Danzayémon, Chief of the Etas

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 1192 A.D. The whole of the Etas in Japan are under his
jurisdiction; his subordinates are called Koyagashira, or "chiefs of the huts"; and
they constitute the government of the Etas. In the "Legacy of Iyéyasu," 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 execution 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 come 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 sons 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 neighbors.

But the princely line of Yoritomo came to an end in three generations, and the
house of Hojo was all-powerful in the land.

Now it happened that the head of the house of Hojo 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 Hojo 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.

Moral Value:

We must not discriminate against another race or nation. All of us are the same.
We should respect and cherish each other and live in harmony