4 murahachibu (shunning)

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The use of shunning (murahachibu) to punish—with the aim of driving out—a difficult neighbor before they might attract official notice (or for other reasons), gave local village organizations their own means of control. For losing one's official residence meant that the entire family would become homeless (mushuku) and potentially assigned (a process known as hinin teka) to outcaste (hinin) status and thus liable to be “sentenced” to reside in a specified hinin village (buraku), or some other confined locale. This change in status was not confined to the person or generation that first occasioned the original ostracism, but extended in perpetuity.