFU AUTHORITIES AND FEUDAL LORDS TO CONTROL DISCRIMINATED GROUPS

By the mid-Edo period – the middle of the eighteenth century – the economic base of the Bakuhan regime was being eroded by the development of commodity-based agriculture and other forms of trade.116 Numerous contradictions began to appear. The development of new land from the late Warring States period to early Edo had been remarkable but at that time the level of existing technology had made further development difficult. As it reached its limits, the feudal lords’ finances suffered. The central and local governments strengthened their control over discriminated people as one way of subduing the resistance of the masses which showed itself as peasant rebellions aiming at the restructure of the social system. In the eleventh month of 1692 the Bakufu sentenced a street watchman to death for making the daughter of an eta prostitute herself in the watchman’s office.117 The imposition of this kind of severe sentence can be regarded as an attempt to strictly 116

117

Between the later Warring States and early Edo period there had been a remarkable increase in the amount of land used in agriculture but by this point it was becoming difficult to expand any further using contemporary techniques. Having reached the peak, there was also a deterioration in han finances. Oshioki Saikyochō, Kinsei Hōsei Shiryō Sōshō, Vol 1. 89

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prohibit relations between the kawata/chōri and townsmen of other statuses in order to strengthen status control. The antagonism between Danzaemon and Kuruma Zenshichi over their authority continued from the early Edo period and a severe dispute continued over several years from 1719 until finally Danzaemon’s authority over the hinin leader was confirmed.118 After this dispute was settled, the Bakufu gave orders that, in order to prevent hinin from mingling with commoners, their motodori 㧳 [place where hair was gathered at the top of the head to create the ‘top knot’] should be cut off and their hair kept cropped short.119 It is said that these discriminatory measures were encouraged by the shogunal administrator, Ōka Tadasuke.120 In the eighth month of 1720 rice paid as tax by people of eta status was declared ‘defiled matter’ and payment in cash was ordered.121 However this measure was withdrawn two years later. In response to the requests of the villages who were having problems with vagrants wandering around their areas and committing nefarious acts, the Bakufu in the sixth month of 1769 issued an order to the eight provinces of the Kanto region plus Izu and Kai (Yamanashi) that the eta or hinin as appropriate should arrest the badly-behaved vagrants in the villages.122 Following enquiries and requests from regions outside those covered by the 1769 edict, in the ninth month of 1772 it was re-issued as a law for the whole country irrespective of whether it was controlled by the shogun, feudal lord or religious organization.123 In October 1778 the Bakufu for the first time issued a measure to regulate ‘public morals’ that targeted discriminated groups such as the kawata/chōri and hinin across the country as a whole. Discriminated people, whether they were doing something wrong or just if they were working illegally as farmers 118 119 120 121 122 123

Suzukike Bunshō 1.3. Kiyoshoran. Karinenoyume Zuihitsuhyokaen, vol 7. Tokugawa Kinreiko, Zenshū Dai 4. Tokugawa Kinreiko, Zenshū Dai 5. Bokumin Kinkan, Dai 2.

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Figure 15

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Shogunal regulations on senmin, 1778

or merchants or impersonating farmers or townspeople, were, in areas under Bakufu control, to be apprehended by the local magistrate who would send out a clerk or foot soldier and inform the shogun’s representative. Within the private estates of the daimyo it was to be done by whoever was appropriate.124 This official notice seems to have been distributed quite comprehensively and copies have turned up in many districts (Teraki 2000). These shogunal edicts of 1772 and 1778 have been interpreted as indicating that firstly, the Bakufu’s accounting administration became the location of the national organization of discriminated groups and, secondly, that they placed the lowest level of policing in the hands of discriminated groups across the country (Goto 1973, Asao 1980). However, Fujisawa disputes this arguing that, firstly, consistently until the end of the Bakufu 124

Tokugawa Kinreiko Dai 5.

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regime the department that controlled Danzaemon was the town shogunal magistrate and that in most han it was usually the town authority that was in control of the discriminated groups not the kōri/gun representative. Secondly, during the Edo period ‘policing duties were borne by a number of government departments according to status’ (Fujisawa 2013). He makes important points and all we can say is that we need to recognize them and seek more evidence and clarification. Next let us turn to look at the changes taking place in the discriminated groups in various han during this period. Tosa han in the twelfth month of 1780 exerted control over the eta within the villages of the region whose ‘customs were worsening’. Their misconduct was that they were being mistaken for farmers suggesting that they were trying to evade status regulations.125 In the seventh month of 1784 the Satsuma han proclaimed that in the case of a marriage between a keido [eta] and a farmer both should be fined and it was advocated that in the future the eta in such a relationship be put to death.126 In the ninth month of the same year the Chōshū han exiled to a distant island an eta who had ‘associated with’ a commoner.127 When in the second month of 1790 the Awa han issued a ‘Frugality Edict’ it ruled that the region’s eta, sōji and hinin must not wear inappropriate clothing.128 In the eleventh month of 1800 the Kaga han forbad them mixing with common people and engaging in medical practice.129 As we can see the local regimes as well as being subject to the shogunal edicts also increased their own regulations to control interaction between discriminated people and the farmers and townspeople at the same time as more generally strengthening their control over the activities of the discriminated groups. 125 126 127

128 129

Kōchi no Burakushi, Shiryōhen Dai 1. Shimanekeretsu Choseido Dai 30 Hanhoshu 8 Kagoshima han. Chōshū-han Oshiokichō Bassui, Nihon Gyomin Seikatsu Shiryō Shūsei Dai 25. Kenyakumuki Moshotashi Otsushi, Awahan Minsei Shiryō Dai 1. Hanhoshu 6, Kanazawahan.

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THE OCCUPATIONS OF THE KAWATA AND CHŌRI IN THE MID EDO PERIOD

Firstly, continuing the pattern of the early Edo period in the kawata/chōri villages across Japan the scale of leather manufacture was expanding. It would seem that demand for leather goods was so great from the early Edo period up to the 1720s that a great amount of deer and cow hide was imported on Dutch and Chinese boats, including some from Taiwan: in 1653, 73,592 deer skins and 24,145 cow hides in total. From 1725 the amount of both deer and cow hide imports declined and in particular the number of imported cow hides dropped down to just a few hundred. However, in 1815 red and black cow hide imports again exceeded 15,000 (Anam 2000). These imported cowhides were distributed to leather merchants other than kawata but it is clear that some did go to kawata merchants (Anam 2003). From the end of the eighteenth century between 10,000 and 15,000 cowhides were being imported each year through Tsushima (Tsuda 1996,146). It is known that the hide merchants of Watanabe village Osaka, a kawata village, were involved in the import of these hides in the early Edo period but after the 1720s as the volume of imports decreased the Watanabe merchants went to Chikuzen and Buzen (Fukuoka) in search of domestically produced hides. And, although this is a little later, by the 1830s around 100,000 horse and cattle hides were being acquired in Watanabe village each year from Kyushu, central Japan and the Kinnai region (Tsukasa). In the mid-Edo period Watanabe village was probably the main manufacturing and distribution centre for leather in western Japan. In the early eighteenth century there is an increase in the number of apprentices sent from Kii to Senshū Minami Ōji mura and from Minami Ōji mura to Watanabe mura. Most of the apprentices going to Watanabe village were connected to leather. When they had acquired the necessary skills the apprenticeship ended and they returned to their village to undertake leather work there. However, Watanabe village lacked some of the topographical conditions needed to carry out certain aspects

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of the tanning process and so some work was sent to Takanoki village in Ehime for specialist tanning. The Takanoki village had made innovations in tanning techniques for very thick and hard leather, for example, the platelets that were used in armour production in the mid-Edo period and had advanced techniques in producing koshikawa, a specialist leather which had to be thin, pliable and strong. Even so, by the late Edo period (1804–1830) Takanoki had not developed to the stage where it could deal with a large volume of raw hides by attracting the labour power from the kawata villages that specialized in leather in Hyogo (Usui 2009). Some hides were imported into Danzaemon’s area of control not only from Kanto but also the Kansai region. His ‘area of control’ in 1800 was composed of 232 houses and most of them were makers of setta or leather goods. Moving quickly forward we find that 122,000 hides were processed in 1874, producing 11,900 drums and 23,200 pairs of setta (Nakao 1996). These figures clearly reflect the situation in the late-Edo period but since the accumulation of specialist knowledge is necessary for the processing of hides and production of both drums and setta, it is probably safe to conclude that rather than developing rapidly in the final part of the Edo period, this area was the centre

Figure 16 Setta – from the raw material to the finished product

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of leather processing, the production of leather related goods and their distribution in eastern Japan already by the middle of the Edo period. Setta are footwear made from bamboo sheath uppers that have a leather sole made from horse, or later mainly ox, leather. It is thought that they were originally called sekida but that this got corrupted into setta (Hatakenaka 1998, 69). Until around the mid 1680s they were so far considered to be linked to discriminated communities that they were called ‘etasetta’. From the Genroku period (late seventeenth century) expensive setta were fashionable and from the later 1730s they even started to make setta for children (Wagakoromo). In Watanabe village, Settsu in the seventh month of 1738 there were around 400 people engaged in the small-scale production of setta, zōri and leather snowshoes. Residents of Watanabe village were permitted to sell footwear on the nine public bridges in the city such as Nihonbashi on fourteenth day of the seventh and last day of the twelfth months.130 The residents of the kawata village of Minami Ōji mura in Izumi in 1728 went to sell and mend setta and zōri in villages where it had special rights (Nobi 1995). The kawata villages of Kiishū (Wakayama) too in 1700 formed a group of setta menders.131 Setta manufacture was not a monopoly or industry especially reserved for kawata and chōri but the production, sale and mending of setta was certainly a major source of income for kawata and chōri people (Hatakenaka 1995). I will have more to say about this when discussing the later Edo period. Drum making too continued to flourish. In Amabe village, Kyoto they made and re-covered the festival drums of both upper and lower Kurama-mura and the time drum of Higashi Honganji. In 1691 they earned 115 momme132 (about one ryo) for making a large drum and between 1704 and 1763 80–120 momme for leather for re-covering drums (Tsuji 1989, 147). In Watanabe village too in 1783 the drum maker Kimbei gave a 130 131 132

Settsu Yakuinmura Monjo. Jōkamachi Bangashira Nakama no Seikatsu. Momme – a measure of weight, 3.75 g.

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guarantee of thirty years after re-covering the temple drum of Shimashimokōri no Uchise village.133 In the mid Edo period there were drum makers not only in Kyoto and Osaka, but they were starting to be active in other areas as well. Indeed, there were some places where they had been engaged making drums from even earlier. For example, if we look at the body of the great drum of the Shokakuji temple in Yasuno kōri Omi, until 1693 the name written on it is that of Hashimura Risaemon of Amabe Kyoto but from 1719 it is the name of the drum maker in the local Yasu kōri, Omi (Furukawa 2003, 24). In the Osaka area too, in 1770 Jujiro of Wakae kōri, Kawachi gave a guarantee of thirteen years when he repaired the drum of the dōjō [practice area] of Kamishima village.134 Next to look at agriculture. In the middle Edo period the number of kawata in the Osaka area acquiring paddy land to cultivate in another village was increasing. In Izu Minami Ōji village the worth of the village production in 1713 was 143 koku but by 1773 the land being farmed in the five neighbouring villages was producing 263 koku. Output had almost doubled (Teraki 1986). In the Yamato region according to a record of the conditions in Yamato kōri, as of 1724 the proportion of farmers in the villages of the region was: Umedo (a kawata village, worth 284 koku) 97.3%, the kawata community in Tanba village 86.4% (main village 70.7%), Shimonaga, kawata community 74.2% (main village 89.3%). Since the overall proportion of farmers in the villages in the area was 67.4% the proportions in the kawata villages can be seen to have been well above average and the rate in Umedo was the highest in the region (Nara-kenritsu Dōwa Mondai Kankei Shiryō Sentaa 2001). Of course, across the Kinki area as a whole there were some villages with a low proportion of farmers. In the Kii there were some kawata communities with a very high proportion of farmers while those areas that dealt with horses and cattle 133 134

Ōsaka no Burakushi, Dai 2, Kinsei 239–240. Ibid.

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somewhat less.135 In the kawata villages of Fukuoka, over the course of the seventeenth century village production increased slightly. Average production per capita ownership was: Kanehira 208.34 litres, Tsuji 179.28 litres; Horiguchi 57.78 litres). Compared to the non-kawata average size of farm that produced just over one koku (180 litres) these were very small sized holdings136 (Matsuhita 1985). In Kanto too while there was a certain degree of accumulation of land from the early to mid Edo period it was very small (Buraku Mondai Kenkyū sho ed., 1983). Moreover, as in the example of Minami Ōji village in Izumi, we should note that kawata and chōri villages that held a regular amount of cultivated land also held rights to water usage and to access to certain woodlands, fields and marshland whose product was for the common use of the residents of the area. The management of agriculture by kawata and chōri villages in the east of Japan was on a much smaller scale than in the west of Japan but even there there were differences between the Kinki region and north Kyushu. Indeed, even within the same regions there were quite big differences. Not only in agriculture but also more generally it is important to grasp the regionally distinctive features in overall production. It is necessary to identify the process of class stratification within the same kawata and chōri villages and in this case it is quite complicated since it involves not just agricultural management but an analysis of income from work outside agriculture such as the production of setta. Danzaemon tried to embark on the production of lamp wicks from quite early on in the Edo period. In 1705 the Bakufu produced the ‘wick law’ and decreed that only sixteen villages in Hitachi and Shimōsano would be permitted to produce rushes and their sole destination should be Danzaemon. In 1713 Danzaemon insisted that 7,000 sheafs a year were 135 136

Genroku 10, 1697, twelfth month, Joka machi Roban Gashira Seikatsu 137–44. As mentioned above in pre-modern Japan land ownership was measured not in terms of the land area but the land’s ability to produce rice.

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insufficient and that the supply should be increased to 9,000 (with ten sheaves costing one ryō, so at a total cost of 900 ryō). This was quite serious involvement in lamp wick production (Inoue 1994, 124–6). During the Warring States period – 1467–1603 – the chōri of Musashi (Ibaraki), Kosuke (Gumma) and Shimotsuke (Tochigi) became involved in the sale of grindstones and from the start of the Edo period people of chōri status began to consider the right to sell grindstones was their personal privilege. They probably also became involved in their production (Saito 1994). In the mid Edo period kawata and chōri were also becoming associated with the practice of medicine, the production of medicinal drugs and marine products but there is no detailed evidence until the later period so we will leave that discussion until then. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF DISCRIMINATED PEOPLE IN THE MID EDO PERIOD

In the last section I wrote about the discriminatory policies of the shogun and local lords suggesting that through the promotion of a certain set of policies they strengthened an awareness of discrimination based on ideas of impurity and status that had been inherited from previous generations of farmers and town dwellers. In 1685 the kawata people of Saraike village, Kawachi received instructions that their residences be surrounded by a bamboo fence and were told that when they visited their local shrine they should stay outside the ceremonial white rope. In imposing these restrictions on shrine visits the local lord (or the Bakufu government) recognized the ‘refusal by the village’. In other words, the local lord had put into legal force the desires of the local populace. The Nara Bonmoku Sekkai that were completed in 1735 spoke of the kawata within Nara town. It said that the neighbours of kawata regarded living near to them as ‘becoming diseased over successive generations’ and were so detested that

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they did not want to breathe the same air as them. Moreover, kawata were described as ‘beneath human, of animal status’. ‘“Shuku people” were of “low birth”, they must not have “malefemale relations”’. However, pointing out that eta detest ‘sharing fire’ but shuku do not, it indicated a difference between the two.137 In the ninth month of 1772 six young women from Minami oji village went out together one evening to Nakamura Inari but they were ‘unfairly pulled in’ by five or six male farmers, two of them were unable to escape and were raped. When the kawata came to protest the farmers said that ‘killing five or six eta is nothing and should not be punished’. The incident ended with them throwing of rice bowls and shōji [paper doors] at the kawata who left a note, ‘wickedness is hard to endure’.138 Next let us look some examples of discrimination by scholars and intellectuals of the time. In Yamaga Sōkō’s ‘Yamaga Gorui’ of 1666, he wrote that the eta mix the meat of cattle and horses with that of deer and tanuki ‘very often deceiving people’ so their clothing ought to indicate this.139 Ogyū Sorai, 1666–1728, wrote in Seidan (Civil Society) his magnum opus compiled around 1727 about the various kinds of kawaramono and prostitutes as ‘lowly classes’ as in China and Japan both old and new. He wrote that hitherto these kinds of people were of a different origin and of lowly status. He also wrote ‘not sharing fire with an eta is a natural custom in Japanese society’. Kaihō Seiryō (1755–1817) in his Zenchūdan declared that eta were ‘a kind of barbarian’ and these barbarians ‘were equivalent to birds and animals’. He argued that ‘eta did not know right from wrong’ and their names should be written using three kana like the names of Dutch people. He even expressed a fiercely discriminatory view saying that a symbol ‘should be tattooed thickly on the middle of their foreheads’ as a clear indication of their status. 137

138 139

Narashishi henshubangikaihen, Hakko Nara-sarashi Nara Bomoku Sekai, Narasaka chō no goro. Okudake Monjo Vol 4, 664. Yamaga Sōko, 1622–85, Yamaga Gorui Kanroku.

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RELIGION AND THE KAWATA/CHŌRI IN THE MID-EDO PERIOD

Kawata and chōri communities had a close relationship with the Jōdō Shinshu sect of Buddhism. A survey in 1967 found 91% of Buraku households supported a Buddhist temple.140 According to a survey carried out in March 1921 by the Interior Ministry Social Affairs Department, 82% of Buraku households were registered with a Jōdo Shinshū temple (mainly Honganji), 4% with a Nichiren temple and 14% the rest.141 Miyoshi found that to the west of Aichi prefecture, apart from the former Okayama han region where we find both Shingon and Nichiren represented, they are mostly followers of the Honganji – east and west – whereas to the east Jōdō Shinshū Buddhism is unusual and Nichiren, the Rinzai, Sōtōshū, Jishuu and Shingi Shingon schools of Buddhism have many believers (1943). Since there is no evidence that there was any frequent change of religious affiliation from the start of the early modern period we can assume that the religious distribution between Buddhist sects has remained stable since that time. The strong connections of kawata and chōri communities with their particular religious affiliation is certainly not the result of religious control by the Bakufu or local lords but rather based on their own religious beliefs (Yamamoto 1981, 94). In fact, there have been quite a number of examples in the Kinki region where the founding of a buraku temple can be traced back to the later middle ages (Teraki, 1996). This suggests that the kawaramono ‘riverside folk’ and the leather workers who we can regard as the most important forebears of the kawata and chōri adopted Shinshū beliefs of their own accord quite early on. This process and practice is something that I would like to explore. The Honganji (mainly Nishi Honganji) temples treated Buraku communities with severe discrimination regarding their temples as eta temples which were all branch temples of one of five temples: Honshōji, Kimpukuji, Mansenji, Fukusenji, Kyōtokuji. In Janu140

141

Dōwa Kyoiku Shinkyokai, Report on the religious situation in Dōwa communities. Nihon Gyominseikatsu Shiryō hensei, Dai 25 kan 694–5.

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ary 1666 the Nishi [East] Honganji took a forced ‘contribution’ from the kawata temple of Nose no kōri, Settsu that was 50% more than in the case of other temples. From that time the 50% additional levy continued.142 In the mid-to-late-Edo period an ‘eta temple register’ was created compiled only from kawata temples. Even the Ōtani sect (the largest Higashi – East – Hongan-ji grouping) in the seventh month of 1809 created an ‘eta village section’ in the register of priests143 (ibid. 5 Kinsei 2). In practically all areas of eastern Japan there are many examples of tombstones of kawata and chōri background people which are engraved with discriminatory names given to them posthumously. They seem to have been created from the middle of the eighteenth century (1751–1764) and they increased in number in later years. The discriminatory posthumous names combine the character for leather or animal with gate, man or woman, include the compound Sendarani144 or use abbreviations of these compound names (Kobayashi 1987). There are at least fifteen Buddhist sects whose temples have used discriminatory posthumous names of some kind (Matsune 1990). Moreover manuals concerning discriminatory names of various kinds were produced and sold. It is thought that one of them, the Jōgan Seiyō Shikimoku, was first produced sometime between 1401 and 1410 (Maki 2014). Similar manuals such as the Muenjishishu and the Kozoku were produced in the Edo period. The priests and temples of Japanese Buddhist organizations imposed severe discrimination in the religious spheres of the kawata/chōri people’s lives who were anyway facing serious discrimination in their material existence. As mentioned above, there were some kawata and chōri villages which made offerings to the Shinto shrines of leather targets or carried out various functions at times of their religious festivals. But there were also many cases where they were not permitted to take part in Shinto ceremonies or, for example, to carry the mikoshi [portable shrines often carried 142 143 144

Ōsaka no Burakushi, Vol 1 484–5. Kyoto no Burakushi, 5, Shiryō Kinsei 2. Sendara was the name given to the lowest group in the Indian caste system.

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round a Shinto parish at festivals]. In east Japan there was often a strong connection between chōri and the Hakusan145 beliefs and there are many Buraku areas where a Hakusan shrine exists (Honda 1989; Maeda 2013). Furthermore, in Shikoku there are kawata villages in Tosa and Iyo (Ehime) which have close connections with shukushin146 beliefs (Mizumoto 1996). On the other hand in the Kinki region during the Edo period there were many kawata villages where there was a Jōdō temple but no Shinto shrine. The means used to control the marginal and discriminated communities developed across the later years of the Tokugawa era. Meanwhile they worked within their reserved occupations and created niches for themselves within the urban and rural economies. Discriminatory policy even spread into the realm of religion where it reinforced attitudes of mainstream society. However as has been emphasized at many points within this account, we should be very aware of the extent of regional variation that makes it difficult to generalize about conditions within these communities. 145

146

A mountain religion which venerates the Shirayama hime who is enshrined in Shinto shrines. This is found particularly across Ishikawa and Gifu prefectures. Shukushin – a variety of folk religion related to Shinto.

Figure 17

Gravestone enscribed with a discriminatory posthumous name

CHAPTER 7

The Dislocation and Collapse of Early Modern Society and Discriminated People 5

SOCIAL TRENDS IN LATE-EDO JAPAN AND DISCRIMINATED PEOPLE

The Bakuhan regime which had been such a strong ruling system was eroded still further at its economic base by the development of commercial agriculture and production from the middle of the Edo period. The Kyōhō reforms (1720s) and Kansei reforms (1790s) in the end were unable to repair the system. During the later Edo period there was an increasingly rapid development of social division within rural villages between the wealthier and poorer classes. We can also see the development all across Japan of cottage industry production based on wholesalers and in the more advanced areas even the birth of manufacturing industry. This aggravated the contradictions within the Bakuhan system and it moved toward crisis. At the end of the Edo period the number of peasant rebellions began to increase and during the major famine of the Tempo era – 1833–1839 – they increased sharply. The Bakufu central government and the local lords sought new solutions to this crisis trying to make use of commercial capital and at the same time local regimes sought to increase their monopoly of the production of certain products. Meanwhile both central and local authorities developed policies to repress the people and strengthen status discrimination. At the national level: the Bakufu issued regulations in the fourth month of 1802 that stipulated that eta and hinin should use different forms for all kinds of administrative purposes. Any attempts to leave their communities should be subject to 103

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prolonged enquiries – in fact the enquiries should continue without limitation until they were tracked down.147 AT THE LOCAL LEVEL

In the Ozu han in Iyo (Ehime) in the eighth month of 1798 it was decreed that eta had recently behaved in ways ‘inappropriate to their station’ amounting to the ‘height of insolence’. This suggests that they were trying to ‘pass’ as mainstream Japanese. So it was decreed that from now on ‘as in the past’ they should wear on the front of their clothing a piece of leather about 15 cm square and should place a leather hide at the entrance to their homes to make their identity clear to all.148 In Kii in the third month of 1842 a series of discriminatory regulations were imposed on eta and hinin: when they encountered a samurai, farmer or townsman they should step aside, when they went begging they should not enter beyond where the rain falls from the eaves, they should not eat fish or drink alcohol in bars or restaurants, when shopping they should not enter into the shop.149 Many other places too – Tamba Sasayama and Ako (both in modern Hyogo), Okayama, Bungo Kitsuki (Oita) – introduced discriminatory regulations. People, influenced by these discriminatory policies of the local rulers were encouraged to express fiercely discriminatory ideas. For example, in the ninth month of 1803 two men from Kunishima village, a kawata village in Izumi, were employed to work towing boats on a beach where they became involved in a false accusation about a trivial matter. In the end they were beaten up by the group on the beach who were yelling ‘Kill the two eta’ and even ‘String them up on that pine tree!’150 In the second month of 1862, a play was being performed at the Renkōji temple in Harima (Hyogo) when a skirmish broke out between some people from 147 148 149

150

Tokugawa Jidai Keisatsu Enkakushi, Vol. 1. Takishi Mitsuo hen, Ehime Buraku Shiryō, Kinsei-Meiji Shonen. Matsusaka no Burakushi, Dai1kan, Shiryōhen Zenkindai; Tanabe Dōwashi Dai 3kan Shiryōhen. Izumikoku Kawatamura Shihaimonjo’ Jokan 779.

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the kawata village and some farmers who were attending the same performance. A major fight broke out in the performance area that led to the deaths of four kawata. The ringleaders who seem to have stirred up the rest had yelled, ‘since killing seven eta is equal to one of us, let’s beat to death the whole kawata village’ (Yasutachi 1981). CHANGES IN THE OCCUPATIONS OF THE KAWATA AND CHŌRI IN THE LATER EDO PERIOD

The Watanabe village in Settsu (Osaka) was by the 1830s collecting about 100,000 hides a year from Kyushu, central Japan and the Kinki region and in 1874 the area of former Edo under Danzaemon’s control was dealing annually with 122,000 treated hides. In the four areas of Hidaka, Ama, Arita and Nagusa in the Kii region in 1865 there were 216 dealers in ‘waxy hides’ – leather that was still in the raw state of having fat on its reverse side. There were also seventy-seven cattle dealers – which included people who could treat the domestic animals, dealers and brokers.151 The production of meat for consumption had formally been forbidden by the ban on slaughtering cattle passed by the Bakufu in the eighth month of 1612152 but towards the end of the Edo period cattle slaughter was taking place quite frequently. Meat eating became established in the central areas of Kawachi and Izumi (Usui, 2009). There are even some receipts and invoices that still survive showing money paid for meat purchases (Izumikoku Kawatamura Shihaimonjo, Vol 1 Documents). In west Japan from the mid-Edo era onwards a trade developed in horse and cattle bones. In the Satsuma region, the soil was mainly formed from volcanic ash and white pumious soil which because of its acidic nature was difficult to cultivate. However, by applying bone meal to this soil it became possible to grow vegetables. The Satsuma shipping merchants from the mid151 152

Jōkamachi Bangashira Nakama no Seikatsu 2, 28. DaiNipponshika Vol 12.

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Edo era were buying up cattle and whale bones from across the country and selling them to farmers across the region. In 1843, as part of the local response to the Tempo reforms, bone meal was made a han monopoly. Bones were bought widely from Chikuzen, Chōshū and Kii. They are even said to have been sent from Osaka and Ōmi Hachiman. Nearly all were bought from kawata villages.153 There was rapid growth in the production and sales of setta which used leather on the sole. Over 23,200 pairs of setta were produced in the region controlled by Danzaemon in 1874. In the Okajima kawata village in Kii according to a report for the twelfth month of 1869, out of 700 households 500 were making setta154 (Jōkamachi Robangashira Nakama no Seikatsu Vol 3–2). In Minami Ōji village in Izumi in the mid-1780s there were just two households involved in making setta but by 1843 there were sixteen connected to the trade of which six owned no land – and thus presumably were entirely dependent on the craft. The trade with the footwear wholesalers in Ōsaka brought 380 kamme of silver – about 5900 ryō [1 kamme = 1000 momme = 3.75 kg]. Even the six propertyless households earned between 70–250 ryō each year (Mori 1985). DRUMS

Total production in the area under Danzaemon’s control in 1874 was 11,900 drumskins showing that still in late Edo drums were being produced in great numbers. In agriculture, people in kawata and chōri communities, even in the later Edo period, attempted to acquire and accumulate arable land or extend the scale of their control of it. For example, in the chōri village of Yokomi kōri, Wana mura Musashi (Saitama) in 1731 they owned about 7 tan including paddy land and fields 153

154

Nunobiki, 1980, Jukotsu o Hakonda Naka Kakubei to Satsunan no Uraura Chiran – Eini nokoru Kaibun Shiryō to Hakkutsu Chōsa Sokuhōten, Museum Chiran 2009. See n 141.

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that they had acquired from other farmers but by 1861, excluding about a chō (approx. one hectare) of residential land, their holdings had increased to 2 chō 4 tan (Minekishi 1983). We have already seen how Minami Ōji in 1773 with five other nearby villages produced 263 koku of rice but by 1833 the neighbouring seven villages were producing 501 koku (Mori 1971). The village production had increased by 350% to 143 koku. The kawata village in Saraike village Tanboku kōri Kawachi in 1862 was producing 257 koku along with the nearby villages (Yamaguchi 1972, 145, table 2). Meanwhile the kawata of the same village worked as tenant farmers for three nearby villages and they produced about 60 koku as tenants.155 There were some places where kawata were fishermen. For example, in Iyo (Ehime) Ōshu han in 1804 there were ‘eta fishermen’ who worked the river.156 There were quite a number of people who practised medicine among the kawata and chōri villages across the country. In the mid-Edo period there was an eta ‘skilled in medicine’ in Shinkai village Hanzawa kōri, Musashi. It is known that the farmers petitioned for his status to be raised but the request was not granted. It has been confirmed that there were kawata medical practitioners in Ōmi, Settsu, Yamato, Aki and Chōshū, and sellers of medicine in Musashi, Sagami, and Yamato. A chōri household, Jinemon in Wana village Musashi, from around 1796 found suddenly rapid sales of his patent drug Jintsūsan (lit. God message powder – believed to be a medicine for syphilis) which generated annual earnings of 40–50 ryō (Saito 1994, 2003). DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE AMONG THE DISCRIMINATED COMMUNITIES AND ITS IMPACT

The overall population of Japan increased steadily between 1600 and 1720, slightly decreased between 1721 and 1792 and then, following this temporary slight decline, once again began to 155 156

Kawachikoku Saraikemura monjo, Vol 2 documents 306. Ofurejōtsushi Otakemura, Ehime Burakushi Shiryō.

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increase (Kitõ, 1983). However the kawata/chōri population showed a steady increase everywhere from Sendai in the northeast to Satsuma in the south of Kyushu, with the exception of Tsuwano in central Japan. There were however some differences in the rate of population increase in the kawata population according to region. In the case of hinin, apart from for example in Sakai in Izumi or Hirano in Settsu, there was if anything a small population decline. The characteristic feature of kawata population growth is thought to be not increase through immigration but rather natural increase through more births. Moreover, what is thought to have made this possible is the variety of the economic structure of the kawata and chōri communities, their positive economic activity as well as their attitude of mutual support (Teraki 2000). THE STRUGGLES OF DISCRIMINATED GROUPS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMANCIPATORY THOUGHT

Residents in kawata and chōri communities became involved in various activities including participation in farmers riots, campaigns to protect living standards, disturbances in protest at the practices of the village administration, and campaigns opposing discrimination. Meanwhile people with kawata, chōri or some kind of hinin status, often were obliged to serve in the role of policemen and would be mobilized to impose local authority when such farmers’ riots took place. For this reason they were viewed with distrust by both farmers and townsmen who took part in the rioting and disturbances which strengthened prejudices still further. This did not necessarily prevent them from taking part. The north Kishū uprisings (modern Wakayama/Mie prefecture) that took place between the fifth and sixth months of 1823 involved 280 villages and 70,000 farmers. On the one hand they were suppressed by a force of 500 kawata who were mobilized for that purpose but on the other hand there were not a few kawata who took part in the uprising. There were kawata people from Hannyaji-mura, Nagimura and Suitamura, Settsu and Mukaeno-mura

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Kawachi involved the rebellion led by Ōshio Heihachirō in February 1837.157 Looking at the campaigns to protect living standards; the people from Minami Ōji in Izumi began a legal battle about the distribution of water against the neighbouring village in March 1721 and continued it afterwards (Teraki 1990). The ‘Clog Thong’ riots took place between the second and eighth months of 1843 in Musashi han (Saitama). They began with discriminatory words and actions but immediately afterwards when the Ogose Imaichi village banned the sales of clog thongs in its market, twenty-three chōri villages rose up in protest (Waki 1984). In 1850 seventeen kawata villages across the three regions of Settsu, Kawachi and Izumi succeeded in a joint campaign for the reduction of the price of bamboo sheathes which were the raw material of the setta uppers. As for village disturbances – sometimes known as murakata riots158 – as class division developed within the kawata and chōri communities there was conflict based on growing class antagonism. Such conflicts are recorded to have occurred in Shinshū Ueda han, Tamba Hikamino kōri Kitawada-mura and Uwajima han. There are a number of examples of protests about discriminatory policies. In 1840 in Tamba Shinoyama han, people in the kawata village banded together to protest about the han decision to force kawata people to wear light-blue uncrested cloth157

158

Ōshio Heihachirō served as a local government official for much of his life until he found the newly appointed head of Ōsaka city magistrates so hopelessly corrupt that he decided to resign in 1830. By that time he had opened a school of his own. Ōshio circulated a manifesto charging the magistrates with moral corruption. He then led an army consisting of his students, peasants, and some outcasts into the city in 1837. They managed to burn about a fifth of the city before government troops put down the rebellion. Months later, Ōshio committed suicide when he was found by the authorities. Murakata sōdō (murakata riots) refers to rioting that took place predominantly inside a village caused by friction within that community as opposed to forms of disturbance that were directed externally, for example, towards the local authorities.

