Caste in Early Modern Japan

Danzaemon and the Edo Outcaste Order

Timothy Amos

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429863035
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Modern History
• Index: History

"Caste", a word normally used in relation to the Indian subcontinent, is rarely associated with Japan in contemporary scholarship. This has not always been the case, and the term was often used among earlier generations of scholars, who introduced the Buraku problem to Western audiences. Amos argues that time for reappraisal is well overdue and that a combination of ideas, beliefs, and practices rooted in Confucian, Buddhist, Shinto, and military traditions were brought together from the late 16th century in ways that influenced the development of institutions and social structures on the Japanese archipelago. These influences brought the social structures closer in form and substance to certain caste formations found in the Indian subcontinent during the same period.

Specifically, Amos analyses the evolution of the so-called Danzaemon outcaste order. This order was a 17th century caste configuration produced as a consequence of early modern Tokugawa rulers' decisions to engage in a state-building project rooted in military logic and built on the back of existing manorial and tribal-class arrangements. He further examines the history behind the primary duties expected of outcastes within the Danzaemon order: notably execution and policing, as well as leather procurement. Reinterpreting Japan as a caste society, this book propels us to engage in fuller comparisons of how outcaste communities' histories and challenges have diverged and converged over time and space, and to consider how better to eradicate discrimination based on caste logic.

This book will appeal to anyone interested in Japanese History, Culture and Society.

1 The caste experience of early modern Japanese outcastes

Introduction

This chapter establishes the grounds for thinking about early modern Japan as a caste society. The Edo outcaste order under the leadership of Danzaemon was similar in many respects to outcaste formations on the subcontinent as well as other parts of the world. Caste is a term that both illuminates aspects of early modern life for chōri (eta) in eastern Japan and helps highlight important commonalities between outcaste communities in Japan, India, and beyond. Comparison with certain Indian caste formations is particularly useful because: (i) Indian outcastes were one discursive template for thinking about outcastes in the Japanese context; (ii) social stratification and pollution functioned in comparatively similar ways in early modern Japan and India; and (iii) structural similarities between regional variants of Japanese and Indian premodern social formations worked in similar ways to create categories of occupational outcastes that shared unique characteristics.

Caste, this chapter demonstrates, is an important and effective term for thinking comparatively about early modern Japanese social structures, particularly when examined along the definitional lines contained in Irfan Habib’s and Kotani Hiroyuki’s thought-provoking treatises on caste in India. The chapter begins by offering a snapshot of the system of outcaste governance in eastern Japan under Danzaemon, before engaging in a discussion of how such a system of rule might be best represented. While noting important points of departure between Indian caste and Japanese status, as well as some of the important problems associated with definition, including colonialism, the chapter illustrates the utility and applicability of the use of the term caste in the Japanese context in relation to outcastes. The chapter then proceeds to offer a detailed discussion of an important feature of caste highlighted in Habib’s definition and Kotani’s research (missing from or understated in some important recent discussions of status in Japan) – hierarchy. As the chapter concludes, hierarchy was an embedded feature of the early modern Japanese social system and was legitimized in ways that produced a scapegoat function for Danzaemon and his subordinates.

Outcaste governance in eastern Japan

In the late 18th century, a man by the name of Kiheiji (1735–1802) living in Lower Wana village in Musashi Province made a transition to the village leadership, taking over from his father.¹ Lower Wana village was located at the southern tip of Upper Wana village, and rice paddies divided the farmer-based Wana village from the eta (chōri)-based Lower Wana village.² The terms upper and lower here could be taken as simple physiographical expressions referring to land elevation, but it is more likely that they reflect a relationship of administerial subordination rooted in a specific form of status delineation. Minegishi Kentarō notes that Lower Wana village submitted to Upper Wana village rule with regard to the collection of farming taxes, the preparation of population and group registers, and the notification of changes in village office. But while under their jurisdiction in these matters, Lower Wana village was removed from all Wana village administration duties and had no voice in Upper Wana village affairs.³ In this sense, the label lower was probably originally a practice of administerial subordination to the main farming village rooted in a division of labour (exclusive rice cultivator versus leather procurer/tanner) that most likely developed into a form of a more discriminatory relationship involving derogatory labelling and other practices in later periods.

