Week 11: Subaltern History: History of the other classes/lower classes

Author Reading Important points

Timothy Amos Genealogy and 1. This paper talks about how the outcaste head Danzaemon negotiated their place in the 18 th century
Marginal Status Edo status order through official genealogical pronouncements. This paper examines the
in Early genealogical imaginations of these two outcaste leaders in order to reveal the ways they
Modern Japan: negotiated their place within the Edo outcaste order
The Case of 2. Danzaemon was actually a title being assumed by successive individuals who ruled over Edo
Danzaemon outcaste groups and who understood and articulated their particular places in the Tokugawa
socio-political order in markedly different ways.
3. They increasingly came to justify their position in society and the Edo status order through the use
of official genealogical pronouncements. But over time, the way they justified their position in Edo
society became more different.
- In the 1720s, Chikamura explained his existence to the authorities primarily in terms of the kinds
of official duties he performed for them – duties which he spuriously claimed his ancestors had
performed from the distant past as a result of the directives of warriors such as Minamoto-no-
Yoritomo and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
- From the 1750s, however, Chikasono, Chikamura’s son, while not completely abandoning his
father’s model of self-validation, began to justify his existence more in terms of his overall
capacity to define and manage hinin and the urban poor.

4. Status, outcastes, and Danzaemon

- The Tokugawa society consisted of four main hierarchical classes: Aristocrats and warriors,
farmers, artisans, and commercial people
- Eta and Hinin were seen to be outcastes and hence outside of the Tokugawa status system
- Early modern society was slowly re-organized through the formation and legitimization of these
outcaste groups during the first half of the 17th century as they entered into official socio-political
contracts with the Tokugawa authorities to ensure their survival.
- While status-based groups publickly affirmed their political and social positions through a ‘lord’
by performing official duties for them in exchange for ‘rights’ to different occupations and
activities, the system of official socio-political contracts was never static but always changed
because there were actual shifts in the ways that status groups justified their position in early
 modern society. They moved away from using the reason of the fulfilment of official duties and
emphasized instead on their ability to police other groups that attempted to infringe on their
status autonomy; they started to justify themselves based on how well they could police other
groups in society.
- The Danzaemon were also living in Asakusa, Edo, which was an area cordoned off from the rest of
the population.

5. Danzaemon Chikamura: Consolidation of outcaste rule

- After 1719, a period of hinin insurgency ensued. During this period, some hinin from regional
centers appear to have descended on Edo to assist hinin generals in their activities after the
sudden death of Zenshichi  led to some unrest in the capital
- Shogunate officials also became concerned on how it was almost impossible to recognise members
of hinin guilds from impoverished urban drifters in the city and hence began to develop strategies
for distinguishing between them
- In 1723, after numerous deliberations among officials, Chikamura was effectively placed in charge
of policing Edo’s homeless population. In 1724, soon after accepting these new duties, Chikamura
sent a directive to all regional eta leaders under his governance in the eastern provinces declaring
‘surveillance of the homeless’ as one of his (and as a result their) official tasks. Clearly Chikamura
was quick to ensure that all parties under his jurisdiction were aware of his new powers.
- In 1725, Chikamura and the hinin leaders all submitted yuishogaki, which were records of family
and lineage, to the Edo authorities. Chikamura’s record of family and lineage was divided in 13
parts. In his genealogy, he explained the origins of his ancestors and how the Tokugawa Ieyasu
had affirmed his ancestor’s rule. He also elaborated on his official duties in relation to the
shogunal stables and military taiko drum production and the kind of taxes eta under his rule paid
to the shogunate  justifying his existence and position in society.
- Chikamura also submitted a supplementary declaration (kakitsuke) alongside his record of family
and lineage. This declaration comprised three parts: a genealogical statement; a memorandum
which detailed his official duties; and a supporting historical document which was fabricated to
justify his claims.The genealogical statement comprised four parts.
- Chikamura was given more authority to govern by the authorities in the management of poverty
 of Edo in the 1730s  acknowledging and legitimizing his place in society?
- In 1733, for example, he was ordered to arrest so-called ‘wild hinin’ (nobinin, a new name for the
homeless) and to ‘drive them away’ – presumably ordering them back to their places of
birth/residence (although some of these people did eventually find their way into hinin guilds).
Chikamura was also instructed that hinin leaders would be permitted to make hinin servants
(hinin teka, a new status distinction) of whomever they wished without requesting permission
from the City Magistrate each time.
- Continual rural decline in the 18the century caused an increase in the number of urban poor
caused the status and power of Chikamura to increase as shogunate officials ruled in a way that
increased his power in the matters of poverty management and population control.