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Figure 18

Stone marking the site on the riverbank where the Shibuzome rebels gathered

ing. In 1805 in Kitsuki, Bungo (Oita) the Tosan campaign took place against a background of the prohibition of cattle dealing by kawata people and an order that they should wear a pale blue lapel on their top kimono. But the most famous of these was the Shibuzome rebellion of 1856 which took place in Okayama. Here around 1500–2000 kawata people came together to present a petition in protest about having been ordered at the end of the previous year to wear crestless clothing dyed either indigo or from persimmons. Twelve of the leaders were arrested of whom six died in prison but the protest did achieve its aim of having the discriminatory decree frozen (Shibata 1971). On emancipatory ideas we should note the ideas of Hoashi Banri (1777–1852) a Confucian scholar and scientist from Bungo (Oita). In his Tosenpuron (Treatise by an Eastern Recluse) he advocated that all eta should be gathered together, taken to Ise Jingu and purified so as to be made ‘common people’ and then sent to Hokkaido and set to work farming the land or raising animals. While we can see some elements of prejudice towards kawata in these ideas and the unstated intention was

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to provide defence to the north at a time when Russia was moving southwards, we should also positively note the fact that he advocated treating kawata as common people and encouraging their involvement in farming and animal husbandry. Senshū Fujiatsu (1815–1864), a han official from Kaga in the late Edo period wrote Eta o osamuru nogi159 in which he argued that all humans are equal, there is nothing like eta status in the West, they should be included among common people in the village registers and given houses and land, and encouraged to engage in agriculture and sericulture. Reflecting his samurai background there remained clear elements of concern about maintaining the peace, and there are elements in his ideas of ‘selective liberation’ for those ‘honest and courageous’ or ‘righteous’ people. So while on the one hand there is evidence of attempts by local regimes to strengthen the regulations to ensure that outcaste groups remain firmly on the margins of society – which paradoxically might suggest that they had been challenging the way they had been treated – at the same time there were some intellectuals who were making the case for abandoning discriminatory policies. These trends would run through the later part of the nineteenth century. DISCRIMINATED PEOPLE AND SOCIAL CHANGE ON THE VERGE OF THE RESTORATION – THE EVE OF THE LIBERATION EDICT

In 1853 American warships entered Uraga bay. When in the following year the Bakufu opened the country and exchanges began with various foreign powers, Japan’s political, economic and social system were thrown into great confusion. The Bakufu regime was on the verge of a terminal crisis, the movements to launch attacks on shogunal authority immediately got stronger. Yoshida Toshimaru of the Chōshū han recommended to his authorities that they recruit from the kawata communities and use them as soldiers. In the seventh month of 1863 the policy was adopted and 159

In this work Senshū refers to the settlement in which people with eta status live as a ‘buraku’.

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he was nominated, ‘Recruiter of the Brave Butchers’. However, Yoshida died in the sixth month of the following year fighting with the Shinsengumi in Kyoto. Before long the Chōshū han had organized an army to fight the Bakufu made up of samurai or farmers and townsmen. One fighting force, the Isshindan (Isshingumi), was made up only of kawata and another (the Yamashiro Chasenchū) was formed from people of chasen status. In the sixth month of 1866 as the second war between the Bakufu and Chōshū began they were sent to fight in Geishunguchi. The Isshindan armed with rifles saw action against the former armies of Ishii and Sakakibara of the Bakufu forces and defeated them (Nunobiki 2009). Before long the Bakufu was defeated and the new Meiji government was established. In the third month of 1871 a decree on the disposal of dead horses and cattle was issued and with it the ‘pasture right’ which had been an important element in kawata and chōri status was negated. ‘The Liberation Edict’ was close at hand.

Figure 19

Regulations of the Isshindan

PART TWO CHAPTER 8

What was the ‘Buraku’ problem in the modern period? 5

STARTING WITH QUESTIONING SOCIETY

Following the opening of the country, the Tokugawa regime encountered its own destruction. In 1867 there was the formal restoration of political power to the emperor. The following year the Meiji charter oath was promulgated and with this the new Meiji government was established. At the same time, Japan was adopted by an international society based on notions of ‘International Law’ [୓ᅜබἲ].160 However, the western countries which had created this system insisted that before Japan was accepted into their embrace it must give priority to the destruction of the feudal system and demonstrate its understanding of the concepts of freedom and equality. The revolution of Japan’s Meiji restoration proceeded at one level on the basis of the gradual introduction of these modern concepts and the Liberation Declaration of 1871 was passed within this context. This decree abolished the titles of eta and hinin and declared that these people were to be treated the same as other citizens both in status and occupations. In other words, it completely abolished the boundaries on which their status 160

୓ᅜබἲ – as a term for ‘International Law’ comes from the translation of Henry Wheaton’s ‘Elements of International Law’ into Chinese by William Martin. 113

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had been based and, if it had been put into effect as proclaimed, the ‘Buraku Problem’ of today would not exist. So why is it that discrimination which is attributable to the eta status that had existed up to that time has continued right up until the present day in spite of the abolition of the status system and the elimination of the boundaries that cut eta and hinin off from mainstream society? We must ask ourselves this question before we can begin to think about the ‘Buraku Problem’ as it exists today. It is not sufficient simply to reply that the problem is a remnant of the feudal status system. More than 140 years have now passed since the promulgation of the Liberation Declaration during which time modernization has occurred and society has changed massively. Despite this the reasons for the continued existence of the Buraku problem – even though the way it manifests itself has also greatly changed – cannot be found only in the fact that it is a feudal remnant. It must be seen as the result of something that continues to exist in modern society that has not only reinforced the previous weakened parts of the status boundary but actually restored it. The reason for the continued existence of discrimination against women, for example, is sometimes explained as being a result of the [extended family] system which has feudal characteristics. However recent research has shown that rather than just being remnants of the ie system it is the patterns of the ‘modern family’ that are compatible with ‘modern’ society which have created the gendered division of labour today and it is this that supports discrimination against women.161 In the same way when thinking about the Buraku problem we should directly confront the issue of how it is that modern society has continued to support the existence of status discrimination. Based on this approach in what follows I propose to explore the reasons for the continued existence of the Buraku problem by tracing the nature of the problem from the Meiji restoration up to the 161

Koyama Shizuko (1991) Ryōsai Kenbō to iu Kihan, Keisho Shobo; Ueno Chizuko (1994) Kindai Kazoku no Seiritsu to Shuen, Iwanami Shoten; Mota Kazue (1996) Senryaku to shite no Kazoku, Shiyosha.

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present day in order to explain how the way it manifests itself has changed. The point of doing this is no less than to contribute to the resolution of the problem. The continued existence of Buraku discrimination which was formally abolished by the Meiji government is a constituent part of society. In order to enquire about the Buraku problem we must ask questions about both about how state and society have used and sustained discrimination. BURAKU – DISCRIMINATED BURAKU – DŌWA DISTRICTS

There are various words that are used to refer to the so-called ‘discriminated Buraku’. The phrase used by administrative organizations is Dōwa Chiku ྠ࿴ᆅ༊ literally, assimilated districts. These are areas that were designated as eligible for the receipt of Dōwa Policy Project funds following the implementation of the Dōwa Policy Council report of 1965 which recognized that the resolution of the Buraku problem was a responsibility of the Japanese government.162 I will have more to say about this later but we should note that only communities that were administratively recognized at that time were counted as Dōwa Chiku. There were some prefectures that did not implement the Dōwa Policy Projects by designating specific areas and they reported the number of Dōwa areas within their boundaries as zero (Fujino 2001). Elsewhere there were Buraku communities who refused to be so designated and there were some prefectures where the number of areas was reduced by almost half because of the way that they set their boundaries. However, the fact remains that even those areas which did not ‘count’ for the purposes of Dōwa administration have been subject to discrimination since at least the time of the Liberation Decree and all of these discriminated Buraku communities will be the subject of consideration in the course of this essay and referred to as discriminated Buraku or, for short, Buraku.163 According to the 162 163

See chapter 17. In this book we also occasionally use the phrase ‘Dōwa districts’. See Okuda Hitoshi and Murai Shigeru, (2008) Dōwa Gyosei ga Kichinto Wakaru Q&A, Kaihō Shuppansha.

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survey that was carried out in 1935 by the Central Yūwa Project Council (see Chapter 14) there were in Japan at that time 5,316 Buraku communities with a total population of 999,687 residents, about 1.44% of the population of the country at that time. It is these people and these communities who are the subjects of this section of the book. Originally ‘buraku’ was a word with the meaning of hamlet or settlement and it was not connected to the ‘Buraku problem’. However, and this is a point I will elaborate on later, at the time of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) these areas or communities were ‘discovered’ as the ‘discriminated Buraku’ we know today and in order to distinguish them from the small communities indicated by the usual use of the word buraku, what later became a discriminatory terms was devised – tokushū buraku using the characters ≉Ṧ㒊ⴠ or ≉✀㒊 ⴠ. Later, as no completely appropriate term emerged, a large number of names appeared which translate into English as – Poor Buraku, Areas Needing Improvement, Regional Improvement Buraku, Oppressed Buraku – among others. Then after 1945 people seemed to settle on either Unliberated [Mikaihō] Buraku ᮍゎᨺ㒊ⴠor Discriminated [Hisabetsu] Buraku ⿕ ᕪู㒊ⴠ.164 As is clearly the case in both the pre and postwar contexts the word Buraku was also used as an abbreviation leading to the creation of such compounds as Buraku Mondai, 㒊ⴠၥ㢟, Buraku problem or Buraku issues, and Buraku liberation, 㒊ⴠゎᨺ. I am frequently asked by those attending human rights study sessions whether the word buraku itself has any discriminatory connotations and I usually say that it does not and that Discriminated Buraku, Unliberated Buraku and Buraku are all widely used by those involved in the project of liberation.

164

On the origins of the terms ‘Unliberated Buraku’ and ‘Discriminated Buraku’ see Kadooka Nobuhiko (2005) Hajimete no Buraku Mondai, Bunshu Shinsho 2005. On the background to the use of these terms see Kurokawa 2016.

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THE BOUNDARIES THAT REPLACED STATUS

As I will explain in more detail in what follows, Buraku discrimination manifests itself in various ways in employment and marriage but by far the most important is marriage. To anticipate our conclusion, we can say that the boundaries that were set by status before the Liberation Declaration was issued in 1871 could not be changed by the efforts of those who had been born after it had been issued.165 Accordingly, those who wanted to discriminate looked for a marker or boundary that could take the place of feudal status and that was the idea that the people in these communities were ‘foreign’ or of a ‘different race or ethnic group’. People have been pointing out that this idea is completely mistaken for a long time but the surveys of awareness of the Buraku problem that are periodically undertaken by local authorities always ask one question on the origins of Buraku discrimination and on average around 10% of respondents choose the option: ‘They (Buraku districts) are places where people of a different race gathered.’ The surveys that I have seen most recently were carried out ten years ago but I do not think that they will have changed very much. Furthermore, a constant number of people select the options which are set up as dummy options such as ‘Places where poor people gathered’ or ‘Places where people of certain occupations gathered’. If we can take these replies as indicating that the respondents consider that Buraku developed as communities where discrimination had built up over the years, I think we can regard these responses too as indicating an awareness of the Buraku problem as being not much different to the view that they are racially distinct.166 If this is the case, then I think we should face up to the fact that even now a considerable number of Japanese people think that 165

166

Fukuzawa’s famous words, ‘Noble lineage is a parent’s enemy’ is suggestive of this (Fukuzawa Autobiography 1899). According to the ‘Results of A Survey on Public Attitudes about Human Rights’, Shizuoka Prefecture 2004, when asked ‘How do you think Dōwa Districts were formed?’ 17.3% selected ‘As a settlement of people who were racially (ethnically) different’ [20.3% in the 1999 survey].

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the residents of Buraku communities are in some way genetically different from mainstream Japanese. Moreover, even people who know that the theory of different racial or ethnic background is mistaken will nevertheless frequently produce some reason to indicate that these individuals could not change by their own efforts, such as ‘their lineage is different’, or they come from an ‘impure bloodline’, or ‘they don’t come from a good family’. Marriage between people from discriminated communities and those outside them threatens these boundaries and I think for this reason those people who would maintain this genetical boundary try all the more obstinately to exclude residents of discriminated Buraku from intermarriage. What causes the protagonist of Shimazaki Tōson’s novel, Hakai, to suffer is the boundary that is described in the novel as his ‘lineage’. This became the basis for the Buraku problem in the modern period. In this way, with this concept at its nucleus, various explanations and pretexts were devised for discrimination and my explanation focuses on the way this boundary has been patched up and strengthened. I think that one can argue that structurally this kind of discrimination has many elements in common with other kinds of discrimination including those based on colour of skin or so-called racial and ethnic differences. THE START OF THE MODERN BURAKU PROBLEM – THE LIBERATION EDICT

On the 28th day of the eighth month of 1871 (old calendar) the Meiji government produced an edict of the Dajōkan167 which read: The titles eta, hinin etc. shall be abolished. Henceforth the people belonging to these classes shall be treated in their same manner both in occupation and social standing as commoners. (Ninomiya 1933, 109)

In other words their senmin statuses of eta, hinin, and others were abolished and from that time on the former status occupations 167

The highest executive organ of government in the first years of the Meiji period.

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were open to commoners too. This was afterwards called the ‘Liberation Decree’ but lately it has been rather referred to as ‘Senmin Abolition Edict’ indicating that it granted civil rights (Uesugi 1990). The important thing to note is that the Meiji government abolished all kinds of distinguishing lines and declared complete equality. Quite often the Liberation Decree is not properly understood by people researching modern Japanese history who explain that the eta, hinin etc. became shinheimin – ᪂ᖹẸ, new commoners – as a result of this decree. But this is mistaken. If this use of shinheimin is being used to indicate that even after the decree discrimination continued to exist, then it is one possible way to explain what happened but it invites misunderstanding. People who had been called eta, hinin, etc. became heimin, ᖹẸ, commoners, as a result of the decree. It was not only eta and hinin who were liberated. As suggested by the inclusion of ‘etc.’ [࡞࡝ in Japanese] many other senmin existed at the time as we saw in the previous section of this book. They too were affected by this edict. Their names and treatment varied greatly according to the policies of the local authorities. The sasara, tōnai were, for example, frequently found in the Hokuriku region and chasen in central Japan.168 However those who are connected with the discriminated Buraku communities today are mainly people whose lineage can be traced back to those with eta status. It is sometimes thought that, as it were, eta and hinin were forced together into Buraku communities and became the ‘Buraku problem’ but in fact the hinin status in many cases disappeared soon after the Liberation Declaration.169

168 169

See Chapter 5. After the Promulgation of the Liberation Edict, in the twelfth month of 1871 the Meiji government set up a system of constables based on a uniform standard and that system employed some of those with former hinin status. However, in 1875 the government indicated it would move towards the implementation of a nationally uniform method of capturing criminals and the former hinin status was eliminated and was dissolved. Ohinata Sumio (2000) Kindai Nihon no Keisatsu to Chiiki Shakai, Chikuma Shobo.

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The Liberation Declaration was just an edict. The people of the discriminated buraku communities were not exempt from the obligations of conscription or paying taxes. They received no social security payments and there are some who criticize the edict for the way it cast these people out into the newly formed competitive society. However, if they had been given some special entitlement to social security that would have meant either that the existing status boundary was being maintained or that a new one was created. The aim of the Liberation Declaration was to abolish all such boundaries so we should first properly evaluate how well it did that.

Figure 20 Text of the Liberation Declaration (Kaihōrei)

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THE DEBATE IN THE KŌGISHO බ㆟ᡤ170

The debate concerning the emancipation of those with ‘despised’ status was not something that occurred unexpectedly but rather reflected opinions that came from various quarters in the late Tokugawa period. Moreover there were already some eta who were starting to seek emancipation from that status. While these demands were emerging, a debate on the abolition of the senmin status took place within the Kōgisho. Nakano Itsuki, a representative from Fukuchi (present day Kyōto-fu) pointed out that there were areas where the length of road that passed through an eta community was not included in the calculation of the overall distance between two places and that these communities were also exempt from the obligation to provide labour that was imposed on other peasant farmers. He urged for the sake of consistency in the calculation of distances that these anomalies should be eliminated. With this as his starting point he went on to argue the inappropriateness of the separate treatment of those with eta status in the process of creating a unified national system. From this practical starting point, a discussion developed on the need to abolish the senmin system. Uchiyama Sōsuke, representative of the Matsumoto-clan (Nagano), expressed his opinion that the sun and moon shone on the houses of eta and hinin and trees and plants grew on their land without discrimination. Katō Hiroyuki, who later was an active ‘enlightenment’ intellectual and member of the Meirokusha171 along with Fukuzawa Yukichi, expressed his view that there was no doubt that eta were 170

171

The Kōgisho was formed on the 7th day, third month 1869 from representatives from each han and from each section of government. Each representative was selected for a four-year term with elections of half of them to be held every two years. The name was changed to Shūgiin from the seventh month of 1869. When it began to use its ability to express its own ideas and make proposals the Meiji bureaucrats disliked they abolished it in 1873. Originating with Mori Arinori who returned from the USA in 1873, this group was formed to enlighten the public by scholars of the west. It included Fukuzawa Yukichi, Nishimura Shigeki, Nishi Amane, Tsuda Mamichi and Katō Hiroyuki among others.

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Figure 21

Records of the Kōgisho showing the speech of Nakano Itsuki from Fukuchi

human beings and that not to treat them as such was contrary to the laws of nature. This discussion was about granting them human rights on the basis of their having been born human and followed the thinking of the natural rights of man which argued that no authority should restrict or restrain them.172 PROMOTION BY THE MINBUSHŌ AND THE TREASURY

After the Kōgisho was abolished and that particular debate came to an end, the government produced proposals for the revision of the family register system based on the notion of the equality of all citizens. The idea of the abolition of senmin status was connected to the method of recording names on this family register. A key figure in this process was Shibusawa Eichi who was later better known for the key role he played in the development 172

Matsumoto Sanosuke (1979), ‘Tenpujinkenron to Ten no Gainen – shisōshiteki seiri no tame no hitotsu no kokoromi’, Ienaga Saburō, Tokyo Kyoiku Daigaku Taikan Kinen Ronshukangyo Iinkaihen, Kindai Nihon no Kokka to Shisō, Sanseidō.

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of business and industry in Japan but for several years after the Meiji restoration he worked in the Minbu173 and the Treasury. Shibusawa and others charged with the task of creating the new family register law rejected the old feudalistic thinking and sought to achieve their objectives in a register based on the principle of the equality of all citizens before the emperor. Their drafts were not the work of Shibusawa alone but his ideas were shared by many of those who made up the ‘Russian’ section of the Minbushō. However, they were shelved without ever seeing the light of day. In the end, according to the Family Register Law of 1871 as passed, senmin would not have been registered along with other citizens but would have been recorded in a separate section for ‘eta and others’. However, the Liberation Declaration was promulgated just after the creation of this Family Register Law so the separate registration system was never put into practice. The first modern family register was compiled in 1872–1873 and is known as the Jinshin register after the name of that year in the Chinese sixty-year calendar cycle. This is now closed to the public because in some sections people are recorded as ‘eta’ or ‘shinheimin’.174 Some suggest that this was a standard practice in the compilation of this register. However, including these terms was due to the mistaken understanding of some of the local registry officials in charge of parts of it. As far as it could, the government intended to abolish the boundary that defined status and sought to register all citizens on the equal basis of being commoners – heimin. After this the discussion of the abolition of status was taken up once more within the Treasury and they straight away began to promote the abolition of senmin status. They completed a draft on the 22nd day, eighth month, 1871 and managed to have it promulgated in a very short time. The reason the Treasury dealt with the matter in such haste was that residential land owned by senmin was usu173 174

Minbu/Minbushō Ministry of Public Affairs, Ẹ㒊┬1869–1871. More detail in Ninomiya Shuhei (2006) Shinpan: Koseki to Jinken, Kaihō Shuppansha. Also in English, David Chapman and K.J.Krogness (eds) (2014) Japan’s Household Registration System, Routledge.

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ally marginal land, exempt from taxation and could not be put up for re-sale. With the reform of the land taxation system being due for implementation in 1873 getting rid of these exemptions was necessary in order to establish a unified tax system. This land tax revision was a major reform that would decide the value of a piece of land that a farmer held and recognize his right to hold it. He then had to pay a land tax as a fixed proportion of its assessed value in order to stabilize the state’s income and strengthen the financial basis of the government. To have kept the status system in place would have created numerous obstacles to the progress of these kind of modern reforms. However, the Liberation Declaration was not adopted simply due to utilitarian considerations such as the implementing of the land tax. It was thought that only by enabling people to be free and independent on the basis of equality could the independence of the modern state be maintained. The implementation of the land tax was one part of this process but those who created the Liberation Declaration emphasized this latter point too175 (Niwa 1991). However, despite the promulgation of this decree by these enlightened bureaucrats its implementation did not go smoothly. The reasons for which I will explore in the next chapter.

175

On the process leading to the promulgation of the Liberation Edict see Uesugi Satoshi (2009) ’Meiji Ishin to Senmin Haiseirei’, in Kurokawa Midori (ed.). Burakushi Kenkyū kara no Hasshin, Dai 2 kan (Kindaihen) Kaihō Shuppansha.

CHAPTER 9

Signs of Discrimination Invented 5

THE MAINTENANCE OF ‘OLD CUSTOMS’

People in the discriminated communities were freed from their status and its restrictions by the Liberation Declaration but lost the occupations which had been one defining feature of that status and were often thereby thrust into still further economic difficulty. It was reported that the Buraku communities after ‘Liberation’ found it difficult to make a living from farming and that you could see these people forced to live ‘just like beggars and hinin.’ Amid these conditions people in some Buraku communities made communal decisions to abandon the occupations that they had previously depended on – giving up making shoes, dealing in dead horses and cattle, or involvement in the leather industry – and made efforts to be treated as ‘the same’ as their neighbours. For example, they asked to be allowed to send their children to the local schools and generally to be included among ‘civilized people’. However most ‘ordinary’ people took the view that they did not want to have anything to do with residents of the discriminated communities. Moreover if, for example, the owner of a public bath house were to allow people from a nearby Buraku to use his facility other people would stop coming. So, they would prevent Burakumin from using their baths. Children from Buraku communities were often refused entry to the same schools as other children and so they had to attend schools that ended up being exclusively for Buraku children. They were also excluded from taking part in the activities of the local Shinto shrines. In all of these various ways discrimination continued to surround the everyday lives of Buraku people. 125

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There were numerous disputes that arose between Buraku communities and their neighbours. Local officials played a role in these. They tried to persuade those subject to discrimination to put up with their situation as it was still not long since they had been made ‘the same as other commoners’. Some exclusion was inevitable, they were told, and so they should be patient and avoid arrogantly asserting their claims to be ‘the same’. The Meiji government had made a bold start by proclaiming the Liberation Edict in order to demonstrate both at home and abroad their commitment to ‘enlightenment’ ideas inspired by the idea of ‘one monarch for all the people’.176 However when confronted by the fierce prejudices of the common people local officials would usually confirm the views of the majority outside the Buraku in order to protect the ruling regime. The preservation of order, much more than accomplishing the objectives of the Liberation Declaration, was the prime imperative at that time. The support that it got from those in authority can be regarded as one factor that explains the continuation of discrimination among the mass of the Japanese people. This kind of discriminatory feeling among ordinary people manifested itself at its worst in the rioting that occurred in opposition to the Liberation Declaration. These could better be regarded as riots against the whole raft of policies of the new regime in that along with demands for the revocation of the Liberation Declaration there was also opposition to the new school system,177 to military conscription178 and to the imposition of the new land tax.179 The riots were often just a reaction to the 176

177

178

179

– ྩ୓Ẹ ikkun banmin was something like a catch-phrase in the early Meiji period. 1872 is when the law was passed which created Japan’s modern school system based on the principles of practical science and education for the whole nation. The imperial edict on military service of 1872 and law on conscription of 1873 established the principle of compulsory military service for all (male) subjects. At the age of twenty, men had to present themselves for selection. Reform of the land tax provided a stable income for the Meiji government. The land tax reform of 1873 confirmed the farmer’s right to own the land

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modernizing policies of the Meiji government which were seen to be increasing the burdens on the common people. Demands for the restoration of the ‘old customs’ also included support for discriminatory measures. The views of the mass of people are often not only progressive, they have complex dimensions. However, at that point in time no new signifiers had been created to replace the status names of the Edo period that could justify the exclusion of Buraku people from society. Discrimination chiefly derived from attitudes towards eta status and attitudes towards impurity that remained in people’s minds from the previous era. Accordingly, after the abolition of the ‘discriminatory terms’ by the Liberation Declaration and the demolition of the boundaries that defined status, the titles which had indicated discriminated communities began to disappear so that when people sought to maintain discrimination they did so by devising new terms such as former eta, or originally eta, or ‘new commoners’ (shinheimin, ᪂ᖹẸ). All of these terms pivoted around the idea of transition from eta to ‘commoner’. New signifiers were not being devised that discriminated apart from this. It is important to compare this with the later creation of terms like Tokushū Buraku (≉✀㒊ⴠ, ≉Ṧ㒊ⴠ). REJECTION OF DISCRIMINATION BY THE ‘JAPANESE ENLIGHTENMENT’

In the ‘era of enlightenment’ which was at its peak in the early Meiji years, in particular 1873–1875, a negative view was taken of ‘former customs’ – old practices which included status discrimination. These days one can come across criticisms of the Liberation Declaration which point out that it not only removed the old status labels but also caused the Buraku residents to lose their former ways of making a living without making any new provision for them. However, the Liberation Declaration made but imposed the obligation to pay an annual tax equivalent to 3% of the land’s value. The farmers chafed at the high rate they were forced to pay and rioting against the land tax revision broke out in many areas. In 1877 the rate was lowered to 2.5%.

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its first priority the complete eradication of the status boundary that separated them from mainstream society. For it to have established any new provision for them would have been contrary to this and would have created obstacles to that aim.180 As I will explain below, the enlightenment ideas were definitely supportive of this. At this time there were many books published by enlightenment thinkers that had Kaika – 㛤ⰼ civilization – in the title so that they are collectively known as kaika no hon – enlightenment books. One of these published by Nishimura Kanefumi in 1873 entitled Kaikahon, ‘On Enlightenment’, criticizes the idea that ‘eta’ are ‘another species’ or have a defiled existence as a ‘narrow view’ and argues that the first and main task of civilized enlightenment is to enrich those who have been left destitute and despised and to value those who have been made humble. Similarly Yokokawa Shoto in his ‘Gateway to Enlightenment’ (Kaika no Iriguchi) also published in 1873 states that the ‘eta’ ‘are without doubt human’ and he declares that those who try to separate them forcibly from other groups of human beings are acting contrary to the laws of nature. However, he says that there is no alternative but to call them eta. For these ‘professors of the enlightenment’ to reject the ‘old customs’ came as second nature but Fukusawa Yukichi was very critical of their tendency to adopt without question ideas that they came across in books from the West – see his Gakumon no Susume section 1181 – and 180

Even some junior high school social history text-books reflect this view, ‘Without receiving any measures to improve their living standards, they lost their rights to certain occupations they had held until then’ (Nihon Bunkyo Shuppan). ‘No public economic assistance was provided by government and these problems of discrimination remain as the Dōwa problems of the present day’ (Kiyomizu Shoin). 181 ‘East and West have had different customs, and especially different sentiments, for thousands of years. Even when their relative merits and demerits are clear, ancient customs cannot suddenly be interchanged from one country to another. This is all the more true in things whose merits and demerits are not yet clearly known. Our judgment as to the acceptance or rejection of these customs can only be made after their nature has been

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there remain some doubts about whether, while questioning Buraku discrimination in their written work, they were able to overcome it in their own attitudes. However, there is no doubt that discrimination ran against the grain of thinking of the ‘civilization and enlightenment movement’ and was regarded negatively. Still I think that it is very significant that rejecting it was given such a high priority. THE FREEDOM AND PEOPLE’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND THE BURAKU PROBLEM

In the early years of the Meiji period the basic principles within the Liberation Declaration were supported by notions of the natural rights of man that had been imported into Japan. These enlightenment ideas had had a certain impact but in rural areas the demands from the masses to return to the ‘old ways’ remained strongly rooted. There was a mingling of these ideas as well as antagonism between them. However, as we enter the 1880s the tide of ‘civilization and enlightenment’ started to ebb and the latter set of ideas began to outweigh the former. There was a normalization of exclusion from everyday life as evidenced in the refusal to allow entry to public baths or primary schools and rejection in marriage.182 The formal systematization of the ie – clarified through countless considerations over the course of years. But nowadays the somewhat better educated people of the middle class and above – those who are called “teachers of enlightenment” – are constantly declaiming the excellence of Western civilization. When one of them holds forth, ten thousand others nod their heads in approval. From teachings about knowledge and morality down to government, economics, and the minute details of daily life, there are none who do not applaud emulation of the ways of the West. Even those as yet barely informed about the West seem to be entirely abandoning the old in favor of the new. How superficial they are in uncritically believing and doubting things!’ Fukuzawa Yukichi, Gakumon no Susume, ‘An Encouragement of Learning’, trans. by David Dilworth, 2012, pp. 111–12. 182 Research which revealed actual examples of this has been done by Yoshida Eijiro, ‘Chiiki Shakai to Buraku’, Kurokawa Midori (ed.), Burakushi Kenkyū kara no Hasshin Dai 2 kan. Kaihō Shuppansha.

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the traditional household structure – did not take place until the adoption of the Civil Code in 1898 but the traditional concept of the family with its focus on ancestor worship and desire for the continuation of the household was inherited by the masses in Japan and often expressed itself in an emphasis on blood-line and lineage. In these circumstances one can easily imagine that the desire to exclude discriminated Buraku from one’s family, ie lineage, was quite natural. In these circumstances one of the theoretical bases that came from the enlightenment were the ideas that supported the Freedom and People’s Rights movement. There are not many actual examples which demonstrate a connection between this movement and Buraku liberation but the Fukken Dōmei was a group formed by Buraku activists in response to the formation of a Kyushu branch of the Kaishintō.183 Yamagami Takuju who took the lead in Tama as a member of the Liberal Party was from a Buraku community in what is now Hachiōji, Tokyo.184 There was also the Byōdōkai (Equality Association) formed by activists in Kodakasa-mura, Kochi prefecture in 1883. It declared that it would cooperate with the Japan Liberal Party and that it would ‘make equality our first priority and extend freedom’. It is well known that one of the most compelling views of the Buraku problem at this time was the one taken by the activist Nakae Chōmin. He had been active in the Daitō Danketsu185 movement but had been expelled from Tokyo following the passage of the Peace Preservation edict of 1887. He moved to Ōsaka and lived in Watanabe-mura, a large outcast community formerly known as Settsu. The following year he published the Shinonome Newspaper of which he was editor in chief. Chōmin put himself in the position of a Burakumin who he called 183

184 185

Ishi Hitonari, ‘Jiyu Minken Undō to Buraku’, op. cit. The Kaishintō was organized by Ōkuma Shigenobu in 1882. Machita Shiritsu Jiyuminken Shiryōkan, 2006. In 1886, before the Diet was convened Hoshi Tōru made a public appeal for support and the Liberal Rights movement gathered strength focused on Gotō Shojirō but in 1889 Gotō joined the Cabinet and the movement split.

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Figure 22 Tōun Shinbun – article entitled ‘World of the Shinheimin’ by Nakae Chōmin

Daien Kōji from Watanabe-mura and exposed the hypocrisy of the popular rights activists who practised discrimination while criticizing aristocratic elitism. He argued that the contemporary shinheimin were different from the people of ancient times who had lived at the very base of society and that they could become partners in the revolution. In his expression of the idea that ‘the time has come when you can be proud to be an eta’ he demonstrated the notions of the pride and self-confidence of people in discriminated communities thus anticipating the ideas that we will later see in the Suiheisha declaration.186 NEW ‘SIGNIFIERS’ – HOTBEDS OF POVERTY, FILTH AND DISEASE

I want to take a look at how the nature of the Buraku issue was changing in the 1880s. It is hard to imagine our lives without 186

See Shiraishi Masaaki, ‘Nakae Chōmin and the Tōun Period’, Buraku Kaihō Kenkyū 12, 1978, December.

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newspapers but they were only established in the early Meiji period and saw their circulation grow rapidly in the latter part of the decade. They played a key role in re-creating the societal image of discriminated communities. Many of the articles they carried referred to people from these communities as shinheimin, and talked of their ‘coarse customs’ and ‘obstinacy’. They wrote about them as if they had some special characteristics and even reported suspicions of them being involved in making bombs, thus stirring up fears. In all these ways the newspapers amplified discriminatory ideas. What made things worse was the severe recession that was a result of the policies devised in 1881 by Matsukata Masayoshi, secretary to the Treasury. This ‘Matsukata deflation’ had an impact on the whole country but it had the particular effect of increasing the number of poor people in Buraku communities and led them to be referred to as ‘dens of the impoverished’. One other factor that led society to think of Buraku communities as areas which contained problems was the spread of cholera – an infectious disease greatly feared at the time as it could lead to sudden death (Kano 1988b; Sugiyama 2004). In fact cholera did not spread from Buraku communities very often but people were very wary of them as areas which were ‘places of filth’ and when, on occasion, patients suffering from this disease did occur within Buraku communities the newspapers would fan the flames of prejudice by writing as if they were hotbeds of the outbreak of the disease.187 In 1886, at the time of a cholera outbreak, the nationally circulated Choya Shimbun188 wrote that: ’What causes the rapid spread of cholera is basically the gathering together of groups of insanitary people. The towns and 187

188

Research which explores the connection between the spread of cholera and urban Buraku includes Ampo Norio, (1989) Minato Kobe – Korera – Pesto – Suramu – shakaiteki sabetsu keiseishi no kenkyū, Gagugei Shuppansha. Kobayashi Takehiko (2001) Kindai Nihon to Kōshūeisei’, Yuzankaku Shuppan. Founded in 1872 and retitled Kobun Tsushi in 1874, its editor was Narushima Ryuhoku. It employed Suehiro Tetsucho and began to advocate the ideas of the People’s Rights Movement.

