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The term is most often translated as "peasants," with the implication of ''hyakushô'' being farmers, i.e. that they relied primarily on agricultural activity for subsistence and economic well-being. However, many scholars, [[Amino Yoshihiko]] perhaps chief among them, have argued that many ''hyakushô'' were craftsmen, merchants, traders, landowners, or fishermen, and/or earned a living engaging in other commercial, artisanal, or maritime activities. This is a key element of Amino's broader argument, that pre-modern Japanese society was not nearly as exclusively based upon agricultural production, and that regional rural areas were not so isolated, as is most commonly believed. In his translation of Amino's work, [[Alan Christy]] translates ''hyakushô'' into English not as "peasants," but as "villagers."
The term is most often translated as "peasants," with the implication of ''hyakushô'' being farmers, i.e. that they relied primarily on agricultural activity for subsistence and economic well-being. However, many scholars, [[Amino Yoshihiko]] perhaps chief among them, have argued that many ''hyakushô'' were craftsmen, merchants, traders, landowners, or fishermen, and/or earned a living engaging in other commercial, artisanal, or maritime activities. This is a key element of Amino's broader argument, that pre-modern Japanese society was not nearly as exclusively based upon agricultural production, and that regional rural areas were not so isolated, as is most commonly believed. In his translation of Amino's work, [[Alan Christy]] translates ''hyakushô'' into English not as "peasants," but as "villagers."
In the Edo period, ''hyakushô'' comprised roughly 80 percent of the population. Villages varied widely in size and layout, and in the chief products they produced. However, a village of roughly four hundred people, producing roughly four hundred ''[[koku]]'' worth of whatever they were producing, might be taken as average or representative.<ref name=nakane216>Chie Nakane, "Tokugawa Society," in Nakane and Shinzaburô Ôishi (eds.) ''Tokugawa Japan: The Social and Economic Antecedents of Modern Japan''. University of Tokyo Press, 1990, 215-216.</ref>
Villages took many forms, ranging from relatively large farming villages, to smaller coastal fishing villages and mountain villages (where the main products might be timber/lumber, firewood, charcoal, mountain vegetables, etc.). Most were organized fairly haphazardly, in contrast to larger cities, and were rarely organized around any particular center. Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples present in the village were often located on the outskirts, or even if more centrally located were rarely if ever the center around which everything was organized; to the contrary, most villages were organized in a fashion that resulted from organic growth, as families built homes as they wished, in whatever locations were most desirable, either topographically or for other reasons.<ref name=nakane216/>
Villages were largely self-governing in the Edo period, managing their own affairs under the authority of a headman or a small council, who served as the intermediary with samurai authorities, both for taxpaying and for legal and policy matters. Many villages gradually came to restrict membership in their village, with certain families or factions (often those families resident there the longest) securing power and discriminating against other families or factions (often those who had migrated to the village in more recent generations), granting them a lesser share of resources, privileges, or access, or denying them membership in the village entirely.<ref name=nakane216/>
In modern/contemporary Japan, the term ''hyakushô'' has come to take on a feudal connotation, much as the word "peasant" has in English. The term is thus sometimes seen as derogatory, and is avoided, with the term ''nômin'' (lit. "agricultural people," or farmers) used instead; the equivalence between ''hyakushô'' and ''nômin'' is strongly ingrained in the common collective consciousness, despite scholarly attempts to reexamine the character and activities of the medieval or early modern ''hyakushô''.
In modern/contemporary Japan, the term ''hyakushô'' has come to take on a feudal connotation, much as the word "peasant" has in English. The term is thus sometimes seen as derogatory, and is avoided, with the term ''nômin'' (lit. "agricultural people," or farmers) used instead; the equivalence between ''hyakushô'' and ''nômin'' is strongly ingrained in the common collective consciousness, despite scholarly attempts to reexamine the character and activities of the medieval or early modern ''hyakushô''.
==References==
==References==
*Amino Yoshihiko, Alan Christy (trans.), ''Rethinking Japanese History'', Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan (2012), 15-16 ''passim''.
*Amino Yoshihiko, Alan Christy (trans.), ''Rethinking Japanese History'', Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan (2012), 15-16 ''passim''.
<references/>
==See also==
==See also==
