Fundamental Shinto beliefs equated goodness and godliness with purity and cleanliness, and they further held that impurities could cling to things and persons, making them evil or sinful. But a person could become seriously contaminated by habitually killing animals or committing some hideous misdeed that ripped at the fabric of the community. Such persons, custom decreed, had to be cast out from the rest of society, condemned to wander from place to place. In Japanese culture during the Edo period the outcasts were at the bottom of the social class system. They were known as eta..
You have been assigned to the role of Outcast. Create an 8 - 10 slide PowerPoint presentation that explains Outcast life, as well as a description of how the Buddhist and Shinto religions view death. Complement each slide with images of the outcasts, as well as images reflecting Buddhism and the Shinto religion. Each slide should answer one of the following questions:
- What was life like as an outcast, and what rules and laws did the outcasts live under?
- Why is death considered “unclean?”
- How are people contaminated?
- Why were certain people shunned within society?
- Why was this made into law?
- What were the effects of isolationism on the outcasts?
- Does this class system still exist?
Resources
http://www.japan-zone.com/omnibus/buddhism.shtml
http://www.jodo.org/about_js/other_ceremo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin#Historical_Origins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto#Four_affirmations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_divisions_of_society#Others
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo_period#Society
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_divisions_of_society (general link)
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