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villages where former eta reside must be made very clean hereafter.’ Articles like this gave the firm impression that it was almost always Buraku communities that were the places where cholera originally broke out. The French researcher Julia Csergo explains how the scholars of sanitation in nineteenth century France talked about, ‘The places where vices such as dementia, ill-will and theft were located as unhygienic villages and rural households. Moreover the lack of sanitation was not only a matter of bodily cleanliness but it was also something that involved the hygiene of their spirit.’189 A similar situation existed in Japan at the end of the nineteenth century where being unhygienic was associated with a disposition towards immorality and corruption. We can think of these ideas as supporting each other. The concept of ‘hygiene’ was spread by the police under the control of the state. Areas which did not come up to these standards due to their economic poverty were left behind and this brought their lack of cleanliness into the open. The creation in 1876 of a Hygiene Dept in the Home Ministry demonstrates a change in emphasis from the days of ‘sanitation’ of the Edo period (Abe 2002). In this way, in place of the line set out by status we can see new markers for Buraku discrimination being created by poverty and with it a reputation for lack of hygiene. Being regarded as generators of disease ensured the continuation of discrimination into the modern era. THE LOOK THAT SAYS ‘DIFFERENT’

This was not necessarily something that was peculiar to the Buraku communities but rather was an image that was shared with low class society in general. The reporters who wrote about urban slums announced their ‘discovery’ of pockets of poverty from the point of view of their enlightenment values and thought of them as ‘dark places’ quite distant from the world in which 189

Csergo, J., 1988. Liberté, égalité, propreté: la morale de l’hygiène au XIXe siècle. Paris: Albin Michel.

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they lived.190 Often they would include Buraku communities and they would view them with contempt. In Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka slums were formed around the Buraku and grew as a result of immigration from other parts of the country. In many cases the slums and Buraku were next to each other and the boundaries between them were not always clear. However, generally in the case of the people of impoverished lower classes if they escaped from their economic difficulties and moved away from the area it was possible to escape from discrimination but for people from the Buraku communities the marker decided by their ‘birth’ moved around with them. At the time of the formation of the modern nation-state, ideas of the ‘nation’ developed and interest grew in the boundaries that defined Japan and the Japanese. It was in this context that in December 1884 the Anthropological Society was founded (from 1886 known as the Tokyo Anthropological Society). Those who joined this society as well as turning their attention to Ainu and Okinawans also started to pay attention to Buraku communities which, though part of Japan, could not be simply ‘internalized’.191 In the society’s journal, Reports of the Tokyo Anthropological Society, the pioneering work was Mitsukuri Genpachi’s Eta Customs in Vol 6, July 1886. Then we have Fujii Kensuke’s Eta may be Foreigners in Vol 10 December 1886 and Kaneko Toru’s, Etta were a slave group of the Mongol army, the Etto. The origins of the Buraku communities were a matter of great interest within the Anthropological Society. Their sources for these theories were either myths or historical texts from the pre-modern period and their distinctive facial features. It was as though they were positively trying to find differences between them and ‘normal Japanese’. For these scholars the people in the Buraku communities were ‘others’ who until then had not been within their sights. These anthropologists inherited the Korean origin theory which had existed for some time and they placed 190 191

Narita Ryuichi (2003) Kindai Toshi Kukan no Bunka Keiken, Iwanami Shoten. On the state of anthropologists at the time see Banno 2005.

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upon it a marker which emphasized racial difference and so emphasized the ‘otherness’ of the Buraku communities. A little later there was an attempt to approach the issue of Buraku origins from a more ‘scientific’ anthropological direction by Torii Ryuzō.192 As far as we can tell today Torii undertook two surveys of Buraku communities. According to newspaper reports these were carried out in Tokushima and Hyogo prefectures in 1897 and 1898. On the basis of these surveys he concluded that their bone structure, the pattern of their beards and the shape of their eyes resembled the Malayo-Polynesian races indigenous to the islands of Malaya and Polynesia and so they were not a ‘Mongolian race’.193 His subjective intentions were without doubt to try to assert that eta are ‘normal Japanese’ and he pointed out that he himself ‘had some special features that were not usually found in Japanese people’. However, when the Hinode Newspaper reported on the survey of Buraku communities in Hyogo in February 1898, it did not repeat Torii’s ideas about the origins of the Japanese people. It said that: ‘They [eta] are very similar to the Malayo-Polynesian races who were the aboriginal people of the islands of Malaya and Polynesia and have none of the features of Mongol races.’ We can easily imagine that many readers of the article understood this as saying that residents of the Buraku were not ‘normal Japanese’. Furthermore, the methodology and theories used by Torii raise many questions such as: what are ‘normal Japanese’? why reject mixture with Mongol races? and what does it mean to place the ‘Malay type’ on a lower rank to ‘Mongol races’? Moreover, it is important to note here how discriminated Burakumin were regarded as racially different from ‘normal Japanese’ by a ‘scientific’ method supported by the measurement of bones. Incidentally we can note how in this discourse groups of discriminated Buraku are referred to as ‘tribes’. 192

193

For a critical biography of Torii see Nakazono Eisuke (1995) Torii Ryuzoden – Ajia o Soba shita Jinruigakusha, Iwanami Shoten. Torii Ryuzō, Zenshū, 13 kan, Asahi Shimbun 1975–1977 does not contain either of these surveys.

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In this redefinition of Buraku origins using racial terms, Takahashi Yoshio, known as a pupil of Fukuzawa Yukichi, explains his point of view in Improving the Japanese Race, 1884. ‘Heredity and moral training are different but are mutually influential.’ And Yanase Keisuke who wrote in ‘Eta: hinin – a society outside society’ (1901, Daigakkan), ‘Customs are second to nature.’ But there are new elements here, namely that moral training and cultural habits are elements which themselves can change. However, on the other hand heredity and customs are regarded as different things and custom itself is hard to change and has the function of redefining the racial terms. So society excluded Buraku people and it started to make use of the concept of ‘race’ which functioned as equivalent to the feudal status system in order to pacify the other people. In 1898 the Meiji Civil Code was adopted and the ie family system gradually began to take root in the lives of ordinary citizens. From this time the residents of Buraku communities who were regarded as a ‘different race’ with some kind of ‘defiled existence’ were even more likely to be prevented from trying to enter another family’s lineage through marriage.

CHAPTER 10

Discriminated Buraku are ‘Discovered’ 5

EXCLUDED FROM THE NEW VILLAGE SYSTEM

In 1888 regulations on the reorganization of municipalities were issued and during the following year villages that had existed since the start of the Edo period were merged to form much larger units of local government. On this occasion too the discriminated Buraku were repeatedly excluded from the process on the basis of the social ideas that we have already described.194 We have the records of the preliminary investigations based on the informal ‘standards for municipal amalgamations’ that were issued in 1887 by Mie prefecture at the start of the amalgamation process. According to these, the standard size for one of the new towns or villages was to be over 300 households but one of the exceptions to this rule, which would permit the formation of a village smaller than this, was ‘where it was not possible to peacefully merge a former eta village with another town or village’. In other words where there was resistance from the other town or village because it was a discriminated community and a peaceful merger 194

Suzuki Ryō (1985) ’Tennōsei Kakuritsuki no Buraku Mondai – chōson gappei ni tsuite’, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 83; Wada keiji (1996) ’Meiji Genki chōson Gappei Indō no ichishiten’, Yamato-kuni, Katsuragi-gun, Iwasaki-mura Mhōson Bungo Mondai o megutte, Buraku Kaihō Kenkyū 111; Yoshida Eijiro (2005) Meiji Shonen no Hisabetsu Buraku Bunson no Ichijirei, Narakenritsu Dōwa Mondai Kankei Shiryō Sentaa Kenkyū Kiyo 11; Kurokawa Midori (2003) Toshi Buraku e no Shisen – Mie ken, Iinangun, Suzutane-mura no Baai, Kobayashi Takehiko Hencho, Toshi Geso no Shakaishi, Kaihō Shuppansha. 137

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was not possible, they should not force the issue. It was the same in the internal guidelines instructing the survey of ‘conditions in current towns and villages’ that was issued in May 1888. The fact that the prefecture issued these kind of instructions goes beyond a simple confirmation of the discriminatory ideas held by people outside the Buraku communities and can be considered positively to promote the exclusion of discriminated Buraku from the amalgamation process. The prefectural authorities rather than actively implementing the principles of the Liberation Decree judged it expedient to take a route that minimized trouble. Two villages in Mie prefecture in Iinan-gun (now Matsusaka-shi) and Anogun (Tsu-shi) were both formed from solely discriminated Buraku as a result of compliance with prefectural policy. According to the records for 1909, it is clear that one of the villages in Iinan-gun that was formed in this way from a discriminated Buraku was so short of money that it could not admit all of its children into the primary school nor could it afford a teacher for each class. Because there were so many impoverished people in the community it was all they could do to pay the household tax (a special tax in municipalities imposed on people who had an independent income) and they were unable to pay any more taxes to support the school. Despite this the community had been set up as an independent village and was not finally merged with Matsusaka town until 1920.195 In this way the Buraku communities were not only excluded from the newly created local government units, as described above, but were also repeatedly excluded from school zones. THE BARRIER OF THE IE FAMILY SYSTEM THAT IMPEDED (AND IMPEDES) MARRIAGE

In 1898 the Civil Code was enacted that established the ‘ie’ system in law.196 This promoted an acceptance of ‘ie’ structures and ideas 195

196

Primary schools were supported by funding from the local community in the early Meiji period. The household head was the male lineal descendant who exercised general control over the property of family members, their marriages and where they lived. This household structure formed the lowest level of the Imperial

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among the common people. Discrimination in marriage took place against this background of a growing awareness of the ie system as became clear in an incident that took place in Hiroshima in 1902 in the case of a law suit concerning a marriage annulment. The incident began with a dispute between a husband and wife who lived in Hiroshima where the wife sought an annulment of the marriage in the district court. In petitioning for the divorce the wife said that she had discovered that her husband had lied about his family background. He had told her that his was an upright, wealthy family which prior to the Meiji restoration had been permitted to use a surname and carry a sword whereas in fact he came from a discriminated Buraku community. The husband now admitted this and the wife argued it was a valid reason for the annulment request as was accepted in the judgement handed down in the Hiroshima court. The local higher court rejected the husband’s appeal for the following reasons: ‘Former eta’ were regarded as a ‘low class race’ from olden times and, despite the issuance of the Liberation Declaration, by long established convention even in the present day an aversion to engage in marriage with a ‘former eta’ is a normal state of affairs. So, if the litigant (wife) had known that the appellant (husband) had been born into a ‘former eta’ household (ie) there is no doubt that she would not have married him. Accordingly, it is not just that the appellant did not tell the truth by claiming that his family before the Meiji restoration had been wealthy farmers with permission to use a surname and carry a sword. He was also found guilty of committing a fraud. (Hōritsu Shimbun 16 March 1903) State with the Emperor at its pinnacle. Matsumoto Sanosuke, ‘Kazoku Kokkakan no Kōzō to Tokushitsu’, Kōzō Kazoku, Dai Hachikan, Kobundō, 1974; Ishida Takeshi (1975) Ie oyobi Katei no Seijiteki Kinō’, Fukushima Masao hen Kazoku – Seisaku to Hō, Dai 1 kan, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai. The ie, household, was the formal ordering of the family – it contained set roles for the family head, successors, children, and even the deceased. The different roles and generations of the ie “were characterized by Confucian principles of loyalty and benevolence” – the younger generations saw their duty to the house “as loyalty to their parents for benevolence received.” Joy Hendry,  Understanding Japanese Society (second edition),  New York: Routledge, 1996.

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Though it had been more than thirty years since the Liberation Declaration had been issued, the judgement handed down by this court not only recognized Buraku discrimination as a normal state of affairs but also endorsed it. Moreover, here we can catch glimpses of the attitude of people at this time which is starting to be premised on ideas of the ‘ie’ where pride is taken in lineage and having an upright pedigree as the basis of preserving the standing of one’s own family. Meanwhile the man with the Buraku background had also tried to add value to his status within a society which still recognized this old social order. This was a very different principle from that of an industrial society where individuals are exposed to competition. Rather the idea is that one’s rank comes from the household in which you are born, which even if not necessarily more important than academic record or competition at work, was an important element in one’s identity. The imperial household was the personification of ‘honour’ while those placed at the extreme lowly position in the ie family system order are the Buraku communities, but even then there is a disconnect in this sequence between non-Buraku and Buraku. Incidentally the Meiji government issued the Nobility Edict in 1884. Until then there were just the remnants of the old court nobility and the daimyo but this law expanded the aristocracy to give titles to people who had played a role in the Meiji restoration. There were five new titles created from බ – kō, prince or duke, ೃ – kō, marquis,఑– haku, count/earl, Ꮚ– shi, viscount and ⏨ – dan, baron. In this way the government produced a new system of special statuses reversing the principle of equality of all subjects. ŌKURA TŌRŌ’S BIWAKO (SONG OF BIWA).

Biwako by Ōkura Tōrō was published in 1905 just after the Russo-Japanese War and took the Buraku issue as its theme.197 197

There is almost no commentary on Biwako but for research on pre-war literature that takes Buraku issues as its theme, see Umezawa Toshihiko, Hirano Hidehisa, Yamagishi Takashi (1980) Bungaku no naka no Hisabetsu

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Satano, the younger sister of the protagonist Arai Sanzō, following the end of a love affair marries Takeda Sadaji from outside her Buraku community. Her father in law rapes her but when her mother in law finds out about this she turns her anger not towards her husband but against Satono and insults her saying, ‘This is a house meant for human beings. There is no place for an animal like you.’ This causes Satono to break with Sadaji and return to the home of her brother, Sanzō. Sadaji too is completely powerless against his parents and knows no way of responding to his mother’s cruel treatment of Satano. She falls into a depressed state thinking of Sadaji. For Sanzō fighting as a soldier in the Russo-Japanese War is his only response – the only path left for him is assimilation as an ‘imperial citizen’ in the war. We can see persistent views of dislike of Burakumin in the background to the story-line of sending the young wife away as ‘not human’ and an ‘animal’. But since the mother-in-law had accepted Satono as the wife of her son until she found out about her husband’s rape those feelings do not accompany Satono as Buraku, (Senzenhen) Akashi Shoten; Watanabe Naomi (1994) Nihon Kindai Bungaku to Sabetsu, Ota Shuppan.

Figure 23

Covers of Biwa no Uta published 1905

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an individual but it is only once she turns against her that these feelings focus on the Buraku background.198 HOW ‘ONE’S ORIGINS’ STAND IN THE WAY – FROM HAKAI

Another novel from about the same time as Biwako that continues to be read up to the present day is Hakai [The Broken Commandment] which was written by Shimazaki Toson in 1906. The protagonist, Segawa Ushimatsu, was born in a Buraku in Shinshū (Nagano) but he succeeds in being educated as a teacher and takes up a post in a primary school. Before long a rumour starts to spread among his colleagues that he might be of Buraku origin. Ginnosuke, Ushimatsu’s friend from teacher training college who at this point does not know of his background, defends him saying: I’ve seen plenty of Shinheimin. Their skin is darker than ours – you can tell them at a glance, and being shut out from society has made them terribly warped inside too. There’s no chance of a solid, manly character developing out of such a background, and how could one of them possibly take any interest in learning and study? Isn’t it obvious from all this what the truth must be about Segawa?

And in the same conversation another teacher says: ‘They say that eta have a special smell don’t they? Maybe we could take a sniff and see?’ put in the first-year teacher, smiling.199

The background to this conversation is that people from Buraku communities are of a darker skin colour that outsiders can easily 198

199

Before this there had been a novel that took the Buraku issue as a theme looking at migration to Hokkaido as an escape from discrimination: Kiyomizu Shikin, ‘Imin Gakuen’, 1899 Kozai Yoshishige hen, Biwa Zenshu Zen Ikkan, Sōdo Bunka, 1983. For more on Kiyomizu see Yamaguchi Reiko (1977) Naite Aisuru Shimai ni Tsugu Kozai Shikin no Shogai, Sōdo Bunka. This is from the English translation by Kenneth Strong that was published under the title, The Broken Commandment, Japan Foundation, 1974, p. 194.

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spot and that is so self-evident that one can make fun and laugh about it. Secondly, from its use here it is clear that shinheimin had become well established as a discriminatory term. Incidentally Shimazaki himself did not consider that all residents of Buraku communities displayed these features. He thought that Buraku residents could be divided into ‘high class’ and ‘low class’. Whereas the former were no different from mainstream Japanese in looks, disposition or language use, the latter had different facial features and skin colour and, he wrote, ‘they did not marry other races’ (Yama no Kuni no Shinheimin 1906 Toson Zenshū Vol 6). Inoko Rentarō and Ushimatsu who appear in Hakai belong to the former group while the kind of shinheimin that Ginnosuke has in mind are a perfect representation of one of these ‘low class’ types. However, although ‘upper class’ Buraku residents were indistinguishable by their external appearance and their origins could be known only following strict investigation, this would still result in exclusion. In the end Ushimatsu makes a confession of his Buraku background to his class of school pupils and offers them a profound apology. He leaves the classroom and flees to Tokyo.200 SWEEPING AWAY SIGNS OF DISCRIMINATION

In the late 1880s and 1890s people from the upper classes of the Buraku communities started to promote a movement to reform the customs and learning habits in their communities. This was called the Buraku Improvement Movement (Buraku Kaizen Undō)201 and its aim was to disprove or undermine the usual societal view of Buraku communities as places of strange 200

201

For research on the history of the publication of Hakai and its production on film or on stage, see Ōsaka Jinken Hakobutsukan henkan (2006) Shimazaki Tōson “Hakai” Hyakunen; Miyatake Toshimasa (2007) “Hakai” Hyakunen Monogatari, Kaihō Shuppansha; Tokushū ‘Hakai’ Hyakunen’, June 2006, Buraku Kaihō 566. For research on the Buraku Improvement Movement see, Hongo Koji, ‘Buraku Kaizen Undō to Seisaku’, Buraku Kenkyū kara no Hasshin, Dai2kan.

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Figure 24

Cover of Hakai, first published 1906

customs, poor sanitation and hothouses of disease. At the height of the ‘Meiji Enlightenment’ in the 1870s and 1880s discrimination was criticized as being ‘unenlightened’ and contrary to the ideas of the ‘natural rights of man’. However, as these ideas of the cultural enlightenment faded and confidence that discrimination might be eliminated by the application of enlightenment ideas disappeared, what took its place was the idea that Burakumin

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themselves should clear away the signs that suggested enlightenment had been ‘delayed’ in the Buraku communities even though in many cases these ‘signs’ were ‘built in’ to their environment. It was the experience of being excluded from the mergers of the municipalities that can be regarded as the trigger for the launch of the bottom-up Buraku Improvement Movement. Moreover, one additional reason why the movement arose was that the dominant position of the upper classes with Buraku communities was being consolidated at this time. THE START OF BURAKU IMPROVEMENT POLICIES

From the time of the Liberation Declaration until the end of the nineteenth century the government had taken the view that there was no difference between Burakumin and non-Burakumin and therefore no policies needed to be devised. Government only turned its attention to the issue after the Russo-Japanese War. The government sought a policy to re-structure the rural villages which had been impoverished by the increased taxation imposed to pay for the Russo-Japanese War. This developed as a national unification policy called the Regional Improvement Movement202 which was developed on the occasion of the Boshin rescript.203 Within the context of this policy Buraku communi202

Developed under the leadership of the Naimushō, it sought to increase national strength by encouraging hard work and frugality, to foster community solidarity based on the village administration and to strengthen feelings of loyalty towards the state. 203 The Boshin rescript or ‘Rescript on Thrift and Diligence’ was issued in 1908 to combat what was felt to be increasing laxity in public morals. It urged ‘… we must all tighten our belts. High and low united as one, we must labour faithfully, practise industry, thrift and savings…shun extravagance and denounce idleness.’ quoted in N. McCormack, Japan’s Outcaste Abolition, Routledge, 2012, p. 154. Following the Russo-Japanese War while there was the spread of an awareness of Japan as a first-rank nation there was also a feeling of crisis as individualism, naturalism and socialism began to emerge and so the second Katsura cabinet issued this rescript as a form of ‘judicious guidance’ of public thought.

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ties were revealed as ‘villages in difficulty’. This top-down Buraku improvement policy was implemented to reduce the extent of the non-payment of taxes (running at 40% at this time overall), increase school attendance and in general to improve customs. Nationally Mie prefecture was the first to implement these policies, in 1905. Arimatsu Hideyoshi who had served in the Naimushō (Ministry of Interior), Police and Social Affairs office was appointed governor there in 1904. He took an interest in the problems of poor farmers and Burakumin from the perspective of social policy.204 Buraku Improvement Policy began in earnest under him and was developed by a local government employee called Takeba Toraichirō.205 Mie prefecture carried out a survey as the basis for this policy and brought the results together in a report, ‘An outline of special Buraku improvement’ (Tokushū Buraku Kaizen no Kōgai, 1907). In its opening paragraph it suggests two basic approaches should be taken. Firstly, that its leadership be placed under police control and, secondly, that Buraku improvement groups be set up within the communities to assist with the diffusion of these ideas. The policy was developed on the basis of these two principles. However, at the time there was hardly any budget provided for it so it was little more than a ‘moral’ movement. As long as there was no attempt made to deal with the economic issues faced by these communities there was no prospect of making any fundamental difference to their ‘problems’. In Mie the strict supervision and control policies seemed to be temporarily effective but this did not last long. However, there was no attempt made to revise the policy and, on the contrary, the reason for its lack of impact was explained by the laziness and failings in the moral character of the residents of the Buraku communities. This provided the favourable circumstances for the emergence of the idea that they 204

205

That is, he was primarily interested in the possibility of social disturbance that might result from poverty rather than out of any interest in the impact of poverty itself. On Takeba see Kudo Eichi (1983) Kirisutokyō to Buraku Mondai, Shinkyo Shuppansha.

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were racially different. As we will see below the idea that they are a ‘different race’ began to permeate into the Buraku improvement policies to compensate for the contradictions in the policy. THE ‘RACE’ LINE

The use of ‘special’, tokushū (≉✀), in the title of the report produced in Mie and mentioned above demonstrates that the idea that Burakumin might have a different racial origin was becoming more widespread and was taking root. The booklet covered various topics under the headings of: ancestors, disposition and morals, customs and employment, clothes and food, accent and deportment, religion, education, criminal record, and ‘reform agreements’ (these were agreements made within the Buraku communities, for example, as part of the self-improvement movement to get up earlier, drink less sake, etc.). In the section on ancestors it mentions immigrants from the Korean peninsula, Emishi (inhabitants of northern Japan not subjugated by the Yamato state), Kitabatakeshi (subjects of the military leaders who had influence in the Ise area), Rakuhakusha (groups reduced to poverty by misfortune) – it listed these as the various possible origins of the Buraku communities. In the categories of morals and ‘disposition’ we can say that Buraku residents were thought to be ≉✀, a ‘special species’. So, in comparison with ‘normal people’, groups of Burakumin were regarded as a different race and the word different ‘breed’ was used to refer to them as though they were not normal people. This was rather similar to the way invading groups bring with them standards of ‘civilization’ and re-name the ‘natives’ as barbarian, uncivilized races.206 Mie prefecture’s Buraku improvement policies were pioneering but they were soon developed on a national scale with a number of other prefectures learning from their examples and 206

In fact, the Tokushū Buraku Improvement Survey report closely resembles the structure and content of ‘Shakaigai no Shakai: eta/hinin’, Daigakkan, 1901 by Yanase Keisuke who is known to have advocated migration to Taiwan as a solution to the problem. More detail in Kurokawa (2011) Kindai Burakushi, Heibonsha Shinto, pp. 67–9.

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implementing similar policies. However this was accompanied by a change in the characters used to describe them as ‘special’ – from≉✀to ≉Ṧwhich is less suggestive of a different race. Incidentally, as I mentioned in chapter eight, buraku – 㒊ⴠ – is originally a term used to refer to a settlement which is part of a village. Adding ‘special’ to this, using either of the characters, makes it signify a contemporary buraku. This kind of naming indicates a way of thinking about their problems not as ones involving individuals but as those of communities as units. The first steps in that direction were the poverty that was caused by the Matsukata deflation of the 1880s and their exclusion from the amalgamation of local government units emerges shortly afterwards. Buraku communities were ‘discovered’ as ‘impoverished villages’ within the process of national unification after the Russo-Japanese War and the notion that they were a ‘different species’ began to spread through society at that time.

CHAPTER 11

Seeking Unification of the Empire 5

RACISM AND MORAL TRAINING

Tomeoka Kōsuke207 who was in charge of the Buraku Improvement Policies within the Naimushō was a Christian educated at Dōshisha school, Kyoto which in 1920 would become Dōshisha University. In part, his involvement in social policy administration was linked to his devotion to the moral and ethical teachings of Ninomiya Sontoku on the repayment of kindness.208 There has already been much published about Tomeoka pointing out the prejudices that he held about people in the Buraku communities209 (Fujino 1986, Murota 1998). He wrote that ‘their lifestyles resembled those of the aboriginals of Taiwan’. He held both the colonial Taiwanese aboriginals and people of Buraku communities in contempt. He thought, ‘they are ignorant and full of superstition’, ‘they are negligent and moreover dishonest’ and their communities are hothouses for crime. He even went as far as to suggest that there is some207

208

209

On Tomeoka see Takase Yoshio (1982) Ichiro Hakuto ni itaru – Tomeoka Yōsuke no Shōgai, Iwanami Shoten; Murota Yasuo (1998) Tomeoka Yasuo no Kenkyū, Funi Shuppan. Ninomiya Sontoku (஧ᐑ ᑛᚨ1787–1856), born Ninomiya Kinjirō (஧ ᐑ 㔠ḟ㑻), was a prominent 19th-century Japanese agricultural leader, philosopher, moralist and economist. ‘Shinheimin no Kaizen’ 1907 Dōshisha Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūshohen, Ryōka Sakushū Vol 2; Fujino Yutaka, ‘Tomeoka to Buraku mondai’, Buraku Kaihō kenkyūsho hen, ronshu kaihō Buraku mondai kaihōronsha 1986), Murota Yasuo, Tomeoka Kōsuke no Kenkyū’ Funishuppan 1998. 149

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thing different about their physiological organs which is why they have so many twins. His understanding of the problem even had an influence on Kagawa Toshihiko who was another Christian and social activist.210 Kagawa wrote in Studies on the Mentality of Poor People, ‘They (the Burakumin) are dirty and many suffer eye diseases… we can say that they have a sense of themselves as a single race.’ ‘They are a kind of degenerate race among the Japanese – or a slave race, an ancient race that has fallen behind the times.’ (Kagawa Toshihiko Zenshū Vol 8) Similar to the understanding of Takeba Toraichiro of Mie discussed earlier, this exposes the limits of these ‘devoted pioneers’. The very act of plunging into an asymmetrical relationship of engaging with and assisting the ‘weak’ by charitable activities inescapably was based on feelings of their own superiority. Such feelings were probably not unusual. This understanding of the essential inferiority of the discriminated Buraku communities is usually explained in a way that has ‘racial’ characteristics with genetic elements at the core around which the acquired characteristics of customs, hygiene and habits took shape. This way of thinking about the Buraku issue was introduced through newspapers and permeated into the thinking of the Japanese people at large. However, in Japan ‘racial improvement’ was never only about genetics and there was always a strong tendency of trying to discover environmental factors that were called ‘moral training’ (Tomiyama 1994). That is why Buraku improvement policies and ‘moral training’ were implemented even while ‘racial’ features were being discovered in the residents of the discriminated communities. However, whenever this ‘improvement’ started to stagnate the racial explanations came uppermost in people’s minds and the prospects for inclusion in society became remote as they placed 210

On Kagawa see Sumiya Mikio (1966) Kagawa Toshihiko, (Iwanami Gendai Bunko, 2011). For research which focuses on Kagawa’s eugenic thought see Fujino Yutaka (1995) Kindai Nihon no Kirisutokyo to Yusei Shisō; Fujino Yutaka (1998) Nihon Fashizumu to Yusei Shisō, Kamogawa Shuppan.

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emphasis on the boundaries preventing integration of the people from the Buraku communities. FROM ‘SPECIAL BURAKU’ TO ‘BURAKU OF POOR PEOPLE’

As we have explained already, social understanding of the Buraku issue was mainly about the question of responsibility for the Buraku problem and accordingly people only focused on issues of improvement. In other words, the changes in the context of how the Buraku issue was problematized by society was reflected in how discrimination itself was viewed and there were changes in that situation that began around 1910. One turning point occurred in 1910, the time of the second Katsura cabinet which saw both the Annexation of Korea and the Great Treason incident. The outcome of the Great Treason trial was the execution of twelve people on charges of having planned to assassinate the emperor. This included Kōtoku Shusui who almost certainly had no connection to the plan. It was mainly a tactic to suppress the small but growing socialist movement. Two of the accused had Buraku connections: one, a doctor, Oishi Seinosuke of Shingu, Wakayama prefecture was one of the twelve executed and he had provided medical treatment to people in Buraku communities;211 the other Takagi Kenmyo was a priest in the Otani sect who was sentenced to life imprisonment but ended up strangled to death in prison in 1914.212 He had worked for Buraku liberation and had had Buraku families among his parishioners. Because of these connections there emerged a fear that there was a link between the Buraku communities and the emergent socialist movement. In November 1912, the Naimushō convened a conference called, the ‘Conference on the Improvement of the Buraku of Poor People’ that brought together leaders of the Buraku improve211 212

Morinaga Eizaburō (1977) Rokutei Oishi Keinosuke, Iwanami Shoten. More detail in Tamamitsu Junsho, Takagi Kenmyo – Daigyaku Jiken ni renza shita enebutsusha, Shukyo Bukkuretto no 8 Shinkyo Otaniha 2000nen, Daito Satoshi ‘Daigyaku no zo – Takagi Kenmto no majitsu Shukyo.

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ment policies from across the country. There had been some formal objections from Burakumin themselves to the use of the term ‘Special Buraku’ which had racial connotations as explained in the previous chapter to which the Naimushō response was to use the term Saimin Buraku ⣽Ẹ㒊ⴠ – Buraku of Poor People. However, the word saimin suggested people somewhat economically superior to the most impoverished among the lower classes so it was uncertain as to whether its use pointed to these people or to the discriminated Buraku. It might be that the Naimushō intentionally sought to keep the distinction vague but there was no real basis for the use of this new name which was not a suitable substitute for Tokushū Buraku.213 Even Kita Sadakichi who, as I will explain later, completely rejected the idea of Burakumin being racially distinct, actually regarded the existence of the Buraku as ‘special’. He wrote ‘as far as possible I do not like using the phrase ‘Special (≉Ṧ) Buraku’, but at that time he said that there was no other colloquial expression to use and he thought that, ‘when explaining the issue some term had to be used and this was the least harmful.’214 THE FORMATION OF THE YAMATO DŌSHIKAI – THE CREATION OF SUBJECTS BY PROMOTING ENTERPRISE

The earliest voices of dissatisfaction at the use of the term Tokushū Buraku to come from Burakumin themselves came from the Yamato Dōshikai. This was an organization set up on 20 August 1912 with the support of the governor of Nara prefecture and mayor of Nara city. It had as its chairman Matsui Shōgorō a 213

214

On this point Kita Sadakichi wrote as follows, ‘Recently those in the Naimushō have taken to calling our fellow citizens who used to be referred to as Tokushū Buraku by the term Saimin Buraku. Saimin suggests poor people. Since a relatively large number of Tokushū Burakumin are poor this is not entirely unreasonable but since there are also people in these communities who are not poor and many people outside the so-called Tokushū Buraku who should be called poor, it must be said that this contemptuous phrase is not very appropriate.’ Tokushū Buraku to Saimin Buraku: Misshu Buraku, Minzoku to Rekishi 2 – 2, 1919 July. Gakusō Nikki – School Diary – 1921 Kida Sadakichi Sakushū Vol 12.

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Burakumin who ran a meat business in Nara city. It published a journal, Meiji no Hikari mainly funded by him which, although focused on the Kinki area, developed a national readership. The background to the formation of the Yamato Dōshikai was criticism of the whole range of Buraku improvement policies premised on the idea that discrimination was a problem located among the Burakumin and it included concern about the use of the phrase Tokushū Buraku. Matsui had been born into a wealthy family and as a graduate of Tokyo Imperial University was a member of the Buraku elite. He focused in his writing on the educated elite within the Buraku communities such as primary school teachers and he urged his organization to support such policies as: increased industrial production, equality of educational opportunity, reform of the Honganji temple, the abolition of discrimination, the thorough dissemination of the duties of the subject and the abolition of the phrase ‘Special Buraku’. It located the path from discrimination to liberation in the increase of the economic self-reliance of Buraku communities – what Matsui and his colleagues called the ‘promotion of enterprise’. They sought to clear away the obstacles to this and thus their ideas were based on working to achieve a rational objective. Ogawa Kosaburō was a member of the Yamato Dōshikai who was a primary school teacher in Nara prefecture. He repeatedly complained about how children from Buraku communities suffered unjust discrimination in the classroom and thus were unable to demonstrate their ability. There still existed several ‘Special’ or ‘Buraku Schools’ where the conditions for a good education did not exist. He criticized how these conditions were ignored and how instead they made such an issue about the low ability of Buraku families and their children.215 215

For research on aspects of education and the circumstances of the Buraku communities including the ‘Buraku schools’, see Buraku Mondai Kenkyūsho henkan (1978) Buraku Mondai no Kyōikushiteki Kenkyū; Yasukawa Junosuke (1998) Nihon Kindai Kyōiku to Sabetsu Buraku mondai no Kyōikushiteki Kenkyū, Akashi Shoten.

