in vogue at that epoch, and that it received
official recognition with the proviso that the obligation must not
extend to interest. Debts, therefore, had become instruments for
swelling the ranks of the slave class.

*The senmin, or slave class, was divided into two groups, namely,
public slaves (kwanko ryoko, and ko-nuhi), and private slaves (kenin
and shi-nuhi).

But while sanctioning this evil custom, the tendency of the law was
to minimize its results. In another edict of the same reign it was
laid down that, when a younger brother of the common people
(hyakusei) was sold by his elder brother, the former should still be
classed as a freeman (ryomin), but a child sold by its father became
a serf (senmin); that service rendered to one of the senmin class by
a freeman in payment of a debt must not affect the status of the
freeman, and that the children of freemen so serving, even though
born of a union with a slave, should be reckoned as freemen. It has
been shown already that degradation to slavery was a common
punishment or expiation of a crime, and the annals of the period
under consideration indicate that men and women of the slave class
were bought and sold like any other chattels. Documents certainly not
of more recent date than the ninth century, show particulars of some
of these transactions. One runs as follows:

Men (nu) 3
Women (hi) 3
--
Total 6

2 at 10000 bundles of rice each
2 at 800 bundles of rice each.
1 at 700 bundles of rice.
1 at 600 bundles of rice.
-----
Total 4900 bundles

1 man (nu) named Kokatsu; age 34; with a mole under the left eye
Price 1000 bundles of rice.
The above are slaves of Kannawo Oba of Okambe in Yamagata district.

Comparison of several similar vouchers indicates that the usual price
of an able-bodied slave was one thousand bundles of rice, and as one
bundle gave five sho of unhulled rice, one thousand bundles
represented fifty koku, which, in the modern market, would sell for
about six hundred yen. It is not to be inferred, however, that the
sale of freemen into slavery was sanctioned by law. During the reign
of the Emperor Temmu, a farmer of Shimotsuke province wished to sell
his child on account of a bad harvest, but his application for
permission was refused, though forwarded by the provincial governor.
In fact, sales or purchases of the junior members of a family by the