worried this tiny human in the coffeeshop might have role models like me
Dr. Paula R. Curtis
@paularcurtis.bsky.social
7K followers 818 following 18K posts
Medievalist. Historian. Japan. Project Juggler. DH. Extremely Tired. Good & Bad cats. 🐾 Rock art. 🎨 Operations Leader @jppinfo.bsky.social, UCLA prcurtis.com Support open-access projects: patreon.com/prcurtis, ko-fi.com/prcurtis
![Trading in Slaves While slave owning was clearly a recognized practice in medieval Japan, the Kamakura law codes repeatedly prohibit the buying and selling of human beings. Take, for example, a shogunal order dated 1240.5.12: Concerning the prohibition on the buying and selling of human beings: Over the generations, the imperial court has issued innumerable edicts [prohibiting such trade], and these laws have been enforced by the shogunate. During the famine of the Kangi period [1229-1232], however, people [had no choice but to] sell their children and dispose of their servants (shoju) in order to maintain their exis tence. Because [to hold to] the prohibition [in these circumstances] would con versely have caused the people to suffer, it was not enforced. Now, however, things have returned to their former state. Even so, we hear that assorted persons are flouting the law. This is an outrage. Let it be stopped immediately. Of special note in the above quotation is the reference to assorted persons. Who might these have been? In other instances, such as a law from 1290, the shogunate singled out slave traders (hitoakibito) as the objects of censure:](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:tr7tljvmuzz7asv735p23nve/bafkreignkbawqw2fcuniqta6eccucfkrh54owdj3o77g52nbcxqttsrlti)
![Goseibai shikimoku, Article 41
Item: Regarding bound servants (nuhi zōnin)*
In accordance with the precedents set by the house of the general [Minamoto no Yoritomo], if ten years have passed without a suit being lodged [debating ownership of the person], the validity of the case shall not be considered and there will be no changes [to ownership] issued.
Furthermore, regarding children born to bound servants, although there are different stipulations in court law,* in keeping with the precedents of [Yoritomo’s] time, male children shall belong to [the owner of] the father and female children to [the owner of] the mother.
*The term nuhi 奴婢, which also appears in medieval texts as nuhi zōnin 奴婢雜人, originates in the Tang Code upon which the eighth-century Yōrō Code was based. The usage of the term is somewhat imprecise in Japanese texts, meaning at times something closer to “personal retainer” and at times something closer to “slave.” People in dire financial straits could sell themselves or family members into nuhi status, as was sometimes the case during famines, and as the article above suggests, this status could also be hereditary. Thomas Nelson has suggested that by the medieval period, nuhi was an archaic term, used mainly in legal texts, and the warrior government periodically issued legal provisions against the enslavement of people, though many scholars consider investment in the enforcement of those provisions questionable. Thomas Nelson, “Slavery in Medieval Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 59:4 (Winter, 2004), 473.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:tr7tljvmuzz7asv735p23nve/bafkreictkducnqs3ralpnpg2btjkbvecc5ojmhkpu5k4i3suym4wixz7vq)
