Chapter Fourteen:
Ordinary People and Daily Life in Medieval Japan
Introduction: Guilty as Charged
Historian Barbara Ruch has complained that nearly all accounts of medieval Japan are oriented toward elite society:
Even those historians who are interested in the culture of ordinary people tend to view them in comparison with the upper classes, and their accounts are thereby riveted to the same high-low polarity as are those of the historians with whom they are ideologically at odds. Ironically, therefore, an elite veneer stretches over the history of the middle ages, obscuring the texture and contours of the daily life of the great majority of medieval men and women, while leaving in darkness those creators of Japanese culture who have failed to qualify under these preferred definitions of history. ("The Other Side of Culture in Medieval Japan," in Kozo Yamamura, ed., The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 3, Medieval Japan [New York, Cambridge University Press, 1990], p. 500.)
Topics in Medieval Japanese History is guilty of elitism as charged by Ruch, and this chapter is a feeble attempt partially to rectify the imbalance. It derives in large part from the work of Ruch and from several of Japan's preeminent historians of medieval times such as Amino Yoshihiko (deceased, 2004), who took ordinary people and daily life most seriously in his work. This chapter focuses on five broad topics: the pursuit of economic security, popular entertainments, popular deities, and the margins of society.
Recall in the context of an earlier discussion of the story Bunshō the Salt Maker that Ruch identified the pursuit of economic security as the paramount concern of most medieval Japanese. Of course, the vast majority of medieval Japanese made their livings through agriculture, many within the context of shōen. Medieval peasants were known by a variety of different terms that corresponded to different socio-economic statuses. We need not go into the details here, but on the one hand, some peasants (myōshu 名主) were quite wealthy, controlled large tracts of excellent land, and even had other peasants working for them. At the other end of the spectrum were itinerate farmers (mōto 間人) who worked marginal land from place to place, barely surviving, sometimes only by begging. Another type of peasant (genin 下人) worked as servants--often virtually as slaves--in the households of wealthier peasants.
There were two main types of fields: wet and dry. Wet fields were flooded and drained at the proper times for rice cultivation. To succeed, such fields required some capital investment in irrigation and water control devices and oxen for plowing. They also required intensive labor in the form or fertilizing, weeding, cultivating the rice seedlings, and then transplanting them at the correct time of the year. The wealthier peasants generally cultivated these kinds of fields, and rice was the premier crop. Peasants lower in the socio-economic hierarchy cultivated a variety of lesser grains such as barley, millet, or buckwheat, as well as soybeans, various vegetables, and hemp, which was the main fiber for clothing until the advent of large-scale cotton cultivation in the sixteenth century.
Fertilizing procedures were an essential part of agriculture. The standard procedure for wet fields was to apply compost, consisting mostly of grass and leaves, which the oxen would trample underfoot during plowing. Sometimes horses also walked through the fields to push the compost mixture into the soil with their hooves. In late medieval times, a new ingredient to the compost mixture--ashes from burnt trees--helped boost yields. The preparation of dry fields including burning wood on top of them for the ashes, which helped keep a plot fertile for about two or three years, after which time it would have to lie fallow for a time and undergo more applications of burnt wood to renew its fertility.
Once the seeds or seedlings were planted, then peasants had to wage a constant battle with insects (locusts were the worst) and larger pests such as deer, wild boars, or sparrows. Other potential problems included plant diseases, drought, flooding, and unusual extremes in temperature. In the worst cases, such problems could cause total crop failures, leading possibly to famine and to poorer peasants having to abandon their fields and become itinerant farmers or agricultural servants in wealthy farm households.
The diet of peasants varied according to socio-economic status and local conditions. Only the wealthiest peasants ate rice on a regular basis; most could afford to eat it only three or four times a year on special occasions. The typical peasant died was based on cheap grains like millet supplement with vegetables and the tuberous roots of certain plants. According to Nagahara Keiji peasants in Kai Province:
raised rice, barley, wheat, and millet, but by spring they had usually consumed these harvested foods. After that, ferns and plants kept them alive until the summer barley harvest. They also ate fish, birds, and other animals when available. Food brought in from the outside, however, was limited to salted fish a few times a year. (Nagahara Keiji, "The Medieval Peasant, " in Kozo Yamamura, ed., The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 3, Medieval Japan [New York, Cambridge University Press, 1990], p. 326.)
