Paper short abstract:

In my presentation I will examine ambivalent status and social role of inujinin and kawaramono as an important segment of pre-modern Japanese society. My investigation follows the debate started by Kuroda Toshio and Amino Yoshihiko – were medieval inujinin and kawaramono outcasts or people of skill?

Paper long abstract:

A challenging task in history nowadays is the study of non-elites – less powerful ordinary people, and marginalized social groups. Since it was generally elites who wrote histories, standard historical accounts have often ignored or downgraded non-elites. However, they were absolutely necessary for the functioning of society.

Outcasts, such as inujinin (‘dog shrine-attendants’) and kawaramono (‘dry riverbed people’) who were ridding the capital and sacred territories of shrines and temples from polluting objects, were an important segment of Japanese medieval society. Fear of death pollution and plague, personified as the plague deity, turned them into specialists who conducted human burials and ceremonies of pacifying of plague deities.

There is big debate – were medieval inujinin and kawaramono discriminated outcasts or were they people of skills? According the Kuroda Toshio they were outside the order of medieval society related to the agricultural production and were seen as polluted people. On the contrary, Amino Yoshihiko argued that not-agricultural people, such as inujinin and kawaramono, who dealt with pollution professionally as temple or shrine workers, were regarded as servants of Buddha and deities, and treated with fear and respect.

The paper will explore the social role of inujinin and kawaramono of pre-modern Kyoto, their ambivalent status of shrine’s servants and outcasts, focusing on official documents, as well as histories of their origins (kawara-makimono, the ‘hand scrolls of the riverbanks’) created by outcastes.