6. Danzaemon Chikasono: Changes in the Logic of Danzaemon Rule

- Chikasono officially succeeded Chikamura as chief of outcastes in the eight Kantō provinces and a
few other outlying areas in 1748.
- According to a document in the Kenshōbo, a number of hinin tried to break away from the Danzaemon rule
only four years after Chikasono’s succession, and authorities hence quickly summoned him to the
Magistrate’s office to hear the case. However, Chikasono responded in a written statement and in this
statement, he continued to root his right of governance in fictitious historical precedent and made it clear
how the hinin who were trying to break free from his rule were directly indebted to him by personal actions
his ancestors had undertaken during the course of performing official duties.
- He also provided the authorities with a working definition of hinin, despite the fact that they had
not asked for one. Hinin, according to him were divided into two categories, ‘Complete hinin’ and
‘new hinin servants’. Those who were completely hinin could not be made commoners, while
newcomers to the hinin guild, those who were formerly commoners but became hinin for less than
a period of 10 years, could become commoners again if they presented the proper documentation.
- Therefore, it can be seen how Danzaemon heads were actually successful in carving out for
themselves a pocket of ‘status hegemony’ within the early modern Edo social order.
- They maintained monopoly rights in Edo and the outlying regions over leather and lamp-wick production,
and eta and hinin under their rule carried out official duties in relation to these industries because by doing
so they could secure their economic livelihood as well as official recognition of their place in the status
 order.
- At the same time, however, the status order was never static, and groups vied with each other to establish
and strengthen direct ties to the ruling authorities while maintaining their own independence, at the same
time endeavouring to bring others under their own field of influence.
- The primary significance of the shift in Chikasono’s arguments in justifying his rule was that he
was no longer purely using genealogy to establish personal legitimacy and justify his position to
the authorities. Rather, he used genealogy in a way that sought to demonstrate his household’s
ability to rule and police outcaste groups.
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Gerald Groemer Street 1. Saints, sages, and sacred street performers

Performers and - City streets and rural roads in premodern Japan were filled with pious monks, devout nuns, holy
Society in chanters, dancers, sonorous sermonizers, raucous instrumentalists, divine imeprsonators and
Urban Japan, countless number of religious beggars that were either licensed or self-ordained.
1600-1900: - Figures who appeared particularly holy were sometimes called hijiri, a term loosely translated as
Gods an spirits ‘saint’, and those who acquired their saintly character through Buddhist means were commonly
in the streets labeled hōshi, signifying ‘master’ or ‘teacher’.
- In addition to just spreading the message of the Buddha, such proselytizers and performers
entertained the public with amusing rituals, elaborate narratives or gnomic anecdotes, lively
dances, solemn or rousing songs, and edifying or banal ministrations.
- There were seven categories of beggars: (1) Explainers of religious pictures (2) Chest beaters (3)
Shrine lackeys (4) Pilgrims (5) Hachibō or ‘bowl beaters’ (6) Blind street people (7) Religious
ascetics
- A similar enumeration of ‘eight types of beggars’ includes (1) Monkey handlers (2) Street
players/reciters (3) Flute playing zen monks (4) Figures known as santate (5)Sekkyō reciters (6)
Alms collectors (7) Puppeters (8) ‘Open bowl’ beggars
- Some beggars continued to maintain good ties to Buddhist sects
- The categorisation of the beggars were done so as to impose a sense of order and necessity on a
society emerging from civil war
- Religious beggars gained the bulk of their incomes by appealing directly to the piety and
aspirations of a diverse public
- Once the shogunate had embarked on its quest to establish thoroughgoing, rigorous, and
hierarchically structured instituions of shihai for religious institutions, such a survival strategy
became increasingly hazardus. When religious itinerants, whether independent or vaguely linked
to some temple and shrine, took their songs, chants, dances and prayers directly to the public, they
risked being branded as frauds or imposters. If seized, holy ‘beggars’ who could not point to clear
sources of authority in terrestrial realms often paid a heavy price. Hence, to reinforce their claims
to legitimacy, such men and women sought endorsement by the magistrates, pleaded for the
backing of aristocratic houses or the bakufu, established professional associations, created pseudo-
sects, and appealed to the power of acknowledged precedent, traditions, and conventions.