For all but the wealthiest stratum of peasants, life on the farm was always hard and often miserable. When the work in the fields was finally done for the day, the average peasant could return to his house. This house would typically have consisted of two small, unpartitioned rooms and a dirt-floor kitchen area. The flooring for the two living areas was usually straw. Wealthier peasants enjoyed larger homes with wooden floorboards. Roofs of peasant houses were usually made of split planks, not tile. The outside wall often consisted of a plaster made from mud and straw (shikkui 漆喰). In wealthier houses, this plaster filled in the cracks between stacked logs.
Not all Japanese were peasants, of course. Many worked at manufacturing various crafts, the pursuit of commerce, or the provisions of services. Farmers, for example, purchased items like hoes, shovels, pots, kegs, bowls, tubs, and possibly more elaborate items like saddles or umbrellas. Demand for these kinds of goods kept small-scale (usually a single household, sometimes more) busy manufacturing them, and peddlers roamed from village to village selling them. One arrangement that developed in shōen was to invite key support personnel like weavers, carpenters, plasterers, and artisans to live there and ply their trade. In return for providing the shōen members with goods and services, these non-farmers received the proceeds of certain plots of land as a regular stipend. Some worked for the shōen on a full-time basis, others part time. In this way, shōen became, in effect, self-supporting villages.
The major categories of non-farming occupations included fishing, hunting, crafts and manufacturing, commerce, entertainment, and divination/shamanism. The last two categories tended to merge together, as we will see in the final section of this chapter. A number of specialty occupations would not have fit into these categories. Such occupations included, physicians, sword sharpeners, blacksmiths, carpenters, and prostitutes.
In terms of the overall sweep of social history, the most important development in medieval Japan was the spread of commerce. We have already examined the importance of commerce during the sixteenth century in the context of the transference of aristocratic culture to commoners and the rise of merchants as the major force in cultural production during the Edo period. At the level of daily affairs, the increasing numbers of traveling merchants and artisans gradually transformed agricultural lifestyles. "Among these traveling merchants, some of those who changed the cultivators' lives were the peddlers of pots, pans, needles, hoes, plows, knives, sesame oil, various household items made by skilled carpenters and potters, and other goods." (Kozo Yamamura, "The Growth of Commerce in Medieval Japan," in Kozo Yamamura, ed., The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 3, Medieval Japan [New York, Cambridge University Press, 1990], p. 347.) These items of material culture may seem mundane by today's standards, but they led to steady increases in agricultural productivity and improvements in the standard of living in rural areas.
<<Forthcoming in a future edition. It will feature dancing.>>
You may be tired of religion at this point, but it was everywhere in medieval Japan. In previous material we have only touched briefly upon popular deities (i.e., Hachiman and an optional link to Inari). Here we systematically survey the most popular deities, all of whom remain part of Japanese religion today (however religion plays a much more muted role in contemporary Japan than it did in medieval times). We start with the top three and then examine seven deities of good fortune.
According to Yamaori Tetsuo, "Three gods--Hachiman 八幡, Inari 稲荷, and Kitano Tenjin 北野天神--account for more than 80 percent of the god population in Japan. There is hardly a village throughout the country where these gods are not enshrined." (Yamaori Tetsuo, Wandering Spirits and Temporary Corpses: Studies in the History of Japanese Religious Tradition, Dennis Hirota, ed., trans. [Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2004], p. 396.) One other important point that Yamaori makes about Japanese religion is that when popular male deities made themselves manifest to humans, it was usually in the form of an *old man* or of a *pre-teenage boy.* The logic at work here is as follows:
Old men and children are in a relationship of transformation into each other based on their divine nature. Commonly it is said of the elderly that through aging they return to a condition of childhood, and in the worship of gods, the same kind of thinking is manifested. Through aging, one approaches the gods, and also approaches the world of children. In other words, the possibility of being reborn into another condition becomes nearer. (Yamaori , Wandering Spirits, p. 397.)
In other words, in the popular imagination, children and the elderly are likely to possess special divine qualities. Extreme aging was thought gradually to transform a person (or an animal like a cat or dog) into a bakemono 化け物--literally "a changed thing" (often translated as #"monster"#).
