(answer to post #15)

Burakumin is not a proper name to describe some nations nor some class.
I recognize it a kind of antiwords like an eskimo.
We learn about status distinctions like this.
(you may be boring.sorry...)

In Yayoi period, there were many small countries.
Each counties have rulers and slaves.

I am not sure where such ancient slaves came.
Jomon jin gradually moved toward the north and south.
As there were battles between each Yayoi jin's countries,they might be defeated people,I guess.

In Kamakura or Muromachi period,there were some people thought to be a lower class.
It mainly depended on their occupation.
They were gardeners or singers or performers who walked around village to village etc,.
Some of them made gardens of Ginkaku or Ryoan ji in Kyoto.
They had no houses or they lived by the side of rivers.
Because such non-productive places were free of duty.
As for them,if they wanted or if they could have a chance,they could change their occupation freely.

At Toyotomi Hideyoshi's age (Azuchi Momoyama period), he devided farmers and bushi by laws.By his laws,farmers couldn't be allowed to have any weapons or couldn't move their inhabited areas.

In Edo period, Bakufu succeded Hideyoshi's policy.
They fixed people's class by their occupation or inhabited areas.
They were bushi,farmer,craftman and merchants.
All of them were organized strictly.
They made farmer of low positions.
(They were origins of burakumin,you said.)
It is said that they had to make such positions so that they might not band together against bushi.
At that age, 85% of the populations were farmers. 7% were bushi.

<my opinion>
People had descriminated against some occupations or inhabited areas through such history.
But they could change their occupations or inhabited areas freely until Hideyoshi's age.
Edo bakufu used people's such consciousness in their system.
In fact,they tightened up their laws against farmers of law positions in times of dearth.
Your word "burakumin" may be after Meiji period,after the law on 1871 that made people free from class discrimination of Edo.
Government announced so,but it was not easy to change people's mind immediately.
As for us,educated people never use the word (I believe).