Shigino Village(鴫野村), part of Settsu Province(摂津国), was located to the northeast of Osaka Castle. This collection of documents has two features. Firstly, it includes many village administration documents from the early 17th century to the early 18th century. Secondly, there are also many documents related to the ‘Shita-souji’(下掃除, referring to the disposal of human waste) in Osaka Castle. Although research on the disposal and distribution of human waste in Osaka has focused
mainly on the commoner areas( 町人地), the situation inside Osaka Castle, where large groups of samurai were stationed,has not been thoroughly investigated.
In this paper, I analyzed the ‘Shushi ninbetsu cho’( 宗旨人別帳, Register of Religious Affiliation) of 1685 (Jōkyō 2), in order to provide an overview of the social structure of the village. The analysis confirmed that impoverished peasants accounted for half of the village population. I suggest that this may be related to the instability of the cultivated lands along the Yodo River, due to frequent floods. It may also be related to the fact that farmers in neighboring villages owned fields in Shigano. This leaves room for future research on how people made their livelihoods.
Under such conditions, the ‘Shita-souji’ in Osaka Castle was an important source of income for Shigino Village. In this paper,I showed that from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 18th century, the villagers who engaged in ‘Shita-souji’ were those who had holdings of less than 5 koku, or had been completely alienated from land ownership. I also showed that there was a competition over ‘Shita-souji’ rights between these villagers, those from other villages, and contractors.
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