Recall that there are several theories of Hachiman's origins (#review#). One is that he was originally a Chinese deity (especially when pronounced "Yahata"), another its that he was the deified form of the Emperor Ōjin, and another is that he was an agricultural deity who later became associated with mining, blacksmithing, and metallurgy. This third theory seems to have the most support among scholars of Japanese religion (though it need not exclude, for example, the possibility of Chinese origins). The basic story is that Hachiman appeared on the mountain behind what became the Hachiman shrine at Usa in Kyūshū. He first appeared in the form of an old man, a blacksmith with fierce features, and then he became manifest as a small child.
The Hachiman shrine at Usa is also famous as the site where Wake-no-Kiyomaro (733-799) 和気清麿 visited in connection with the so-called Dōkyō Affair 道鏡事件. The Buddhist priest Dōkyō--a man of relatively lowly (sixth-rank) aristocratic origins who became (female) Emperor Shōtoku’s lover--appears to have attempted to take the imperial throne. Wake-no-Kiyomaro thwarted his scheme by obtaining an #oracle from the Usa Hachiman shrine# to the effect that Dōkyō should not ascend the throne. Shōtoku was outraged, banished Wake-no-Kiyomaru and some of his family members, and even had his name changed from "Kiyo-maro" (kiyo = purity) to "Kitana-maro" (穢麿, kitana[i] = filthy). But Dōkyō fell from grace and Wake-no-Kiyomaro was restored to his prestigious posts in the capital.
(Japanese history trivia: Although these events took place in the imperial court during the Nara period, they became widely known among ordinary people. During the late medieval and Tokugawa periods, Dōkyō became a kind of folk hero among men, owing allegedly to his possessing a remarkably large organ. Indeed, his name became synonymous with "large male organ." One Muromachi-period encyclopedia, the Kagakushū 下学集 claims that Dōkyō’s organ was larger than that of a horse. A senryū (popular saying) from the Tokugawa period went: "When Dōkyō sits down, 3 knees protrude" 道鏡はすわると膝が三つ出来.)
The next deity is Inari. If you did not read the optional link to this deity in an earlier chapter, please *read it now.*
The third member of this ultra-popular triumvirate of deities is Kitano Tenjin. Kitano Tenjin is the deified spirit of Sugawara-no-Michizane 菅原道真 (845-903; #image#), a famous poet and high-ranking member of the Heian court. Although of modest birth, he rose to the lofty post of Minister of the Right, largely because he had won the trust of Emperor Uda. However, at this time, real political power was increasingly being exercised by the Fujiwara clan. Sugawara-no-Michizane became the object of Fujiwara slander and ended up banished to Dazaifu in Kyūshū, where he soon died. Almost immediately thereafter, the members of the court who had opposed and slandered Michizane began to die--mostly of disease, but one was struck by lightning. The survivors concluded that Michizane had become an angry spirit (onryō 怨霊). To make amends and appease this spirit, they deified Michizane as "Kitano Tenjin," offered ritual prayers to him, and constructed a #large shrine# for his spirit.
Although starting out as a deity worshipped in elite circles, Kitano Tenjin became immensely popular. To this day, in the form of Tenman Tenjin 天満天神, the kami of scholarship and literature, Michizane's spirit continues to reign benevolently, #helping students pass exams# (provided they go to the appropriate shrine, ask for divine assistance in the proper manner, and, most important, throw money into the donation box).
Let us now turn to the #Seven Deities of Good Fortune# (#shichifukujin# 七福神; #another image#): Daikokuten 大黒天, Ebisu 恵比寿 or 蛭子, Benzaiten 弁財天, Bishamonten 毘沙門天, Hotei 布袋, Fukurokuju 福禄寿, and Jurōjin 寿老人. As the overall name for this group implies, they are all popular deities thought to bring good fortune. All of them were worshipped during the medieval era, but it was not until the early seventeenth century that these diverse deities became grouped together. Yamaori explains the general conception of them that had emerged at that point. It was:
a popular belief that seven deities . . . came from across the sea. A tale was composed in which deities with origins in India, China, and Japan formed an international team, loaded #a ship# with gold, silver, and other precious treasures, and visited Japan from far across the sea. It was a Japanese version of the Santa Claus story. While in Europe Santa Claus comes only once a year, in Japan, an entire group of gift-bearers comes throughout the year. There is a close connection here with the belief that an ideal world lies beyond the sea. (Yamaori , Wandering Spirits, p. 436.)
