Burakumin The Untouchables of Feudal Japan In feudal Japan people who worked in jobs related to death, like undertakers,

, executioners, and tanners were heavily discriminated against as they had been considered tainted and impure. Shinto beliefs held that people could be seriously contaminated by repeated killing of animals or engaging in hideous misdeeds like incest or bestiality. These people were forced to live outside of regular society in outcast communities. It is unknown when precisely these out caste communities came into existence. By the Edo period (1603-1867) the existence of outcast communities became common. At the time these individuals were referred to as eta, or filthy mass. The government supported the segregation and discrimination of eta communities. Eta were not allowed to go to religious websites outside of their communities and had their very own temples. The caste program of feudal Japan was abolished by Emperor Meiji in 1871 and outcasts had been granted equal legal status. However, this did not end the discrimination and many terms had been utilized to indicate former outcasts. The word burakumin (hamlet people) started being utilized in the early 1900s to describe people of former eta communities. In some parts of the nation burakumin settlements nonetheless exist in the exact same areas of former eta villages. Social discrimination against burakumin is still an problem in western Japanese cities like Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima. Lots of people, particularly those belonging towards the older generation, associate the buraku class with criminality and lower socio-economic status. According to some estimates burakumin account for 70 percent with the members with the Yamaguchi-gumi, 1 of the largest criminal organizations in the globe and the largest Yakuza syndicate in Japan. By on one piece manga