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Furthermore, the Yamato Dōshikai concentrated its attention on showing how its members were loyal subjects who faithfully carried out their obligations to the state. The title of their journal Meiji no Hikari [The Light of Meiji] was named after the Meiji emperor who had died shortly before the movement was formed. This title was intended to demonstrate them repaying their obligation to him for having issued the Liberation Declaration. Matsui insisted that all Burakumin must be loyal to the emperor. CONSTRUCTING AN ORIGINS THEORY FOR ‘HARMONIOUS RECONCILIATION’

Burakumin then were trying to assert their right to be recognized as loyal subjects but at the same time they were aware of the suggestions of ethnic or racial difference. Matsui argued that: ‘What are called normal buraku and poor buraku are both part of the Yamato race but nevertheless we must make this relationship quite clear.’ He suggested a historical account in which they had

Figure 25

Meiji no Hikari – journal of the Yamato Dōshikai

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been stigmatized under the despotism of the Tokugawa regime and excluded from society but, ‘there was certainly no difference in racial lineage.’ Based on this conviction he repeatedly objected to the use of the phrase Special Buraku – ≉✀㒊ⴠࠋ In order to reinforce these assertions the members of the Yamato Dōshikai were encouraged to investigate for themselves the origins of the communities in which they lived and several of these accounts were carried in Meiji no Hikari (Kurokawa 2010). Notable among them is one which begins: ‘The explanations that talk about migration from China or Korea are inappropriate…our community like many without name was separated from the mainstream society by adversity…’ Hekisen (pen name), ‘Our Buraku and the origins of our well’ (Meji no Hikari 2 November 1912). Firstly, this completely rejected the idea of migration from the continent on which the foreign origin theory depended. Secondly, it emphasized the connection with the imperial household as ‘grave keepers for the imperial family and subsequent generations ….during the Nara period’. There was absolutely no basis for exclusion on the basis of race and rather what was ‘discovered’ was that in the past they had been servants of the imperial court and thus ‘children of the emperor’. This underlined the urgent need for the reconciliation of ‘self and others’. For the Yamato Dōshikai what was needed was not the superficial improvement of the communities’ morals but the ‘promotion of enterprise’ and for the people on the outside to reconsider their attitudes. Moreover, they strongly advocated the need for harmonious reconciliation. As one of them put it, ‘It is not simply a question of our poor fortune and showing sympathy we must create the dawn of harmonious reconciliation in the near future’ – extract from ‘Hopes of the Society’ Meiji no Hikari April 1913 which strongly advocates the need for harmonious reconciliation. This resistance of the Yamato Dōshikai to the improvement policies amounts to a significant advance in the development of their strategy up to that point. By 1913, the year following its formation, it had branches in Yanagihara-machi Kyoto, Okayama, Izumo and Mie. In

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Hiroshima in 1914 the Fukushima machi, Ikyōkai and youth group were publishing a journal called Tenko which followed the lead of Meiji no Hikari.216 In these journals we can see words like ‘training’ and ‘Buraku development’ appearing frequently. The background to this is the emergence of the idea that the existing ‘problem’ was no more than a certain degree of cultural difference and the question was simply how the Buraku communities could catch up. Given the contemporary dominance of deeply rooted racist ideas the emergence of this type of thinking was of great significance. It was supporting both a change of ideas and the aim of social reconciliation. Most of the activists in the Yamato Doshikai belonged to the upper classes of the Buraku communities but they were encouraging the acquisition of self-pride as people from Buraku communities and moreover asserted that ‘those outside should reflect’ on their attitudes. This movement prepared the way for the later formation of the Suiheisha. FORMATION OF THE IMPERIAL WAY SOCIETY – RACIAL RECONCILIATION?

In contrast there was the Imperial Way Society, Teikoku Kōdōkai – ᖇᅜⓚ㐨఍ – for which the solution of the Buraku problem was regarded as a means of ‘shaping Greater Japan’. Japan had become an empire following the acquisition of the colonies of Taiwan in 1895 and Korea in 1910. They were concerned about reconciliation between the nations within this new imperial structure but they thought that they should begin by carrying out conciliation within the country. Its founding conference was held on 7 June 1914 and its founding presidents were Itagaki Taisuke, Oki Enkichi and Honda Chikazumi. The secretaries-general were Okamoto Doju and Ōe Taku. There were many in the founding committee who held noble rank but most of the society’s activities were led by Ōe. He had been born in 1847 in Tosa han (Shikoku) and after the 216

Amano Takuro (1965) ‘Buraku Kaihō to Yūwa Undō’, Geibi Chihōshi Kenkyū Dai 60–1; Yamamoto Shinichi (1998) ‘Jiritsu to Yūwa Fukushimachō Ikkyō-kyōkai o megutte’, Jinken to Heiwa Fukuyama, 3.

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Meiji restoration he took up the issue of the abolition of the outcast system. In 1871, just before the Liberation Declaration was issued, he presented a proposal to the Dajōkan. Moreover while acting governor of Kanazawa prefecture he had been made the chief judge on the special court convened to consider the Maria Luz incident in Yokohama in 1872 that involved accusations of the torture and trafficking of Chinese indentured labourers.217 The Imperial Way Society acted on behalf of the government publishing a journal with support from the Naimushō called 217

The Maria Luz was a Peruvian ship that was docked in Yokohama when some indentured Chinese ‘coolies’ escaped and took refuge in a British naval vessel. The British demanded the Japanese assist the Chinese refugees. Receiving this request Ōe established a special court on the authority of the prefecture of Kanazawa with himself as chair. He decided to free the Chinese and send them back to China. The lawyer for the (Peruvian) ship pointed out that there was a contradiction here given the existence of Japan’s licensed prostitute system. It is thought that this event was responsible for the order for abolition of that system that was issued in the same year. For more on the Maria Luz incident see D. V. Botsman, ‘Freedom without Slavery? “Coolies,” Prostitutes, and Outcastes in Meiji Japan’s “Emancipation Moment”’ The American Historical Review (2011) 116 (5): 1323–1347.

Figure 26 Kōdō – journal of the Teikoku Kōdōkai

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Kōdō – Imperial Way – although the title was changed in 1918 to Shakai Kaizen Kōdō – Social Reform Imperial Way. At this point the groups active under the umbrella of the Yamato Doshikai were growing healthily but the Imperial Way Society was looking to develop itself as a central organization that could absorb them and their regional equivalents. As Ōe said at the founding conference, the Imperial Way Society was concerned with ‘the improvement of the Special Buraku and promoting their conciliation with society’. Its role was the encouragement of groups to cooperate with this conciliation process not in the direction of self-emancipation. NEW LANDS – MOVEMENT AND MIGRATION

At the time of the formation of the Imperial Way Society it was thought that if Burakumin migrated to the ‘New Lands’ – by which they meant Hokkaido, Korea and Taiwan – they would find plenty of land and a society free from discrimination. They encouraged migration because they thought that it would be the most rapid, if rough and ready, solution to the Buraku problem. Migration had previously been advocated as a way of ‘solving’ the Buraku problem. One of the possible alternatives for Ushimatsu that is described at the end of Hakai is migration to Texas. In particular during the 1880s it was suggested in connection with theories of Japan’s overseas advancement which were mainly concerned with migration to Korea, Taiwan or one of the Pacific islands. Typical of them was Sugiura Jugo in Hankai Yume Monogatari (1886) and the previously mentioned Yanase Keisuke’s Shakaigai no Shakai – eta: hinin. Shimizu Shikin’s novel Imingakuen (1889) and Nakagawa Yuzō’s Shinheimin (1899) proposed Hokkaido as the destination for internal migration.218 The Imperial Way Society did not simply advocate the idea of migration but it tried to put it into practice. They began a programme of migration to Hokkaido in 1915 within the Hok218

On novels of this era which took the Buraku problem as a core theme see Kawabata Toshifusa (1994), Hakai to sono Shuhen – Buraku Mondai Shosetsu Kenkyū, Bunrikaku.

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kaido office’s first colonization plan and it began to fully promote group migration as a main aim for 1916 with Ueda Seiichi219 and Tsuzuki Tatsuma supervising the Hokkaido emigration scheme. Migration was energetically encouraged in collaboration with the Yamato Dōshikai in articles in both Kōdō and Meiji no Hikari but they did not succeed in persuading many people to migrate. Indeed, the only areas which produced any migrants were Nara, Kyoto and Kochi. Moreover, articles carried in Meiji no Hikari reported at the time that in practice the plans being devised for migration to Korea, Sakhalin and Manchuria were not carried out. The results of the migration policy were not at all impressive. According to a report of the Hokkaido Migration Situation Survey, which was produced by the Central Social Affairs Project Council Regional Improvement Section reviewing the situation in the late 1920s, there were many who having emigrated moved back home unable to put up with the inconvenience of having no shops, doctors or schools nearby. Even those who stayed in most cases by this point had already sold off the land they had been given after a succession of poor harvests and had become tenant farmers. This report also carries an item about Ainu Buraku. If we look carefully we can find evidence of people from Buraku communities who had been forced into hardship having left the ‘mainland’ behaving arrogantly as ‘mainland Japanese’ towards the Ainu. THE INVERSION OF ENDS AND MEANS – YAMATO DŌSHIKAI AND IMPERIAL WAY SOCIETY

The Imperial Way Society grappled with the Buraku problem from various angles trying to implement ‘national reconciliation’ within the empire but from round 1917 a change took place. Ōe wrote that among the serious problems of state and society 219

On both Ueda’s activities in the Buraku Improvement Movement and migration to Hokkaido see the Ōsaka Shiritsu Daigaku Jinken Mondai Kenkyū Sentaahen (2009) Ueda Seiichi to Hisabetsu Buraku Meiji Daishiki o Chushin ni, Ōsaka Shiritsu Daigaku Jinken Mondai Kenkyūkai.

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Figure 27

Proposal to the Teikoku Kōdōkai on Buraku migration to Hokkaido

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the most critical was the ‘harmonization of the strong and the weak, or to put it another way the problem of relief of the workers’. ‘The organization of labour unions: the major issue of the moment’ (Kōdō 4.3). His main interest shifted from the Buraku issue to the labour issue. Just at that time, in the wake of the wartime boom, labour unions were growing rapidly and strike activity was at its peak. For Ōe this surpassed the Buraku problem as the major social issue. However, the Yamato Dōshikai which was born out of the suggestions of residents of Buraku communities always had as its chief objective the liberation of Burakumin from discrimination. For it, service to the state was the means to that end. And in that sense it saw the ends and the means quite differently from the Imperial Way Society which was created under the flag of ‘sympathetic conciliation’ from outside the Buraku communities. For that reason, they did not shift their emphasis between the ‘Labour Problem’ or the ‘Buraku problem’ depending on which was regarded as more serious as the Imperial Way Society did. Rather they continued to focus on the Buraku problem to the last. ‘THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF ORDINARY BURAKU PEOPLE’

The other trend that we should notice at this time, that is around the end of the First World War, was that even the Imperial Way Society noticed, to borrow the words being used at the time, ‘the enlightenment of ordinary Burakumin’ who began to question the attitudes of those outside the discriminated communities involved in the implementation of ‘Yūwa’. We can observe such social trends in, firstly, the increasing frequency of protest about discrimination that came from ordinary Buraku people themselves. Secondly, as the following quote suggests, there was starting to be a realization of what results of ‘improvement’ might bring and what might be expected in the future. ‘Their plans for the improvement of character and knowledge and the use and accumulation of wealth by the selfdevelopment of Burakumin themselves were not only superior to

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those in Special Buraku in other prefectures but also not inferior to those in neighbouring normal Buraku’ (Shimane-ken, Shimin Vol 11 no 7).220 The fact that a question about ‘Yūwa conditions in normal Buraku’ was added to the list of survey topics in every prefecture reflects these changes and societal views of discriminated Buraku were taking the issue much more seriously than ever before. However, ‘fundamental improvement’ of conditions in the discriminated Buraku communities was not easy while racist ideas persisted. An awareness of the possibility of improvement through the ‘civilization process’ mixed with an awareness of its ultimate impossibility due to congenital differences explains society’s ambivalence.

220

Shimin was the journal of the Chūōhōtokukai published 1906–1946. In 1905 Okuda Ryōhei, Ichiki Kitokurō, bureaucrats and Tomeoka Yosuke a social activist created the Kotokukai and in 1912 it became the Chūō (Central) Kotokukai. It advocated Ninomiya Sontoku’s Hotoku principle and was the parent organisation promoting the region reform movement.

CHAPTER 12

Rice Riots and Racial Equality 5

EMERGENCE OF THE RICE RIOTS

The First World War lasted from 1914 to 1918. It stimulated an increase in overseas orders for Japanese manufactured goods and this produced rapid economic growth. On the one hand, it produced a new class of nouveau riche while at the same time the increase in prices caused by the resulting inflation was not matched by an increase in wages and so it produced a decline in working class living standards.221 Meanwhile in August 1917 the government decided to send an expeditionary force to Siberia to try to keep the Russian revolution in check. Rice merchants anticipating an increase in the price of rice began to buy up rice stocks while restricting sales. This spurred an increase in rice prices but the government took no effective action apart from issuing an anti-profiteering ordinance. Prices continued to increase dramatically. This caused difficulties for the workers who had no option but to buy rice to eat and small scale tenant farmers who paid rent for their land to landowners and had difficulty in getting rice for their own consumption. The first people to take action were the wives of fishermen in Toyama in July 1918. Protests and rioting then spread across the country reaching a peak in early to mid-August but continu221

Kawakami Hajime [Bimbō Monogatari] ‘A Tale of Poverty’ was serialised in the Ōsaka Asahi Shimbun between 1 September and 26 December 1916 and published as a book in 1917. Kawakami describes the conditions at the time showing the gap between poverty and wealth and sees a solution for it in humanism. 163

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ing until October.222 Disturbances were recorded in every part of Japan apart from Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Tochigi and Okinawa, and in some areas the army had to be mobilized to suppress them223 (Rekishi Kyōikusha Kyōgikai 2004). Residents of discriminated Buraku communities typically had been prevented from accessing stable employment by discrimination and had little alternative but to rely on unstable jobs such as day labouring. Most were either unemployed or only semiemployed. For example, in one Buraku community in Okayama prefecture only five out of 110 households could make a living as tenant farmers with 1–2 tan of land (between a quarter to half an acre). The rest were just about able to make ends meet selling meat, working in slaughter houses or making zōri (Sanin Shimpō 11 August 1918). For this reason, women and children from the Buraku had to go out to work in match factories, find work as child nurses, or plait zōri at home to supplement their household income. Where the men could not find employment the young daughters or wives would work at looms while the older women made zōri or waraji at home in order to generate an income. Or else they worked in the fields or as day labourers. Kobayashi describes this very well in her book about the lives of discriminated communities of Saitama prefecture (Kobayashi 1981).224 In addition to this economic distress, when rice was not appearing on the market and was difficult to get hold of, the merchants would often refuse to sell their rice to people from Buraku communities. There were countless examples of Burakumin having their requests for rice rejected by rice merchants 222

223

224

Pioneering research on the Rice Riots was carried out by Inoue Kiyoshi and Watanabe Toru, Kome Sōdō no Kenkyū (Yuhikaku, 1959–1962) six volumes. For the full story about the despatch of the military in the Rice Riots see Matsuo Takayoshi Taishō Demokurashiiki no Seiji to Shakai, Misuzu Shobō, 2014. Also, Morosawa Yoko (1969) Shinno no Onna; Kobayashi Hatsue, (1980) Shinde Hanami ga sakumonoka – Tokushu Buraku no uta to seikatsu, Kaihō Shuppansha.

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or having to suffer the discriminatory insults of landlords. These difficult circumstances are reflected in the disturbances – it is clear that Burakumin took part in riots in at least 22 prefectures, 116 towns and villages, mainly in the Kansai region (Fujino, Tokunaga, Kurosawa 1988). A FOCUS OF REPRESSION

However, many newspaper reports about the rice riots and its suppression exaggerated the role played in the violence by Burakumin. They created images in which the Buraku masses provided the main energy in the rioting. They repeatedly reported that people from Buraku communities had been brutally violent. The police too, even when Burakumin had taken part in the disturbances along with people from other communities, would focus their arrests only on the Burakumin. For example, in the rioting that took place in Tsu city, Mie prefecture the inhabitants from the neighbouring fishing village also took part alongside people from the Buraku community but it was the Burakumin who were arrested, charged and found guilty. None of those from the fishing village were even arrested. In the middle of the rioting the evening edition of the Ise newspaper reported the suicide of a male resident in the Buraku community. He had burnt his hand while cooking rice at his house which had been assigned as a meeting point for the military reservists. It was said that fearing that he would be arrested by the police as a rioter who had injured himself, he took his own life. This shows how much suspicion there was of Burakumin, even of those who had taken no part in the rioting. It raises questions about the severity of the investigations that produced this kind of mental stress. We should regard this man as another victim of Buraku discrimination (Fujino, Tokunaga, Kurokawa 1988; Kurokawa 2003). Burakumin made up 10.8% of those punished by the public prosecutors for involvement in the Rice Riots at a time when they made up less than 2% of the population as a whole – a very high proportion. The Rice Riots were an unprecedented nation-

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wide popular insurrection that was a threat to the ruling class. For this reason, those in authority skilfully manipulated the discriminatory feelings of the masses to shift responsibility for the disturbances on to the Burakumin and in doing so prevented them from spreading outside these communities. Since the Russian revolution had taken place only the previous year it is not hard to imagine that these two events were seen together and created a sense of crisis. Senior officials in the Naimushō225 claimed that many of the ‘rioters’ were people from Special Buraku. This was certainly not the case in the first instances of the rioting in Toyama but there were Burakumin involved as rioters in Kyoto, Ōsaka, Kobe, Okayama and Mie. Even where others were involved it was believed that they were blindly following the lead of Burakumin. In this way much of the responsibility was placed on the residents of Buraku communities (see Chūgai Shōgyō Nippō 22 August 1918, Harada 7). Suzuki Kisaburō, deputy Minister of Justice, later published a conversation in which he suggests that it is possible that arbitrarily blaming Burakumin for the looting woke them up to their Buraku identity. It is clear from this too that the government intentionally sought to blame the Buraku in order to prevent the spread of the disorder (Harada 7). As explained above, for those who were in positions of authority, discrimination and the divisions it brought were an obstacle to their attempts to ensure the unification of the Great Japanese Empire. However, in a crisis situation like this which was seen as a threat to the ruling structure they had no hesitation in using discrimination try to stop it. IMAGES OF THE RIOTERS AND ‘SPECIAL PEOPLE’

In the reports of the disturbances names like ‘Special Buraku’, ‘Special People’ and shinheimin were bandied around. Shinhei225

The contents of this article carried in the ShinAichi by ‘Harada Shichi’ on 22 August 1918 were almost the same as content of a talk by Kobayashi Ichida so that we can regard the article as being by him.

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min used in reference to Tokushū Buraku was something against which voices had been raised from within the Buraku communities including organizations like the Yamato Dōshikai as mentioned earlier. Nevertheless at this time rather than the tokushū ≉Ṧ we see ≉✀ being used – something which should have disappeared already. This emphasized the brutality of the Buraku communities and explained it by ‘racial difference’. The explanation that Buraku were racially different and that this is related to the brutality of the violence during the Rice Riots further added to popular fears of the Buraku communities. ‘COMPASSIONATE CONCILIATION’

The government that was attacked by the Rice Riots set up the Shakaikyoku (Social Affairs Bureau) in the Naimushō in 1920 and initiated a ‘social policy’. This was not, as hitherto, a policy directed at assisting the poor but rather, aware of the rapid growth of the labour movement and the somewhat more gradual increase of tenants’ disputes, a series of measures that tried to get to grips with pacifying class antagonism. On the other hand, it set aside ¥50,000 of its 1920 budget to deal with ‘the present urgent needs for improvement in ‘poor buraku’ (saimin buraku). It launched a national survey of Buraku communities and began to promote a policy for conciliation, ‘Yūwa’, within the overall social policy (Fujino 1984). The Imperial Way Society also revamped its journal changing its title from ‘Imperial Way’ to ‘Social Improvement Imperial Way’ and once more oriented itself towards the Buraku problem. As we can see from the name it gave to its conference in February 1919 – Compassionate Conciliation Conference – Dōjō Yūwa Daikai – ྠ᝟⼥࿴኱఍ at this time the idea of Yūwa was premised on the notion of compassion.226 Soeda Keiichirō 226

The conference was held in the Honganji temple in Tokyo and attended by members of both houses of the Diet, relevant bureaucrats, aristocrats, scholars, religious leaders and influential members of Buraku communities, 430 people in total.

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regional affairs section chief at the Naimushō said in his speech at the conference, ‘People from outside the Buraku are expressing compassion and must do so even to the extent of voluntarily marrying them. But to win over the compassion of society, to create a situation where there is no discrimination it will be necessary to improve the people in the Buraku communities and for them to become aware of this.’ Ōe Taku also made a speech in which he began by advocating the creation of structures that would provide strict surveillance of the discriminated communities alongside the need for Buraku improvement through the cultivation of patriotism based on pious thought. He appealed for social compassion in order that conciliation could take place. As is clear from this, Yūwa at this time was ultimately premised on the improvement efforts of the Buraku communities themselves. Moreover, Yūwa was based on the notion of ‘difference’, possibly even racial difference, arguing that if social compassion cannot be induced, the gap between them and society cannot be bridged. As we will explain later this was an attitude that that the Suiheisha sought to directly confront. Beyond aiming at conciliation, Yūwa, there was the unavoidable problem of marriage discrimination. In the press too there were various opinions on what could be done about discrimination in marriage (Chūō Shimbun 20 September 1918 passim). The government carried out surveys of discriminated Buraku in 1917 and 1920 and added a new item asking about marriage which had not been included previously when they had been conducted just after the Russo-Japanese War. Looking at the results for Mie prefecture in 1920, we can see that of 445 reported marriages, 13 were with someone outside the Buraku community. According to the survey in Hiroshima in 1917, out of 553 marriages 28 were with someone from outside and 131 were ‘interracial marriages’ (Shakai Kaizen Kōdō, 10, 15 August 1919). From this we can appreciate that marriage outside the Buraku communities was hardly taking place at all. However, compared to the situation at the time of the Russo-Japanese War when conciliation had not arisen as a topic for debate the very fact that the problem of marriage, which was at the root of con-

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ciliation, was being addressed at all should suggest that there had been a great change in social attitudes. THE DEMAND FOR ABOLITION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND DISCRIMINATION AGAINST BURAKUMIN

The end of the War in Europe marks a significant turning point in the approach to the Buraku issue at least as significant as the Rice Riots. In January 1919 the Japanese government presented its demands for racial equality at the Paris Peace conference.227 In this Japan was expressing its objection to the discriminatory exclusion of the ‘yellow races’ from migration to the USA, Australia and Canada. Intellectual critics such as Ishibashi Tanzan and Yoshino Sakuzō pointed out that not only was there injustice directed at Japan from outside but that it was also necessary to examine the Japanese attitudes to China and Korea within East Asia (Ōnuma 1987; Hayashi 1994). Moreover, although there was a little delay, voices also emerged that pointed to the contradiction of objecting to racial discrimination outside the Japanese empire while maintaining discrimination against Burakumin within it. We can find this kind of thinking coming from groups within Buraku communities which sprang up to demand the end of discrimination. The Kamitakai Byōdōkai formed in Nagano prefecture in April 1919 and the Hokusaki Kōdōkai established in Saitama prefecture in 1922 are two examples of this. At the formation of the first of these it was asserted that it was extremely inconsistent of Baron Makino228 ‘to call for the abolition of racial discrimination on the high-class stage in Versailles while not mentioning the racial discrimination against special Buraku 227

228

The Japanese government proposed that the committee of the League of Nations should insert a clause on the Abolition of Racial Discrimination into its founding treaty but this was rejected by Woodrow Wilson the US president. Makino Nobuaki was the Japanese plenipotentiary/ambassador at the Paris peace conference. Son of Ōkubo Toshimichi, he had served as minister for Education, Foreign Affairs, the Imperial Household and the Interior.

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within his own country’ (Shakai Kaizen Kōdō, 7). Ideas about the equality of man and between human races was spreading even within Buraku communities and expressing itself in protests about being excluded from Shinto shrine activities and primary schools. Moreover, demands for democracy were spreading all over the world with the words ‘democracy’ and ‘social reconstruction’ being used extensively in the press. ‘National Self Determination’ as advocated by both President Wilson of the USA and Lenin, leader of the Russian revolution, accelerated this tendency. Within Asia too in 1919 there was the March 1 movement that broke out in Korea229 and then the May 4 movement in China230 (Kurokawa 2014). THE CRUSHING OF THE RACIAL ORIGIN THEORIES

Encouraged by this situation, the historian Kita Sadakichi made clear the fallacy of the racial origin theories.231 Kita had begun publishing his own journal, Minzoku to Rekishi (Race and His229

230

231

Against a background of growing dissatisfaction of the Korean people towards Japanese military rule of colonial Korea, on 8 February 1919 students from Korea proclaimed a declaration of independence in Tokyo. In Korea on 1 March a declaration of independence was read out in Seoul (in what is now Tapgol Park) and the movement spread across the whole peninsula. Over the next two months meetings and demonstrations were held widely. The Japanese police and military supressed them cruelly. When the Peace conference did not accept the Chinese demands for the return of the Shantung peninsula from Germany and instead gave it to Japan, on 4 May 1919 students in Peking launched a protest movement. The movement to reject the Twenty-One Demands and for the return of Shantung spread nationally. There were strikes and boycotts of Japanese goods. The Peking government refused to sign the Versailles Treaty. He wrote his doctorate on the Heijōkyo (Ancient Nara) period controversy over the rebuilding of the Hōryūji temple. He was employed at the Ministry of Education as an examiner of school textbooks. In 1911 a question was raised in the Diet about an entry about the North and Southern courts in textbooks that were used in primary schools and he was one of the textbook examiners who were dismissed.

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tory) in January 1919 and six months later, in July, he published a special edition devoted to research on Buraku issues that he entitled the Special Buraku Research Edition (Tokushū Buraku Kenkyūgo). In his preface to this he explains that one factor that had drawn him to do research on Buraku history was the demand that Japan had made for the abolition of racial discrimination in Versailles. Kita emphasized that the problem lay in the way ideas such as ‘low rank’ and ‘defilement’ prevented assimilation and that ideas of racial origin were at the basis of this. In the section entitled ‘Eta origin theories’ he expressed his consistent opinion that ‘those originally called eta and those presently called the Japanese race cannot be distinguished ethnically’. Eta, hinin and other Japanese were interlinked and it is not possible to devise a simple genealogy that show them separate. He argued that the evidence showed that eta certainly did not have a separate racial existence. For Kita himself it was ‘an urgent issue to assert that however long they had been eta they were originally Japanese’ (Minzoku to Rekishi Vol 4 No 6). Moreover, making this assertion in the aftermath of the First World War became inseparably related to the topic of assimilation within the Japanese empire which now included both Ainu and Koreans in its colonial possessions. However, although on the one hand there was the universal principle of racial equality, the trend to regard discriminated Buraku as ‘special’ was strengthened by the events of the rice riots and we can see a mixture of these two trends. Kita, as an historian, based his judgement on academic evidence and his views had an extremely important impact on the attitudes to the Buraku problem in that he destroyed the foundation of the racially based ideas.232 THE CREATION OF THE DŌAIKAI

Following the First World War, in complete contrast to the aftermath of the rice riots, racial equality and theories which included 232

Kano Masanao (1983) 2–6 Sabetsu e no Shosha – Kita Sadakichi, Kindai Nihon no Minkangaku, Iwanami Shinsho.

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Figure 28 Minzoku to Rekishi edition on Special Buraku, July 1919

ideas of racial equality were recognized within Japanese society. Importantly they were not restricted to the ‘subjects of the emperor’ as with the Liberation Declaration but had a degree of universality. However, both after the rice riots and later with the growth of an autonomous liberation movement the seeds were

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sown of Burakumin being considered ‘scary’. So, on the one hand there was a growing awareness of the principle of equality while at the same time discriminatory ideas continued to grow. Representative of a new approach to the Buraku issues which was emerging amid these contradictory tendencies is the group called the Dōaikai – Mutual Love Society – ྠឡ఍ which had Arima Yoriyasu at its head.233 Arima was the son of the former daimyo of Kurume who decided to establish this organization in April 1921 out of a feeling of obligation to support the imperial house. The Dōaikai was quite different from the Imperial Way Society as we can see from the title given to the movement’s journal which at first was, Aspiring to a World Full of Love, but soon changed simply to Dōai (Mutual Love). It was based on ‘modern’ theories of equality. As such they took the position that Buraku 233

Arima’s autobiography, Nanajūnen no Kaisō, Sogensha 1953, describes the formation of the Dōaikai and his connections with Buraku communities.

Figure 29

The fifth anniversary edition of the Dōai journal of the Dōaikai, No. 35, June 1926.

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discrimination was ‘irrational and inhumane’ and its abolition was an ‘assertion of justice’. At the beginning of the first edition of the journal they quote a poem by the Meiji emperor but what Arima also depended on was this idea of ‘mutual love’. He was a Tolstoyan and burned with the ideas of implementing Yūwa ideas based on ‘true love’ which was quite different from the sympathy for the discriminated of those who existed in the higher ranks of society which was the position that the Imperial Way Society took. Arima opined, ‘It is certainly not only the Buraku who need liberation. It is our duty to make our Japanese society a fine place and to ensure the human happiness of all who live with us within Japanese society’ (First Cry, Dōai No 35). For this reason the Imperial Way Society gradually lost influence having encountered resistance from Burakumin following the rice riots while the Dōaikai obtained a certain degree of support among them.

CHAPTER 13

Liberation by Our Own Efforts 5

INVESTIGATING ‘SELF AWARENESS’

Following the rice riots and the end of the First World War, statements from people in Buraku communities started to appear in local newspapers. For example, in a letter to the Ehime Shimbun on 20 August 1919 the correspondent, after expressing his doubts about the effectiveness of ‘improvements to the special buraku’, declares that ‘Every time we hear about social this and special that and the need for special treatment we feel as if our hearts are about to break…’, ’I do not think that we are in any way inferior to normal people in level of education, standards of hygiene or general moral values.’ Moreover, rather than ‘sympathetic conciliation’ or ‘Buraku improvements’ what they seek is a recognition that the Burakumin are improving themselves. The movement seeking the self-awareness of Buraku people bursts out all over the place in various forms. One central theme of discussion in ‘Alarm Bell’, Keishō, the journal of the Sankyoshō a group which was formed in the Buraku district of Ōfuku, Chiki-gun, Nara prefecture was this topic of self-awareness. Taking pride in contributing to state and society as ‘subjects’ as one person put it, ‘Young men, my dear friends, as well as being young men of the village we should plan on reforming our ideas as young men’ (Marubashi Ryuka, The Sin of Non-Awareness, November 1920). They appealed to the younger generation to stand up for themselves and urged them to overcome the improvement movement ideas which had been dominant until then (Matsuo 1974). 175

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Figure 30

Members of the Tsubamekai, October 1920 [Courtesy, Suiheisha Museum]

THE SWALLOW ASSOCIATION (TSUBAMEKAI) – SEEKING A DISCRIMINATION FREE SOCIETY

The young men who came together to form the Tsubamekai (Swallow Association) which was to play a central role in the process of the formation of the Suiheisha started out with similar ideas. It was formed in 1920 in a Buraku community called Kashiwara, in Wakigami village, Katsuragi-gun Nara prefecture by a group of young men that included Saikō Mankichi (the pen name of Kiyohara Kazutaka), Sakamoto Seiichirō, Komai Kisaku and Ikeda Kichisaku. Saikō had moved to Tokyo planning to become an artist but his encounter with discrimination there destroyed his dreams and he returned home. At that time Burakumin were being encouraged to move to Hokkaido or to migrate overseas to one of Japan’s new colonies with the argument that there they would encounter no discrimination, they would find work and at the same time they would assist the empire with the development of new territory. Saikō had lost all hope for the future and along

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with a group of young men who had suffered discrimination of one form or another they devised a plan to migrate to the island of Celebes (now Sulawesi island, Indonesia).234 These young men were very critical of the domination of their Buraku communities by the established elite but were also engaged in local reforms such as setting up a consumers union in which they played a central role. Moreover, taking comfort from studying the ‘Jewish problem’ and socialism, they formed a Buraku problem research group that aimed at a theoretical understanding of problems of discrimination. Saikō was later to say he thought that only socialists could live a discrimination free world and so only if they were to become socialists would they find a different way of thinking about discrimination or at least could they confidently discuss it. Socialist thought was seen as an important base from which they ought to be able to grope their way towards a new form of Buraku liberation.235 The slogan ‘abolition of racial discrimination’ also gave them encouragement. Sakamoto, reminiscing about those times said: In the aftermath of the focus on the ‘abolition of racial discrimination’ at the Versailles conference following the end of the First World War, various movements took off – Gandhi’s Swadeshi movement in India, De Valera’s Sinn Fein in Ireland and several independence movements in Africa. And we too began to think that we should create a movement for Buraku liberation by our own efforts. (‘Memories of the Suiheisha’, Keiran no Tomo No 5)

They embraced solidarity with other minority oppressed people at an emotional level and were encouraged to rise up by the way 234 235

This is where they thought swallows flew to in winter. On Saikō: Saikō Mankichi Shosakushu, 4 Vol. Nami Shobō 1971-1974; Saikō Mankichishu, Kaihō Shuppansha 1970. Morooka Sukeyuki (1972) Hito to Shisō Saikō Mankichi, Kiyomizu Shoin; Shiomi Yoichiro (1996) Saikō Mankichi no Roman, Kaihō Shuppansha; Miyahashi Kuniomi (2000) Shiko no hito Saikō Mankichi – Suiheisha no Genrui: wagafurusato, Jinbun Shōin; Yoshida Tomoya (2002) Wasurerareta Saikō Mankichi – Gendai no Buraku ‘Mondai’ saiko, Akashi Shoten.