Daikokuten appears to be the oldest member of the group, coming into Japan along with Tendai Buddhism. His roots are complex, and he seems to have been a cross between the guardian deity Mahakala of India and a southern Chinese deity of feasts and banquets. He can occasionally be found depicted as an all black (his name literally means "big black") *guardian figure holding a trident.* But he is more commonly depicted as a *jolly, plump granter of wealth,* usually with a large bag over one shoulder and often standing on two bales of rice. The common element in all depictions of Daikoku is his mallet, a tool with magic powers (#example--see item 4#). During the late Muromachi period and into the Tokugawa period, Daitoku, along with Ebisu (often the two were #depicted together#) became especially popular among farmers as promoters of good harvests.
The origins of Ebisu are unclear, and early versions of the deity were not always auspicious. Ebisu embodied the violent power that comes from afar, and was thus originally a fearsome deity (often called Ara-Ebisu, i.e., Violent Ebisu). He is typically depicted in a much more *benevolent form,* jolly, fat, fishing pole in his right hand, and a sea bream (tai) carried in his right arm. During medieval times, Ebisu was especially popular among the townspeople of Kyōto. Merchants often invoked Ebisu in their quest for business prosperity. Farmers, especially in Kyūshū, but also elsewhere, regarded Ebisu (often in tandem with Daikoku) as a deity of good harvests. Members of fishing villages often invoked the power Ebisu prior to setting out in boats or diving. In modern Japan, Ebisu is sometimes associated with bars and the social consumption of liquor.
Benzaiten originated from a Hindu goddess named Sarasvati. In Japan she became associated with a variety of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and symbols. As a Hindu deity, Banzaiten was associated with music and poetry, and in Japan she retained these associations. The *most common depiction* of Banzaiten has her playing a biwa, often while seated on a lotus flower throne. Other common symbols of Benzaiten are a peacock and a white serpent. In *some depictions* in Japan, she wears a torii (the gateway to local shrines) on her head and has eight arms, each holding a symbolic object. She is always associated with water, and thus with dragons and serpents, who are also associated with water. Her shrines are typically near water, and she is thought to be able to ward off natural disasters. In the late medieval period and throughout the Tokugawa period Benzaiten became a more generalized deity of good luck. Today, Japanese sometimes invoke her power for good luck in gambling (including speculative ventures), love, and business.
Among the seven deities of good fortune, Bishamonten has the wildest or roughest features. He is a symbol of facing one's enemies with power, i.e., of guardian functions. Bishamonten is the Japanese version of the Hindu guardian of the north. In medieval Japan he functioned as a protective deity of Buddhism and the state, a deity who could cure illness, and a bestower of wealth. He is *usually depicted* standing upright in a suit of armor, often while trampling a demon underfoot.
Hotei is typically depicted as a wandering holy man, carrying a large sack and a walking stick. Unlike the typical wandering holy man, however, Hotei *appears fat and jovial* (like several other deities of good fortune). He dispenses useful items from his sack to people who need them. The sack never empties. Hotai also stands by the roadside assisting passers by, mainly be answering their questions about heavenly signs, lucky and unlucky days, and so forth. In other words, Hotei acts as a kind of divination specialist for the average person. His distinctive quality is generosity.
Fukurokuju tends to be a comical figure. He is almost certainly of Chinese Daoist origin, and appears as an *old man* whose conical bald head is substantially longer than his body. His head often takes on phallic overtones, usually with a #comic effect.# He is often accompanied by a crane (i.e., a large bird), which is a classic symbol of longevity in East Asia. This crane is one way to distinguish Fukurokuju from the similar Jurōjin, who is usually accompanied by a deer.
Jurōjin was also of Chinese Daoist origin. He was an immortal who was born during the Song dynasty, and his origins and appearance are very similar to those of Fukurokuju (his head, while elongated, is smaller, and he is typically accompanied by a deer.) He was a deity of good luck and longevity, but he did not become popular until the late Tokugawa period, so we need not be concerned with him here.
