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Burakumin (部落民, buraku community + min people), Eta (literally, "full of filth") or hisabetsu buraku (被差別部落) is a social minority group. Less commonly they are called Mikaihō buraku (未解放部落) or "unfreed buraku." They are one of the main minority groups in Japan, along with the Ainu of Hokkaido and residents of Korean and Chinese descent.
The term 部落 buraku literally refers to a small, generally rural commune. Even today, old people living in villages of northern and central regions of Japan refer to these villages as buraku, showing that this word was originally not pejorative. Today, however, this term is usually shorthand for the hisabetsu buraku people and the use of the word in any medium is frowned on or even prohibited, owing to pressure from rights groups.
The eta were generally relegated to tasks surrounding death and the dead, such as the handling of dead bodies, butchering, tanning, and leather working. Due to their involvement with such occupations, taboo under both Buddhism and Shinto, the eta were considered ritually "unclean". They were housed in separate settlements and were generally avoided by the rest of Japanese society. When dealing with members of other castes, they were expected to display signs of subservience, such as removal of headwear.
They are descendants of premodern outcaste hereditary occupational groups, such as butchers, leatherworkers, and certain entertainers. Discrimination against these occupational groups arose historically because of Buddhist prohibitions against killing and Shinto notions of kegare ("taint"), as well as governmental attempts at social control. They occupied the lowest level of the social hierarchy of feudal Japan. However, because they had an unconditional monopoly in these fields, some succeeded economically and obtained Samurai status through marrying or outright buyout of troubled houses.
Although the burakumin seem similar to the dalits ("untouchables") of India, their proportion in Japan is small, partly because Japan's society has a comparative lack of hierarchical social classes. Also, they may be able to move out of the social class if they work to achieve that.
Because they have not spread widely in Japan, the discrimination against them varies greatly according to the region. The discrimination is most severe in Kansai while basically non-existing in most other regions. Branches of burakumin's rights groups exist in Hiroshima, Hyogo, Kagawa, Kyoto, Mie, Nara, Okayama, Osaka, Shiga, Tokyo and Tottori.
During the Tokugawa period, such people were required to live in special communes and, like the rest of the population, were bound by sumptuary laws based on the inheritance of their social class. In a court case of 1859 described by author Shimazaki Toson, a magistrate declared that "An eta is worth 1/7 of an ordinary person."
In an attempt to modernize Japan, the Meiji government abolished most derogatory names applied to these discriminated communities in 1871, but the new laws had limited effect on the social discrimination faced by the former outcastes and their descendants. The laws, however, did eliminate the economic monopolies they had over certain occupations.
Prejudice against eta lingered into the modern era, and according to human rights workers is still a factor today. It has been alleged that traditionalist families in eastern regions of Japan still check the backgrounds of potential in-laws to prevent intermarriage with descendants of eta, Chinese or Korean families.
In Tengoku to jigoku (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0057565/) ("Heaven and Hell"), a movie adapted (1963) from Evan Hunter's King's Ransom, Akira Kurosawa made a political statement by having the main character work as a shoe industry executive who rose from humble origins as a simple leather worker, clearly implying (to Japanese audiences) the main character's burakumin status. The story has the main character selflessly sacrifice his fortune in order to save his driver's son, showing that burakumin are as heroic as anyone else.
The plight of the burakumin has also been presented in Hashi no nai kawa (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104395/) ("The River With No Bridge") a novel by Sue Sumii, which was made into a movie in 1992. This refers to the fact that areas they lived in were often separated by a river and a bridge to cross this was rarely constructed.
See also: Dazaemon (弾左衛門), a leader of buraku people in Tokyo, Buraku abolition movement (部落解放運動)
External links
References
- Shimazaki Toson, The Broken Commandment
Credit
Text originally from Library of Congress, Country Studies (http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html).
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