Samurai Violence against Commoners

Samurai were able to demonstrate their collective superiority over com­moners, in effect over male commoners, through their legal right to execute a person of lower status, such as a commoner or a servant, for rudeness, an act known as burei-uchi (‘disrespect killing') or kirisute gomen (‘permission to cut down').

Samurai, Masculinity and Violence in Japan commoner's act must have been truly offensive to the samurai and the samurai must have killed the commoner on the spot, not at a later time.

Samurai-directed violence towards people of lower status could take place in several types of social settings. Japan's castle towns were populated by samurai and townsmen (the latter term meaning artisans and mer­chants), and while samurai lived in segregated residential districts there was ample opportunity for daily interaction with them on the city streets. There were also opportunities for interaction and conflict on the highways and in the post-towns during the daimyo processions, with their entourages of samurai and support staff, which were utilised on the lords' required biennial trips to Edo as part of the alternate attendance system.^[397] In contrast with the relative physical proximity of samurai and townsmen in urban centres, samurai would not have had much opportunity to interact with peasants, who resided in the countryside. In most domains the samurai­based government maintained a minimal presence in rural areas in the form of a lightly staffed intendant's office. In fact, in many places samurai were required to obtain official permission to travel into the countryside. Nonetheless, the occasions when they did meet peasants were fraught with opportunity for conflict and violence.

Offensive acts towards samurai most commonly occurred when samurai and members of the other status groups physically passed by one another, resulting in chance physical contact or simply by virtue of a commoner not showing adequate social deference in creating a buffer zone between the samurai and himself. It was for that reason, for example, that the townsman code from cities like Kanazawa instructed that it is ‘forbidden... to walk along the street next to samurai'.^[398] Similarly, in the countryside in Tokushima domain, on Shikoku island, a farmer carrying a bucket of urine (used as fertiliser) on a path at the edge of a rice field did not give way to a samurai and was summarily cut down. (Of course, this example begs the question of why the samurai was in the countryside, but no further information is available.)

Disputes between samurai and commoners leading to lethal violence could also result when commercial transactions took place. Whenever a samurai purchased a commodity, such as a horse or a weapon, or a service, such as hiring a packhorse driver, an argument over prices could lead to violence if the samurai felt as if he was being cheated or the

commoner became verbally or physically abusive. For example, in 1768 a samurai on his way home from Edo became involved in a dispute with two packhorse drivers who claimed that his load was overweight and then demanded a tip, even after it was determined that the load was under the legal limit. One of the porters verbally taunted the samurai (‘there's nothing less interesting than a samurai') and grabbed him by the front of his kimono. The samurai responded by severing one porter's head in two and then went after his colleague, who tried to run away, eventually killing him too. An official investigation followed in which about fifty witnesses were inter­viewed. This resulted in the packhorse driver's employer writing a letter of apology to the samurai and an official judgement from the Tokugawa government that the samurai was not at fault (okamai nashi); in fact, his actions were deemed ‘praiseworthy' (gohobi).^[399]

However, if a samurai did not take action to address an insult from a commoner or was not successful in killing the commoner on the spot, there could be negative consequences for him. Furthermore, if the samurai did not act immediately to redress the insult, instead deciding at a later time or date to redress his grievance, this too could result in his punishment.

How often did these cases of lethal violence by samurai against offending commoners take place? Given the fragmented nature of the early modern polity, there are no national statistics available, but a study of one of the country's more than 250 domains reveals that there were fifty-one cases over the period 1670-1860, or roughly one every four years, with a notable increase of incidents from the mid eighteenth century onwards.^[400] While disrespect killings were far from a common occurrence, the possibility of a male commoner being cut down by a samurai's sword was real. The fear was real enough that some commoners apparently carried paper amulets to protect them from ‘sword calamities' - likely meaning being killed by a samurai's sword.^[401] Furthermore, it is likely that popular consciousness of the occurrence of this type of honour violence (and licensed revenge killing) was magnified through the circulation of woodblock prints, which acted as broadsheets, spreading detailed news of these bloody affairs.

Despite the clarity of the legal principle of disrespect killing, the reality was not as clear cut.

Given the examples cited above, it becomes dearer why samurai did not exercise their prerogative to cut down commoners as often as one might imagine. According to one authority, ‘Only if his [a samurai's] conduct were so spotless and the misconduct of the murdered party so obvious that the survivors would not strongly question the justice of the execution, would a samurai escape punishment'.^[402] No doubt the occasions when samurai were punished for exercising their privilege worked to discourage its frequent exercise.

The social acceptability of samurai exercising their prerogative also seems to have greatly diminished over time. Writing in 1816, an anonymous samurai who used the pen name Buyo Inshi, lamented,

In the old days, if someone tried to trick a warrior, the offender would be cut down immediately. Warriors were thus feared. Nowadays, though, were a warrior to cut down someone for merely tricking him, the argument would be that he was in the wrong to become involved with such a lowlife. The world at large would not approve of his action, and so craven have the shogunate's judgments become that the norm is to patch up matters quickly, regardless of right or wrong.²