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they saw that others had created movements through their own efforts. Moreover, on the basis of their experience of fighting discrimination up to that point they clearly realized the need for solidarity in opposing it. The Buraku group of Kashiwara had previously been successful in securing access to the main primary school, to the cemetery and ending their exclusion from the local Shinto shrine. These experiences were passed on to the younger generation that included Sakamoto and his colleagues. He later said: Thinking about it now it might seem nothing remarkable but in the context of the time these actions could even be called revolutionary. This was the kind of thing that I had learned from my father when I was small and from the other village elders. They taught us quite explicitly that Burakumin must act in solidarity with each other. (Op. cit. Memories of the Suiheisha).

While making good use of these experiences, they were also searching for a new path to liberation when they came across an article by the socialist Sano Manabu,236 ‘On the Liberation of Special Buraku’ which was published in the journal Kaihō (Liberation). Here Sano argued that in order to be liberated from the injustice of discrimination the Buraku masses must create a new organization. In order to restore their self-respect as human beings they should separate themselves from the Buraku improvement policies that turned the responsibility for discrimination back on to the discriminated and the Yūwa movement which was based on only sympathy and pity. In other Buraku communities too there were people who were looking for ways to overcome the Buraku improvement and Yūwa movements and find a path to liberation through their own efforts. When they came across the plans of Sakamoto and his comrades to form the Suiheisha they were easily persuaded to join forces with the project. This is what brought the movement 236

Following his membership of the Shinjinkai, the student group at Tokyo Imperial University, he joined the JCP when it was formed in 1922.

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to life in the form of the Suiheisha. They publicised their proposal at a conference held on 20 February 1922 of the Greater Japan Equality Association (a Yūwa organization), with a leaflet entitled, ’For the Abolition of Discrimination Against Our Comrades’. Then they successfully launched the National Suiheisha (Zenkoku Suiheisha) on 3 March. The previous November, Komai’s house had been designated the inaugural office of the Suiheisha and in January 1922 a pamphlet ‘For a New Day’ was produced as the prospectus of the new organization and distributed to all the subscribers to Meiji no Hikari.

Figure 31

‘For a New Day’ – the proposal to create the Suiheisha, 1922

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RECOVERY OF PRIDE – THE FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL SUIHEISHA

1922 saw the formation of a succession of social movement groups with the creation of the communist party (JCP) on 15 July and the Japan Farmers Union that same year. On March 3 the people from all parts of Japan who had suffered discrimination gathered with their lunchboxes in the Okazaki hall, Kyoto. They heard an opening address from Minami Umekichi who had been selected to be the first chair of the organization. Sakamoto Seiichirō reported on the difficult process that had led to the formation of the movement were read out. A flag had been designed by Saikō that consisted of a red crown of thorns on a black background. It was called the Keikanki – flag of the crown of thorns. They adopted ‘the crown of thorns which was placed on Christ’s head at the time of his crucifixion as a symbol of their ordeal and martyrdom’. The headquarters of the new organization was to be located in Kyoto. The Suiheisha declaration begins, ‘Tokushū Burakumin throughout the country: Unite!’ After asserting that, ‘Our ancestors pursued and practiced freedom and equality’ and explaining how until then the sympathetic conciliation’ had caused suffering, it energetically asserted their pride and self-confidence. ‘The time has come when we can be proud of being eta.’ This use of ‘Tokushū Buraku’ and ‘eta’ was, according to Sakamoto’s reminiscences, the result of extensive discussion: Our use of the words ‘eta’ and ‘Tokushū Buraku’ was in order to eliminate them. We were confident that they were nothing to be ashamed about. (Lecture on the Suiheisha Inaugural Conference Keiran no Tomo, 8)

This discovery of pride truly fascinated the residents of Buraku communities who had previously been self-deprecating, thinking that discrimination against them was somehow their own fault. It greatly enhanced the movement’s appeal. Of course, every man and woman has a strong desire to be acknowledged as an equal human being or equal subject or citi-

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zen, however these Burakumin were starting a movement that was directed at society and they could not get started by simply asserting they were ‘the same’. It was necessary to appeal to their pride in themselves. THE SUIHEISHA DECLARATION

Tokushu Burakumin throughout the country: Unite! Long-suffering brothers! Over the past half century, the movements  on our behalf by so many people and in such varied ways have yielded no appreciable results. This failure is the punishment

Figure 32

The Suiheisha Declaration

Figure 33

Basic Principles and Founding Resolutions of the first Suiheisha conference

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Figure 34

Founding members of the Suiheisha. From left to right (front): Hirano Shoken, Minami Umekichi, Sakamoto Seichirō, Sakurada Kikuzō. From left to right (back): Yoneda Tomi, Komai Kisaku, Saikō Mankichi

Figure 35

The Suiheisha flag – known as the Keikanki, Crown of Thorns flag. It was adopted at the second conference in 1923 and used by the organization throughout the 1930s

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we have incurred for permitting ourselves as well as others to debase our own human dignity. Previous movements, though seemingly motivated by compassion, actually corrupted many of our brothers. Thus, it is imperative that we now organize a new collective movement to emancipate ourselves by promoting respect for human dignity. Brothers! Our ancestors pursued and practised freedom and equality. They were the victims of base, contemptible class policies and they were the manly martyrs of industry. As a reward for skinning animals, they were stripped of their own living flesh; in return for tearing out the hearts of animals, their own warm human hearts were ripped apart. They were even spat upon with ridicule. Yet, all through these cursed nightmares, their human pride ran deep in their blood. Now, the time has come when we human beings, pulsing with this blood, are soon to regain our divine dignity. The time has come for the victims to throw off their stigma. The time has come for the blessing of the martyrs’ crown of thorns. The time has come when we can be proud of being Eta. We must never again shame our ancestors and profane humanity through servile words and cowardly deeds. We, who know just how cold human society can be, who know what it is to be pitied, do fervently seek and adore the warmth and light of human life from deep within our hearts. Thus is the Suiheisha born. Let there be warmth in human society, let there be light in all human beings. March 3, 1922  EXPERIENCES OF DISCRIMINATION MOUNT UP

Kimura Kyotarō was also from a Buraku community in Nara prefecture and he attended the inaugural Suiheisha conference. He had encountered considerable discrimination in his everyday life up to that point as we can see from the following: Until then discrimination was unavoidable. We were told that it was our fault because we were poor, or had bad manners, or our speech was rough. Until we did something to improve that, discrimination would be normal. We tried hard to oppose this. We experienced discrimination in primary school. When we went to school the teacher made Buraku children sit in separate seats. As young men when we

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went into town the bars and restaurants, barbers shops, public baths and theatres – all the places where people gathered – would not let us in or serve us. So, at the start of the 1910s and around the time of the First World War I left the village where I was born and moved to Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto but they would not employ me in a normal factory. Cleaning or collecting rubbish for the town council, shoveling manure or working as a longshoreman – this kind of physically hard work was common. (Fukuda Masako, Shogen Zenkoku Suiheisha, Nihon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai, 1985).

Given how much they had suffered from discrimination up to that point his excitement was all the greater when the Suiheisha affirmed the justice of their cause. People from Buraku communities, now with the Suiheisha’s support, would challenge the discrimination that they had experienced in various ways. Suiheisha groups were formed across the country. One was formed in Kyoto on 2 April, in Saitama on 14 April and in Mie on 21 April. According to police reports, by December that year there were twenty-two groups and in terms of membership the largest was in Mie which had 685 members. Protest was organized both against the everyday discrimination that Kimura described and the discriminatory language that occurred in all kinds of conversations. According to the police there was a rapid increase in organized protest – which the Suiheisha referred to as kyūdan, censure – from 854 in 1923 to 1025 the following year. In May 1922, not long after the Suiheisha was formed, there was the well-known protest against discrimination at the Taishō higher primary school in Nara prefecture in which Kimura played a central role.237 Apart from this there were many reports of discrimination brought about by the actions of teachers or children. Just at that time the process of the abolition of separate Buraku schools was underway and their merger with mainstream school was taking place. 237

This is described in Kimura Kyotarō (1968) Suiheisha Undō no Omoide – kuinaki seishun, Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo.

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At the inaugural conference Yamada Konojirō described with tears in his eyes the discrimination that he had experienced at primary school at the hands of his teachers and this produced a profound response among those listening. He is often referred to as ‘young Yamada’ but in fact he suffered from a form of ‘dwarfism’ so that he was not quite as young as he might have appeared. At the time of the conference he was actually sixteen. Still he was well known for having a talent for public speaking and he genuinely had experienced severe discrimination while at school. WOMEN OF THE BURAKU – PATIENCE AND SUBMISSION

Although it did not in the end last very long, one feature of the early Buraku liberation movement that battled against all forms of discrimination in everyday life was the creation of a Youth Suiheisha and a Women’s Suiheisha.238 Tada Emiko undertook repeated interviews with women in the Senshū community in Ōsaka and brought them together in a book in which she uses the words of women who lived in Buraku communities to describe how discrimination against them began from the time they were born. Just as outside the Buraku, when it became known that the baby was a girl people were ‘disappointed’: ‘When you had a girl child, especially if it was another girl, they’d just neglect it as a surplus child.’ ‘Whatever they say it was boys first, girls second.’ ‘Whereas boys would rarely be asked to do anything a lot was expected of girls almost as soon as they ceased being breast fed.’

Without losing a minute, a second even, they would be helping their mothers for example by making zōri or looking after babies from, in the youngest cases, as early as three years old. From six years old they would be doing household chores and meal prepa238

The problems faced by women in the Buraku communities and liberation movement are summarised in Suzuki Yuko, ‘Buraku Josei to Kaihō Undō’, Burakushi kara no Hasshin Vol 2.

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ration and it is even said that frequently they would be sent out to other households as a ‘baby minding nurse maid’. Because girls were used to look after babies or help around the house they not only had very little time for play but it was also common to think that girls did not really need much of an education compared to boys so their paths to learning at school were often closed off too (Tada 2002). It cannot be said that marriage took place on the basis of gender equality. Given the situation described above where girls were hired out as nurse maids there must have been some occasions when marriage seemed like a respite from hard work. However, even after marriage the women of the Buraku often could not avoid working harder than women outside the Buraku because of the instability of the working conditions that faced their men. They often played an essential role maintaining the household.

Figure 36 Women’s Suiheisha, Fukuoka prefecture branch

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THE FORMATION OF THE WOMEN’S SUIHEISHA

The Women’s Suiheisha was created to address the problems faced by female residents of Buraku communities. At the second Suiheisha conference held in 1923 a motion was passed on the ‘Formation of a Women’s Suiheisha’. It was only active for a brief period until the end of the 1920s and, compared to the Suiheisha itself, it attracted only a limited number of supporters but in the context of the time when most social movements in Japan were centred on men, the fact that the women of the Buraku communities created their own branch of the Suiheisha is very significant. The reasons why the national Suiheisha supported the creation of a women’s movement is obviously because they felt that if they did not awaken women to the importance of the Suiheisha they could create obstructions that would put a brake on the mobilization of men into the movement. Secondly, by mobilizing women it broadened the fighting strength of the movement. However, the women who took part in the movement went beyond these male expectations and developed a resolute persistence. Okabe Yoshiko who had attended the first Suiheisha conference said, ‘Liberty and freedom can only be achieved by our own efforts and we will get that power through the solidarity of all Burakumin. Women of the Buraku wake up! Let’s get rid of these two or three layers of discrimination.’ She advocated that women should no longer rely on men and called on them to become the core elements in the Buraku liberation movement. At the third Suiheisha conference in 1924 it was resolved to develop the Women’s Suiheisha more decisively and after this the national Suiheisha too began to engage with women’s issues more positively. The movement’s newspaper, the Suihei Shimbun, even had a Women’s column. In one of these they wrote, ‘The liberation of those who are oppressed must be done by the oppressed. We, the women of the Buraku communities who lead the most miserable lives in the world, must wake up to our own fate. Let us cut down the two and three levels of claims that bind us and construct as quickly as possible enjoyable new days. Let us work together for these aims’ (Suihei Shimbun No 5, October 1924).

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Voices were raised about the way they were doubly discriminated against – as women and as residents of Buraku communities. Moreover, the movement broadened with the development of regional groups and the formation of a Kyushu and Kanto women’s Suiheisha. They remained active until the later 1920s when the Suiheisha nationally suffered from state repression.239 THE HYONGPYONGSA AND KAIHEISHA

The Suiheisha movement influenced other minority movements: the Paekchon in Korea formed the Hyongpyongsa and the Ainu created the Kaiheisha. The Paekchon were people who were discriminated against as senmin under the feudal system of Yi dynasty Korea. Some of them worked as slaughterers or makers of wickerwork goods or as retail butchers. The Hyongpyongsa was formed in Chinju on 24 April 1923 at a time when Korea was under Japanese colonial rule. The Donga A Ilbo newspaper founded in April 1920 following the March 1 movement, supported the formation of the Hyongpyongsa reporting on 17 May 1923, ‘These Paekchon number about 3–400,000. They are not treated as human beings by mainstream society and suffer all kinds of persecution. They have created a major movement for social equality asserting that “we too are human”.’ The Paekchon had many points in common with the discriminated communities of Japan. The Hyongpyongsa and national Suiheisha passed resolutions promising mutual cooperation at their respective conferences. The third national Suiheisha conference in 1924 resolved to set up links with the Hyongpyongsa after which the relationship went through some ups and downs until around 1928 with the link mainly being sustained by the non-mainstream group within the Suiheisha.240 239

240

On the Women’s Suiheisha movement see: Suzuki Yuko (1987) Suiheisen o mezasu Jotachi, Domesu Shuppan; Kurokawa Midori (2002) ‘Buraku Sabetsu to Seisabetsu’, Akisada Yoshikazu & Asaji Takeshi (ed.) Kindai Nihon to Suiheisha, Kaihō Shuppansha. On the Hyongpyongsa: Kim Yon De, Chosen no Hisabetsu Minshu ‘Pakucho’ to KoheiUndō’, Kaihō Shuppansha 1988; Kim Chon Sup, Koheisha Undō –

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Figure 37

Poster advertising the Eighth Hyongpyongsa (Kōheisha) conference

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Meanwhile the Kaiheisha241 was formed in Asahikawa, Hokkaido in 1926 by Sunazawa Ichitarō, a member of the Ainu ethnic community who was seeking liberation from the ethnic discrimination that was based on the Hokkaido Aboriginal Protection Act of 1899.242 In works authored by Iboshi Hokuto243 and Moritake Takeishi they expressed feelings of expectation and solidarity with the Suiheisha. Chiri Yukie was born in Noboribetsu in 1903. He asked: In the past broad Hokkaido was the world in which our ancestors were free to roam, much of the beautiful language which our beloved ancestors used to express their mutual feelings and daily lives – the many beautiful words they bequeathed to us are going stale – must all these things be extinguished along with the other weak things that are being destroyed? (Preface Ainu Shinyoshu – collection of Ainu poetry 1923, republished Iwanami Bunko 2003)

Chiri wrote: I am pleased I am an Ainu. If I had been born a Japanese (shinsamu) I would probably have been then and evermore a graceless human being. I would probably have been a person who did not know about the existence of the Ainu and other pitiable poor people. However, Chosen no Hisabetsumin Paku Cho sono Rekishi to Tatakai, Kaihō Shuppansha 2003; ‘Tokushū Suiheisha Sengen to Sekai no Hisabetsu Minshu’, Buraku Kaihō 707, March 2015. In English see Kim Joong Seop The Korean Paekjong Under Japanese Rule: The Quest for Equality and Human Rights, Routledge 2010. 241 The Kaiheisha was formed by Shiraoi Kotan and Moritake Takeshi, article in Hokkaido Times 2 December 1926, in Ozawa Musatao and Yamada Shinichi-hen, Ainu Minzoku Kindai no Kiroku, Sofukan, 1998. 242 Issued in 1899, in the name of ‘protecting’ the Ainu people by encouraging them to take up agriculture it sought to assimilate them into the Japanese nation. It referred to Ainu as ‘former aborigines’ and it resulted in a worsening of their discrimination and poverty. It was abolished in 1997 with the introduction of the Ainu Culture Promotion Law. 243 Born in 1902 in Yoichi city he died in 1929 at the age of twenty-seven. Author of Kotan Iboshi Hokuto Iko, 1930, Sōfukan 1995.

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I know tears. I have received the whip test of the gods, the whip of love. I must be grateful for it.’ (Nikki (Diary) 19 April 1922 Chiri Yukie Posthumous Works. Sōfukan 2001.)

In his diary he took great pride in being Ainu and sharing their solidarity. Ideas that are also basic to the Suiheisha declaration. However, two months later, just after finishing the proof reading of his poetry collection, Ainu Shinyoshu, Chiri died of a heart attack.

CHAPTER 14

Liberation or Conciliation? 5

AIMING FOR SOCIALISM

As we saw in the previous chapter the force that drove the Suiheisha movement forward was pride in being ‘Burakumin’. However, many of those who joined the movement also had a strong desire to be accepted as fellow subjects or citizens. This idea of wanting to be treated ‘the same’ strengthened the influence of socialism within the movement but it began to express itself in different forms. In November 1923 Takahashi Sadaki and Kishino Shigeharu created the National Suiheisha Youth League. Takahashi was a follower of Yamakawa Hitoshi, had been a core member of the JCP when it was formed in 1922 and indeed had personally taken part in the founding of the party. In his thinking most people within Buraku communities were propertyless tenants or workers – proletarians – who would achieve liberation from discrimination with the advent of socialism that would be achieved in solidarity with the proletariat outside the Buraku communities and following struggle alongside comrades in the tenants unions and labour union movement. In other words, he took the view that Buraku discrimination would disappear when an equal society was realized in which there were no inequalities of wealth, and class antagonism between capitalist and worker, tenant farmer and land owner had disappeared. This socialist thinking was influential with the Suiheisha groups formed in Osaka, Nara, Kyoto and Mie and gradually the youth league established itself in a dominant position within the movement’s central headquarters. 192

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In 1924 in the middle of his attempts to convert the Suiheisha to a class struggle position based on a socialist perspective, Takahashi, then only nineteen, published a book, Tokushū Buraku Issenenshi [A Thousand Year History of the Special Buraku]. The book was banned immediately after publication but was re-published quite soon thereafter with the title changed to Tokushū Burakushi and with blank squares in place of the banned phrases.244 REACTIONS TO THE SUIHEISHA – THE SERADA VILLAGE INCIDENT

The kyūdan strategy – censure campaigns against discrimination – had been promoted since the foundation of the Suiheisha but 244

On Takahashi see Okiura Kazuteru, ‘Nihon no Marukusushugi no Riteihyo’, Shisō, December 1976-June 1977.The book was republished in 1992 by Iwanami Bunko as Hisabetsu Buraku Issennenshi thanks to the efforts of Okiura Kazuteru with an introduction by him. Also Burakushi no Senkusha Takahashi Sadaki Seishun no Kobo, Chikuma Shobō 2015.

Figure 38 Tokushū Buraku Issenshi by Takahashi Sadaki, first published in 1924

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there was a feeling that it was reaching its limits while in the background there was growing support for the ideas of the Youth League. On one hand, the authorities were trying to suppress the discrimination censure campaigns that had ‘spread like wildfire’ and placed great pressure on Suiheisha branches to prevent them taking place. Moreover, people from outside the Buraku communities who were the targets of criticism often did not reflect on their own discriminatory ideas but rather criticized the tactics used in the campaigns as too radical. The Suiheisha in this way was arousing fear and antipathy towards people in Buraku communities across the country. Another dimension to this was the Serada incident in Gumma prefecture that in January 1925 resulted in the destruction of Buraku houses and injuries to many Burakumin, some of them severe. The local Suiheisha had launched a campaign in protest at an incident of verbal abuse by a resident of the main village. He was made to promise to hold a meeting at which he said he would apologise. However, he reneged on his promise and instead a vigilante group of some 3000 gathered and attacked the Buraku community where those who had organized the protest were living. This vigilante group had previously in 1923 cooperated with the villagers when one of them had faced protests from the Suiheisha group in the Buraku community. On this occasion they had marched on the Buraku community armed with bamboo spears, scythes and swords.245 The vigilante groups were effectively private security bodies well equipped and organized by residents’ groups to protect themselves. In 1923, at the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake, a rumour had spread that Koreans were poisoning the wells and there were some very violent incidents in which vigilantes massacred Koreans resident in Tokyo. The Serada incident was later to have a profound impact on the movement. In the trials which followed it was the Burakumin victims of the attacks who received more severe punishments 245

Honda Yutaka, Gummaken Buraku Kaihō Undō 60nenshi, Buraku Kaihō Dōmei Gumma-ken Rengōkai, 1982.

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Figure 39

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Leaders of the Suiheisha inspecting the damage caused in the Serada incident

than those imposed on the vigilantes. After this the number of protests against discrimination dropped dramatically. The Kantō Suiheisha which had been formed in March 1923 based on Buraku in Gumma prefecture was also subject to ‘pacification’ by the authorities. The way this incident was handled eventually led the organization to split. THE ‘SAME’ PROLETARIAN CLASS?

Another reaction to the negative response of people to the protests against discrimination was that the Suiheisha announced its solidarity with the ‘proletariat’. Those who supported the policies of the Youth League argued that the movement was giving priority to protest against discrimination when it was more urgent to overcome the division between ‘discriminator’ and ‘discriminated’ by recognizing that both belonged to the same ‘proletarian class’. So rather than protesting about each incident of insulting

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language, the tenants and workers resident in Buraku communities should entrust their desire for liberation from discrimination to the struggles to change the structure of society and join their local tenants or labour unions. In both Mie and Nara prefectures members of the Suiheisha began positively to take part in these organizations thinking of themselves as members of the working class. Against this background the Bolshevik246 faction within the Suiheisha, centred on the Youth League, came to dominate it and at the fifth conference held in 1926 the movement’s prospectus was changed to reflect their socialist perspective. At the same time the movement split over the appropriateness of this policy line. In 1925 the post of leader of the movement had shifted from Minami Umekichi to Matsumoto Jiichirō. For many people within Buraku communities being accepted as ‘equal’, as workers or farmers within the tenants or labour unions, was a first step towards liberation from discrimination. Gradually Marxist ideas spread. Their desire to be treated as ‘equal’ within an increased awareness of their value as workers was, for those who had previously been regarded as objects of contempt, good reason why they should identify with the proletariat.247 In addition rather than appealing to the morals of the masses who could respond in the ways described above or to ‘enlightenment values’, people were more easily attracted to a strategy which was based on a concrete conception of ‘restructuring society’ as proposed by the Marxists. The Suiheisha activists set aside their background of problems specific to their Buraku status in order to take part in the class movements which sought solidarity with the proletarian class. However, this solidarity tended to be one sided: while the prole246

247

The name Bolshevik refers to the communist party faction and it derives from the name given to the majority faction of the party led by Lenin in the Russian revolution. The Mie Suiheisha was a typical example of this kind of movement. An account of the career of Ueda Otoichi who led this organisation can be found in Mieken Burakushi Kenkyūkai (1982) Kaihō Undō totomo ni Ueda Otoichi no ayumi, Mieken Ryosho Shuppankai.

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Figure 40

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Commemorative photograph of the opening of the Mie branch of the National Farmers Union

tarian movement welcomed the participation of the Suiheisha as it increased their fighting strength, they did nothing to advance the Buraku cause having understood the position or demands of the discriminated Buraku. Moreover, at the local level, when supporters of the Suiheisha joined the Japan Farmers Union, often tenant farmers from outside the Buraku communities would withdraw, not wanting to be seen ‘as equal’ to Burakumin; or a branch would be established outside the Buraku community. Oppressed tenant farmers and workers found support for their social identity to the extent that they discriminated against and oppressed the ‘other’. Thus, the people of discriminated Buraku were not easily accepted as ‘the same’ as other proletarians. STUBBORN DEFENCE OF ‘BURAKU’ CONSCIOUSNESS

On the other hand, adherence to an ‘eta conciousness’ or brotherly feeling among Burakumin of the kind that the Suiheisha Declaration mentioned when it spoke in the Declaration about

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the ‘brethren’ in the Buraku communities caused a split from the mainstream tendency within the National Suiheisha where the Bolshevik faction had control. In 1925 a National Suiheisha Youth League was formed based on Koyama Montarō from Shizuoka prefecture and in 1926 it became the National Suiheisha Liberation League.248 Meanwhile in 1927 the founding chair of the National Suiheisha, Minami Umekichi, organized the centrist or nationalist Nippon Suiheisha. In the Jiyu Shimbun which was the journal of the Youth League the word eta appears frequently. For example, the first edition carries a declaration of their position based on ‘a steadfast awareness of ourselves as eta’ (Issue 1). ‘Compared to other social movements our awareness of our oppressed brethren arises from our awareness of ourselves as Burakumin. This is our single thread of hope, brotherly awareness is what we advocate….’ (Issue 4). The Nippon Suiheisha declared in its ‘declaration’ ‘We will proceed as a pure Suiheisha giving full play to the instinct of the eta spirit.’ The National Suiheisha Youth League agreed in principle with the Bolshevik idea of building the movement on the basis of class consciousness but they were opposed to becoming one wing of the proletarian movement that was under the control of the JCP. The Nippon Suiheisha on the other hand was opposed from the start to the idea of building the movement on the basis of any kind of class antagonism but agreed with the point of developing a pure Suiheisha spirit based on Buraku awareness. The attempt to develop the Suiheisha movement as part of the proletarian movement led to splits in the organization. However having started to address the big issue of reform of the social system as a whole as suggested by the Marxists, the Suiheisha developed from being a movement that focused on protesting about acts of discrimination done by individuals and instead began to highlight acts of discrimination carried out by people in positions 248

Takeuchi Yasuto, Shizuokaken Suihei Undōshi, 1 & 2, Shizuoka-ken Kindaishi Kenkyū, Dai13/14 1987/8.

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of authority within the army, or to complain about discriminatory descriptions that appeared in pamphlets produced by the government, or the discrimination of prison officers. Many of the leaders of the Youth League were arrested in the suppression of the broader social movement, including the Suiheisha, that took place in 1928 and 1929. Eventually, later in 1929, it dissolved and its members returned to the National Suiheisha. FROM THE CENTRAL SOCIAL PROJECT COUNCIL REGIONAL IMPROVEMENT DIVISION TO THE CENTRAL CONCILIATION PROJECT COUNCIL

The formation of the Suiheisha, the creation of regional Suiheisha groups all over Japan and the protests against discrimination that developed often hand in hand with proletarian groups made the government realize the need for a properly thought out policy towards the Buraku issue. Before the rise of the labour movement and tenant farmer protests following the Rice Riots, the Naimushō without denying the possibility of class antagonism, began to adopt policies to encourage conciliation of the antagonism between classes. In 1920 the Naimushō established the Social Affairs Bureau – Shakaikyoku – as an organization that could carry out Social [work] Projects and labour administration. Within this new structure a budget of ¥50,000 was set aside in FY1920 for Buraku improvements. Moreover, the ideas called ‘Yūwa thinking’ had an influence on these conciliation policies.249 The year after the formation of the Suiheisha, 1923, a Regional Improvement Section was set up within the Central Social Project Council which sought to coordinate and control the regional Yūwa groups. The Central Social Project Council had originally been established in 1908 by Shibusawa Eichi as the Central Philanthropic Council but it was renamed in 1921. Since before the war it had functioned to coordinate and control social proj249

The work of Akisada Yoshikazu has pushed forward research on the history of the Suiheisha and Yūwa movements and is brought together in Kindai Nihon no Suiheisha Undō to Yūwa Undō, Kaihō Shuppansha, 2006.

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ects. The phrase ‘regional improvement’ was first used in 1921 in Tokushima prefecture and from 1923 it was adopted by the Naimushō in place of ‘Buraku Improvement’. Whereas Buraku Improvement projects were exclusively aimed at discriminated Buraku, the Regional Improvement projects were focused on ‘all kinds of projects which improve the urban practices and poor habits that obstruct good relations between fellow countrymen’. We have already discussed these conditions in which the problem was starting to be defined. The head of the Regional Improvement section was assigned by but not formally employed or appointed by the Naimushō. Miyoshi Iheiji and other activists from Okayama prefecture were appointed and started activity. At this time the group that had the most national influence was the Dōaikai (see above, chapter 12) and in February 1925 the various Yūwa groups gathered to organize a National Yūwa League. This was strongly influenced by Dōaikai ideas and was inclined to approve of the newly formed Suiheisha. In contrast to the Naimushō, Arima and his colleagues regarded discrimination as unfair from the perspective of (Tolstoyan) ‘mutual love’ and were prepared to support the Suiheisha as long as it did not link up with the socialists. The Naimushō opposed this kind of approach and in September that year (1925) abolished the Regional Improvement sections and created instead the Central Yūwa Project Association (henceforth Yūwa Association). The Yūwa Association was located within the Naimushō and Hiranuma Kiichirō was appointed as its first chair. He was already the chair of the nationalist organization the Kokuhonsha formed in 1924.250 The Yūwa Association 250

Hiranuma was the Minister of Justice in December 1923 at the time of the Toranomon incident when an attempt was made on the life of the Regent, later the Shōwa emperor. Feeling that there was a moral crisis he established the Kokuhonsha to spread nationalist thought. The society stressed the unique religious character of Japan, its mission in Asia and the necessity of implementing reform in Japan in accordance with ‘the basic principles of the state’ (kokutai no hongi). At one time it claimed 170 branches and 200,000 members. It was a stronghold of traditional conservative ideas at very high

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would organize meetings bringing together those participating in Yūwa projects across the country. It produced the publications Yūwa Jigyō Nenkan (an annual), Yūwa Jigyō Kenkyū (a research journal) and Yūwa Jihō (a newsletter). A MORAL MOVEMENT OR AN ECONOMIC MOVEMENT?

In 1927 the Yūwa Association closed down the Dōaikai and the National Yūwa League and brought them into a single association of Yūwa groups. At one point there had been discussion about whether or not to support the Suiheisha movement but already by this time the Suiheisha was developing in the direction of socialism and was splitting internally. It had become a movement that neither the Dōaikai nor the National Yūwa League could approve of. The two were agreed on the point of opposing the solidarity of the Suiheisha with the proletarian movement. However, within the Yūwa Association there were now those like Miyoshi Iheiji251 and Yamamoto Masao who had been influenced by Arima during the time of the Dōaikai and they continued to act as a liberal tendency within the organization that respected the independence of the Buraku communities. Moreover, they would from time to time oppose those close to Hiranuma within the Yūwa Association. From the late 1920s a discussion began within the Yūwa Association about the basic issue of how the Buraku problem might be resolved. At around that time, on 15 March 1928 and 16 April 1929, mass arrests had taken place of members of the JCP and those considered to be sympathetic towards it. The Suiheisha movement was seriously damaged by these arrests but from the viewpoint of the Yūwa movement this was regarded as the period of the ‘decay of the Suihei movement’. This provided an oppor-

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levels and close right-wing nationalist groups. Influential members included Takeuchi Kakuji, Tōgo Heihachirō, Saitō Makoto, Suzuki Kisaburō, Ugaki Kazushige, Ikeda Shigeaki, Kōzai Yoshio, Yamakawa Kenjirō, as well as many leading military men, bureaucrats, industrialists and scholars. Iwama Kazuo hen, Miyoshi Iheiji no Shisōshiteki Kenkyū, Kibito Shuppan, 2000.

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tunity for the Yūwa Association to grow and it put a great deal of effort into cultivating supporters of a moderate Yūwa movement within the discriminated communities in order to replace the Suiheisha. From this time onwards they began to advocate an ‘internal awareness’ movement and in parallel with this they began to organize a Yūwa youth movement. Even within the Yūwa Association there were differences in approach to the ‘internal awareness movement.’ For the Hiranuma faction the Yūwa movement was mainly about opposing the Suiheisha that was moving towards proletarian class struggle and so they saw it mainly as a moral campaign that aimed to destroy traditional discriminatory ideas. Economic issues were hardly visible at all in this approach but Yamamoto Masao took a quite different view and urged the importance of economic policies. Yamamoto was born in 1898 into a discriminated Buraku on an island close to Edajima in Hiroshima prefecture. There people made a bare living from fishing. He would later say, ‘It was a poverty stricken life.’ In 1922 he began work in the Hiroshima prefectural office where he was assigned to the Regional Improvement projects. In 1926 he was invited by Arima to Tokyo and from 1928 was a member of the Yūwa Association.252 For Yamamoto a solution to the Buraku problem required both measures that could ‘eliminate discriminatory ideas’ but also ones ‘to deal with the issues that needed to be resolved to raise the economic status of the Buraku communities’: but the economic aspect was basic. Since there were no differences between them and other citizens they can acquire social status but he thought that the starting point had to be to break the link between discrimination and poverty.253 The Yūwa groups that made up the Yūwa Association were active in direct contact with the people of the Buraku communi252

253

Yamamoto himself wrote in his autobiography Waga Buraku no Ayumi, Wako Kurabu, 1979 that he took up the post in 1928 but this must be a mistake. Ōsaka Jinken Hakubutsukan hen (2008) Yamamoto Masao Chōsakushu, Ōsaka Jinken Hakubutsukanhen (2009) Kingendai no Burakumondai to Yamamoto Masao, Kaihō Shuppansha.

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ties and engaged with them in various kinds of activities. Groups like the Shinano Dōjinkai in Nagano prefecture or the Kyōwakai in Okayama had been formed before the creation of the Suiheisha and they played similar roles even taking part in protest against discrimination. On the other hand, in some places the local Yūwa movement followed the pattern set by the central Yūwa association as was the case with the Mie prefecture Social Project Yūwa section. The Mie Suiheisha was set up very soon after the formation of the national Suiheisha in Kyoto and spread quickly as an active movement. The response of the prefectural authorities was to devise measures of Yūwa Shinzen – Yūwa goodwill – and they controlled their desire to be more repressive of the Suiheisha when it became clear that the movement could not be held in check only in that way. At first they put off organizing a Yūwa group as they thought it would be misunderstood as in being in opposition to the Suiheisha and so be an obstacle to establishing control but eventually they set up a Yūwa section in the Social Affairs bureau. The activities of the Yūwa section began simply by holding lecture meetings to encourage the reduction discrimination and sponsoring training courses for people involved in Yūwa projects plus some projects to improve the living environment. However, after noticing the ‘decay’ of the Suiheisha movement in 1928–1929 they set about cultivating a movement that could take its place seeking to get the support of young people within the discriminated communities.254

254

Kurokawa Midori (2003) Chiikishi no naka no Buraku Mondai, Kindai Mie no Baai, Kaihō Shuppansha.

