"In Service of the Shogun," 1743

The date is 1743/11, the place Kami-Hosoya village in Yokomi-gun of Musashino province (Saitama prefecture).^[18] A few weeks before, a local criminal had been sent to Edo to be executed. Now his head was being returned for a three-day public exposure. To manage the event, the headman called upon the chief of the kawata hamlet attached to Shimo-Wana village.

In many ways the kawata were not under the rule of the regular village headman. Hence, instead of contacting his colleague in Shimo-Wana, Kami-Hosoya's headman communicated directly with the head (etagashira ) of the kawata/hinin community associated with Shimo-Wana village. Moreover, the headman had no authority over the head

[16] Wakita Osamu, Kawaramakimono no sekai (Tokyo Daigaku shuppankai, 1991), 5. Hatanaka Toshiyuki reports that in Kinai the eta called themselves kawata ("'Kawata' mibun to wa nani ka," MK, 307). In Hozu village, discussed in chapter 4, the kawata, referred to officially as ego^[*] , literally, "polluted district (the e of eta plus go^[*] )," referred to themselves with a homonym, substituting the e of Edo ("inlet," "bay"), perhaps because their community was the "capital" of the five kawata communities in south Tanba (see Igeta, "Mikaiho^[*] buraku," 110; and idem, "Kuchi-Tanba," 95, 111).

[17] One notable exception is Frank Upham, who shows an acute awareness of the various political aspects concerning the kawata as they have been dealt with by Japanese scholars (Law and Social Change , 79-80). Most of the studies of the burakumin deal with the modern liberation movements. De Vos and Wagatsuma (Japan's Invisible Race ) provide no more than a general background for the Tokugawa period.

[18] Tsukada Takashi, "Kinsei no keibatsu," 119-23.

of the kawata and could not give him direct orders; rather the Kami-Hosoya headman invited him to take charge of the situation.

Why Shimo-Wana and not some other kawata community? The headman had no choice in the matter. Kami-Hosoya was part of a specific geographical area that included a number of kawata hamlets operating under their own leadership in Shimo-Wana. These territorial divisions went by various names, the most common being kusaba or dannaba . The kawata performed prescribed duties for the area: skinning and disposing of dead cattle and horses and reworking the hides into leather goods (footgear, drum skins, armor, bow strings, etc.), catching fugitives and lawbreakers, guarding prisoners and executing criminals, patrolling the villages, and policing festivals and markets. Such duties or rights were divided among the kawata/hinin as shares (dannaba kabu ). The Shimo-Wana dannaba comprised twenty-five villages and was one of five such dannaba in Yokomi district.^[19]

After the job was done, the two kawata heads in charge handed the implements used (gokogisama^[*]godogu^[*] , "the honorable tools of the honorable public authority [the shogun]") back to the headman, who drafted a receipt properly addressed to "Mister (dono ) Jin'emon and Mister Genzaemon from Shimo-Wana village." During their three days on duty, all twelve kawata and two hinin were served meals in a room at the headman's, as were a number of kawata heads from other hamlets who had come to take in the scene.

This was a rare occasion for the kawata/hinin to function with pride and authority at an extraordinary event as full-fledged officials. Four of the higher-ranked kawata wore long swords, the eight others short ones. Swords, a professional attitude, polite addresses, and being entertained at the home of the village headman, apparently without much concern about "pollution," were all marks of public respect. Their authority was manifested in other ways as well.

At noon on 11/15 an intendant's representative arrived to prepare for the display of the head he had brought from Edo. That evening he conferred with Jin'emon and two other kawata leaders about, among

[19] Tsukada Takashi, Kinsei Nihon mibunsei no kenkyu^[*] (Kobe^[*] : Hyogo^[*] buraku mondai kenkyujo^[*] , 1987), 18-20. In the Kanto area, shares were time allotments of certain days to certain households; in the Kinai, the shares were territorial segments that were given to households for their operations (Igeta, "Kuchi-Tanba," 102).

other things, how much to charge onlookers for viewing the spectacle, since it was "the custom in the countryside to charge eight mon for a crucifixion and nine for a beheading." According to the kawata's reconstruction of the event, Jin'emon replied, "We do not take money as executioners; besides, if you charge fees in the countryside, people will not come near but crowd the roads and look from afar and this would be of no service to the shogun." As it turned out, a fee was charged, and forty-six people came from eleven villages and had a jolly, drunken time.

In Edo at least, executions were not grand public spectacles, but took place in the prison courtyard. Perhaps the authorities were aware of the dysfunctional crowd behavior executions provoked, as described by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish . However, other aspects of penal practice, such as parading the criminal or exposing the corpse or head, were meant to have a salutary effect. The kawata understood this deterrent effect, for they wanted people to "come near" and see. More people would show up if no fee were charged; they protested that if executions were staged and money paid to view them, dignity and honor would be lost—the shogun's as well as their own.

In their meeting with the intendant's emissary the kawata leaders also argued about protocol. The official announced that it was a "national law" that ten guards be used on an occasion like this. The kawata heads countered that in Edo twelve kawata and a great number of hinin were used for an ambulatory exposure, but if there were to be no ambulation, then two hinin in addition to twelve kawata would suffice; in other words, a total of fourteen guards, and not ten, were needed. Moreover, they said, they had no orders from Danzaemon in Edo to lower the numbers. The official nevertheless ordered them to limit the number of guards to ten. The kawata leaders agreed, with the proviso that they would check with Danzaemon on what to do on such occasions in the future.

Satisfied that all preparations had been made, the official left the next day at noon, having handed over the display item. The three-day event began the following morning with fourteen rather than ten guards on active duty. The official did not get the last word after all. Clearly, the kawata had followed their own professional judgment and the procedures as proscribed by their (semi-)national leader Danzaemon, who received a written report from them a week later.

Almost a hundred years after this event, a crucifixion took place in

the same village. Again local kawata were mobilized to stand guard for the three days the corpse was to be exposed. The crucifixion proper, however, was performed by a team of two of Danzaemon's underlings, whom he had dispatched with fifteen helpers from Edo.

Shimo-Wana's dannaba was located within the territory of one bakufu intendant. This was not always the case, for in practice, if not in principle, dannaba often cut across a number of jurisdictions and even domains. Therefore, the kawata's social and political topography was different from that of the peasants. They lived in their own hamlets under a separate local and regional jurisdiction in fairly close contact with their leader Danzaemon in Edo. They were often required to, or simply did, cross into social and geographical areas generally forbidden to them while performing their duties. This was especially true during the late Tokugawa period, as the following example illustrates.