Philippines[edit]

A Tagalog royal couple (maginoo), from the Boxer Codex (c. 1590)

In the Philippines, pre-colonial societies do not have a single social structure. The class structures
can be roughly categorised into four types:[41]

 Classless societies - egalitarian societies with no class structure. Examples include

the Mangyan and the Kalanguya peoples.[41]
 Warrior societies - societies where a distinct warrior class exists, and whose membership
depends on martial prowess. Examples include the Mandaya, Bagobo, Tagakaulo, and B'laan
peoples who had warriors called the bagani or magani. Similarly, in the Cordillera
highlands of Luzon, the Isneg and Kalinga peoples refer to their warriors as mengal or maingal.
This society is typical for head-hunting ethnic groups or ethnic groups which had seasonal raids
(mangayaw) into enemy territory.[41]
 Petty plutocracies - societies which have a wealthy class based on property and the hosting of
periodic prestige feasts. In some groups, it was an actual caste whose members had specialised
leadership roles, married only within the same caste, and wore specialised clothing. These
include the kadangyan of the Ifugao, Bontoc, and Kankanaey peoples, as well as the baknang of
the Ibaloi people. In others, though wealth may give one prestige and leadership qualifications, it
was not a caste per se.[41]
 Principalities - societies with an actual ruling class and caste systems determined by birthright.
Most of these societies are either Indianized or Islamized to a degree. They include the larger
coastal ethnic groups like the Tagalog, Kapampangan, Visayan, and Moro societies. Most of
them were usually divided into four to five caste systems with different names under different
ethnic groups that roughly correspond to each other. The system was more or less feudalistic,
with the datu ultimately having control of all the lands of the community. The land is subdivided
among the enfranchised classes, the sakop or sa-op (vassals, lit. "those under the power of
another"). The castes were hereditary, though they were not rigid. They were more accurately a
reflection of the interpersonal political relationships, a person is always the follower of another.
People can move up the caste system by marriage, by wealth, or by doing something
extraordinary; and conversely they can be demoted, usually as criminal punishment or as a
result of debt. Shamans are the exception, as they are either volunteers, chosen by the ranking
shamans, or born into the role by innate propensity for it. They are enumerated below from the
highest rank to the lowest:[41][42][43]

 Royalty - (Visayan: kadatoan) the datu and immediate descendants. They are often

further categorised according to purity of lineage. The power of the datu is dependent on
 the willingness of their followers to render him respect and obedience. Most roles of the
datu were judicial and military. In case of an unfit datu, support may be withdrawn by his
followers. Datu were almost always male, though in some ethnic groups like
the Banwaon people, the female shaman (babaiyon) co-rules as the female counterpart
of the datu.
 Nobility - (Visayan: tumao; Tagalog: maginoo; Kapampangan ginu; Tausug: bangsa
mataas) the ruling class, either inclusive of or exclusive of the royal family. Most are
descendants of the royal line or gained their status through wealth or bravery in battle.
They owned lands and subjects, from whom they collected taxes.
 Shamans - (Visayan: babaylan; Tagalog: katalonan) the spirit mediums, usually female
or feminised men. While they weren't technically a caste, they commanded the same
respect and status as nobility.
 Warriors - (Visayan: timawa; Tagalog: maharlika) the martial class. They could own land
and subjects like the higher ranks, but were required to fight for the datu in times of war.
In some Filipino ethnic groups, they were often tattooed extensively to record feats in
battle and as protection against harm. They were sometimes further subdivided into
different classes, depending on their relationship with the datu. They traditionally went on
seasonal raids on enemy settlements.
 Commoners and slaves - (Visayan, Maguindanao: ulipon; Tagalog: alipin;
Tausug: kiapangdilihan; Maranao: kakatamokan) - the lowest class composed of the rest
of the community who were not part of the enfranchised classes. They were further
subdivided into the commoner class who had their own houses, the servants who lived in
the houses of others, and the slaves who were usually captives from raids, criminals, or
debtors. Most members of this class were equivalent to the European serf class, who
paid taxes and can be conscripted to communal tasks, but were more or less free to do
as they please.
East Asia[edit]
China and Mongolia[edit]
During the period of Yuan Dynasty, ruler Kublai Khan enforced a Four Class System, which was
a legal caste system. The order of four classes of people in descending order were:

