Peasants, Skinners, and Dead Cattle: the Transformation of Rural Society in Western Japan, 1600-1890
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PEASANTS, SKINNERS, AND DEAD CATTLE: THE TRANSFORMATION OF RURAL SOCIETY IN WESTERN JAPAN, 1600-1890 BY MICHAEL THOMAS ABELE DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2018 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Assistant Professor Roderick Wilson, Chair Professor Emeritus Ronald P. Toby Professor Antoinette Burton Associate Professor Dan Shao ABSTRACT This dissertation traces the development of capitalism in Japan in the nineteenth century by focusing on the transition from status-based property to private property. Property is important to the capitalist transition because the separation of the laborer from the objective means of labor forms the necessary precondition for capitalist production. At the beginning of the Tokugawa period (1600-1868), property in Japan was directly tied to status. Status was a form of organizing production and political control via semi-autonomous social groups based on a shared trade or territorial space. Status groups provided status-specific service to the Tokugawa state in return for the official recognition of status-specific rights and privileges, which constituted the status-based property of that group. The establishment of modern, capitalist property relations emerged out of the dissolution of the status system, while the abolition of status marked the triumph of new property relations. To trace these changes in status and property, I focus on the kawata (skinner) status group from the late medieval period to the end of the nineteenth century. The kawata were a group of skinners, knackers, and small holders who were responsible for disposing of dead draft animals in their local communities. In exchange for this service, these communities were granted ownership rights over all carcasses as a status-based right. When a bovine or equine died, it automatically became the property of the nearby kawata community with no compensation to the former owner. Using one village as a case study – Saraike Village of Kawachi Province, now Osaka Prefecture – I show how livestock carcasses transitioned from the status-based property of a single social group to the private property of individual households regardless of status. I argue ii that this change was effected by forces from below, resulting in the emergence of capitalist property relations prior to the arrival of the West in 1853. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of many friends and mentors. I am deeply grateful to my adviser, Ronald Toby, for guiding me during nine years of graduate study. His knowledge, creativity, and humor were a large factor in turning my project from a Fall 2009 term paper into a finished dissertation. I am also grateful to Antoinette Burton, Shao Dan, and Roderick Wilson for their invaluable feedback on my project from prelims through to the final defense. I would also like to thank my senpai Akira Shimizu for all his help during my first years of graduate school. At Osaka City University, Professor Tsukada Takashi graciously allowed me to join his research group and study alongside his students. Professor Tsukada pointed me towards the Saraike Village documents, and instructed me in the methodologies of Japanese social history. I am also particularly indebted to Mita Satoko and Saitō Hiroko for their patience in training me to properly read early modern documents. Yamashita Sōichi went through great trouble to help me get access to the Matsubara City Archives. I would also like to thank John Porter, Shimazaki Mio, Yagi Shigeru, Yoshimoto Kanami, Kitano Tomoya, and Wu Weihua. Outside of academia, I am indebted to my family for their years of love and support, especially my parents, siblings, and wife. There are two people who deserve special mention. Little Antonia came along just in time to help (and hinder) the writing process, while my father exited the stage before it could be finished. Both have left their lasting impressions on me and my work. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 1: FROM TOYOTOMI TO AKIMOTO: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EARLY MODERN STATE AND FOUNDING OF THE KAWATA VILLAGE .........................44 CHAPTER 2: DEFENDING THE KUSABA: SPACE AND STATUS IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY...........................................................................................................83 CHAPTER 3: THE URBANIZATION OF THE COUNTRYSIDE AND EMERGENCE OF PLEBEIAN SOCIETY IN THE MID-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY .....................................125 CHAPTER 4: FROM RENTAL CATTLE TO LEATHER SANDALS: THE CIRCUIT OF CAPITAL CIRCULATION, 1800-1850 ...............................................................................166 CHAPTER 5: BAKURŌ AND BUTCHERS: SARAIKE VILLAGE IN THE LATE TOKUGAWA AND EARLY MEIJI PERIODS, 1850-1870 ......................................................212 CHAPTER 6: REGULATING BEEF AND DISMANTLING STATUS: SARAIKE VILLAGE AND THE END OF THE STATUS SYSTEM, 1850-1890 .....................................255 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................283 APPENDIX A: REGULATIONS FOR THE KAWATA VILLAGE, 1796 ...............................286 APPENDIX B: REGULATIONS FOR RENDERING FACILITIES, 1872 ...............................288 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................289 GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................................305 v INTRODUCTION “In the following pages an attempt is made to place the eta in their proper social setting and to indicate clearly their history which is a record of long suffering from the tyranny of social customs.” Shieaki Ninomiya, preface to “The Japanese Eta,” 1933 “The so-called historical presentation of development is founded, as a rule, on the fact that the latest form regards the previous ones as steps leading up to itself…” Karl Marx, introduction to the Grundrisse, 1857 Between 1600 and 2000, the Japanese archipelago experienced three great population explosions. The first occurred between 1600 and 1720, when peace and stability, as well as new farming technology, saw the population grow from around twelve million to thirty million.1 Though the overall population stagnated after 1720 as the early modern polity hit its ecological limits, the beginning of industrialization in the 1870s ushered in a new era of growth.2 By 1920, the Japanese population had doubled to sixty million and kept rising. Finally, the end of World War II brought a baby boom and the return of colonists from Korea and Manchuria, leading to a population that peaked around 128 million in 2008. Yet after 1870, as the population increased, the number of local municipalities decreased, as towns and villages were consolidated into ever larger units. Three great mergers in 1889, 1956, and 2005, along with a host of smaller mergers, reduced the number of autonomous villages and city wards from over 63,000 during the Tokugawa period (1600-1868) to less than 2,000 today. Matsubara City is one product of these mergers. Matsubara is located in south-central Osaka Prefecture on the southern bank of the Yamato River (Figure 1 and 2). It lies just outside of Osaka City proper and due east of Sakai City. Though it lies in the cradle of ancient Japanese 1 Hayami 2009, p. 99. 2 While the overall population of Japan remained level after 1720, western Japan saw a continued population increase, while some regions – the northeast in particular – saw a decline in population. Hayami 2009, pp. 103-5. 1 civilization in the Kinai plain (Figure 3), Matsubara City itself has no history prior to 1955, when it was created from the merger of five smaller townships and villages.3 Yet these five townships were themselves the result of the first great municipal merger in 1889. During the Tokugawa period, what would become Matsubara City was home to twenty-four independent villages. These twenty-four were but a small percentage of the more than 63,000 villages across Tokugawa Japan. This dissertation is the story of one of these villages: Saraike, in Tanboku District, Kawachi Province, from its first appearance as an independent village in 1594 until 1889, when it was folded into greater Nunose Village (Figure 4). More appropriately, it is a story focused on the kawata of Saraike Village. Kawata (also known as eta, or outcastes) were a status group of Tokugawa Japan made up of skinners, knackers, and tenant farmers. Japanese society during the Tokugawa period was composed of various social groups defined by official state recognition of specific “feudal” privileges in exchange for duty and service. The kawata were in part defined by the duty and right to dispose of dead livestock from their local communities. They also performed a variety of other tasks deemed dirty or “polluting,” such as executions, purification rituals at local temples and shrines, and the manufacture and repair of leather goods. Most also engaged in agriculture to varying degrees, and lived lives in many ways no different from their peasant neighbors. Earlier works on the kawata in English focus on their connection to the buraku minority group