2. Buddhist street performers and their arts: Nenbutsu dances and their progeny
- ‘Gong beating’ or ‘bowl beating’ monks shouted words brimming with divine potency while
twisting and turning their bodies on the streets.
- In the late Muromachi period, when much of the religious fervour inspiring medieval practices
was swiftly cooling, platoons of Kyoto nenbutsu dancer still put in an appearance during the
seventh month urabon season, a time when the spirit of the dead were welcomed.
- The furyū dance involved loud drumming, lords leaping and commoners shouting hosannas to
Amida in delirious circular dance spectacles  and aristocrats would go out of their way to
witness these spectacles which they interpreted it as mass hysteria
- Properly domesticated versions of nenbutsu dances continued to be jealously guarded by key
Kyoto temples such as Seiryōji.
- Hōsai, a monk from Hitachi province, would set about collecting donations for the repair of his
temple through vigorous nenbutsu street dancing.
- Late 17th century edo laws testify that individuals and small groups of devotees continued to
present nenbutsu dancing and related arts on the streets.
- A diktat of 1729 noted how men, women and even children unattached to any sacred order were
intoning melodious Amida prayers while rambling and begging for alms.
- Kindred nenbutsu arts continued to liven up Edo avenues and alleys in the following years. In
1737, young cubs and old codgers alike set out to collect funds for a temple in Kawaguchi by
taking to the streets wielding lantersn, chanting the nenbutsu and songs  shows how these
nenbutsu songs had the ability to even provide for a living and for temples.
- Melodious nenbutsu songs, though hated by self-righteous 17th century moralists by being morally
low class, were loved by the public.
- In Edo too, by the 1770s, passages of nenbutsu syllables were being blended with up-to-date songs
to produce a bracing cocktail imbibed by the public.
- This signified the wish of the public to overcome the restraints of the auhorized, rationalized and
instrumentalized forms of piety dominating Edo-period religion  the use of improvised body
movements and synthtetic rapture questioned the usefulness of the solemn forms and stylized
rituals the recognized political order usually held to be right .

3. Bikuni: Kumano nuns, begging nuns, singing nuns, nuns for sale
- Out of work servants in 1618 usually turned into ‘mountain ascetics’ and then married ‘beggar
nuns’.
- 17th century nunlike figures vocalizing on the streets of cantillating captivating versions of the
nenbutsu came to be known as uta bikuni, ‘singing nuns’
- Edo-period observers, though bewailing the ‘degeneration’ of singing bikuni, were sufficienty
mesmerized by the looks, comportment, and vocalizing of these women.
- ‘Singing nuns’ flourished in the Kanbun period but this also provoked criticism by old-schol
moralists who complained that their melodies had become intolerably vulgar. Reports from the
early 18th century depict singing nuns as riding in boats or walking the streets while collecting
donnations that were supposed to be allocated to Buddhist causes. The combination of a pious
impression, a charming countenance, and artistic ability convinced many to toss them a coin
- After the 1680s a variety of nuns not embraced by the two accredited city nunneries became a
common sight throughout the capital; but because they were beautiful and fascinating, everyone
wished to amuse themselves and hence share a cup of liquor of them
- However, the bikuni organizations that were founded often had very violent and inhumane ways
of training their bikuni to learn to sing songs. But though common denunciatory portrayals of the
bikuni organization as an inhumane racket are uncritically accepted, bikuni ways were probably
no more cruel and vicious than those of other religious organizations.
- Pimping and prostitutions was also rife among the Edo bikuni. This sex trade earned the workers
the term ‘nuns for sale’.
- The number of bikuni prostitutes in Edo seems to have peaked during the Genroku period and
 around 1717 several thousands of them were said to populate the capital. Before long, however,
city administrators designated the bikuni’s unholy combination of venereal, devotional and
financial pursuits a howling outrage.
- After the 18th century, however, demand for ‘nuns for sale’ slumped and little more is heard of
‘bikuni houses’
- Bikuni sodalities continued to answer real social needs; and bakufu officials knew that if they got
rid of bikuni organizations and unions, they would also undermine both the upkeep and the
shihai of countless women. The radical transformation of a society that forced many women to
become bikuni in the first place.

4. ‘Shuffling monks’ and gannin

- Another ‘beggarly’ religious performers who exited the Edo stage during the late 18 th century was
the shuffling monk who was famed for his scanty attire.
- He engaged in surrogate asceticism for those who wished to exorcise evil spirits.
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