5. ESTABLISHED COMMUNITIES
In Western society, civil life is understood to be the personal life of an independent citizen. In Japan, however, the personal life of a citizen seems very often accompanied or regulated by collective pressures, typically by family and community.
The pressures by a family have already been described. Below are shown those by a community.(1) Buraku
The buraku (hamlet)58 has formed the basis of Japanese local communities of different types. In urbanized areas, it is usually called chonai (town-block) or chonai-kai (town-block association). It is structurally a Gemeinschaft-Mke community, constituted of regular families the members of which are oriented to group unity, internalized or compelled. It is functionally a self-regulating organization with its own system of norms and sanctions, including murahachibu, some of which are elaborated into the traditional law of the community called the kempo (constitution) or shikitari (convention) of a buraku.
Being one of the most remarkable features of Japanese social structure, the buraku has been frequently studied by both Japanese and Western scholars, with many useful results.59Leaving its description to these works, a comment is here added.
The buraku is a systematic organization, including subsystems, which may often function as the buraku itself. The subsystems may be iriai groups for joint usufruct of pastures and forests, ujiko groups for support of their shrines, wakamono-gumi (youth associations) and other age groups, or voluntary associations such as those for agriculture or fishery, religious activities, fire service, guard and the like, which were formally instituted by received kinds of motives but have been materially replaced by the traditional group structure.
So an inclusive nature of the buraku was the ground of its strength. In recent years when the “disorganization of agricultural communities” is observed along with the corresponding wide and rapid urbanization of the country, buraku could not stay as it was.
Its trend toward disorganization is seen in the increasing departure of those subsystems from a buraku. It still functions, however, as a self-controlling collective body in one form or other, although the changing structure has yet to be investigated.(2) Iemoto organization
The structural principle of the dozoku has been applied to various social organizations. A notable application is iemoto (the main family of a school of traditional arts); correctly iemoto seido, it is detailed in the study of Francis L. K. Hsu (1975).
Iemoto seido has been the distinguished feature of Japanese organizations for training and enjoying Japanese traditional arts. Its central figure is iemoto, head of a particular school and conferred with an absolute authority on the art and control of the school. His or her disciples are called deshi, who are classified into a hierarchical order according to their skills in the art, and from among the highest of which the successor to the iemoto is selected, although a child of the iemoto is often expected to be the successor. Such a structure is maintained by a system of traditional norms and sanctions, which may be valid to the school members even if it violates freedom and equality under official law.
The iemoto seido is mainly preserved in schools for personal accomplishments such as sado or cha-no-yu (tea ceremony), kado or ikebana (flower arrangement), public entertainments such as the no play, kabuki play, various kinds of hogaku (Japanese music) and nihon buyo (Japanese dancing), and old military arts such as kendo (fencing), karate, kyudo (archery), eiho (art of swimming), and so on. It also shows further variations as in sumo (Japanese wrestling) or applications as in haiku (seventeen-syllable poem) and waka (thirty-one-syllable poem).
(3) Shuha
The application of the dozoku principle in the religious world is found among organizations of Buddhist tera (temples).60 Each temple in a shuha (sect) is ranked on a level of the hierarchy controlled by the honzan (main temple) of the sect, being called a matsuji (subordinate temple). With some “minor and inevitable discrepancies, it is clear that there is a strong resemblance or basic pattern common to the secular [dozoku] and the Buddhist organizations” (Morioka, 1975: 92).
The structural difference of the shuha from the secular dozoku is said to originate in the reflection of the Tokugawa regime “constructed with the Shogun at the top, daimyo (local lords) under him, daimyo's retainers next and, finally, commoners at the very bottom” (ibid.: 93–94).Their norms and sanctions have formed an established system of canon law concerning the authority of the main temple in the orthodox creed and secularistic administration of the sect, rights and duties of the subordinate temples, and especially important succession regulations of the presiding priest of the main temple, whether hereditary or selected by qualified priests. Furnished with the offices of administration and adjudication, the shuha code truly enjoys some privileges independent of the state law by courtesy of the constitutional separation of state from religion, and might be classified into an unofficial law. As far as the contemporary situation is concerned, however, it may be duly regarded as belonging to official law on the ground that it is authorized as an embodiment of the constitutional freedom of belief, and that its adjudicative authority is finally to be sanctioned by the official court of the state.61
(4) Deviant groups
Another variation of the dozoku is found among a peculiar kind of group. There are groups in Japan, as in other countries, which are sociologically labelled as antisocial or pathological. But they are characterized by a special trait, not wholly antisocial or pathological but partly social or normal. Each group is basically structured by the hierarchical order of oyabun and kobun, the latter differentiated into kyodaibun (fictitious brothers), fictitious principle of the dozoku, and supporting norms and sanctions. The trait of its normative system lies rather in its leading value system, which justifies the deviation from, and very often violation of, the official state law, when circumstances require, in order to maintain the group structure and members’ kao (face).
It does not necessarily aim to resist legal order, but is compelled rather to respect its traditional value system than the official law. Three ideal types are differentiated among those groups.62A first type is the rotensho (stall keepers) as they call themselves for their lawful occupation, or yakuza (delinquents) as people regard them because of the apparent difficulty in discerning them from the next type. They are, in appearance, lawful sellers of daily commodities at local festivals, markets and other kinds of social events, moving here and there in a certain district or over the country, although originally belonging to a particular kumi (grouping) of a dozoku structure. But they are so strongly bound by their duties of jingi (covenants) of their own as to sometimes resort to unlawful behaviour.
A second type is called Bakuchi-uchi (professional gamblers). Their substantial source of income is unlawful gambling, even though some of them pretend to have a lawful profession. Their value system requires them, as a moral duty, to protect their nawabari (territory of influence) as among the stall keepers, and not to let it become threatened or violated by gamblers from other territories; they must also, whenever possible, expand their influence over other territories. Nawabari thus often causes violent struggles between them, not easily discernible from those in the next type.
The last one is boryokudan (gangster organizations). They also pretend to have a lawful profession, but are faithful to their supreme imperative to protect, and wherever possible to strengthen and expand, their structure and nawabari by any measures, however unlawful, including murder.