CHAPTER 15

‘National Unity’ and its Contradictions 5

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS RISE TO THE SURFACE

The world economic crisis began in 1929 in the USA, spread to Japan the following year and would last until around 1934. This long-lasting, severe economic crisis is referred to in Japan as the Shōwa Economic Crisis. A movement for the economic revival of agricultural and fishing villages developed nationally and even residents of discriminated Buraku communities were mobilized to take part in activities aimed at overcoming the impact of this economic crisis.255 The impact of the Shōwa Economic Crisis was particularly serious within discriminated Buraku communities whose economic foundations were already very vulnerable and it exacerbated the difficulties that they were encountering. According to a survey carried by the Yūwa Association in November 1929, the average amount of tax paid by households in Buraku communities was between ¥3 and ¥8 whereas the average in farming villages as a whole was around ¥20 which suggests a huge gap existed between Buraku and non-Buraku household incomes at this time. Footwear manufacture had been the main industry within Buraku communities but it was in decline. Moreover, since it 255

In 1932 the government created the Economic Regeneration Division within the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. It planned to organise industrial and agricultural associations to restructure rural villages. Using the Hotoku thinking (derived from the ideas of Ninomiya Sontoku) from the time of the Regional Improvement Movement it adopted as its slogans ‘Self-Regeneration’ and ‘Thrift and Saving’. 204

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was not possible for former shoe makers to acquire land to take up farming in its place the only alternative for many was emigration to Hokkaido or one of the colonies. Dependence on highly unstable seasonal labour was widespread (Yamamoto Masao, ‘Buraku Keizai Mondai no Sobyō’, Yūwa Jigyō Kenkyū Dai 11go July 1930). In these circumstances the argument outlined earlier within the Yūwa Association that a moral movement was all that was needed to eliminate discrimination and that special policies were not required inevitably fell temporarily into the background. Already there was general agreement that without some kind of unusual and special policy it would not be possible to bridge the economic gap that was emerging between the Buraku and nonBuraku communities. It had been agreed within the Yūwa Association to address the new situation with the ‘new awakening’ policy mentioned in chapter 14 but even chairman Hiranuma who hitherto had insisted on addressing the Buraku problem only as a moral issue had started to say things like, ‘I think that if we do not address this situation within which their industries and economic situation are at a standstill, the accomplishment of all the other aims of our project will be extremely difficult’ (Yūwa Jigyō Kenkyū Vol 11). In this way the ‘internal awakening’ came to have the twin aims of cultivating the communities’ independence and solving their economic problems. One major theme of the early 1930s was how to cultivate a youth movement that could replace the Suiheisha now it was ‘in decline’. From 1929 Yūwa groups across the country began to run training courses aimed at young people that were followed by activities aimed at generating youth groups based mainly on those who had taken these courses. The Buraku Economy Regeneration Movement which was based on the spirit of ‘single minded cooperation’ was implemented through these young men. SUIHEISHA DISSOLUTION THEORY AND ITS MODIFICATION

The understanding of the members of the Suiheisha of the ‘special features of problems being faced by the Buraku economy’

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Figure 41

Proposal to dissolve the Suiheisha

was quite similar to that of their colleagues in the Yūwa Association but they advocated a solution that urged the workers and tenant farmers in discriminated Buraku communities who were suffering from the effects of the recession to unite within ‘the basic organizations of their class’. This led to the emergence of the National Suiheisha dissolution theory advocated mainly by the Bolshevik faction. They developed the idea that rather than thinking of themselves as ‘Burakumin’ they would better advance their aims for liberation by joining the proletarian movement as workers or farmers. Moreover, they argued that the process of developing a class consciousness of themselves as

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‘proletarians’ was being obstructed by the very existence of the Suiheisha. This was also Comintern policy that was influential within the JCP and among its fellow travellers.256 In 1931 the National Suiheisha Kyushu League Standing Committee prepared a motion, ‘Advice to the Tenth National Suiheisha conference – Proposal for the Dissolution of the National Suiheisha’ based on these ideas. However, at this time there were frequent instances of discrimination taking place and even the Ministry of Justice reported that although the number of protests against discrimination was much smaller than it had been when the Suiheisha had first been formed, campaigns that involved residents of discriminated Buraku have ‘even now not completely disappeared’. The number of campaigns protesting about discrimination increased once again following the campaign in Kagawa prefecture about the Takamatsu Discriminatory Court decision in 1933. This was a campaign led by the Suiheisha that protested about the prosecution of a man and his brother from a local Buraku community for the crime of ‘kidnap’. They had met a young woman on a ferry when returning home from working in Honshu and shortly afterwards one of them had married her without revealing his background. In the prosecution case and the pre-trial depositions there was frequent use of the terms Tokushū Buraku – both ≉✀and ≉Ṧ. This, plus the fact that the case was premised on the existence of a status that should have been legally eliminated by the Liberation Declaration, persuaded many Burakumin who had not previously been part of the Suiheisha movement to become involved in protest activities. A march from Hakata to Tokyo was organized demanding the annulment of the judgement. And although the campaign did not achieve this, the prosecutor who initially brought the case 256

In March 1919 Lenin, the leader of the Russian revolution, created an international communist organisation whose formal name was the Communist International, or Comintern for short. During the period following Lenin’s death it adopted an ultra-leftist position and opposed social democracy.

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Figure 42

Photograph of the conference held to discuss the Takamatsu discriminatory court case, 28 August 1933

was demoted and the two defendants were released from prison before their sentences came to an end.257 Under these circumstances it was inevitable that the ‘dissolution theory ‘ would be re-assessed and in 1933 a strategy called Burakumin Committee Activity – 㒊ⴠẸጤဨάື – was proposed by the same group which had proposed dissolution. It refocused its energies on activity close to the lives of residents of the Buraku. JOINING THE NATION

However, the actual content of the Buraku committee activity mainly consisted of making demands to the government for eco257

Kagawa Jinken Kenkyūsho, Takamatsu Kekkon Sabetsu Jiken no Soi, 2004; Buraku Kaihō, 510, July 2003. [Special Edition on the 70th anniversary of the Takamatsu Discriminatory Court Protest Campaign].

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nomic assistance. The Thirteenth conference of the Suiheisha in 1935 adopted a motion which mentioned that it was ‘an important moment for people’s reconciliation [Kokuminteki Yūwa] and to protect the livelihoods of the oppressed Buraku masses’. This was a major change from the previous attitude of the Suiheisha that had discounted Yūwa policy as being deceptive. Moreover, while people in the vanguard of the Suiheisha were continually being arrested for breaches of the Peace Preservation Act, tenkō ‘conversions’ began to take place. This was where communists and socialists under pressure from the authorities disavowed their radical ideas and declared their support for some kind of emperor-centred state. Gradually, a movement arose to reduce the gap between the social movement and the authorities. Just at that time, in 1933, movement activists were hugely shocked when two leaders of the JCP, Sano Manabu and Nabeyama Sadechika, produced their tenkō statements in prison while still members of the party.258 They were followed by the ‘conversions’ of large numbers of communist party members. Already Saikō Mankichi and Sakamoto Seichirō had adopted a form of state socialism and began to produce the Gaitō Shimbun newspaper. Later they became members of the Dai Nippon Kokka Shakaitō – Greater Japan State Socialist Party – when it was formed in 1934. The Yūwa Association was aiming at ‘national unity’ and, aware of the activity within the Suiheisha, in 1935 it set out a ‘Ten Year Plan for the Completion of the Yūwa Project’. This aimed at the completion of the project of ‘reconciliation over a ten-year period through the implementation of a comprehensive and focused plan.’ If there were issues that persisted after that they would not be ‘special projects’, i.e. Yūwa projects, but would be implemented through ‘general facilities’. We should note that it specified that ‘The fundamental spirit of the Yūwa project… is that although the name is conciliation, in fact it is about making the Buraku normal and even the very elimination of Buraku communities themselves’ [author’s 258

See fn 76 Chapter 13.

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emphasis]. This had the very optimistic view that the improvement of the economic and cultural levels within the Buraku communities would resolve the Buraku problem, ‘by imperceptible degrees’. Furthermore, the speeding up the process of the ‘very elimination of the Buraku’ and the idea that this was the ultimate aim of Buraku policy was later connected to plans to control and pacify the Buraku population and policies that aimed to encourage emigration. This prepared the ground for the ‘Resource Coordination Project’ described later which was basically about encouraging migration to Manchuria (Kurokawa 1999).

Figure 43 Ten-Year Plan for the Resolution of the Yuwa Problem

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THE ONSET OF TOTAL WAR IN CHINA AND THE WARTIME COLLABORATION OF THE SUIHEISHA

On 7 July 1937 the Marco Polo Bridge incident occurred when the Japanese army launched an attack on part of the Chinese army following the disappearance of a Japanese soldier in the course of a military exercise near the Marco Polo Bridge on the outskirts of Peking. This became the pretext for Japan embarking on total war in China. Following this, back in Japan, the National Spiritual Mobilization movement began using such slogans as, ‘Loyalty and Patriotism’, ‘National Unity’, and ‘Dogged Perseverance’. Worship of the emperor was organized at the Imperial Palace and group prayers were held at Shinto shrines. Then in 1938 the State Mobilization Law was implemented to strengthen the authority of the state such that, even without the approval of the Diet, the government could commandeer any material deemed necessary for the war effort, including energy resources or labour power. In this way an infrastructure was put in place to encourage the population to support the aggressive war. Consequently, the proletarian parties, labour movement and tenant farmers unions, one by one shifted towards cooperation with the war effort. The National Suiheisha too on the outbreak of total war between Japan and China ‘clarified its attitude’ towards cooperation with ‘National Unity’. In its statement, ‘The National Suiheisha Movement and the Crisis’ published in September 1937, they announced their intention to participate in ‘National Unity’ and went on to say that, ‘Protest against discrimination during the period of national emergency must treat the problem from the basic premise of how it can contribute to true national unity and every incident should be regarded as an opportunity for national reconciliation.’ They understood and placed their hopes in the kind of National Unity which was advocated by the government as a way to eliminate discrimination. For the moment their strategy was based on the implementation of National Unity within which they sustained, with some difficulty, their main aim of the elimination of discrimination.

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THE SUBORDINATION OF ‘NATIONAL UNITY’ TO THE ‘BUILDING OF A GREATER EAST ASIA’

The two waves of repression in what were called the ‘Popular Front’ incidents of 1937 and 1938 arrested some people who were active in the Suiheisha including those involved in the Asama campaign in Mie prefecture.259 They marked the eradication of the anti-war and anti-fascist movements and the end of freedom of speech. They were a turning point pushing some of those who had participated in the various social movements toward supporting the war. The Suiheisha also ceased its resistance to the war effort and fascism. At a meeting of the National Suiheisha central committee held on 7 February 1938 it issued a declaration, ‘Working within the national emergency and under the current conditions of the wartime state we will develop our movement in line with national policy.’ At its June meeting the central committee revised the movement’s platform to read, ‘Being well versed in the basic principles of the national polity [kokutai no hongi] we will contribute to the prosperity of the state and to the completion of national conciliation [Yūwa]’. This was yet another step on from the commitment to ‘national unity’ made the previous year. The Suiheisha was gradually losing its independence and was entrusting the resolution of the Buraku problem to the implementation of state policy. The former Bolshevik group within the Suiheisha in 1939 formed the Buraku Kōsei Kōmin Undō which talked of a solution to the Buraku problem through the unification of all the subjects under the emperor. On the other hand, the mainstream faction led by Matsumoto Jiichirō in 1940 was persuaded to take part in the foundation of the Daiwa Patriotic Movement [Daiwa Hōkō Undō] which brought together the Suiheisha and Yūwa movements within the New 259

On Ueki Tetsunosuke leader of the Asama campaign, see Kawamura Keichiro, ‘Ningen Byodo no Shinnen ni Tesshita Shogai – Ueki Tetsunosuke Oboegaki’, Asama-chō Rekishi Shiryō Shuhenshuiinkaihen, Asama-chō RekishiShiryōshu Kindaihen, first published 1983, republished 1996; Ueki Tetsuo et al. (1982) Yume o Kuitsuzuketa otoko – oyaji Tetsujo, Asahi Shibunsha.

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Figure 44

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Declaration of the National Suiheisha central committee, 7 February 1938

Order Movement.260 Even though their strategies may have been quite different, both groups would take part in supporting the aggressive war261 (Asaji 2008). THE START OF YŪWA EDUCATION

Yūwa education was the predecessor of the Dōwa education policies which have taken place since 1945 and began as some260

261

Launched in 1940 by Kishi Nobusuke and his faction of reform bureaucrats, the movement sought to reorder Japanese society along fascist lines by replacing political parties with a state mass party, subordinating commercial interests to state interests, and replacing class consciousness with national consciousness. See ‘Japan’s New Order and Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Planning for Empire’, Janis Mimura. The AsiaPacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 49 No 3, December 5, 2011. In 1940 Matsumoto Jiichirō and the mainstream HQ faction encouraged the merger of the Suiheisha and Yūwa movements into the New Order Movement. Asaji Takeshi (2008) Ajia Taiheiyō Sensō to Zenkoku Suiheisha, Kaihō Shuppansha; Suiheisha Ronsō no Gunso 20 Daiwa Hōkō Undō, Buraku Kaihō 697, August 2014.

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thing that was designed to promote ‘national unity’. At the same time, policies that aimed to create citizens who would support the aggressive war and to cultivate ‘patriotic subjects’ were being implemented in Korea, Taiwan and even Okinawa.262 These strengthened the policies of ‘assimilation’ which were ‘creating subjects of the emperor’. Since 1933 the Yūwa Association had held training courses for teachers but in FY1937 they formed the Yūwa Education Research Association and in the following year created a Yūwa Education Research ‘designated school’ system. Eighteen schools across Japan were selected as ‘designated schools’ in a programme which operated until 1940. Separate to this, from FY1937 some schools were designated by Yūwa groups in each prefecture, in total more than 200. In 1938 the Ministry of Education also set out to address this issue producing a ‘proposal concerning national Yūwa’ and a ‘proposal concerning the thorough implementation of Yūwa education’. In January 1940 they organized a Yūwa Education Research Association within the ministry. Incidents of discrimination continued to take place even after the start of all-out war between China and Japan both at memorial services for the war dead and at the events held to send off new army recruits. There were also reports of discrimination taking place amid the ‘smoke of guns and hail of bullets’. This prompted the Ministry of Education, without pausing to deplore this state of affairs, to note that, ‘Undoubtedly discrimination issues are a major obstacle to the construction of a New Asian Order’. However, just as with the policies quoted already, the main objective of the policy was to train imperial subjects so that they would support the war. The elimination of Buraku discrimination was no more than a link in the chain of contradictions that was an obstacle to that. Moreover, after the Pacific 262

Miyata Setsuko, Chosen Minshū to Ōminka Seisaku, Miraisha, 1985; Mizuno Naoki Soshi Kaimei – Nihon no Chosen Shihai no Naka de, Iwanami Shinto 2008; Hiura Satoko, Jinja Gakkō Shokuminchi Gyaku Kinō suru Chōsen Shihai, Kyoto Daigaku Gakujutsu Shuppankai, 2013.

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War broke out specific policies that aimed at the resolution of the Buraku problem gradually disappeared (Kawamura 1972). THE IMPLICATIONS OF RACE – MINZOKU – Ẹ᪘

The government and Yūwa Association had to devise policies to somehow fill the gap between the theory and practice of ‘national unity’. On 13 June 1938 the government received a petition from the Yūwa Association and decided to remove the column designating ‘family rank’ from the koseki – family registration form. At the same time the Ministry of Justice sent notifications of this to the chief judges in each of the regional courts. Moreover, also in support of ‘national unity’, there was a re-assessment of some of the theories about the origins of Buraku communities. During the 1930s, among the various names used for the discriminated Buraku communities by the Yūwa movement in its journals such as Yūwa Jigyo Kenkyū there was shōsū dōhai [minority colleagues] which tried to include connotations of ‘children of the emperor’. Meanwhile attempts were made by scholars to develop some well-informed sociological discussion that went further than a simple children-of-the-emperor theory. For example, Mizoguchi Yasuo in ‘The emergence of discriminatory attitudes and taboo in our social history’ (1935), and Endo Toshio’s ‘Conciliation policies between races and classes in Europe and America’ (Yūwa Jigyō Kenkyū Vol 25 March 1933). However at the same time ‘cultural differences’ were not regarded as fundamental to the Buraku problem but no more than transitional and accordingly they could quite easily be thought consistent with ideas of ‘national unity’. Before long this approach merged with the viewpoint whereby the government and Yūwa Association regarded the Buraku problem as no more than a discriminatory concept and linked it to the theory of ‘single ruler whole nation’ ୍ྩ୓Ẹ which was inherited from the early Meiji period. That pointed to a single ruler for the whole country ruling without favour or prejudice. Then there was discussion of the sort that emphasized, for example, ‘In contemporary Japan unification is based on the

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mutual love of warm hearted colleagues and national feelings of ethnic unity’ (Kokugaku Daigaku, Kono Shozo, ‘National Consciousness and Feelings of Justice’, Yūwa Jigyō Kenkyū, 17). Meanwhile following the outbreak of all-out war with China, within Japanese anthropological circles there was active promotion of ‘ethnic [minzoku] policies for the Great East Asian Coprosperity Sphere’. Using the versatile concept of minzoku they could create comprehensive theories of race that fitted the whole of Greater East Asia.263 In the documents produced by the Yūwa Association and government concerning Buraku issues, utilizing these academic trends, the distinction between ‘tribe’ and ‘race’ almost disappeared and the concept of ‘ethnic group’ – minzoku – could be used to refer to people from discriminated communities. However, this certainly did not mean that they had completely abandoned the biological boundaries that had been set out in relation to discriminated Buraku. By shedding the concept of ‘race’ in a biological sense and proposing a commonality of history and culture within the cultural meaning of ‘ethnicity’ (minzoku) race disappears into the shadows. Or rather it becomes possible to use these concepts however you want. Consideration and criticism of the previous concept of ‘race’ took place but they were not able to overcome it (Kurokawa 2004). DISCRIMINATION AS UNPATRIOTIC ACTIVITY

The social education section of the Ministry of Education in August 1942 published ‘The Path to National Conciliation [Yūwa]’ and proposed a policy for ‘Dōwa Education’. This asserted that ‘the Japanese people was not originally formed from a single race’ but is the result of a ‘blending’ that was created following the development of the strong belief of being a people united beneath the authority of the emperor. Buraku discrimination, ‘which must be recognized as continuing up to the present day can be found to have no logical foundation.’ Conse263

See for example, Sakano Toru (2005) Teikoku Nihon to Jinruigakusha, Keiso Shobo.

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quently, current discrimination is no more than ‘an unpatriotic defect which remains within people’s lives and which contradicts the spirit of the times’. Moreover, it is something that should be eliminated and overcome along with the creation of the new structures of East Asia. Thus, Buraku discrimination was located within the relations between the sovereign and his subjects and defined as an anti-state [unpatriotic] activity. However, as I will explain below, even under war time circumstances incidents of discrimination frequently took place and rather than the principle of ‘national unity’ being disseminated we see accusations of discrimination emerge as contradictions within ‘national unity’. THE IRAA AND THE FORMATION OF THE DŌWA HŌKŌKAI

The Second World War began in 1939 and the following year the Triple Alliance was created bringing Japan together with the two other fascist states, Italy and Germany. That same year the then PM, Konoe Fumimaro, launched the ‘new structure movement’ that sought to create a ‘single party state based on the model of Nazi Germany’.264 As a result the political parties were successively dissolved and the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA) created. Labour unions were also dissolved into this structure and in their place the Greater Japan Patriotic Production Association was formed – Dai Nippon Sangyō Hōkōkai. The National Suiheisha was designated an ideological organization under the Law on Provisional Restrictions on Freedom of Speech and Association and, since it did not apply for permission to continue, it was deemed to have ceased to exist as of 20 January 1942. Meanwhile the Yūwa groups were re-organized by the Yūwa Association on 26 June 1941 to create the Dōwa Hōkōkai that was presented as a ‘powerful Yūwa movement of state officials and people’. Former members of the Suiheisha also came to regard it as somewhere where they could remain active in protecting the daily lives of people in the discriminated Buraku. Thus the Dōwa 264

Ito Takashi (2015) Taiseiyokusankai e no michi – Konoe Shintaisei, Kodansha Gakujutsu Bunko.

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Hōkōkai became the only organization that was left to deal with Buraku issues. ‘RESOURCE REGULATION PROJECTS’ AND MIGRATION TO MANCHURIA

The Yūwa movement, now unified within the Dōwa Hōkōkai, aimed at the implementation of a ‘national unity’ structure under the slogan of building ‘the state as a great extended family’. The two main pillars of this strategy were the Yūwa promotion movement and the ‘Resource Regulation Project’ which had been decided in 1940. This latter project concerned allocating the ‘human resources of the discriminated Buraku’, i.e. its labour power, in accordance with national policy. More concretely it meant requiring them to move to work in the industries necessary to support the war effort and to migrate to Manchuria. In 1939 the Ten Year Plan for the Completion of the Yūwa Project was revised and, in a move away from policies specific to the resolution of Buraku issues, it took as its objective the need to manifest the ‘true form of imperial Japan…in conformity with the national policy of constructing the new East Asia’. When this had been done, migration to ‘Manchuria’ acquired a central position in the revised plan and the ‘resources regulation project’ became an extension of that. Migration to Manchuria, particularly after the outbreak of all-out war in China often took the form of a whole Buraku community migrating together, relocating overseas with support of the Youth Volunteer Corps for the Development of Mongolia and Manchuria. Discriminated Buraku were thought to be short of land and to contain 35% excess population. If they went to Manchuria they would also escape discrimination and so it would be a case of ‘two birds with one stone’. Migration became a major element of Yūwa policy. However, these policies were not as effective as had been expected. Even at meetings of the Dōwa Hōkōkai there was dissatisfaction expressed about the gap between the expectations and reality of ‘national unity’. Migrant farmers to Manchuria reported that there was a tendency among discriminated Bura-

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kumin, even those from poor or unstable occupations, to dislike the life of migrants and the numbers of those who returned home grew following setbacks. Then, because the number of emigrants who chose to go freely did not increase, to refuse to migrate began to be regarded as a refusal to cooperate with national strategy and was even said to be something that a ‘loyal subject’ should not do. The state demanded the abandonment of the individual to this totalitarian logic. The mass suicide of 275 colonists including people from Buraku communities in Kumamoto, Fukuoka and Oita in Manchuria on 17 August 1945, two days after surrender, is exactly the kind of tragedy that these policies produced265 (Ōsaka Jinken Rekishi Shiryōkan 1989; Takahashi 1995). The other pillar of the Resource Regulation Projects was changing employment but this did not develop smoothly either because of discrimination or ‘low levels of education’. Moreover, their everyday lives were still not free of discrimination that was every bit as severe as before, something that provoked deep dissatisfaction. Asada Zennosuke, previously a leader of the Suiheisha, looking back at that time recalled that, ’During the war discrimination incidents would occur frequently all over the country at ceremonies when conscripts were sent off at recruitment, or when the remains of the war dead were received home, or at ceremonies held at monuments for the war dead. These incidents of discrimination did not necessarily involve police intervention and the usual practice was to resolve them with a cash payment’ (Sabetsu to Takakai Tsuzukete, 1979). THE EXTINCTION OF THE DŌWA MOVEMENT

However, in due course, as mobilization behind the war effort became broader and deeper, the Dōwa Hōkōkai became increas265

Manshu Imin to Hisabetsu Buraku – Yūwa Seisaku no Gisei to Natta Raimin Kaitakudan, Ōsaka Jinken Rekishi Shiryōkan 1989; Takahashi Yukiharu (1995) Zetsubō no Iminshi Manshū e Okurareta Hisabetsumin no Kiroku, Mainichi Shimbun.

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Figure 45

Members of the Kutami settlers group

ingly dependent on the IRAA. Yet despite this the voices critical from within gradually disappeared. As already described, under the wartime conditions to discriminate was considered to be behaving contrary to ‘national unity’ and there was a growing social consensus that it was ‘unpatriotic’ activity. While that did not mean that Buraku discrimination immediately disappeared, it was certainly a step in the right direction. However, on the other hand, as the morality of the group as a whole for the promotion of the war effort came to predominate, even to simply set out interests and requests specific to the discriminated communities came to be seen as calculating and selfish. So, in the final phase of the war articles about Buraku issues disappear almost entirely even from the Dōwa Hōkōkai journal, Dōwa Kokumin Undō, and they are mostly replaced by articles that report movements and measures that aim to ‘strengthen the war effort’. And then, in January 1945 this journal itself published its last edition. As the wartime circumstances deteriorated still further no attention at all was paid to the Buraku issue.

CHAPTER 16

Post-war Reforms and the Re-launch of the Buraku Liberation Movement 5

THE FORMATION OF THE BURAKU NATIONAL LIBERATION COMMITTEE [BNLC]

Many of the social movements that had been destroyed and fallen into obscurity during the war years were revived following defeat. And among them the one which re-established itself most quickly was the Buraku liberation movement. Very soon after surrender – some suggest in August, others in October – four of those who had been core members of the Bolshevik faction of the Suiheisha, Matsuda Kiichi, Asada Zenosuke, Ueda Otoichi and Kitahara Taisaku, met at Ueda’s home in Shima-gun Watakanojima, Mie prefecture and affirmed their determination to re-form the movement for Buraku liberation. This is known as the Shima meeting.266 Following that, on 18 February the following year, a national conference was held of representatives of Buraku communities at which the Buraku Zenkoku Kaihō Iinkai – Buraku National Liberation Committee (BNLC) – was founded with Matsumoto Jiichirō as its first chair. At this meeting, as well as Matsumoto and the other four mentioned above there were Yamamoto Masao, Takeuchi Ryoun267 and Umehara Shinryu,268 all three of 266

267

268

Wada Tsutomu, ‘Burakushi no Mado 4: Shima Kaidan o megutte’, Buraku Kaihō Kenkyū 86, June 1992. A founder member of the Dōwa movement in the Otani Buddhist sect, he supported the Yūwa group known as the Shinshinkai. Priest in the Jōdō Shinkyo Honganji order, he volunteered for the Yūwa movement as a trustee for the Nishi Honganji Ichinyōkai. 221

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whom had previously been involved with the Yūwa movement. This suggested that after the war, although the government’s values had undergone a 180 degree change from militarism to democracy, because Buraku liberation was not obviously a topic that was ideologically either left or right, it was one that could be addressed by a broad social movement. And although it only lasted for a limited time during the war the former members of both Suiheisha and Yūwa movements had been able to work together quite easily while they were jointly active in the Daiwa Hōkōkai. Then, in 1948 the Buraku Problem Research Institute was established and became the focus for academic work on Buraku issues.269 269

The Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo publishes the monthly journal Buraku and the Buraku Mondai Kenkyū. For more detail on the organisation see Buraku Mondai Kenkyūsho-hen, Burakumondai Kenkyūjo 50nen no ayumi, 1989.

Figure 46

Commemorative photograph of the inaugural meeting of the Buraku Liberation National Committee, February 1946

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AGAINST THE EMPEROR SYSTEM

Debate about the emperor system had erupted firstly on the occasion of the production by the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP) of the so-called ‘human rights directive’ of 2 October 1945.270 It continued within the BNLC. At the Buraku Liberation People’s Conference held in Kyoto the day after the formation of the BNLC, Imoto Rinshi from Fukuoka proposed that: ‘We the oppressed Buraku masses are in quite the best position to oppose the emperor system now controlled by our conquerors.’ Kitahara Taisaku too called for the creation of a united people’s front on the basis that he detected, ‘distant ancestors of the oppressed Burakumin in the samurai who were subjugated by the imperial family’, and argued that ’We should acknowledge that the historical roots of the situation where we fell into a miserable slave-like state was the result of the actions of the Japanese ruling structure which had not experienced a complete bourgeois revolution and was composed of the zaibatsu under despotic imperial control, the military collaborating with them and the bureaucratic landlords.’ Matsumoto too spoke of the, ‘Achievement of a complete democratic revolution that would sweep away the former forces of feudalism. In other words, it was to be the complete elimination of the people of highest status who ruled outrageously over the mass of the people wielding a massive superiority complex’ (Reports from the Buraku Liberation People’s Conference, Kyoto-shi Buraku Kenkyūsho ed.). As mentioned above the BNLC was organized as though it were a coalition and the resolutions on this topic went no further than to say, ‘We look forward to the abolition of status distinctions through the abolition of the family system, the peerage system and the Privy Council271 and all other forms of special feudal privilege.’ 270

271

Edict issued by GHQ that repealed the regulations restricting freedoms. The Higashikuni cabinet felt it could not implement the order and therefore resigned. Under the Shidehara cabinet which followed, political prisoners were released and the Peace Preservation Law was abolished. Highest advisory organ to the Emperor under the Meiji constitution. During the periods of cabinet government it was a political rival to the

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But the members of the former leftist Suiheisha factions emphasized the importance of overthrowing the emperor system. Moreover, as with most of the debate on the emperor system which was emerging at this time, the emperor was understood as the symbol of reactionary feudal influence and so the BLNC consistently argued for the abolition of the entire emperor system. The political scientist Maruyama Masao wrote in the ‘Theory and Spirit of Ultra-Nationalism’ (1946), ‘the value of social bases within the state were less their social function and rather their distance from the emperor…… in our country the awareness of distance from the “common” people is strengthened by an awareness of closeness to the emperor as the highest value.’ He emphasized the importance of destroying the national consciousness that supported the emperor system. However, within the Buraku liberation movement overthrowing the emperor system was no more than a political slogan that was brought in from outside, it was not something that could be used to shed much light on their own history. On 3 November 1946 the Japanese constitution was promulgated in which Article 14 explicitly says: All people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.

Members of the BLNC including Matsumoto had expressed their hopes to SCAP about amending the constitutional draft of March 6 which had spoken of ‘social position’ and it may be that they were successful in that the June 20 draft as issued to the Imperial Diet talked of ‘social status’.272 ‘AS LONG AS THERE ARE ARISTOCRATS THERE WILL BE OUTCASTES’

The ‘crab walk’ incident that took place in January 1948 is worth noting because it provided opportunities for the

272

cabinet. Takano Masumi (2007) ‘Kempo 60nen to Hisabetsu Buraku no Jinken Hoshō’, Buraku Kaihō, 581.

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movement to draw attention to and protest about the way the emperor system had slipped back into the national consciousness. Matsumoto is well known for his saying that ‘As long as there are aristocrats there will be outcastes’ and at this time he was the deputy speaker of the House of Councillors. He refused to do the ‘crab-like walking’ that members of the Diet were supposed to adopt so as not to turn their back on the emperor and by refusing to do this he provoked an outburst of debate. According to reports that were collected by the GHQ Civil Intelligence Section, CIS, Matsumoto asserted: The emperor bears responsibility for the reckless war that forced people into an extremely vulnerable state following defeat. The fact that he is said to have known nothing about it or had no authority are not excuses that should permit him to avoid responsibility. The emperor system continued for a long time to be used as an organ to exploit people – it must be immediately and completely abolished in order to create a popular republican government – I will untiringly continue to fight for this.273

Matsumoto himself later recalled about this incident: In short, in order to regain some of the humanity that had been lost in the process of Japan’s democratization it was necessary to eliminate one by one the old meaningless formalities that haunted the emperor system….to devise a human emperor as something above humanity and then to deify it and worship it does not show respect towards humanity but rather disrespect….there are no people above humanity or below it.274

Matsumoto was purged from political life under the Second Yoshida government in January 1949 allegedly for his involve-

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CIS: Matsumoto: ‘Untiringly fight for the abolition of the emperor system’, 11 August 1948. Matsumoto Jiichirō (1948) Buraku Kaihō e no Sanjūnen, Kindai Shisōsha.

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ment with the wartime Dōwa Hōkōkai movement but in fact mainly because of his campaigns against the emperor system.275 DISCRIMINATED BURAKU GET LEFT BEHIND

The living conditions in Buraku communities immediately after defeat varied widely: there were some which had been completely destroyed by the atomic blasts,276 others had been razed to the ground by conventional bombing, while others emerged more or less unscathed.277 For the people who were living in Buraku communities which had not been directly affected by the aerial bombing, the immediate post defeat period was just the starting point for everyday life which was impoverished by food shortages (Kurokawa and Fujino 2015). After 1946 there were two waves of land reform but there were many who did not benefit from either of them. Yamamoto Masao who had been a policy maker within the Yūwa movement before the war later commented: We saw that about 20% of Buraku farming households had their living conditions stabilized and their lives became a bit easier following the reform of the landholding system. However, the poorest famers, those with less than 3 tan, were excluded from any benefit at all from the reforms, and even those with slightly more, up to 5 tan – were left very small scale farmers only able to lead very poor and miserable lives. Among these small-scale farmers there was latent semi-unemployment and the number of women left in this position was overwhelmingly large. (Before Dōwa Policies, September 1959) 275

276

277

For more on Matsumoto Jiichirō: Buraku Kaihō Dōmei Chūō Honbu-hen, Matsumoto Jichirōden, Kaihō Shuppansha 1987; Fukuoka Jinken Kenkyūsho (2003)Matsumoto Jiichirō, NishiNippon Shimbunsha; Takayama Fumihiko, Suiheiki, Shinchōsha, 2005; Ian Neary, The Buraku Issue in Modern Japan: the career of Matsumoto Jiichiro, Routledge, 2010; in Japanese translation as, Buraku Mondai to Kindai Nihon, Akashi Shoten, 2016. Nagasaki-ken Burakushi Kenkyū hen (1995) Furusato wa isshun ni kieta Nagasaki Uragamichō no hibaku to ima, Kaihō Shuppansha. Yamashiro Tomoe hen (1965) Kono sekai no Katasumi de, Iwanami Shinsho, comments on Fukushima-chō, Hiroshima city. See also Kurokawa and Fujino 2015.

