J.R. Goodwin
shamans, dengaku^66 performers, reciters of spells,^67 sarugaku performers, beggars, hinin, the
blind and deaf, and invalids, tribes of ne’er-do- wells and wanderers, clumped together like
rice plants, flax, bamboo, and reeds, and fought among themselves.^68Both the shirabyōshi and the female shamans were lumped together with hinin, beggars, and the
disabled, who had formed the core of outcast groups since Kamakura times.^69
The reference to similar groups in the fifteenth- century Daijōin jisha zōjiki, cited earlier, is far
less pejorative, but clearly manifests their low status, and it is significant that this passage as well
specifically notes women among the performing groups. Thus it appears that in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries the category of outcast was broadened to include itinerant entertainers,
some of whom were women, and that these entertainers were consigned to the lowest tier of a
stratified outcast society.
Conclusion
This chapter has explored outcast and marginalized people in late classical and medieval Japan,
focusing on such issues as status, stigma, organization, and control. Research on this topic has
been incredibly fruitful. Like many other topics related to non- elites in pre- Edo times, arguments
are based on brief, scattered, and often ambiguous sources, but nevertheless help to illuminate an
important segment of medieval society and thus, the structure of that society itself.
The big debate—were early medieval hinin, kawaramono, and the like really outcasts or were
they people of skill—may never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. It may be that the two
major players, Kuroda Toshio and Amino Yoshihiko, simply approached the issue from opposite
directions: Kuroda from the perspective of overall social structure in the realm, and Amino from
the perspective of the non- agricultural people that he began to study in the mid- 1970s. Thus
their conclusions may draw as much from their starting points as from the historical evidence
itself. And perhaps the most plausible explanation of seemingly conflicting evidence lies, as sug-
gested by Kuroda Hideo and Toyonaga Satomi, in the stratification of outcast society.
Even so, ambiguities remain. The inclusion of religious practitioners among late medieval
outcasts, such folks as shamans, diviners, and casters of spells, indicates that an element of the
sacred may have been strengthened rather than muted over time. Perhaps even when most out-
casts were firmly pushed to the bottom of society—if not outside the social structure altogether—
they may have retained that “fearsome deity” aspect that once was signified by the term
not- human.
Notes
1 The term raibyō, usually translated as leprosy, refers not only to Hansen’s disease but also to several other
disfiguring diseases (Andrew Goble, Confluences of Medicine in Medieval Japan, 67). Since the same may be
said of the Biblical term that we translate as leprosy, I will use the terms leper and leprosy throughout.
2 Wakita Haruko, Nihon chūsei hisabetsumin no kenkyū, 91; Abé Ryūichi, “Mantra, Hinin, and the
Feminine,” 102.
3 Yokoi Kiyoshi, “Chūsei,” 76.
4 Ōyama Kyōhei, Nihon chūsei nōsonshi no kenkyū, 405.
5 Wakita, Nihon chūsei hisabetsumin, 59. The tale she cites is Vol. 16 #34.
6 Kuroda Hideo, Kyōkai no chūsei, shōchō no chūsei, 135–180.
7 For overviews see Thomas Keirstead, “Outcasts before the Law: Pollution and Purification in Medieval
Japan”; Hosokawa Ryōichi, Chūsei no mibunsei to hinin, 4.
8 Hayashiya Tatsusaburō, Kodai kokka no kaitai, 285–288.
9 Wakita Haruko, “Sanjo ron,” 56.