著者

高垣 亜矢

出版者

公益財団法人 史学会

雑誌

史学雑誌 (ISSN:00182478)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.121, no.10, pp.1743-1765, 2012

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The aim of this article is to reexamine the characteristic features of the distribution structure of the cow and horse leather industry in western Japan focusing on the activities of deputy managers (tedai 手代) in charge of wholesale warehouses and their temporarily employed eta (穢多) subordinates (tesaki 手先). During the region's late premodern period, the leather that was produced by the inferior caste of eta from the hides of dead animals was sent to the village of Watanabe in Osaka, where the leather wholesaling industry was concentrated. The most influential research done to date on the people who directed the distribution of leather from these warehouses is the work done by Tsukada Takashi, who has argued that within the intermediary role played by the wholesalers in both buying and selling, leather merchants gained control of distribution. That being said, based on the results from research concentrating on the history of distribution during the period, which has shown definite differences between wholesalers and middlemen, the author assumes that it was tedai who functioned as middlemen, and concludes that it is necessary to reconsider tedai activities. To begin with, the author explicitly shows that the role of wholesale middlemen was represented by the activities of warehouse deputy managers and that the buying and selling of leather was directly transacted by them on the basis of personal relations established between deputy managers and local eta. Secondly, tesaki were also involved in leather commerce, their role was temporary in merely helping to collect freight for the wholesalers. Since tesaki were temporary employees, they could be employed by other wholesalers. In such cases, tesaki posed a disturbance the leather collection of their former employers. Although the activities of tesaki were similar to those of tedai, there was a difference in that the former traded on the basis of transient relationships for profit, while the latter worked for the profit of warehouse which they served. The author concludes that the activities of tedai and the eta caste tesaki brought about significant changes in both the structure of leather distribution throughout western Japan, in general, and in the internal village structure of Watanabe, in particular. In so doing, this type of leather merchant as the dominant actor in the leather trade. Thus, leather merchants such as tedai and tesaki who actively engaged in transactions had a large impact on the traditional order of the leather wholesale distribution system.