Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/64

 fraction of the whole. Originally immigrants from Korea who practised the professions of tanning and furriery, they owed their name to their polluted occupation, and their descendants through all generations, as well as any Japanese that drifted into their rank, occupied the position of social pariahs. The great fifth estate of mediæval Japan, however, is very imperfectly described by the term Eta. It included a large number of industrials and professionals whose social debasement constitutes an interesting illustration of the ethics of mediæval Japan. The Chōri headed the list. This term has no dishonourable import: the ideographs used in writing it signify "head officer." Originally the Chōri were Buddhist friars. Their name occurs historically for the first time in the days of the celebrated scholar and philanthropist Shotoku (572–621). He established a charity hospital, and gave to the priests that had charge of its interior arrangements and ministrations the name of Chōri, calling those that attended to the exterior duties Hinin, or "outcasts." It has already been stated that, in early times, the tendance of the sick was held to pollute a man, and even the charitable doctrine inculcated by Buddhism could not protect the Chōri from the taint of their occupation, while those who, for the sake of mere pecuniary recompense, undertook to dispose of the bodies of the dead and to perform menial duties in connection with the hospital, were considered