Читать книгу A History of the Japanese People - Kikuchi Dairoku - Страница 112

The institution of slavery (nuhi) existed in ancient Japan as in so many other countries. The slaves consisted of prisoners taken in war and of persons who, having committed some serious offence, were handed over to be the property of those that they had injured. The first recorded instance of the former practice was when Yamato-dake presented to the Ise shrine the Yemishi chiefs who had surrendered to him in the sequel of his invasion of the eastern provinces. The same fate seems to have befallen numerous captives made in the campaign against the Kumaso, and doubtless wholesale acts of self-destruction committed by Tsuchi-gumo and Kumaso when overtaken by defeat were prompted by preference of death to slavery. The story of Japan's relations with Korea includes many references to Korean prisoners who became the property of their captors, and that a victorious general's spoils should comprise some slaves may be described as a recognized custom. Of slavery as a consequence of crime there is also frequent mention, and it would appear that even men of rank might be overtaken by that fate, for when (A.D. 278) Takenouchi-no-Sukune's younger brother was convicted of slandering him, the culprit's punishment took the form of degradation and assignment to a life of slavery. The whole family of such an offender shared his fate. There is no evidence, however, that the treatment of the nuhi was inhuman or even harsh: they appear to have fared much as did the tomobe in general.