Web Resource: #A to Z list of Japanese deities, native and Buddhist#
This section discusses people on the margins of society, or who at least have traditionally been regarded as marginal. Some of these people--or their professions--probably should be moved closer into the mainstream by modern historians. Shamans are a good example. Ruch points out some of the biases that have resulted in downplaying the substantial role of shamans in medieval Japanese society:
The importance of shamanism in ancient as well as medieval life has been underestimated and essentially ignored in contemporary historical discourse. Female dominated and individually oriented, it was in marked contrast with male-dominated and institution-oriented Buddhism. Yet from early on, shamanism was part of the daily life of Japanese on all levels. The statesman Fujiwara no Kaneie (929-90), for instance, would not make a move without consulting the uchifushi no miko (shaman who falls into a trance) attached to the Kamo shrine in Kyoto. Eleventh-century novels invariably include discussions of shamanistic consultations, and in twelfth- and thirteenth-century songs and paintings, shamans appear frequently. ("The Other Side of Culture in Medieval Japan," pp. 523-524.)
Recall from the previous chapter that shamanism was highly influential in the formation of the nō drama. Although nō is correctly regarded as a Buddhist-influenced art form, the contribution of shamanism tends often to be overlooked.
Despite the tremendous importance of shamanism in medieval life, it is not always possible to reconstruct the details of their work. Indeed, it is not always possible to sort out the terminology connected with shamans. As in other parts of East Asia shamans in Japan tended to be women, though some were men. Often they wandered, but sometimes they were based at a specific shrine, temple, or other location. Some may have worked alone, but more typically they worked in pairs or larger groups. The best of them did very well for themselves financially, but most seem to have struggled just to get by.
Shamans claimed special spiritual powers. They could do things like communicating with spirits (of the dead, for example), driving away malevolent spirits, curing illness, or selecting luck days for special events. Some specialized in a certain type of spiritual talent. Most combined shamanic activities with song and dance, and thus doubled as entertainers. This combination was natural because the shamanic process itself typically involved a frenzied dance. Popular dance music and shamans had long been closely connected. By adding the singing of popular songs (imayō and kouta) to the dancing and prognosticating, shamans positioned themselves as all-around popular entertainers. See *this graphic* (PDF file) for images of shamans, who were known by a wide variety of terms such as miko, agato-miko, aruki-miko, azusa-miko, ichiko, kannagi, goze, kugutsu and jisha (this last term may have indicated male shamans posing as women). These terms are not identical, but neither are they entirely distinct. Furthermore, medieval authors were not consistent in their use of these terms, and terminology varied from region to region.
The basic image of medieval-era shamans would be women who made their livings dealing with the public and selling their spiritual power and prowess at song, dance, and music. Some, but not all, also engaged in prostitution. The day-to-day work of these shamans was often demanding, as this imayō song suggests:
Sorceress Tora!
Shaking the bells that way!
Bells are to be shaken
High above the eye:
Jingle, jangle, jingle,
Shake them way up high.
If you shake them low like that
Down below the eye,
The spirits will scold, “You’re dawdling!”
Oh how frightful
When they’re mad!
("The Other Side of Culture in Medieval Japan," p. 524.)
One genre of art that was especially popular in medieval times was emaki 絵巻, often called "narrative picture scrolls" in English. Medieval narrative picture scrolls often feature female shamans, diviners, fortune tellers and/or entertainers in both their text and images. Let us take one typical example of a story of one such person, which is found in the eighth volume of the Hokekyō jikidanshō 法華経直談鈔 (ca. 16th century). The tale itself is called "Mamahaha itsuwaru koto" 継母偽事 (Stepmother's deceit). Although fictional, it provides a glimpse into a part of medieval social life that is often overlooked in standard histories.
The story takes place in the province of Bizen (Island of Kyūshū) where a man named Saemon Masatatsu lived. Being without children, he prayed to the kami and the Buddhas for a child and received a daughter. But when the daughter was three years old, her mother died and the child became blind. Her father eventually found a stepmother, but she hated the daughter. The stepmother made up false accusations against the daughter, which eventually led to the father casting her out of the household.
