Outcaste Relations in a Japanese Village

Abstract

SINCE the first report of them in the 17th century Dutch accounts, nonJapanese have been aware of the presence in Japan of lowly and socially isolated groups of an Indian caste type. There have been also other obscure references to Japanese of this kind in histories and travellers' reports. However, the posture of these caste-like phenomena that can be discerned from the usually brief descriptions in Western sources is overly simple and represents conditions only in important centers of outcaste population, such as Edo (modern Tokyo) or the central Kyoto-Nara district. That there is much more diversity in the outcaste stratum than is assumed by the stock Western usage eta and hinin has been amply demonstrated by Japanese historiography of local archival materials.2 Virtually everything known about such people before their legal emancipation in 1871 has been derived from documents relating to fiats and judgments by magistrates under whose authority they resided. Despite a drastic reduction of caste distinctions at this level of society, due primarily to assimilation of those rootless types called collectively hinin after the fall of the Tokugawa feudal order (1603-1868), the popular image of eta descendants in modern Japan is still powerfully conditioned by their position in Japan as it was no later than late Meiji or early Taisho periods (spanning approximately the first two decades of this century). Recent research suggests that the modern eta do not constitute a discrete stratum of caste-like character distinguished as a separate sub-culture of the Japanese whole, for communities of outcastes articulate with society in a manner that does not deviate basically from the normal patterns of the area. Residents of such communities all over Japan of course do comprise the largest of the native minorities but, unlike most minorities, they are as fully integrated as any other segment of Japanese society, although in certain unique ways. The lifeways of any local group of outcastes show a preponderance of similarity to the culture of the locality in which they reside. Therefore, the validity of thinking of a specific group as participating in a distinctive subculture of national extent is dubious and seems currently to have little heuristic value. The validity of this point has become greater with the passing into disrepute of caste occupational monopolies, such as leatherworking and slaughtering and butchering, which were rigidly prescribed by Tokugawa sumptuary rules. One of the most difficult and yet most vital problems in studies of modern outcaste groups is to determine what are the actual components of the outcaste complex: the set of values and socioeconomic features that may be used to characterize outcasteism anywhere in Japan. How-