MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
worthy to rank as human beings. During the interval of six centuries that separated the time of Prince Shotoku from the commencement of the Kamakura epoch under Yoritomo, nothing is heard of either Chōri or Hinin, and it is believed that the latter term was applied only to criminals of the lowest class. But when Yoritomo undertook the re-organisation of society on a basis of military discipline, he appointed an officer called Danzayemon Yorikane to the post of Chōri, entrusting him with absolute control over all persons excluded from the four-fold classification of soldier, farmer, mechanic, and merchant. It appears, therefore, that the office thus rehabilitated bore no relation whatever to its prototype in Prince Shotoku's time.
The list of persons who thus became, in effect, subjects of Danzayemon, was very long. At the head of it should be placed, perhaps, the Hinin, or outcasts, whose principal duties were connected with executions and prisons. The office of headsman had a special occupant, but all executions other than decapitation were performed by the Hinin, under the direction of the Chōri. To them was entrusted the head of a criminal for exposure during a fixed period, and it was their business to conduct a condemned man when he was carried around the city on horseback as a preliminary to execution. They also discharged the office of torturers in judicial trials; they tattooed criminals; they wielded the spear at crucifixions,
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