Nanushi

• Japanese: 名主 (nanushi)

Nanushi were village headmen, or heads of neighborhoods within cities such as Edo.

Around the end of the 18th century, there were some 250-260 nanushi in Edo, overseeing roughly one thousand neighborhoods. This meant that many headmen were responsible for as many as seven, eight, or even ten neighborhoods each. The goningumi (five-person collective responsibility groups) and guardhouses in each neighborhood answered to the nanushi.

Nanushi in Edo reported to the machidoshiyori ("town elders"), assistants to the Edo machi bugyô (Edo City Magistrates).

References

• Katô Takashi, "Governing Edo," in James McClain (ed.), Edo & Paris, Cornell University Press (1994), 46, 55.