 Mongolian
 Semu people
 Han people (in the northern areas of China)
 Southerners (people of the former Southern Song dynasty)
Today, the Hukou system is argued by various Western sources to be the current caste system
of China.[44][45][46]
Tibet[edit]
See also: Social classes of Tibet
There is significant controversy over the social classes of Tibet, especially with regards to
the serfdom in Tibet controversy.
Heidi Fjeld [no] has put forth the argument that pre-1950s Tibetan society was functionally a caste
system, in contrast to previous scholars who defined the Tibetan social class system as similar
to European feudal serfdom, as well as non-scholarly western accounts which seek to
romanticise a supposedly 'egalitarian' ancient Tibetan society.
Japan[edit]
Main article: Edo society
 Social classes during the Edo period (Tokugawa shogunate)

In Japan's history, social strata based on inherited position rather than personal merit, were rigid
and highly formalised in a system called mibunsei (身分制). At the top were the Emperor and
Court nobles (kuge), together with the Shōgun and daimyō. Below them, the population was
divided into four classes: samurai, peasants, craftsmen and merchants. Only samurai were
allowed to bear arms. A samurai had a right to kill any peasants, craftsman or merchant who he
felt were disrespectful. Merchants were the lowest caste because they did not produce any
products. The castes were further sub-divided; for example, peasants were labelled
as furiuri, tanagari, mizunomi-byakusho among others. As in Europe, the castes and sub-classes
were of the same race, religion and culture.
Howell, in his review of Japanese society notes that if a Western power had colonised Japan in
the 19th century, they would have discovered and imposed a rigid four-caste hierarchy in Japan.
[47]

De Vos and Wagatsuma observe that Japanese society had a systematic and extensive caste
system. They discuss how alleged caste impurity and alleged racial inferiority, concepts often
assumed to be different, are superficial terms, and are due to identical inner psychological
processes, which expressed themselves in Japan and elsewhere.[48]
Endogamy was common because marriage across caste lines was socially unacceptable.[48][49]
Japan had its own untouchable caste, shunned and ostracised, historically referred to by the
insulting term eta, now called burakumin. While modern law has officially abolished the class
hierarchy, there are reports of discrimination against the buraku or burakumin underclasses.
[50]
 The burakumin are regarded as "ostracised".[51] The burakumin are one of the main minority
groups in Japan, along with the Ainu of Hokkaidō and those of Korean or Chinese descent.
Korea[edit]
Joseon caste system
Class Hangul Hanja Meaning

Yangban 양반 兩班 two kinds of

 aristocrats

Jungin 중인 中人 middle people

Sangmin 상민 常民 commoners

Cheonmin 천민 賤民 vulgar commoners

 • Baekjeon
백정 白丁 untouchables
g

 • Nobi 노비 奴婢 slaves (or "serfs")

v
t

A typical Yangban family scene from 1904. The Yoon family had an enduring presence in Korean
politics from the 1800s until the 1970s.

The baekjeong (백정) were an "untouchable" outcaste of Korea. The meaning today is that of

