Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

Note
At Asakusa, in Yedo, there lives a man called Danzayémon, the chief of
the Etas. This man traces his pedigree back to Minamoto no Yoritomo,
who founded the Shogunate in the year A.D. 1192. The whole of the Etas
in Japan are under his jurisdiction; his subordinates are called Koyagashira,
or "chiefs of the huts"; and he and they constitute the government
of the Etas. In the "Legacy of Iyéyasu," already quoted, the 36th
Law provides as follows:—"All wandering mendicants, such as male sorcerers,
female diviners, hermits, blind people, beggars, and tanners
(Etas), have had from of old their respective rulers. Be not disinclined,
however, to punish any such who give rise to disputes, or who overstep
the boundaries of their own classes and are disobedient to existing laws."
The occupation of the Etas is to kill and flay horses, oxen, and other
beasts, to stretch drums and make shoes; and if they are very poor, they
wander from house to house, working as cobblers, mending old shoes
and leather, and so earn a scanty livelihood. Besides this, their daughters
and young married women gain a trifle as wandering minstrels, called
Torioi, playing on the shamisen, a sort of banjo, and singing ballads.
They never marry out of their own fraternity, but remain apart, a despised
and shunned race.
At executions by crucifixion it is the duty of the Etas to transfix the victims
with spears; and, besides this, they have to perform all sorts of degrading
offices about criminals, such as carrying sick prisoners from
their cells to the hall of justice, and burying the bodies of those that have
been executed. Thus their race is polluted and accursed, and they are
hated accordingly.
Now this is how the Etas came to be under the jurisdiction of
Danzayémon:—
When Minamoto no Yoritomo was yet a child, his father, Minamoto no
Yoshitomo, fought with Taira no Kiyomori, and was killed by treachery:
so his family was ruined; and Yoshitomo's concubine, whose name was
Tokiwa, took her children and fled from the house, to save her own and
their lives. But Kiyomori, desiring to destroy the family of Yoshitomo
root and branch, ordered his retainers to divide themselves into bands,
and seek out the children. At last they were found; but Tokiwa was so
exceedingly beautiful that Kiyomori was inflamed with love for her, and
desired her to become his own concubine. Then Tokiwa told Kiyomori
that if he would spare her little ones she would share his couch; but that
if he killed her children she would destroy herself rather than yield to his
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