A "blind woman" (onna-mekura) living at at a shrine called Kibi-no-miya rescued the daughter and raised her. Twelve or thirteen years later, Saemon Masatatsu paid a visit to the Kibi-no-miya shrine. There, a large group of itinerate female entertainers (goze) put on a performance of songs. Within the group, the voice of a fifteen or sixteen year old beautiful young woman stood out as especially impressive. Not knowing she was his own child, Saemon gave her a kosode (a rather elaborate suit of clothes) as a reward. The woman shed tears and said that this year was the thirteenth anniversary of her mother's death and that she wanted to offer the suit of clothes to the bodhisattva Kannon at a memorial service.
Saemon asked her whose child she was, and she explained her life circumstances. He then knew she was his child. Owing to the deceit of the child's stepmother, Saemon thought she had died. He was overjoyed to discover that she was alive. He then assembled the priests of Kibi-no-miya and had them perform esoteric Buddhist rites connected with the Lotus Sutra to pray for his daughter's eyesight. When it was done, she regained sight in both her eyes and returned with her father to her home village. (Tokuda Kazuo 徳田和夫, Egatari to mongatari 絵語りと物語 [Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1990], pp. 50-51.)
Incidentally, notice the role of esoteric Buddhism in this tale. Notice also that the esoteric Buddhist rites are performed at what people today would call a "Shinto" shrine. In the sixteenth century, however, there would have been nothing unusual about such practices. "Shinto" (more likely "jindō" at that time) was thoroughly intermixed with Buddhism.
It was not only women who wandered, sang (or chanted), told stories, and so forth. There were also various types of itinerate men. Let us look at one specific example here: hachi-tataki 鉢叩き. Hachi literally means a pot, but in this context it usually indicated a small metal gong. Tataki means beating or striking. So the term hachi-tataki conveys the image of somebody beating on a small gong. In actual practice, *most hachi-tataki* used hard-shell gourds instead of gongs. They would typically sing while beating out a rhythm on the gourd. Over their backs hachi-tataki usually carried a pole with a straw wrapping on one end. Into this wrapping they would place tea bowl whisks (chasen 茶筌 #image#), which they would sell. These hachi-tataki modeled themselves roughly on the wandering Pure Land Buddhist preacher Kūya 空也 (903-972 #image#), an early popularizer of Buddhism among ordinary people. Kūya wandered about with a gong and a pole tipped with deer antler. The medieval hachi-tataki substituted a gourd for the gong and a tea whisk display pole for the deer antler-tipped pole of Kūya.
At the very bottom of society were several types of despised or quasi-outcaste people, They were known by such names as eta 穢多 (literally: "much pollution"), hinin 非人 (literally: "not human"), sanjo 散所 (literally: "dispersed places"), and kawaramono 河原者 (literally: "denizens of the riverbanks"). Like the many terms for shaman above, each of these terms for despised groups of people carried a different nuance, but there was considerable overlap in their usage and meaning. The descendants of these groups in present-day Japan still suffer social discrimination as a result of the status of their distant ancestors.
The late Heian period (eleventh century) seems to be the time when distinct groups of socially despised people came in to existence. We know little of the details for this early period. The main logic behind their despised status was pollution. In other words, certain types of work were regarded as especially polluting because they dealt with death or dead persons or animals. One deep-rooted feature of Japanese religion, regardless of the precise variety or sect, was the view that death created pollution.
Obviously this basic idea was not unique to Japan, but most people in Japan from the emperor on down seem to have taken it specially seriously. Moving the capital city in ancient times (prior to the Nara period) each time an emperor died was in large part an effort to avoid pollution. Many of the imperial court rituals were designed to remove pollution, especially that caused by death. One example was the Ōharai 大払い, or Great Purification ceremony. Ordinary people in medieval times tried hard to make sure that nobody died in anyone's house. Household members, for example, would carry an ill person thought to be nearing death outside to an out building or simply to the ground near the house. The idea is that the person should die there, outside of the house, so as not to taint it with pollution. If a dead dog or cat, for example, were discovered in or near the imperial residences, an ad hoc ceremony called shokue (触穢, "touching pollution") would have to be performed.