butcher. It originates in the Khitan invasion of Korea in the 11th century. The
defeated Khitans who surrendered were settled in isolated communities throughout Goryeo to
forestall rebellion. They were valued for their skills in hunting, herding, butchering, and making of
leather, common skill sets among nomads. Over time, their ethnic origin was forgotten, and they
formed the bottom layer of Korean society.
In 1392, with the foundation of the Confucian Joseon dynasty, Korea systemised its own native
class system. At the top were the two official classes, the Yangban, which literally means "two
classes". It was composed of scholars (munban) and warriors (muban). Scholars had a
significant social advantage over the warriors. Below were the jung-in (중인-中人: literally
"middle people". This was a small class of specialised professions such as medicine,
accounting, translators, regional bureaucrats, etc. Below that were the sangmin (상민-常民:
literally 'commoner'), farmers working their own fields. Korea also had a serf population known
as the nobi. The nobi population could fluctuate up to about one third of the population, but on
average the nobi made up about 10% of the total population.[52] In 1801, the vast majority of
government nobi were emancipated,[53] and by 1858 the nobi population stood at about 1.5% of
the total population of Korea.[54] The hereditary nobi system was officially abolished around
1886–87 and the rest of the nobi system was abolished with the Gabo Reform of 1894,[54] but
traces remained until 1930.
The opening of Korea to foreign Christian missionary activity in the late 19th century saw some
improvement in the status of the baekjeong. However, everyone was not equal under the
Christian congregation, and even so protests erupted when missionaries tried to
integrate baekjeong into worship, with non-baekjeong finding this attempt insensitive to
traditional notions of hierarchical advantage.[citation needed] Around the same time,
the baekjeong began to resist open social discrimination.[55] They focused on social and
economic injustices affecting them, hoping to create an egalitarian Korean society. Their efforts
included attacking social discrimination by upper class, authorities, and "commoners", and the
use of degrading language against children in public schools.[56]
With the Gabo reform of 1896, the class system of Korea was officially abolished. Following the
collapse of the Gabo government, the new cabinet, which became the Gwangmu government
after the establishment of the Korean Empire, introduced systematic measures for abolishing the
traditional class system. One measure was the new household registration system, reflecting the
goals of formal social equality, which was implemented by the loyalists' cabinet. Whereas the old
registration system signified household members according to their hierarchical social status,
the new system called for an occupation.[57]
While most Koreans by then had surnames and even bongwan, although still substantial number
of cheonmin, mostly consisted of serfs and slaves, and untouchables did not. According to the
new system, they were then required to fill in the blanks for surname in order to be registered as
constituting separate households. Instead of creating their own family name, some cheonmins
appropriated their masters' surname, while others simply took the most common surname and
its bongwan in the local area. Along with this example, activists within and outside the Korean
government had based their visions of a new relationship between the government and people
through the concept of citizenship, employing the term inmin ("people") and
later, kungmin ("citizen").[57]
North Korea[edit]
Main article: Songbun
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea reported that "Every North Korean citizen is
assigned a heredity-based class and socio-political rank over which the individual exercises no
control but which determines all aspects of his or her life."[58] Called Songbun, Barbara
Demick describes this "class structure" as an updating of the hereditary "caste system", a
combination of Confucianism and Stalinism.[59] It originated in 1946 and was entrenched by the
1960s, and consisted of 53 categories ranging across three classes: loyal, wavering, and
impure. The privileged "loyal" class included members of the Korean Workers' Party and Korean
People's Army officers' corps, the wavering class included peasants, and the impure class
included Axis collaborators and landowners.[60] She claims that a bad family background is called
"tainted blood", and that by law this "tainted blood" lasts three generations.[61]

West Asia[edit]
Further information: Yazidi
Yezidi society is hierarchical. The secular leader is a hereditary emir or prince, whereas a
chief sheikh heads the religious hierarchy. The Yazidi are strictly endogamous; members of the
three Yazidi castes, the murids, sheikhs and pirs, marry only within their group.
Iran[edit]
Pre-Islamic Sassanid society was immensely complex, with separate systems of social
organisation governing numerous different groups within the empire.[62] Historians believe society
comprised four[63][64][65] social classes, which linguistic analysis indicates may have been referred
to collectively as "pistras".[66] The classes, from highest to lowest status, were priests
(Persian: Asravan), warriors (Persian: Arteshtaran), secretaries (Persian: Dabiran), and
commoners (Persian: Vastryoshan).
Yemen[edit]
Further information: Al-Akhdam
In Yemen there exists a hereditary caste, the African-descended Al-Akhdam who are kept as
perennial manual workers. Estimates put their number at over 3.5 million residents who are
discriminated, out of a total Yemeni population of around 22 million.[67]

Africa[edit]
Main article: Caste system in Africa
Various sociologists have reported caste systems in Africa.[68][69][70] The specifics of the caste
systems have varied in ethnically and culturally diverse Africa, however the following features
are common – it has been a closed system of social stratification, the social status is inherited,
the castes are hierarchical, certain castes are shunned while others are merely endogamous
and exclusionary.[71] In some cases, concepts of purity and impurity by birth have been prevalent
in Africa. In other cases, such as the Nupe of Nigeria, the Beni Amer of East Africa, and
the Tira of Sudan, the exclusionary principle has been driven by evolving social facto