Outcasts and marginals in medieval Japanand the others—the hinin- beggars, disabled, and lepers—were indeed outside the status system.^27
Thus Kuroda points to a layered structure of hinin society that may explain some differences in
the way outcasts were viewed and treated.
One of the few Western scholars to examine the overall issue of outcasts and status discrimi-
nation throughout the medieval period is Thomas Keirstead, who characterizes the situation of
medieval outcasts as fluid and piecemeal. He generally supports Amino’s thesis of two separate
political and symbolic economies—one based on agriculture and the other on non- agrarian activ-
ities: “Marginal to the first order, outcasts are almost archetypal carriers of the second.”^28 Keirst-
ead notes that the sovereign, who had to be ritually pure, was charged with dispelling pollution
especially from the eleventh century—a task that he shared with outcasts who themselves increas-
ingly took on the taint of pollution. Thus he endorses Amino’s argument for a close connection
between outcasts and the throne. Keirstead further points out the structural differences between
the legal system of discrimination in the Edo period and the far more fluid medieval situation,
thus challenging Nagahara Keiji’s claim that the Edo system was rooted in medieval practices.^29
Although the debate over the extent of discrimination against certain groups has not been
settled, many scholars—including Amino—believe that at the end of the thirteenth century atti-
tudes toward hinin and similar groups became far more negative than before, and that as Japan
approached its later medieval age such groups became truly outcast.
One early indication of increasing stigma can be found in the illustrated scroll Tengu zōshi,
which dates from the 1290s. Yokoi Kiyoshi has examined a well- known passage from this scroll.
It depicts an “eta child” who uses a piece of flesh to snare a tengu and then prepares to eat it, declar-
ing, “This looks like chicken! It has tasty wings!” Tengu, half- bird half- human creatures thought
to live in the mountains, are used in this work to represent monks from prominent temples as
well as mountain ascetics called yamabushi, lampooning them for corruption (as well as for eating
meat). The scene is set in Kyoto at Shijō on the bank of the Kamo river, where sits a hut with two
animal hides hung out to dry in the sun. The location, the hides, and the flesh bait identify the eta
as a kawaramono. Yokoi argues that the “eta child” is not really a child, but an adult depicted with
a child’s hairstyle—lacking the topknot that identifies a male as a regular member of respected
society.^30
Not only did outcast groups face stronger contempt and discrimination from the end of the
thirteenth century, but stigma fell upon additional groups as well, such as entertainers, certain
crafts groups, and some female shamans. These changes have invited various explanations. Amino
Yoshihiko, discussing those who had traditionally handled pollution, maintains that after the
thirteenth century, attitudes toward ritual pollution began to change from fear to aversion, and
those who cleansed pollution were no longer regarded with respect.^31 Nagahara Keiji links the
development of new low- status occupations such as dyers and plasterers to a change in the power
structure and the needs of elites, which stigmatized certain groups in order to monopolize their
services.^32
Elites reinforced stigma by pitting outcast groups against cultivators or townspeople. Matsuo
Kenji cites the example of an irrigation pond on Hine estate in Izumi province that hinin dug in
the early fourteenth century, on an order from the estate proprietor but against the wishes of the
local cultivators.^33 Moreover, outcast groups such as kawaramono and inujinin were charged with
apprehending and punishing criminals, a role that they assumed more frequently after the thir-
teenth century. Powerful elites used them to perform tasks that included beheading criminals and
destroying their homes.^34 Thus one might imagine that the fear tinged with respect that adhered
to those who cleansed pollution morphed into fear tinged with revulsion for at least some outcast
groups.^35 These are a few of the possible reasons why stigma intensified and stigmatized groups
expanded in the late medieval age, but we still await a conclusive explanation.