A General Account of Base-Status People

Who counted as an ordinary person in earlier Japanese society, and who was placed beneath that category? In this substantial historical essay, Kita Sadakichi follows the changing boundaries of legal status, occupation, dependence, and exclusion across centuries.

His account moves from ancient slaves and household dependents to wandering performers, religious communities, funeral workers, local police, and leatherworkers. It asks how people from related origins could acquire radically different positions, and how inherited stigma persisted even as institutions and names changed.

Published in 1928, the essay combines a challenge to discrimination with the assumptions and language of its own period. Its religious interpretations, provocative social comparisons, proposed etymologies, and demographic arguments remain intact in this complete English translation.