While basic information about his father is sketchy, Kiheiji’s life on the other hand is fairly well documented. The growth of historical materials in relation to Kiheiji is likely to be linked to an increase in literacy during the second half of the 18th century, perhaps a phenomenon itself that arose due to the increased frequency of itinerant priests teaching in the community.⁴ While his father was still alive, Kiheiji married a woman by the name of Miki living in the same village group and some twelve years his junior. The couple then began to live together with his parents in their house, which was also home to Kiheiji’s uncle’s five-memberstrong family and his younger sister, Sen. They all lived together in an area in the village designated as the “original group” (motokumi), an area along with the “middle group” and “east group” that comprised the three residential clusters in the village. Kiheiji’s father, and then Kiheiji himself, were usually designated in official documentation literally as “eta little head/subchief-” (eta kogashira), an appellation difficult to date in eastern Japan but probably of late 17th or early 18th century origin. Not long after this, Kiheiji also assumed the title of “group head” (kumigashira) and adopted his father’s hereditary work name: Jin’emon. As it turns out, the two other families that took on the post of “sub-chief” historically were also in charge of the other two village groups, but Kiheiji’s family retained the primary leadership position in the village as head of the original group. Records indicate that it was around this period that the family lines of the other sub-chiefs in Lower Wana died off with neither of them being replaced.

Miki’s older brother Yaheiji married Kiheiji’s sister Sen soon after, thereby strengthening their inter-family ties. While there were no formal laws commanding endogamy at the time, rulings in Tokugawa official legal cases during his time as sub-chief concerning eta intermarriage indicate that it was clearly a punishable offence.⁵ Furthermore, evidence from the late Tokugawa period in the same province also strongly suggests endogamous relations were commonplace among peasant villagers through strong kinship networks as well.⁶ Importantly, too, the aforementioned two marriages were probably linked to the fact that Miki and Yaheiji belonged to a village family that also had a leadership pedigree in the original group: their father had served in a leadership capacity in the village until his death in 1769, and although not clearly stated in the early records, was most likely in the position of “group representative” (kumisōdai). This role probably involved Yaheiji acting as the middle-man between the three residential group clusters in the village when they needed to interact with the nearby peasant village authorities. In 1770, Yaheiji submitted a request to be permitted to take over his father’s role to the nearby Upper Wana village peasant officials. They gave their approval for the promotion in a letter addressed to Lower Wana village’s other “group heads”.

In addition to the above names and titles, in occasional private correspondence Kiheiji’s family also used the surname Suzuki, with later documents referencing the genealogy of the village suggesting that the middle and east groups were actually branch families of a single original Suzuki family line. Later documents further indicate that requests to appoint a sub-chief in the village were usually made directly by the person who held the title on behalf of their eldest son after securing the co-signature of any relevant intra-village office bearer to “the Venerable Office” (onyakushosama). The “Venerable Office” referred to in such documents is unmistakably that of Danzaemon, a fact confirmed by a contemporaneous document submitted on behalf of another group head during this time which contained a reference to Shinchō, the residential quarters where Danzaemon resided in Edo.

From the above it is clear that Kiheiji had two distinct leadership titles within Lower Wana village: as head of one of three clearly demarcated residential clusters referred to as kumi or groups which required the clearance of peasant officials; and the other as a sub-chief who acquired his position through approval by an office in the shogun’s capital administered by Danzaemon. Most of the historical records pertaining to Kiheiji’s later life deal with either his office as head of a village whose life and daily pursuits were deeply embedded in the local landscape and interactions with nearby peasant villages or as local functionary for a larger body of people tied together under the leadership of Danzaemon. Records indicate, moreover, that Kiheiji was not just in charge of chōri (eta) in his village, but also the resident hinin who worked primarily as flayers of animal carcasses and guards in the village in exchange for begging privileges.

Extant records also tie Kiheiji to a larger body of people outside his village defined in similar ways. Although research to date cannot permit a complete reconstruction of all of the villages under Danzaemon rule in eastern Japan, Map 1.1 offers a glimpse of the scale of the region he governed and the distance between some of the villages connected through Danzaemon’s governance based on extant records. Communities such as Ueno village and Inubushi township in Aso County, Shimotsuke Province (present-day Gunma and Toshigi Prefectures) lie on the outer fringes of the map. The distance between Lower Wana village in central Musashi Province and Inubushi township is about 30 kilometres as the crow flies, while it is about 70 kilometres from Inubushi township to Danzaemon’s office in Asakusa. Records indicate that this latter distance sometimes put Inubushi into a “distant place” category in official documentation, and this category sometimes permitted village leaders to receive a temporary travel waiver on matters of official business to Edo⁷.

