Outcasts and marginals in medieval Japanoperate.^44 Beggars had rights that could not be abrogated without reason by military officials
such as shugo or jitō, or by hinin organizations.
Were hinin primarily beggars or purifiers (kiyome)? The items distributed at Hannyaji lead
Kuroda Hideo to propose that beggars, the disabled, and lepers formed the core of medieval
hinin.^45 Cleaning temples and shrines, as well as the streets of the capital, was, however, one func-
tion of shuku hinin. The Narazaka shuku was under the control of the powerful Nara temple
Kōfukuji, and shuku hinin cleaned and purified the temple and the affiliated Kasuga shrine. From
the middle of the thirteenth century, the Kiyomizuzaka shuku was controlled by Gion shrine in
the capital, and ultimately by Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei, with which the shrine was affiliated. Kiyo-
mizuzaka hinin, as well as affiliated inujinin, had purification duties connected to the shrine: a late
medieval example is the latter’s job to sweep the streets of the capital before the parade of the
annual Gion festival.^46 Matsuo Kenji thinks that such activities were generally performed by only
the upper stratum of the shuku; and that in late medieval times public functions such as policing
were limited to this stratum.^47 Again it appears that one credible answer for the different ways
that outcasts were perceived and treated lies in the stratification of their own society.
One might cynically conclude that religious institutions patronized outcasts in order to
exploit their labor, not only as kiyome but also in construction work and the like. To give those
such as Eison credit, however, it seems likely that they were motivated at least in part by genuine
concern for the outcasts’ welfare, since they regularly dispensed goods to beggars and lepers and
sometimes established permanent charitable institutions. Andrew Goble notes that Ninshō set up
a public medical facility in Kamakura, and cites other efforts by Buddhist monks to alleviate the
suffering of outcasts, especially lepers.^48 Whether or not these efforts had positive results or just
solidified the low status of their recipients is a topic of debate, as summarized by David Quinter
and Abé Ryūichi.^49
Secular institutions were also involved in the control of outcast groups. The latter included
the Kebiishi, the capital police force that was charged, along with other duties, with controlling
pollution within the city.^50 According to Niunoya Tetsuichi, kawaramono had worked under the
Kebiishi to assist with executions and other forms of punishment since at least the mid- eleventh
century.^51 Later the Samurai- dokoro, an office of the Kamakura and Muromachi shogunates,
assumed supervision of kawaramono who performed punishment functions. When Akamatsu
Mitsusuke was apprehended in 1441 for the assassination of shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori, kawara-
mono in military dress, under Samurai- dokoro auspices, carried out the punishment. They paraded
Mitsusuke around the capital, beheaded him at the riverbank execution grounds, and displayed
his severed head on a pike.^52
Nagahara Keiji maintains that as forms of political power changed, so did the status and treat-
ment of outcasts and the membership of their groups. The situation of outcasts, in other words,
depended upon their patronage. Nagahara argues as follows: As the shōen-public land system
developed from the eleventh century onwards, outcasts came to serve proprietary authorities in
various ways, initially connected for the most part with death and its perceived pollution. Once
isolated exiles or wanderers, outcasts were incorporated into the landholding system. In the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries, outcast status was broadened to include craftsmen. Under the
daimyō system that developed during the warring sixteenth century, outcasts were organized
primarily to provide military necessities—particularly the leather goods that had long been
tainted with the pollution of death. Nagahara concludes that outcast status was created to provide
indispensable goods and services for those in power, and changed in accord with the needs of
those elites.^53
A source often used to illuminate the complex system of control over outcasts is an edict
(inzen) from the retired sovereign’s office, issued by Go- Uda In (1267–1324, r. 1274–1287) in