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In these circumstances people from the Buraku communities got by in the post war world by finding work on the black market or constructing embankments or indeed doing anything that would provide some basis for living. As time moved on the Buraku Kaihō Domei (Buraku Liberation League, BLL, the name adopted by the BLNC in 1955) in its newspaper the Kaihō Shimbun, just before the start of the Dōwa policy projects in 1960 reported on a Buraku community in Chiba as follows: ….it has 38 households, 40 families, a total of 215 people. Six households own 5–6 tan of land each. Apart from this they owned less than 1 tan278 each or no land at all. Many commute to work in the leather factories of Tokyo. Twelve children are at primary school, six at junior high school. Almost all are finding difficulty making ends meet. They describe their lives as ‘primitive’ or ‘like living in a cellar’.

As is clear from this, the discriminated Buraku communities even after the implementation of land reform were not able to farm sufficient land to make a living from agriculture. They also were prevented from finding stable employment by discrimination and so the gap in living standards between them and other communities increased amid the post-war economic recovery (Kurokawa 2009). REQUESTING A NATIONAL POLICY – THE FORMATION OF THE BLL

In 1951 the ‘All Romance’ incident took place. ‘All Romance’ was a pulp fiction magazine which in its October 1951 edition carried a story with the headline, ‘Explosive Novel – Special Buraku!’ It was set in a Buraku community in Kyoto described as a place where sake was illegally brewed and day labourers and gamblers loitered on the streets. There is no doubt that there were circumstances exactly like this in some Buraku communities that were being left behind by the post-war recovery and the BNLC decided to use this opportunity to expose the unfair278

1 tan = 0.245 acres.

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ness of administrative policies and to raise the profile of their campaign against the local government administration. At first the movement faced the problem that the campaign might further increase discrimination by arousing interest in bizarre ideas about Buraku communities. However, since the author of the story was an employee of the city council, in combination with the fact that the background was one caused by the neglect of the local environment, they thought that there were two ways in which they could accuse the city of being responsible for this situation. The story itself is one of love between a young doctor whose father is a Korean resident in Japan and a young woman, also of Korean descent, who live in a Buraku community in Kyoto – both of them facing a similar set of circumstances. Against this background it describes the situation in the Buraku mixing together the lives of Koreans and Burakumin. The fact that the BLNC overlooked the fact that the main characters in the story are Korean is a result of the fact that rather than amplifying the original incident by enquiring about people’s attitudes they chose to develop the campaign against the local government as a way to make demands for improvements in the living environment. Within the novel it flits around – it uses the phrase ‘Tokushū Buraku’ but there is also a reference to ‘race’ – ‘the delightful bloom of humanism that transcends race’. These ideas are all laid on top of a discriminated Buraku community. We might say that in order to use this opportunity to support the campaign against the local administration they decided to take on the symbol of discrimination. But we should not close our eyes to how easy it was to fix the sign of ‘race’ to the discriminated Buraku.279 In October that same year 271 members of the (JCP connected) Jiyurōsō union in Matsuzaka city were arrested after staging a sit-in at the city labour exchange demanding full employment. It is said that about 200 of them were residents of Buraku communities and that they were using this occasion to raise the issue of the 279

For recent discussion about the All Romance incident: Ōsaka Jinken Hakobutsukan Henkan, Ōru Romansu Jiken Saikō, 2002.

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Figure 47

All Romance – the edition which carried the article ‘Special Buraku’

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high levels of unemployment within the Buraku communities.280 Then there was the Councillor Nishiyama Discrimination campaign that took place in Wakayama prefecture in February 1952 following a discriminatory remark made by the prefectural councilor. On 31 July 1953 the BLNC concluded that Buraku discrimination was attributable to the poverty created by local and central governments so they submitted a ‘Request for Buraku Liberation Administration’ and in doing so moved towards placing their main emphasis on ‘administrative campaigns’. Unemployment policies were of great importance, particularly for urban Buraku communities, and the Emergency Unemployment Policy Protection Law enacted in 1949 created the Shittai Rōdōsha ‘unemployed worker’ programme’ which became an important pillar within the system that provided daily social security provision. In response to this kind of Buraku (un)employment and problems of economic poverty, local government units too began to adopt their own approaches and policies that included making special budgetary provision. The Nishi Nippon Dōwa Taisaku Kyōgikai was formed in July 1951 in Wakayama based on local government employees who were involved in the administration of policy connected to the Buraku communities and they made an appeal for the formulation of a national policy. The Kyoto-fu council too on 10 December 1952 submitted a ‘Statement on the Formation of a National Policy for the Resolution of the Buraku Issue.’ The BLNC was in the process of trying to broaden its mass base amid changing its organizational emphasis towards the administrative campaign. In August 1955 it changed its name to the Buraku Liberation League, BLL announcing its core aims as: We must mobilize the Buraku masses in name and reality, clarify our movement’s character as a mass organization, and rapidly and broadly develop the struggle for liberation. (Tenth National Conference 27–28 August 1955.) 280

Organisation of day labourers. In 1957 it became the All Japan Free Labourers Union (Zennichijiren).

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WOMEN RISE UP

The prewar women’s Suiheisha collapsed before it had spread very widely and it took some time before women began to take part in the post-war movement. Yamaguchi Aki has followed in some detail the holding of independent Buraku Liberation National Women’s conferences and the process of the formation of a women’s section.281 The Buraku Liberation National Women’s meeting was first held in 1956 although articles concerning women first began to appear in a column in the Kaihō Shimbun on 10 January 1950 – Fujin no Ran [Woman’s Column] (Hamaguchi 2001). After this, on the occasion of the creation of a Young People and Women’s section at the Ninth BLNC conference in 1954 the column was renamed the Seifuran (Youth and Woman’s column) from No 68 (15 June 1954). After this conference they announced plans to ‘actively encourage young people and women to hold meetings in each area’ (Kaihō Shimbun, 71, 15 Sept 1954), and then these meetings became places where women could raise their own voices. At the women’s conference held in Okayama in December 1954 they made such comments as: Please don’t treat us as idiots just because we are women and stop imprisoning us in the house. Please help us to find work. If there is no handicraft work available we’ll work as labourers. Please don’t treat people receiving widow’s livelihood assistance with contempt.

However, it was a reflection of the character of the women’s movement of the time that even these demands became merged with the main political topic of the day which was ‘maintaining peace’. The Japan Mother’s Conference was held in Okayama prefecture over three days from 7 June 1955 supported by the local 281

Hamaguchi Aki (2002) ‘Buraku Kaihō Zenkoku Fujinshukai no Kaisai to Sono Igi’, Ōsaka Jinken Hakubutsukan Kiyo 5.

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branch of the BLNC. At this they gave vent to their frustration about being unable to spend time on their children’s education, a serious distress for mothers overwhelmed by discrimination and poverty (Kaihō Shimbun 79 May 1955). But after reporting this there comes the conjunction ‘… and also …’…they decided to take part in the campaign to create a petition opposing the preparations for ‘a dreadful nuclear war’. The problem for women was that they were wholly confined by the political slogans of the progressive parties such as ‘Support Peace’ and many were mobilized into the peace movement by an essentialist way of thinking that said women=mothers=peace activists but as Ueno Chizuko significantly points out this was connected to ‘preventing femininity (and gender) from becoming the main topic’.282

282

Ueno Chizuko (2006) ‘Sengo Josei Undō no Chiseigaku – Heiwa to Josei no Aida’, Nishizawa Yuko, hen. Rekishi no Egakikata, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppansha.

Figure 48

First meeting of the Buraku Liberation National Women’s Committee, March 1956

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Before women could become socially active they often needed to overcome a wall of opposition from their husbands. It was only on 21 March 1956 that the BLL National Women’s meeting was held in Kaiyama Junior High School sponsored by the BLL Central Youth and Women’s policy section. It was attended by around a thousand women from 16 prefectures (Kaihō Shimbun 88, 25 April 1956). CREATION OF THE NATIONAL DŌWA EDUCATION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION

Talk of ‘democracy’ came pouring into the country after the end of the war but social attitudes towards Buraku issues, which were seen as one of the major feudal remnants, continued unchanged from the prewar situation. Because of that ‘Dōwa Education’ which continued to be implemented with its prewar heritage both good and bad, played an important role in illuminating the issue of discriminatory ideas within a situation where, under the name of ‘democratic revolution’, people focused simply on system change. In Wakayama prefecture it was called sekizen kyōiku – responsibility and virtue education – by Itō Shigemitsu, a well-known leader of Dōwa education at Kyoto Sujin Primary School from before the war.283 It is known that in March 1947 the teachers union there was one of the first to take it on as an educational issue. We can see some contemporary attitudes to Buraku issues from some comments on the occasion of setting up ‘sekizen education’:

283

Itō began to take an interest in the Buraku problem when working as a substitute primary school teacher while at Kyoto Imperial University. He became head teacher at Sujin Primary school in Kyoto from 1920 to 1946 and played a pioneering role in ‘Dōwa Education’. For research on Itō see: Kawamukae Hidetake,’Itō Shigemitsu Kenkyū Nooto Sujin Kyōiku ni Kanren sasete’, Buraku Kaihō Kyōiku, 2, March 1974; ‘Karaki Shigeharu Kōchō ariki Itō Shigemitsu to Sujin Kyōiku’, Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo, 1987.

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‘It is a fact that very dense and deeply rooted discrimination still exists among the majority community.’ ‘It is true that the “related districts” generally are inferior when seen from the point of view of their hygiene, culture and education and this can be considered to be the outcome of the historical crimes committed by the political and economic structures.’ ‘Fear of the Suiheisha still remains among the mainstream communities and there is both an attitude of “let sleeping dogs lie” and keeping the issue at “arms length”.’ (Buraku Mondai Kenkyū Vol 1 No 5).

These attitudes were spreading. In 1952 the same year as the Councillor Nishikawa incident, there was an incident of discrimination in Minami Junior High school Osaka, and the following June another in Yoshiwa Junior High school in Hiroshima prefecture: a series of incidents one after another in educational facilities. So, following a Ministry of Education memorandum of 27 June 1952 which noted the need for the ‘thorough dissemination of the spirit of human brotherhood’, in May 1953 the National Dōwa Education Research Association was formed – known as the ZenDōkyō. Morita Yoshinori was a lecturer at Osaka Liberal Arts University (now Ōsaka Kyōiku University) and central to the process of developing Dōwa education. He concluded that ‘the existence of the Buraku communities is an extreme manifestation of the feudalism which remains deeply rooted in the ideas and attitudes of the Japanese people and it clearly indicated the [limited] extent of our democratization’ (On Dōwa Education, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū, Vol 1 no 5). Seeing the existence of the Buraku issue as an indication of the degree of democratization continued to inform the Zendōkyō as the prospectus adopted at its founding conference demonstrates: Humans discriminating against humans. Japan’s feudal system – even now we have the strong feeling that the day is still distant when we can cast off its shell and be happily liberated from it. We can see it in its most representative form in the Dōwa problem.

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The most important task that we face as the new-born Japanese people is to resolve this Dōwa issue. Unless this problem is solved the democratization of Japan will not be possible. Democratic education is education based on respect for individual freedom, equality and personal values. If the extremely disgraceful situation exists where personal freedom is obstructed and individuality is ignored, democratic education must deal with these issues fearlessly and become education that fights against it – in other words democratic education should become education which places high priority on Dōwa education.

This is rather different from the usual attitude in the world of education which presents addressing the issue of the Dōwa problem as evidence of the democratic nature of education but goes somewhat further to enquire about the content of Japan’s democratic process from the viewpoint of the Buraku problem. It makes it the key priority within democratic education. In this context they were aware of the importance of broadening the capacity of the movement and the need for cooperative exchange of information in view of the big differences in the practice of

Figure 49

Ninth conference of the National Dōwa Education Research Association, October 1957

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‘Dōwa education’ between different areas. The poor economic conditions of discriminated Buraku communities produced low standards of living, a poor cultural and educational environment that was linked to long absences from school, or non-attendance; low levels of progression to high school and low levels of academic achievement. When added to employment discrimination this led to high levels of unemployment or partial unemployment within Buraku communities – thus creating a vicious circle.

CHAPTER 17

Making Citizens: Becoming Citizens 5

MAKING CITIZENS

As soon as the post-war constitution was promulgated the concept of equality began to permeate through Japanese society. As it did so, the existence of Burakumin was regarded as a deviation from the norm of modern citizenship and it began to stand out in various ways. In 1956 a white paper on the economy announced that ‘the post-war is already over’ and this became a topic widely discussed. It was announced that the wartime damage had been dealt with and that the way was now open for a period of economic growth. Japan entered a period of prosperity from the later 1950s and early 1960s. Under the leadership of PM Ikeda the ‘income doubling’ policies and policies promoting a high economic growth rate were successfully implemented. Most people saw huge changes in their living conditions but most Burakumin were increasingly left behind by these improvements in living standards, education and employment patterns.284 A gap opened up between the discriminated Buraku and the non-discriminated mainstream. In January 1961 the BLL central committee in its ‘Campaign Demanding a National Policy for Buraku Liberation’ expressed its view that, ‘The Buraku problem has not been solved. On the contrary, discrimination is getting worse.’ It expressed its view 284

In July 1960 the Kishi cabinet was forced to resign as a result of protests about the revision of the Japan-US Security Treaty. The slogan ‘magnanimity and perseverance’ was devised to indicate the government’s intention to improve the quality of the lives of the citizens and turning them away from the ‘season of politics’. 237

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that there was an increase in the number of suicides connected to problems involving marriage, moreover that Buraku farmers who had not benefitted from the land reform were being separated from their land by the Basic Law on Agriculture and had no alternative but to join the lumpen proletariat. The government was under increasing pressure to establish a national policy and so in August 1960 it passed a law that set up the Dōwa Policy Advisory Council (Dōwa Taisaku Shingikai) as an adjunct to the Prime Minister’s Office. Just at that time a ‘Japanese style welfare’ system was being devised and introduced comprising of a national pension scheme and health care reimbursement system. The government was gradually embracing its existing citizens and, against the background of a greater economic margin that was being provided by the rapid economic growth, it began to address the task of creating a policy to deal with the Buraku issue. For the Kishi cabinet of the time, a Buraku policy was regarded as, firstly, something that would improve the real living standards within Buraku communities where many were unemployed and livelihood support played an important role. This would enable Buraku labour power to flow more freely and be absorbed by the growing companies. Secondly, they sought to supplement this by implementing special policies to improve the housing conditions and general living environment. According to the ‘National Basic Survey Report’ produced by the Dōwa Policy Advisory Council in 1962, excluding Hokkaido and Okinawa and the six prefectures which did not submit a report (Tokyo, Kanazawa, Miyazaki, Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata), there was a Buraku population of 1,110,000 (Suzuki 2010). There was also a need to include the Ainu into the working population and although it was not carried out there was an attempt to implement a Utari policy emulating the Dōwa policy and include it as an appendage to the Special Measures Law (Kurokawa 2013). ACKNOWLEDGING THE STATE’S RESPONSIBILITY – THE DŌTAISHIN

The Dōwa Policy Advisory Council report was produced in August 1965. In its pre-amble it states that: ‘It goes without

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saying that the Dōwa issue is one that concerns human freedom and equality which are universal principles and these are basic human rights which are protected by the constitution of Japan.’ In view of these basic concepts it states expressly that: ‘Its rapid resolution is the responsibility of the state and at the same time a task for the people as a whole.’ This recognition that solving the problem was a ‘responsibility of the state’ had major significance for the development of policies thereafter. At the same time, it also meant that Buraku policy was now placed within the sphere of the state ‘establishment’. In addition, we should note the inclusion of the statement that: ‘Residents of Dōwa districts are neither of a different race or ethnic group. They are without doubt members of the Japanese race and are Japanese nationals.’ This is testimony to the fact that even then the ‘foreign origin theory’ continued to have a certain amount of influence. Section 1 of the report, ‘Basic Nature of the Dōwa Problem’, contains the following passage in the section on ‘discrimination in modern Japan’: Buraku discrimination in modern Japan in brief is nothing other than the infringement of civil rights and freedoms. Civil rights and freedoms include the freedom to select occupation, the right to be assured equality of opportunity in education, freedom of residence and mobility, and freedom in marriage. That these rights and freedoms are not completely protected in the case of residents of Dōwa districts amounts to discrimination…Accordingly, the central topics for Dōwa problem policy are to ensure complete protection of equality of opportunity in employment and education for residents of Dōwa districts and planning to increase the stability of their lives and the level of their social status by having the accumulating surplus population that exists in the Dōwa districts enter the production process of major modern industries.

It talks of the incorporation of ‘residents of Dōwa districts’ into the labour market and planning to ‘stabilize their livelihoods and improve their social status’ as well as protecting their civil rights and freedoms. What the report emphasizes is that: ‘Rather than the subjective verbal discrimination which often defines this as a social problem, it focuses rather on the environment of the Dōwa

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districts in which problems remained unresolved compared to the living conditions and general social and economic standards of the majority community.’ The report considered that these very conditions are the reason why the Burakumin are far from being ‘citizens’. In the law that was enacted in July 1969, the Special Measures Law, SML, it declares that: ‘The aim of the Dōwa Policy Projects is, by improvement of the living environment in the target areas, to promote social security, the development of industry, the stabilization of occupation, the enrichment of education and the strengthening of activities to protect human rights, it will eliminate the elements that unjustly prevent the improvement of the social and economic status of the residents of these areas’ (Para 5). NEW LIMITS

The projects were mainly carried out at a local level although whether an area was eligible to receive them depended on whether

Figure 50

March demanding a national policy for Buraku liberation departs Fukuoka city hall bound for Tokyo, September 1961

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it had been designated as a ‘target area’. To be so designated obviously meant that an area was publicly declaring itself to be a Buraku community. In other words, the implementation of the Dōwa Policy Projects which had been demanded in order to eliminate discrimination created a new official boundary for the Dōwa district. However most Buraku communities were in a situation where they could not support themselves without these programmes. Nevertheless, measures based on these policies were not rolled out evenly. It was only after the mid-1970s that the programmes were developed across the country as a whole following repeated and intense negotiations between the local BLL branches and local government. On 10 May 1960 the Zen Nihon Dōwakai was formed by people who had the strong support of the LDP and who were involved in the planning for the resolution of the Buraku problem. It clearly stated that it regarded the Buraku issue ‘as one that concerned social status’ and ‘therefore the solution to this problem requires mutual respect between people in freedom and equality. We oppose class dictatorship of either left or right and reject ‘class struggle’ which divides the nation and leads to contention’ (Programme of the Zen Nippon Dōwakai). It has kept faithful to this framework. Meanwhile there was, on one hand, very little difference between the BLL and the Dōtaishin to the extent that they both regarded the essence of Buraku discrimination ‘as being the fact that their civil rights were only incompletely guaranteed by the constitution’ but the BLL went on to insist that its understanding of the then current situation was one in which ‘as a means of seeking excessive profits, monopoly capital excludes Burakumin from major productive relations so they prop up the base of the labour market and play the role of depressing the incomes of ordinary workers thus keeping their living standards low. Politically, by pressuring and promoting Buraku discrimination they place Burakumin in antagonism to the normal working class enabling them to play a game of divide and rule’ (BLL Twenty Second National Conference Movement Policy, March 1967). Here there was a very big gap between the BLL and government positions.

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This approach originated in the new platform that was adopted at the 15th BLL conference in 1960 under the influence of the ‘3 in 1’ theory of historian Inoue Kiyoshi.285 This 3 in 1 theory – status, occupation, residence – argues that from the start of the Edo period the authorities preserved and utilized discrimination from the pre-modern into the modern period and it slotted into the centre of the theories the idea that a democratic revolution (united front) against imperialism and monopoly capital will lead to socialism. The theory also explained how monopoly capitalism preserved and used Buraku discrimination as a ‘deadweight’ on the working class. For a time, the ‘national united front’ strategy of the JCP linked grouping (which would later split from the BLL) and which included the ‘national unity’ line co-existed alongside the ‘Buraku First-ism’ understanding of the so-called Asada-theory within the BLL286 (Teshima 2012). THE SAYAMA INCIDENT

The BLL was making increasingly vocal demands for the full implementation of the Dōtaishin while directly confronting some distressing circumstances. One example of this was the Sayama incident. The incident itself began in 1963 but the problems of Buraku discrimination did not surface until later court decisions which is when the broad protest movement developed. It began with the discovery of the dead body of a first-year female high school student in Sayama city Saitama prefecture. Quite quickly the police investigation began to focus on a discrimi285

286

Inoue Kiyoshi, 1913–2001, undertook research on the Meiji restoration, the military and the Emperor system from a ‘Koza-ha’ Marxist perspective. On the Buraku issue he wrote Buraku no Rekishi to Kaihō Riron, Tabata Shoten 1969. He had a great influence on the movement. This theory was advocated by Asada Zennosuke (1902–1983) who was chair of the central committee of the BLL 1967–1975. It was based on the premise that all the unfavourable conditions of their daily life are caused by discrimination. It consisted of the ‘three propositions’: Burakumin are excluded from important productive relations; there is divisive rule of Burakumin and other working people; Buraku discrimination is absorbed by everyone along with the air they breathe.

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nated Buraku community. Ishikawa Kazuo, then aged twentyfour, was arrested for a different offence and then pressured to confess to having abandoned a murdered corpse having been told by police that ‘if you confess you’ll only get ten years.’ At the initial hearing held in Urawa, the court handed down the death penalty but at the first hearing of the court of appeal in the Tokyo High Court Ishikawa denied the offence. In 1977 the Supreme Court rejected his appeal and confirmed a sentence of life imprisonment. After that there were further appeals and special appeals but despite the submission of new evidence there has been no acceptance of new facts and so far all the appeals have been rejected. In 1994 Ishikawa was released on license – he was fifty-five and returned home for the first time in thirty-one years. About a month before the initial incident there had been an abduction of a child (the Yoshinobu incident) where the police had made a serious mistake and missed arresting the culprit. Because they had been the target of criticism then, they were in a hurry to arrest someone for this offence in order to re-establish public trust in the police force.287 The BLL received proposals from the Saitama prefecture federation and adopted resolutions demanding public hearings but the movement did not properly begin to engage with the issue until the 24th Conference which was held on 24 March 1969. They argued that this incident was caused by the existing discriminatory ideas and the way the police sought to victimize a young man resident in a discriminated Buraku as though the Buraku was a breeding ground of crime. The result was that this previously existing symbol was imprinted all the more deeply in people’s minds. THE BLL GROWS AND BROADENS

The BLL was demanding the implementation of both the Dōwa Policy Special Measures Law (1969) and all the recommenda287

Noma Hiroshi (1976) Sayama Saiban 1 & 2, Iwanami Shoten; Kamata Satoshi (2004) Sayama Jiken Ishikawa Kazuo, Soshisha. Retitled and republished Sayama Jiken no Shinjitsu to Kaidaishi, 2010 Iwanami Gendai Bunko.

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Figure 51

Newspaper articles about the Sayama incident

tions of the Dōtaishin; developing these campaigns while trying to turn itself into a national movement. During this time the differences between the JCP supporting faction and the anti-JCP group within the BLL became more acute. The two occasions when this was really decisive were incidents of protest against alleged discrimination in schools: in Yatta (Ōsaka-fu) in 1969 and Yōka (Hyogo-ken) in 1974.288 In both cases the dispute concerned how to evaluate the incident of discrimination itself but it also came to involve the different attitudes taken by the JCP 288

For a description and analysis of this in English, see Pharr S.J. (1990) Losing Face: Status Politics in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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and anti-JCP groups towards how to deal with such incidents more generally. In 1976 the Buraku Liberation League Rectification Coordinating Committee, which had initially been formed following the Yatta incident in 1969, restructured itself and published the ‘National Unification Theory’ (Kokumin Yūgōron). It later became the National Buraku Liberation Movement League thus splitting the BLL. There can be no doubt that these disputes and this division within the movement are reasons why some people have avoided the Buraku issue. However, this period was one in which the BLL was successful in getting the Dōwa Policy Projects implemented and was a high point in the movement’s development in terms of being able to set up branches in districts where they had previously not existed. One additional reason for this development was the discovery in November 1975 of the Buraku Chimei Sōkan – Buraku Address Lists (Tomonaga 2006). These published the name, location, number of houses and main occupations of all the discriminated Buraku districts in the country. Their publishers offered them for sale to companies across Japan. After their initial discovery, the existence of a number of similar publications under various names came to light. This clearly showed that many companies were routinely enquiring as to whether someone had a Buraku background when they were making decisions about recruitment or promotion. For the companies the logic was that it was not so much about discrimination as making decisions about the advantages and disadvantages of excluding people from Buraku communities. However, as they were saying this we must assume that the companies were also aware of the great demerit of continuing to exclude people from the Buraku communities. After this incident came to light the topic of discrimination in recruitment became much more prominent. The Dōwa projects were implemented rapidly in the later 1970s and the Buraku living environment which previously had been considerably inferior to the mainstream was greatly changed. Moreover, the rapid economic growth more generally had an impact on the Buraku communities and this too

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Figure 52

One of the Chimei Sōkan (Buraku address lists)

stimulated changes in people’s lives. Many of the signs that had marked out the Buraku communities were swept away – for example the living conditions that were produced by dire economic poverty and had made diseases like trachoma endemic in these communities. On the other hand, some people began to point out the problems of unfairness that were attached to Dōwa policy projects. All movements, not just the BLL, when they successfully make demands on the state become connected at least in a small way to that establishment. In the case of the BLL, as we have seen, it had been demanding the implementa-

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tion of the Dōwa since the 1950s and it also encountered this kind of problem. THE ‘ALLEY’ SWINDLE – THE TREE COUNTRY AND ROOT COUNTRY

In the middle of this, when the BLL was at its peak and protest at pollution of the environment was increasing – as we emerged into an ‘era of human rights’ – the novelist Nakagami Kenji appeared.289 Nakagami was awarded the Akutagawa prize for his novel The Cape in 1976 and overnight was in the spotlight. He was born into a discriminated Buraku in Shingū city, Wakayamaken and until his death in 1992 at the age of forty-six his work constantly described the place where he had been born which he called the roji – the alleyway. For Nakagami the roji is ‘what bore me and brought me up, it is the object of all my love and is the Kumano within Kumano, the origin of my knowledge and blood. This roji was excluded from the old Shingū and is on the other side of the mountain.’ ‘The roji unlike village communities on earth has a cosmic model as well a state model …Like tracing the myths of the descendants of gods who repeatedly fight in one place after another as they cross the peninsula’ (Ikainite, GS first edition 30 June 1984). Nakagami presented to the public his reportage of visits to the discriminated Buraku of the Kii peninsula in ‘Stories from Kii – country of trees and roots’ published by the Asahi newspaper in 1978. He claimed that in his treks around the peninsula ‘what I wanted to know was what people would not say out loud or say to people from another place’ (Introduction). Just at that time from about 1977 in Nakagami’s home town they were starting the ‘district improvement projects’ and the 289

On Nakagami see: Takazawa Hidetsugu (1998) Hyoden Nakagami Kenji, Shueisha; Moriyasu Toshiji (2003) Nakagami Kenjiron Kumano Roji Moso, Kaihō Shuppansha; Kurokawa 2006. In English, Eve Zimmerman, Out of the Alleyway: Nakagami Kenji and the Poetics of Outcaste Fiction, Harvard U P, 2008; Anne Helene Thelle, Negotiating Identity: Nakagami Kenji’s Kiseki and the Power of the Tale, Iudicium Verlag, 2010; Anne McKnight (2011) Buraku and the writing of ethnicity, University of Minnesota Press.

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housing reconstruction projects. Nakagami was scathing in his criticism of Dōwa policy. ‘I thought long and hard with Katayama and Kamisako [two young Buraku leaders?] about the meaning of Buraku, the meaning of discrimination, the meaning of Buraku liberation.’ If I were to analyse here the thinking of the rulers and administrative authorities it would be that they have the illusion that the Buraku communities and the liberation league are under the control of bosses. What we have here is the exchange of tempting profits for the bosses in exchange for favours for the administrators. What the two have in common is that they ignore the silent Buraku masses.

And he goes on to say: Discrimination is something I have encountered many times as it wanders here and there in civil society like some kind of ghost. I visited Kōza [a place name] twice because the town office pointed out in response to my earlier criticisms that, ‘In reality, it is not like that.’ I thought that when the town office established a monthly Dōwa day, for them the word ‘discrimination’ was seen like some kind of apparition. I know that discrimination roams around like some kind of mysterious thing. If I were not a novelist and I were a reporter who could probe into and locate true facts I think I would investigate the administration of Kōza town which said it established a Dōwa day and was making efforts to eliminate discrimination. An area implementing modernization and urbanization has things it needs to do but the apparition of discrimination still wanders around the ‘liberation’ administration which is improving the roads and reconstructing the houses and this is what needs analysis. My judgement as a novelist is that the requirements of modernization and urbanization are completely different to ‘the administration of liberation’. It is probably better to think of it like this: in talking about the mystery of the thing called ‘discrimination’ they have used it for their convenience. I have recently seen quite a lot of these discriminated Buraku communities which are said to produce this mysterious thing ‘discrimination’. Even though this mysterious discrimination has no real connection with the discriminated Buraku – people will just

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say ‘Buraku problem’. And if you say, Buraku problem all they think about is the ownership of land. (Conclusion, Yami no Kokka – Dark State)

Here he sets out the fundamental question for ‘civil society which has not examined or comprehended discrimination’. He puts it like this. ‘I think that this mysterious discrimination creates fear among the citizens and is used by the administration.’

CHAPTER 18

Absorption and Exclusion into ‘Civil Society’ 5

DŌWA POLICY – THE RE-EXAMINATION OF THE BLL

Buraku living environments were transformed and the characteristics which for a long time had been linked to the discriminated communities – the dirt created by dire poverty, the areas seen as breeding grounds for disease, their so-called moral deprivation – were all swept away. However almost in their place people started to point out the unfairness of the Dōwa projects policies. It is not just the BLL but any organization that makes political demands and then has them granted cannot help but become absorbed to some degree into the structure of the state. In the case of the BLL, its demands for a Dōwa policy which would make improvements to the living environment had been one of the central pillars of its strategy from the 1950s so that it was all the more likely that it would encounter this problem. Within these circumstances there were demands for a reexamination of the movement’s post-war history. One of these came from a historian of China, Fujita Yoshikazu, who in 1987 published, Dōwa wa Kowai ko – chitaikyō o hihan suru (Dōwa is Scary: criticisms of the Chitaikyō) (Aun Sosho). This raises in the title of the book one of the discriminatory ideas current at the time. And, as suggested in the sub-title, the trigger that prompted Fujita to write the book was the report on the implementation of Dōwa that was produced by the Chitaikyō commit-

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tee in February 1986.290 The full title of this committee was the Regional Improvement Policy Advisory Committee and it had been set up by the Prime Minister in 1982 composed of senior bureaucrats representing each of the main ministries concerned with Dōwa administration plus a small number of academics and experts but no representatives of the Buraku movements. It replaced a similar committee – the Dōwa Taisaku Kyōgikai – which had contained representatives of the movement until its abolition in 1979. The Chitaikyō report pointed out that while the ‘reality of the Dōwa areas has been significantly improved’, new problems had emerged. These were: Firstly, the loss of the autonomy of the administration which has become tied to the movement groups (in practice the BLL). Secondly, that the enactment of the policy had inhibited the development of self-improvement and independence of the residents of these communities. Thirdly, that the movement groups (again mainly the BLL) have gone too far in their words and actions to create the notion that: ’The Dōwa problem is scary so it is better to avoid it.’ This is a situation which works to the advantage of the ‘fake Dōwa groups’ who seek to use this fear to extort money from people. And, fourthly, that the movement’s ‘excesses in words and deeds’ have created the circumstances which inhibit the free exchange of ideas about the Dōwa issue. Fujita emphasized the feeling of crisis that had arisen from this attack on the movement by the government and he tried to suggest bluntly that the movement needed to sort itself out if it were not to fall apart. The core of Fujita’s suggestion was for it to consider itself as a ‘cooperative enterprise’ that aimed at preventing the discriminator/discriminated relationship. This was based on his personal experience of taking part in the BLL while 290

Other writing that suggested the need for a re-assessment by the BLL include; Noma Hiroshi, Yasuoka Shotarō hen (1977) Sabetsu – sono kongen o tou I & II, Asahi Shimbunsha; Inoue Hisashi (1977) Sabetsu no Seishinshi Sōsetsu, Sanshodo; Kaihō Shinbunsha hen, Buraku Kaihōriron no Sōsō ni mukete, Kaihō Shuppan 1981; Morooka Sukeyuki (1980–85) Sengo Buraku Kaihō Ronsōshi, 5 vol.

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a student.291 In order to remove the idea of ‘Dōwa is scary’ it was necessary, he said, for both sides to overcome their adherence their positions and status claims. These points provoked a strong reaction from the BLL and Fujita, who was sounding an alarm with his criticisms coming from a position quite different from that of the Chitaikyō, also found himself the subject of criticism. It cannot be denied that the Chitaikyō critique often became mixed up with frequently heard criticisms of the BLL from outside that were combined with discriminatory feelings toward the movement and Dōwa policies. However, Fujita’s misgivings were that in order to continue to fight discrimination it was necessary to realize that there was a mistaken view developing that regarded the movement as though all of it was corrupt and all the people involved in it were ‘scary’ – something which was emerging as a new form of discrimination. WHAT ARE ‘BURAKUMIN’?