With such such a strong aversion to pollution and death in this society, it is hardly surprising that groups of people whose occupations included such things as hunting, slaughtering animals (including the human variety), making leather goods (drums, shoe laces, bow strings, and much more), performing funerals (especially the nitty-gritty work of handling the bodies), attending to the sick (e.g. at hospitals), and so forth would become the object of social segregation and loathing. This aversion to death pollution was undoubtedly a main reason for the lowly status of warriors during the Heian period.
Nagahara Keiji, a leading scholar of medieval social history, points out that in 1017 a diary of a noble contained an entry about the Kamo River flooding, which caused the deaths of some 300 patients at type of hospital that confined those suffering from leprosy and a variety of loathsome diseases. The flood caused their deaths because the hospital was located in the dry riverbed. Why there? Medieval Japanese especially feared leprosy, regarded it as punishment for evil deeds committed during a previous life, and were quick to cast sufferers of the disease out of their homes and communities. In the case of this hospital, says Nakahara, "The intent was unmistakable: to isolate the pollution of death and to wash it away with the flow of the river." Furthermore, "We know from other historical sources that numerous skeletons could always be readily found on the dry bed of a river . . . " (Nagahara Keiji, "The Medieval Origins of the Eta-Hinin," Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 [Summer, 1979], pp. 388-389.) Riverbanks and river beds were associated with death in medieval Japan and thus became a geographical zone in which marginal and rootless members of society such as those afflicted with leprosy, certain types of criminals, and workers in despised or lowly professions congregated and lived. This situation is one reason that kawaramono was one term for members of socially despised groups.
Another term that appears from time to time in medieval documents is ransō-tosha 乱僧屠者. Ransō were, according to one thirteenth-century document, "beggar-monks, but their conduct is so wicked that no one can really believe they are indeed monks . . ." (Quoted in Nagahara, "Medieval Origins," p. 390.), and tosha were people who slew animals (as hunters or butchers) for a living. Along with these vaguely-defined beggars and butchers, those who disposed of human or animal corpses or who made products from the corpses of animals tended to live apart from the rest of society, often in dry riverbeds. Nagahara sums up the early medieval situation as follows:
Persons considered polluted . . . emerged as identifiable groups from the tenth to eleventh centuries. The basic reason for this development was the primitive fear of pollution that was believed to be caused by death. Thus, though the origin and function of each differed, these identifiable groups of persons were in one way or another connected with death, that is, the pollution of death. Because of this, they had to live away from ordinary individuals on river beds, in the foothills, or in other isolated locations. (Nagahara, "Medieval Origins," p. 391.)
The increasing importance of the shōen in subsequent centuries resulted in some significance changes. The most important was that these despised groups, in many cases, came to be closely associated with certain temples and shrines, often indirectly, via shōen managed by temples, shrines, or their branches. They served these religious institutions by performing the dirty work at funerals, cleaning latrines and other dirty places, and sometimes even by serving as soldiers in temple military organizations. In many cases they continued to reside in riverbeds. Others produced military equipment, especially things like bowstrings which were made from animal parts. Another function of some of these groups was to carry out punishments of ordinary people who had committed crimes. For example, in 1352 a money lender was punished for an unspecified crime by having his house and warehouse destroyed. A group of outcasts carried out this destruction, perhaps because ordinary people were unwilling to do so. (Nagahara, "Medieval Origins," p. 391.) In this way, these despised groups sometimes fulfilled a law-enforcement function. Later, during the Tokugawa period, they carried out the death penalty on commoner criminals convicted of serious offenses.
As the shōen system deteriorated over the course of the fifteenth century, some of these despised groups gradually worked their way back into the mainstream of society. Others, however, especially makers of leather goods, remained isolated on the margins of society and despised, both unofficially and in the official policy of the local warlords (daimyō). One reason is that local warlords wanted to control the labor of these workers because of their importance in producing weapons and other military goods. They were, in short, workers in an essential wartime industry. The stigma of pollution was still present in the background, but Japanese society had been militarized for so long that leather workers no longer seemed so grotesque or out of place. Nevertheless, the separate status of these leather workers in late medieval times set the stage for their continued social segregation and despised status throughout the Tokugawa period and, to a lesser but still significant degree, to the present day.
