Publisher's Synopsis
"Dodging and Confronting Stigma examines the lives of people who were stigmatized or marginalized in Japan's late classical and medieval ages. Often characterized as beggars, they in fact pursued a variety of occupations and lifestyles, even while haunted by discrimination and exploitation. They developed skills, acquired property rights, and played the elite powers that controlled them against one another to achieve some degree of self-determination. Outcasts are frequently mentioned in the records of Buddhist temples, and the variety of references provides evidence for the many ways they participated in medieval religious life: as cleansers of pollution, as cremation and burial workers, as objects of salvific efforts-and as guards and enforcers in an increasingly militarized religious establishment. Complex and stratified, outcast society as a whole included people who demanded their rights through litigation and arms, just as did oth
