The Status and Occupations of Newcomers and Other Essays

A village petition asks that families long treated as newcomers finally receive ordinary status. Its names, seals and brief official answer open a collection about the distinctions people inherited, the work they performed, and the historical explanations offered for their place in society.

Kita Sadakichi then investigates why medieval warriors were called ebisu, drawing on chronicles, poems, genealogies and competing interpretations of Emishi history. Two related essays explore the designation “irregular monks,” tracing religious appearance, exclusion, almsgiving and occupations through legal and literary records. A final essay turns to cremation, bone washing and the disputed funerary term daizō.

First published between 1915 and 1923, these complete writings preserve the historian’s documentary curiosity alongside the racial, religious and assimilationist assumptions of his time. This English edition retains the petitions, quotations, uncertainties and printed discrepancies, with explanatory notes for historical terminology and provisional names. AI-assisted translation.