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 desire. When he heard this, Kiyomori,
bewildered by the beauty of Tokiwa, spared the lives of her children,
but banished them from the capital.
So Yoritomo was sent to Hirugakojima, in the province of Idzu; and
when he grew up and became a man, he married the daughter of a
peasant. After a while Yoritomo left the province, and went to the
wars, leaving his wife pregnant; and in due time she was delivered of
a male child, to the delight of her parents, who rejoiced that their
daughter should bear seed to a nobleman; but she soon fell sick and
died, and the old people took charge of the babe. And when they also
died, the care of the child fell to his mother's kinsmen, and he grew
up to be a peasant.
Now Kiyomori, the enemy of Yoritomo, had been gathered to his fathers;
and Yoritomo had avenged the death of his father by slaying Munémori,
the son of Kiyomori; and there was peace throughout the land. And
Yoritomo became the chief of all the noble houses in Japan, and first
established the government of the country. When Yoritomo had thus
raised himself to power, if the son that his peasant wife had born to
him had proclaimed himself the son of the mighty prince, he would have
been made lord over a province; but he took no thought of this, and
remained a tiller of the earth, forfeiting a glorious inheritance; and
his descendants after him lived as peasants in the same village,
increasing in prosperity and in good repute among their neighbours.
But the princely line of Yoritomo came to an end in three generations,
and the house of Hôjô was all-powerful in the land.
Now it happened that the head of the house of Hôjô heard that a
descendant of Yoritomo was living as a peasant in the land, so he
summoned him and said:--
"It is a hard thing to see the son of an illustrious house live and
die a peasant. I will promote you to the rank of Samurai."
Then the peasant answered, "My lord, if I become a Samurai, and the
retainer of some noble, I shall not be so happy as when I was my own
master. If I may not remain a husbandman, let me be a chief over men,
however humble they may be."
But my lord Hôjô was angry at this, and, thinking to punish the
peasant for his insolence, said:--
"Since you wish to become a chief over men, no matter how humble,
there is no means of gratifying your strange wish but by making you
chief over the Etas of the whole country. So now see that you rule
them well."
When he heard this, the peasant was afraid; but because he had said
that he wished to become a chief over men, however humble, he could
not choose but become chief of the Etas, he and his children after him
for ever; and Danzayémon, who rules the Etas at the present time, and
lives at Asakusa, is his lineal descendant.