Map 1.1 Area under Danzaemon rule

The area Danzaemon ruled over was known as the “eight eastern provinces” (kanhasshū). Kanhasshū referred to the provinces of Musashi, Kōzuke, Kazusa, Shimotsuke, Awa, Hitachi, Sagami, and Shimousa, but Danzaemon rule also extended to parts of Iyo, Kōshū, Suruga, Mutsu, and Dewa Provinces. In 1816, Danzaemon Chikamasa (r.1804–1821) stated that his ancestors had earlier lived in Kamakura and had ruled over many people there before being appointed “head of the eight eastern provinces” (kanhasshū gashira) during the Tenshō period (1573–1593).⁸ But, as will be seen in the following chapter, the claim is impossible to verify.

The total number of people under Danzaemon’s rule was striking: the number of households governed by Danzaemon Chikashige (r.1793–1804) in the year 1800 was recorded as 7,720.⁹ Of this figure, approximately three-quarters were classified as eta (chōri), and of these perhaps as many as several hundred are estimated to have been part of the sub-chief leadership class to which Kiheiji belonged. It is clear that not all of the sub-leadership strata were of the same rank either. In 1789, Danzaemon informed the Edo City Magistrate that there was a group of people under his rule called the “Ya people” who were actually capable of giving orders to the sub-chiefs and who had permission to wear seasonal clothes of an advanced degree of formality. As scholarship has also recently pointed out, moreover, certain regional sub-chiefs had pedigrees and ranks that gave them special proximity to Danzaemon and privileged access on formal occasions.¹⁰

In terms of hierarchy and ranking, Danzaemon himself had a considerable personal retinue. He had sandal bearers and commanded a considerable entourage during major events and ceremonies. Aside from his personal minions, moreover, the Danzaemon institution itself included “group leaders” (kumigashira), “overseers” (tedai), “secretaries” (shoki/shoyaku), “officials” (yakunin), and “public notaries” (kujiyado dairinin) who also lived in the same Asakusa compound as Danzaemon, referred to as the “the enclosure” (kako-no-uchi/kakouchi). While extant documentation does not permit a clear reconstruction of the precise nature of the relationships of rule between Danzaemon and these subordinates, it is clear that Danzaemon’s orders were sometimes issued through them, indicating a fairly sophisticated level of bureaucratic development. The number of “group leaders” appears to have changed over time, with two main officers referred to as Asaemon and Sadaemon, probably also themselves hereditary positions in principle, continuing for the latter half of the Tokugawa period. Little is known about the positions of “secretary” and “public notary”.

These core members of Danzaemon’s administrative office were involved in the management of various relationships. The most important upwardly vertical relationship they managed was with the Edo City Commissioners (Edo Machi Bugyō). Danzaemon’s inauguration ceremony when coming into office was conducted at the Edo City Commissioner’s Office, and it was to this institution that respects had to be paid on the occasion of the New Year. All problems related to Danzaemon governance were also handled through this Tokugawa shogunate institution, even if a matter had been raised by another shogunate body such as the Finance Magistrate (Kanjō Bugyō). Danzaemon also maintained a strict relationship with sub-chiefs such as Kiheiji who directly pledged allegiance to him at least once a year in person. Danzaemon further maintained a series of relationships with groups who through their own volition or by legal compulsion were obliged to pledge allegiance to Danzaemon. Of these groups, the most famous were the hinin leaders known as Kuruma Zenshichi, Matsuemon, Yoyogi Kubē, and Fukagawa Zensaburō, who governed subordinate hinin in designated begging areas in Edo as...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Explanatory note on style
• Introduction
• 1 The caste experience of early modern Japanese outcastes
• 2 The emergence of the Edo outcaste order and Danzaemon rule
• 3 The ideological construction of eta
• 4 Danzaemon and the political economy of crucifixion
• 5 Eta governance, hinin, and the policing of the poor
• 6 Transformations in urban outcaste space in Edo/Tokyo
• 7 Outcaste status and the leather monopoly
• Epilogue
• References
• Index