During the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japanese history The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Paleolithic, around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when ...

, were self-governing administrative units, led by the .

Description

The development of mura reflected specific changes that show the transition of the Edo community from medieval agricultural to mature administrative unit. Before the Edo period,

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

administered the villages, but during the

sword hunt Several times in Japanese history, the new ruler sought to ensure his position by calling a . Armies would scour the entire country, confiscating the weapons of all potential enemies of the new regime. In this manner, the new ruler sought to ensur ...

they were put to a choice: give up their sword and status and remain on the land as a peasant, or live in a as a paid retainer of the local ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' (lord). Villages were also manufacturing units: In western Japan,

cottage industries The putting-out system is a means of subcontracting work, like a tailor. Historically, it was also known as the workshop system and the domestic system. In putting-out, work is contracted by a central agent to subcontractors who complete the p ...

developed, with each family of the village taking over a one step of the production process. Villages were taxed as a unit, with the village headman responsible for taxation. Taxes were paid in rice, often 40 to 50% of the harvest. Criminal punishments could also be imposed on the village as a unit. Prior to the emergence of religious authorities such as the

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

establishment, ''mura'' - along with the family ('' ie'') - helped establish Japanese cultural practices such as ancestral veneration and funerary rites. Some of the villages served as enclaves or base-villages for the ''

miko A , or shrine maiden,Groemer, 28. is a young priestess who works at a Shinto shrine. were once likely seen as Shamanism, shamans,Picken, 140. but are understood in modern Japanese culture to be an institutionalized role in daily life, trained ...

'' or female shamans.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edo Period Village Edo period Villages in Japan Economy of feudal Japan