Fujita’s question, ‘What are Burakumin?’ was further discussed in his book of the same name published in 1998 (by Aumsha). The background to this was the increase of marriage between residents of Buraku communities and those from outside, and the migration of people out of and into these areas. Together these trends were weakening the boundaries between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ Buraku communities. Moreover, the fact that at almost the same time the journal Gendai Shisō also produced a special edition entitled ‘Who are Burakumin’ (February 1999) showed that this was more than just the preoccupation of Fujita as an individual. So, at the same time that the boundaries that were defining Burakumin were becoming less visible, this crisis of Buraku identity was not something brought on by the BLL or its weaknesses but rather it was the dismantling of the community 291

Fujita discusses the story of his connection with the BLL in conversation with Kanno Masaoka (2008) ‘Ningen to Sabetsu o meguru Taiken to Shisaku kara’ Coperu, 187.

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structures that defined Burakumin and discriminated Buraku communities that was throwing up these questions. In February 1985 the Osaka Human Rights Museum, now known by its nickname of ‘Liberty Osaka’, was renamed the Osaka Human Rights Historical Resources Centre and was recreated within the discriminated Buraku in Naniwa-ku Osaka city. In the founding document produced at that time it notes: ‘Our country’s economy grew rapidly, its economic structures were modernized and rationalized with remarkable speed. Alongside this, parts of our historical and cultural inheritance and scenery were one by one destroyed. There is not much left that displays the culture and lifestyles of the common people of Naniwa who have lived in Osaka for so long.’ The need to fight discrimination required the implementation of the Dōwa policy projects but amid the standardized rebuilding of the living environment we can perhaps see in the creation of this museum an indication of a shift of interest towards questions of identity and the preservation of the culture of the discriminated communities. TALKING OF ‘PRIDE’

Buraku identity, as Uchida Ryushi has correctly remarked, is constructed in the course of quarrels and conversations between Burakumin within the BLL and people from outside the Buraku communities who occupy positions of authority in social structures necessary to them. People from Buraku communities wanted to participate in the economic growth but also were aware of themselves as people struggling to overcome the circumstances in which they were deprived citizens. Uchida points to the Buraku Liberation Scholarship system as something that united these two tendencies and into which Burakumin parents have invested their hopes for their children as those who will carry forward the next generation of the movement. It was established as part of the Dōwa Policy (later Regional Improvement Policy) as the High School/University Promotion Scholarship system by the Ministry of Education in 1966 to give allowances to students going to post-compulsory high schools or technical

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colleges. In 1974 it was extended to give grants to enable university attendance and as its scope broadened the image of the ‘scholarship students’ changed. At first they had a negative image formed in the face of discrimination and a self-consciousness of the deprivation of civil rights combined with a need to stand up and demand their recovery. Gradually as the scholarship system produced new leaders for the movement the scholarship students came to acquire a positive image. This scholarship system while closely connected to the Buraku liberation education movement began to train people who later took part in the BLL and continue to take ‘pride’ in being Burakumin (Uchida 2010). The film Ningen no Machi (dir. Koike Masahito, 1986) is set in an Osaka Buraku and looks precisely at this question of taking pride in being a Burakumin. Even this work, though, is not entirely about pride and as the seams start to break there is an ambivalence that gives the work its strength. In the first part of the film Yamaguchi Hitomi talks to a group of primary school students about his pride in his job at the abattoir. But in replying to a question from the director he says, ‘I can say that I am proud to be a person from the Buraku community’ but ‘in fact it is wretched’. When he thinks of the time coming when his daughter is grown up and ready to marry and he must tell her that she is from a Buraku background, while on the one hand appreciating all the ‘warmth’ of the liberation movement and the community, he will have to directly confront the fact that he was not able to escape being a ‘person of the Buraku’ (Kurokawa 2011). In previous histories of Buraku communities and the Dōwa education based on it, because they placed such importance on explaining how the Buraku communities were discriminated against and oppressed by those in authority there was a tendency to exclusively emphasize their wretched state and there were some complaints about this from the teachers who were actually involved in teaching children in the classroom. So, thinking that teaching about the ‘affluence’ of some Buraku communities could generate pride in the children from Buraku areas and remove prejudice from non-Buraku children by having them

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think about the positive aspects of the Buraku communities, this has had a major influence on Dōwa education and the liberation movement. This is connected to the interest in Buraku culture and the moves in search of Burakumin identity mentioned above. However, only to teach about the ‘affluence’ of the discriminated Buraku will, on the other hand, create an attitude of making it difficult to explain why Burakumin have been discriminated against and thus possibly inhibit the project of Buraku liberation. Furthermore, where school teachers who do not properly understand the Buraku issue are in charge of Dōwa education they often choose to talk about the arts and food culture that some Burakumin boast about and the wealth of their communities. Even if this helps people to understand the ‘pride’ of some Buraku communities, how does it help to break down the wall of ‘status lineage’ when you stand face to face with a person who has discriminatory ideas? We must continually ask how we can transmit the image of Buraku communities in their full life size versions without beautifying them.

Figure 53

Founding conference of the IMADR, January 1988

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MINORITY GROUP SOLIDARITY

Since the 1980s the BLL has sought to develop a network of international solidarity against discrimination (Tomonaga 2015). It has sought to develop links with a broad range of minorities; Koreans resident in Japan, Ainu, the disabled, former Hansen’s disease patients and LGBT sexual minorities.292 This broadening of the movement’s vision was demonstrated in the displays exhibited at the renewal opening of the Osaka Human Rights museum in December 2006 which, when originally created in 1985, had focused on the Buraku issue. In the section set up to display, ‘Actions and Advocacy by those subject to Discrimination’ there was reference to Resident Koreans, Ainu, women, sexual minorities, the disabled, HIV and AIDS patients, former Hansen’s disease patients, the homeless, Discriminated Buraku, Minamata disease patients. In fact, if anything, Buraku issues seem somewhat under-represented. This kind of solidarity with ‘others’ is in part a response to criticisms from ‘outside’. Criticisms, for example, that pointed out the complicity of the leaders of the Suiheisha with the aggressive war and the failure to recognize discrimination apart from the Buraku discrimination that was embraced by Japanese society and to regard only themselves as the ‘complete victims of discrimination’ (see for example Kim 1994). This broadening of vision is reflected in historical writing too. In 1990 the historian Hirota Masaki in Aspects of Discrimination (Kindai Nihon Shisō Daikei, 22 vol. Iwanami Shoten 1990) pointed to the problem that while the historians of discrimination had looked at the ‘individual histories’ of discriminated Burakumin, Ainu, etc. there was no research on the overall history of discrimination itself. He drew together historical records about Ainu, discriminated Burakumin, prostitutes, the diseased and disabled, the poor, miners, prisoners, and provided a detailed 292

In 1988 at the instigation of the BLL the Hansabetsu Kokusai Undō ཯ ᕪูᅜ㝿㐠ື – International Movement Against Discrimination and Racism – IMADR was formed and in 1990 it set up a committee in Japan – IMADR-JC.

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explanation entitled, ‘The Structure of Discrimination in Modern Japan’. While seeing the connections between these forms of discrimination he aimed to investigate ‘the entire structure and contradictions within it’ (Hirota 1990). FROM DŌWA TO HUMAN RIGHTS – THE END OF THE SPECIAL MEASURES LAW

On 13 March 1982 the Dōwa Policy Special Measures Law came to an end but it was renewed for five years with a change of name – Regional Improvement Special Measures Law – and then extended for another five years from 1987. However, finally on 31 March 2002 the special measures which had been implemented since 1969 were brought to a halt. Alongside this, in the context of the changes in social awareness about the Buraku issues that we have already discussed, there were significant changes in the administration of the Buraku problem. Just to talk about the names used: ‘Dōwa’ policy became ‘Human Rights’ policy and ‘Dōwa Education’ became ‘Human Rights Education’. Moreover, this was not only within the bureaucracy. The Buraku Liberation Research Institute set up in 1968 changed its name in 1998 to the Buraku Liberation/Human Rights Research Institute. The Buraku Problem Research Institute changed the name of its journal from Buraku to Jinken to Burakumondai (Human Rights and the Buraku Problem) in April 2002. The Zenkoku Dōwa Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai finally dropped Dōwa from its title and became the Zenkoku Jinken Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai in 2009 (National Human Rights Education Research Association). These changes signify a broadening of vision that considers the connection between the Buraku problem and other human rights issues and is certainly an important move in itself. However, this may dissolve the Buraku problem into a set of general ‘human rights’ concerns so that people who want to avoid the Buraku problem can use it as an expedient way to do so. We must concede that it is laden with some serious problems.

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Kano Masanao commenting on the human rights awareness that seemed to spread during the 1970s among the environment pollution movement sounded an alarm when he said: These words – human rights – can start to take on the characteristics of a pardon or papal indulgence or perhaps a cloak of invisibility. When people are weary of political movements or politics itself they can focus people’s thoughts on human rights. In this sense when human rights consciousness emerges it can have an aspect of preventing the direct confrontation of the authority. (Kano 1988a).

Moreover, Fujita Keiichi quoting this point in connection with Kano’s remarks commented that, ‘To note the connections between the Buraku issue and other human rights issues does not negate the tendency to universalize the human condition but the important thing is whether or not these various issues broaden and deepen our sensitivity to the way they “resonate” and overlap with each other. Is it not about whether you have been brought up to look at the “hardship, sorrow, grief, bitterness” of people “on the margins and in minorities”?’ In saying this they are really questioning the nature the Buraku problem today. In the next and final chapter I want to look at the current state of the Buraku ‘problem’.

CHAPTER 19

Looking at the Buraku Problem Now 5

RECENT OPINION POLL DATA

The results of a survey of public opinion carried out in 2013 by Tokyo Metropolitan Government293 (TMG) included the following among its set of questions: Suppose you find out that one of your children is intending to marry someone from a Dōwa community. What do you do?

Those who responded definitively: ‘I would respect my child’s wishes. This is not a matter that parents should interfere with.’ 46.5% Don’t know: 27% The rest felt some kind of reluctance unable to commit to a firm decision.

On the other hand, in response to the question: Suppose you wanted to marry someone from a Dōwa community and your parents or relatives strongly objected, what would you do? 26.1% said they would go through with the marriage 30.4% said that after trying hard to persuade their parents they would go through with it. So only just over half chose the two options of going through with the marriage – 56.5% 293

http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/INET/CHOUSA/2014/04/60o48111.htm 259

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Moreover, we should not ignore the fact that in both cases the number of people who replied that they would not stick with their intentions has gone down compared to the survey results of 1999. In answer to the question about their child’s marriage the number of people for whom ‘Dōwa community origin’ is no problem has gone down 7.4% and those who would not go through with their own marriage is down 11.7%. We cannot view these figures with optimism. As explained in the previous chapter it is likely that the transition ‘from Dōwa to Human Rights’ and the reduction in the number of opportunities to discuss the Buraku issue either within the school classroom or in social education are probably the main reasons for these results. RETROGRADE STEP OR NEGATION?

At the moment the amount of discriminatory ‘graffiti’ on the internet continues undiminished. Meanwhile a large majority of students that I come across in classes etc. will say that ‘We are not concerned at all about Buraku issues’ or that ‘We find it incomprehensible that this kind of discrimination continues to exist.’ However, these same young people who ‘know nothing’ about the issue, when they ask their parents or grandparents about it do not listen critically to what they are told but rather take on the stereotypical images of Buraku people which are common in discriminatory public discourses. The information they get in this way is recorded unchanged in the reports they hand in for assessment. When I show these students who ‘know nothing’ about the Buraku problem a film such as ‘Ningen no Machi’ – see previous chapter – thinking that it would get them to understand something of the Buraku issue today they ask to see something made more recently. But there really are no documentary films about the Buraku problem that are of the same quality as this. Among them is one, ‘A tale of a butcher’s shop’ (dir. Hanabusa Aya 2013), which focuses on Buraku issues and has attracted some attention. The family of the Kitade butcher’s shop is located in Kaizuka city, Ōsaka-fu. They raise cattle, dismember the carcasses by

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hand at the abattoir and then sell the meat in their shop – from first to last all done by hand. However, the local authority has decided to close the abattoir and the camera follows the family through its work as butchers in these circumstances (Interview Hanabusa Aya: To eat is to live – the film ‘A tale of a butcher’s shop’ Tokyo Jinken 61 2014 Spring). However, it does not really give a full picture of discrimination as did previous films that have been made about the Buraku problem. The director put it like this: ‘It is difficult to depict discrimination. It rarely arises in the actual scenes and I don’t think you can just photograph it….it is a question of regarding the problem as a ‘problem’. We all can see from the viewpoint of ordinary people how much remains of their rich lives, skilful techniques, traditions and warm relationships. From that I think that you question the discrimination and prejudice which they confront even today’ (Interview with Hanabusa). Investigating the Kitade family is not going to shed much light on the problem of Buraku discrimination. However, she went to observe the abattoir and as she puts it, ‘It is because people do this work that I can have the everyday experience of eating meat. I felt that it was very wrong that because we do not know about abattoir work that discrimination and prejudices are born.’ I was told by the ‘people of the area’ that: ‘we will be upset if you make the reality in which we live into a film that only tells the story in half measures.’ I probably did not completely understand but I transmitted all that I did understand. It does not hold back.’ And she got their consent. We can probably say that she learned about the Buraku problem in order to make a film about the abattoir. A newspaper reported that a Rikkyō university student showed this film as part of Tama city’s film festival. The report did not mention anything about the Buraku problem but rather focused on discrimination against people in the ‘abattoir and meat industry’. As this student commented: ‘there are various kinds of discrimination in the world and they have various and deeply rooted origins but if we stop trying to know more about them it will be difficult to make any changes.’ And then he said: ‘Since seeing the film I have got to like meat even more’ (Asahi

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Shimbun 3 May 2014). In the background to this report is the everyday activity of ‘meat eating’ and there can be no doubt that it included the desire to have the younger generation think about discrimination. This pattern probably started with the second film version of ‘Hashi no nai Kawa’ in 1992 by Higashi Yōichi.294 In the publicity material about the film there is a great emphasis on ‘love’: ‘an epic poem to the twentieth century which penetrates the heart of modern Japan…In finding love a man releases his light.’ From which you can tell that the director chose not to focus on the Buraku issue as the core theme. Also we have Nakagami’s ‘A Thousand Years of Pleasure’ (1982) which was made into a film by Wakamatsu Roji in 2013, the same year as ‘A Tale of a Butcher’s Shop’. Here too you can see the same signs. From the brief description of the film on the website all it says is, ‘It receives its life from the alleyways of Kishū’ – most people reading this would not realize that it is set in a discriminated Buraku community.295 ‘Wakamatsu Roji’s A Thousand Years of Pleasure’ (2013) introduces the contents of the film and after the usual introductory words from the director, Kan Takayuki, provides a substantial explanation of the Buraku problem under the title of ‘the background to the roji’ in a manner that certainly does not try to conceal the theme of it being a discriminated community. Going through the full text of the script (by Ide Mari) the descriptions of discrimination include: -

294

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A conversation between Reijo and Hikonosuke at the birth of Hanzō, ‘…noble defilement…’ Miyoshi’s words when he says, ‘But those of us who were born in the roji won’t be allowed to join with the fishermen…’ In the narrative section, ‘Miyoshi lost his life as he sought to purify his own defilement…’ When Reijo says, ‘Men of Nakamoto with your nobly defiled blood….’

Based on the novel of the same name by Sumii Sue, which is available in English translation in various formats from Tuttle Books. http://www.wakamatsukoji.org/sennennoyuraku/index01.html

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And then the song at the end of the film, ‘ Banbai Banbai, Dawn of Meiji, Listening to the ‘equality of citizens’, Not knowing the word ‘Banzai’, While ignorant folk, shouted Banbai Banbai, stones thrown, fires lit, stabbed by spears and thrown away….’

For those who are familiar with the themes of Nakagami’s work it is easy to read Buraku issues into the background of the film but it does not really comment on the Buraku problem. The same magazine carries an interview with Takaoka Sōsuke, an actor born in 1982 who played the role of Miyoshi. He was asked, ‘How far were you aware of the problem of discrimination being at the basis of this work?’ To which he replied: ‘I was performing the sensation of being aware of my fate. Did I want to escape from it? Could I escape from it? It was not actively tied to “being discriminated”. If you think about the original meaning of “discrimination”, what do we understand by it? If you ask ten people you’ll get ten different answers. If you meet people face to face you can exchange ideas on equal terms. But as the number of people increases so a minority gets excluded. Discrimination develops. The feeling develops of excluding people not like me, people I don’t sympathize with…in other words discrimination.’ (‘A destiny like lead, flame of the instant’)

In this film there is no leisurely discussion of ‘how to understand discrimination’. The original author’s thoughts on not being able to escape from the ‘roji’, in other words from Buraku discrimination, are set out but such understanding may be common among the younger generation and if so I think we need to confront these ideas. For myself when I see the discrimination against abattoir workers as explained in ‘A Tale of a Butcher’s Shop’ or the way ‘A Thousand Years of Pleasure’ washes Buraku discrimination into a space called ‘Japan’, I cannot help but feel that, whether it is the intention of the directors or not, they are tending to erase or negate the discourses about discriminated Buraku people. And precisely because the problem is becoming ‘less visible’ and its existence harder to comprehend we need all the more to

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approach the issue of discrimination and think about how we can overcome this situation. While acknowledging that attitudes to discriminated Buraku communities and their residents are to some degree shifting I am still haunted by doubts about whether it is appropriate to abandon the route of a frontal attack on Buraku discrimination. To abandon it would be likely, as I explained in the previous chapter, to result in a move towards its inclusion into the general discourse of human rights. And I have deep misgivings that that would lead us into the same rut as the advocates of the principle of the ‘equality of all imperial subjects’ found themselves in within the Greater Japanese Empire and in particular the high praise given to the notion of all citizens as one body – kokumin ittai – during the Asia-Pacific wartime regime. LOOKING AT ‘CIVIL SOCIETY’

Nakagami did not cease to expose the ghosts wandering around ‘civil society’ but he also said this: Suppose that the continuation of everyday life is threatened in some way and panic breaks out. A natural disaster such as the Great Kanto earthquake perhaps, or a food crisis, or a financial crisis caused by the appreciation of the yen. In order to get through these difficulties people need an enemy. At the time of the Kanto earthquake it was the Koreans who were massacred following the spreading of false rumours that they were poisoning wells. If something like that were to occur in Kishū on the Kii peninsula who would people hunt down as their enemy? The massacre of Burakumin in my imagination and that of the Koreans, if you ignore any formal explanation, is the difference between what is visible and what is not. My ‘war’ lies within this single photograph. I continue to produce ideas seeing that war and massacres that can happen in the ‘alley’. (‘Obo’ Kishū)

We can observe discrimination taking place today as in any other period. However, in general the Buraku problem is becoming less visible. For this reason, just because it is starting to disap-

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pear there is the repeated thought, the constant undercurrent of an idea that says it is better to keep quiet, better not to know anything. However, senmin status existed in the pre-modern and early modern period and even though the Liberation Declaration was issued the historical reality is that the Buraku problem continues up to the present day. It has not been removed. For this reason, while saying, ‘It is better not to know’ we can find the facts recorded in junior high and high school history textbooks. We cannot avoid directly confronting the existence of the Buraku problem. Given that this is the case we must continue to address the Buraku problem learning from history and illuminating the present situation that we have described above ACQUIRING AN UNDERSTANDING OF UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS

The political scientist Maruyama Masao was a pioneer who, from well before the victory of modern nation-state theory and well before the ‘other’ was recognized as an established research topic, urged the necessity that society as a whole should be finely attuned to the existence of ‘the other’. Maruyama commented that, ‘More important than the historical truth of the claims about Japan having been for a long time one race, one nation, using one language in one territory, the important question is about the reality of the attitude that makes these claims.’ He identified the problem as the need to confront the fact that the claim that ‘Japan is homogenous’ is always made in comparison to an ‘other’ but that the ‘awareness of the other can become weak’. And that ‘where there is no awareness of the other it is hard to create an awareness of human rights’. He emphasized that simply agreeing was different to understanding the other so that ‘attitudes towards China were basically mistaken because there was no awareness of the other’ (Maruyama 1996).296 Preserving this ‘awareness of the other’ is the other side of the coin to what Maruyama described as the permanent revolution of 296

Maruyama Masao (1979) Nihon Shisōshi no Okeru Kōsō no Mondai, Maruyama Masao-shū, Vol 11 Iwanami Shoten 1996.

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democracy and constant spiritual revolution for which the major pre-condition was ‘not to be trapped by inferiority or indifference by an intrinsic understanding of the other’ – this too was a ‘permanent and infinite topic’ (Ishida 2005). This points to the importance of universal human rights. The demands of the people concerned is the starting point for such movements because they engage in this struggle only concerned with what is important for them. They are not concerned with the acquisition of universal human rights. This is different from the concern with general human rights. If we can construct the scaffolding securely around one problem it may be possible to extend it to other ones from that position. I think that we should be seeking a human rights awareness that is created in this way.

Afterword 5

When I was a student and started to take an interest in Buraku history the first text that I absorbed was the 1975 edition of ‘Buraku History and the Liberation Movement’ edited by the Buraku Mondai Kenkyūjo. Later I would read many other histories of the issue but as a substantial general history this has always been my basic reference point. More than ten years have passed since Professors Teraki and Akisada produced their Buraku histories – pre-modern in 2002, and modern in 2004, respectively. We have now produced another new history to send out to the world. It must be left to the reader’s judgement as to whether this text reflects changes in the circumstances in the Buraku problem or changes in the environment of the research. For me it is not just a question of degree of sensitivity to those questions but it is important to understand theoretically the contextual social structure and for this reason it is essential to comprehend the historical background. This is the crucial point for understanding, for example, the problems that surround the ‘comfort women’ issue. We must focus on what the majority did, study it and come to grips with it head on. If this volume can help in that way I will be very pleased. I am extremely grateful for the encouragement I have received from Katagi Mariko, of the Development and Planning section of the BLHRRI who helped me edit the first draft of this text when it was published serially in the monthly journal Human Rights. Later Matsumoto Shinji of the BLHRRI research office guided us through the process from planning the serial publication to the creation of this volume. Only thanks to his patient efforts did we manage to accomplish this. In addition, Kobashi

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Kazushi of the Kaihō Shuppansha and Miyatake Toshimasa of Ichimojo Kobo were extremely helpful. I have also benefited from the support and advice of many others across the years. I am grateful to them all. Kurokawa Midori 11 January 2016

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Ueda Masaaki (2012a) Watashi no Nihon Kodaishi (I) Tennō to wa nanimonoka Jōmon kara Wa no Gō made. Shinchosensho. Ueda Masaaki (2012b) Watashi no Nihon Kodaishi (II), Keitaichō kara Ritsuryō Kokka Seiritsu made, Shinchosensho. Ueki Masatoshi – yaku (2008) Hokkekyō Bonkanwa Taeshō Gendaigoyaku II, Iwanami Shoten. Usui Hisamitsu (2009a) ‘Tenkanki Senmin Hōsei to Hisabetsumin’, Ōsaka no Burakushi Iinkai-hen, Ōsaka no Burakushi 10 Honbunhen, Buraku Kaihō Jinken Kenkyūsho. Usui Hisamitsu (2009b) ‘Shikan suru Shakai Hitsuyō to Daitosuru Hisabetsumin’, Ōsaka no Burakushiiinkai-hen, Ōsaka no Burakushi 10 Honbunhen, Buraku Kaihō Jinken Kenkyūsho. Wada Tsutomu (1982) Sanju Buraku Mondai Kenkyūsho-hen, Buraku no Rekishi Kindaihen, Buraku Mondai Kenkyūsho Shuppanbu. Wake Norio (1984) Hisabetsu Buraku no Daisōdō – Bushu Hanao Sōdōki, Akashi Shoten. Wakita Haruko (1988) ‘Sansui Kawaramono Zeami no Shūnyū’, Buraku Mondai Kenkyūsho Henkan, Buraku no Seikatsushi. Wakita Haruko (2002) Nihon Chūsei Hisabetsumin no Kenkyū, Iwanami Shoten. Yagi Haruo (1969) Mibun no Shakaishi, Hyōronsha. Yamaguchi Yukio (1972) ‘Kawachi no kuni Saraike-mura Monjo – no Shiryō Kaidai’, Buraku Kaihō 31. Yamaji Kozo (1995a) ‘Sanjomura to Shomoji’, Kyōto Burakushi Kenkyūsho-hen, Kyōto no Burakushi, 1. Zenkindai, Aunsha. Yamaji Kōzō (1995b) ‘Shomoji to Hachitataki’, Kyōto Burakushi Kenkyūshohen, Kyōto no Burakushi, 1. Zenkindai, Aunsha. Yamamoto Kaoru (2002) ‘Kenkyū nooto – Senshū no Sakai ‘Shikasho’ Chōri to Gunchu Hininban’, Buraku Mondai Kenkyū 159. Yamamoto Koji (1992) Kegare to Oharai, Heibonsha Sensho. Yamamoto Naotomo (1981) ‘Kinsei Buraku Jiin no seiritsu ni tsuite, I’, Kyōto Burakushi Kenkyūsho Kiyo, Sōkango. Yamamoto Naotomo (1995) ‘Chūsei Senmin no Zentaizō’, Kyōto Burakushi Kenkyūsho-hen, Kyōto no Burakushi (Zenkindaishi), Aunsha. Yamamoto Naotomo (2004) ‘Sanjō no Gaiyō to Kenkyū no Keii’, Sekai Jinken Mondai Kenkyusentaa-hen, Sanjō Shomoji Maimai no Kenkyū, Shimonkaku Shuppan.

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Kurokawa Midori (2002) Chiikishi no naka no Buraku Mondai – Kindai Mie no Baai, Kaihō Shuppansha. Kurokawa Midori (2003) Toshi Buraku e no Shisen – Mie ken, Iinangun, Suzutane-mura no Baai, Kobayashi Takehiko hencho, Toshi Gesō no Shakaishi, Kaihō Shuppansha. Kurokawa Midori (2004) ‘Buraku Sabetsu ni okeru Jinkenshugi – ‘Jinshū’ kara ‘Minzoku’ e’, Okiura Kazuteru, Teraki Nobuaki, Tomonaga Kenzō hen, Ajia no Mibunsei to Sabetsu, Kaihō Shuppansha. Kurokawa Midori (2009) ‘Chiba-ken no Sengo Hisabetsu Buraku no Seikatsu to Undō’, Chiba-kenshi Kenkyu 17. Kurokawa Midori (2010) Hisabetsu Buraku min no Yuisho no Katari’, Rekishigaku Kenkyukaihen, (shiriizu) Rekishigaku no Genzai 12, Yuisho no Hikakushi, Aoki Shoten. Kurokawa Midori (2011) Egakareta Hisabetsu Buraku – Eiga no naka no Jigazo to Tashazo, Iwanami Shoten. Kurokawa Midori (2012) ‘Sabetsu no Shosō’, Yasuda Tsuneo-hen, Shimizu Sengo Nihon Shakai no Rekishi 4, Shakai no Kyokai o ikiru Hitobito – Sengo Nihon no Fuchi, Iwanami Shoten. Kurokawa Midori (2014) ‘Kaizō’ no Jidai, Iwanami Kōza Nihon Rekishi, 17, Kingendai 3 Iwanami Shoten. Kurokawa Midori (2016) ‘Tsukurareta Jinshu’ Buraku Sabetsu to Jinshushugi [reishisumu], Yushisha. Kurokawa Midori & Fujino Yutaka (2015) Sabetsu no Nihon Kingendaishi, Iwanami Gendai Zensho. Kuserugon Juria (1992) Jiyu Byodo Seiketsu Nyuyoku no Shakaishi, (Kashima Shigeru yaku) Kawade Shobo shinsha. [Csergo, J., 1988. Liberté, égalité, propreté: la morale de l’hygiène au XIXe siècle. Paris: Albin Michel] Machita Shiritsu Jiyuminken Shiryōkan, 2006. Machita-shiritsu Jiyuminken Shiryōkan (2006) Minken Bukkusu19, Yamanoue Takuju Kaku to Buso no Kurisutokyo. Maruyama Masao (1979) Nihon Shisoshi no Okeru Kōsō no Mondai, Maruyama Masaoshu, Vol 11 Iwanami Shoten 1996. Matsumoto Jiichirō (1948) Buraku Kaihō e no Sanjūnen, Kindai Shisosha. Matsumoto Sanosuke, ‘Kazoku Kokkakan no Kōzō to Tokushitsu’, Kōzō Kazoku, Dai Hachikan, Kobundō, 1974. Matsumoto Sanosuke, (1979) ‘Tenpujinkenron to Ten no Gainen – shishōshiteki seiri no tame no hitotsu no kokoromi’, Ienaga Saburō

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English sources cited in the text 5

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Strong Kenneth (1974) The Broken Commandment, Japan Foundation. Thelle Anne Helene, (2010) Negotiating Identity: Nakagami Kenji’s Kiseki and the Power of the Tale, Iudicium Verlag. Tsutsui Kiyoteru (2018) Rights Make Might: Global Human Rights and Minority Social Movements in Japan, Oxford Univesrity Press. Turnbull Stephen (1998) The Samurai Sourcebook, London: Cassell & Co. Zimmerman Eve, (2008) Out of the Alleyway: Nakagami Kenji and the Poetics of Outcaste Fiction, Harvard UP.

Index 5

Akamatsu Mitsutsuke 43 Arima Yoriyasu 173, 279 Arimatsu Hideyoshi 146 Asada Zennosuke 219, 242 Chiri Yukie 190, 191 Dōaikai ix, xv, 171, 173, 174, 200, 201 Fukken Dōmei 130 Fukuoka xv, xvi, 5, 34, 35, 73, 78, 93, 97, 186, 219, 223, 226, 240, 269, 275, 279 Fukuzawa Yukichi 121, 129, 136, 280 Godaigo 25, 38

Katō Hiroyuki 121 Kimura Kyōtarō 183, 184, 281 Kita Sadakichi 152, 170, 171, 281 Kitahara Taisuke 221, 223 Kōfukuji 24, 28, 37, 44, 45, 47 Kyoto xiii, xiv, 19, 22, 24, 25, 27– 38, 43–48, 53, 60, 61, 68–70, 75, 78, 81–83, 86, 88, 95, 96, 101, 112, 121, 149, 155, 159, 166, 180, 184, 192, 203, 214, 223, 227, 228, 230, 233, 271, 274–276, 280 Kyūdan 184, 193 Liberation Declaration xiv, 113, 114, 117, 119, 120, 123–129, 139, 140, 145, 154, 157, 172, 207, 265 Mahayana Buddhism 19, 20, 22, 23 Makino Nobuaki 169 Maruyama Masao 224, 265, 280, 282 Matsui Shogorō 152 Matsukata Masayoshi 132 Matsumae 59 Matsumoto Jiichirō xvi, 196, 212, 213, 221, 226, 279, 282, 287 Meirokusha 121 Minami Umekichi xv, 180, 182, 196, 198 Miyoshi Iheiji 200, 201, 272 Muromachi 25, 29, 37, 39, 40–43, 47, 48. 272

Hakusan 102, 270, 271 Himiko 5 Hiranuma Kiichirō 200 Hyongpyongsa ix, xv, 188, 189 Ieyasu 59, 75 Imoto RInshi 223 Inoue Kiyoshi 164, 242, 280 Ishibashi Tanzan Ishikawa Kazuo 243, 280 Itagaki Taisuke 156 Itō Shigemitsu 233, 281 Kagawa Toshihiko 150, 284 Kamakura Bakufu 24, 38 Kano Masanao 258, 281

289

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A HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATED BURAKU COMMUNITIES IN JAPAN

Nabeyama Sadechika 209 Nakae Chōmin xiv, 130, 131 Nara 6, 11, 13, 19, 21, 22, 26–30, 34–38, 44, 45, 47, 53, 61, 86, 96, 98, 99, 152, 153, 155, 159, 170, 175, 176, 183, 184, 192, 196, 272, 286 Nintoku 7 Nishimura Kanefumi 128

Shakushain 59 Shibusawa Eichi 122, 199 Shibusome Shimazaki Tōson 118, 142, 143, 284 Suiheisha ix, x, xv, xvi, 131, 156, 168, 176, 177–207, 211–214, 217, 221–224, 231, 234, 256, 279, 281, 283

Ōe Taku 156, 168 Oita 104, 110, 219 Ōka Tadasuke Ōkura Tōrō 140 Ōmi 7, 35, 38, 43, 45, 65, 87, 96, 106, 107, 270 Ōnin wars 47 Osaka xiii, xiv, , xv, xvi, 30, 35, 45, 51, 62, 69, 71, 72, 74, 75, 78, 79, 81–83, 85, 93, 96, 101, 105, 106, 109, 130, 134, 143, 159, 163, 166, 184, 185, 192, 202, 219, 228, 231, 234, 244, 253, 254, 256, 260, 269, 271, 272–276, 280, 283, 284 Ōshio Heihachirō 109

Takahashi Sadaki xvi, 192, 193, 284, 285 Takeba Toraichirō 146, 150 Teikoku Kōdōkai xv, 156, 157, 160 Tokugawa vi, 16, 54, 55, 58, 59, 62, 66–68, 71, 75, 79, 102, 113, 121, 155, 275 Tomeoka Kōsuke 149, 279 Tsubamekai ix, xv, 176 Tsunayoshi 71 Uchida Ryushi 253, 285 Uchiyama Sōsuke 121 Ueda Otoichi 196, 221, 283 Watanabe mura xiv, 71, 93, 130, 131, 272

Paekchon 188 Saikō Mankichi xv, 176, 177, 182, 209, 283, 284, 286 Sakai 48, 51, 81, 82, 108, 272, 276 Sakamoto Seiichirō 176, 180 Sano Manabu 178, 209 Sengoku Jidai vi, 48 Settsu xiv, 62, 69, 71, 85, 95, 101, 105, 107–109, 130

Yamakawa Hitoshi 192 Yamamoto Masao 201, 202, 205, 221, 226, 284 Yamato Dōshikai viii, xv, 152–159, 161, 167 Yokokawa Shoto 128 Yoneda Tomi xv, 182 Yoshida Shigeru Yoshino Sakuzō 169