''Tekiya'' ( or ; "

peddler A peddler, in British English pedlar, also known as a chapman, packman, cheapjack, hawker, higler, huckster, (coster)monger, colporteur or solicitor, is a door-to-door and/or travelling vendor of goods. In England, the term was mostly used fo ...

s") are itinerant

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese merchants who, along with the ''

bakuto ''Bakuto'' (博徒) were itinerant gamblers active in Japan from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. They were one of two forerunners (the other being '' tekiya'', or peddlers) to modern Japanese organized crime syndicates called ''yakuza'' ...

'' ("gamblers"), historically were predecessors to the modern ''

yakuza , also known as , are members of Transnational crime, transnational organized crime, organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . ...

''. A loose American equivalent of the ''tekiya'' could be seen in carnies.

History

''Tekiya'' ranked as one of the lowest social groups during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characterize ...

. As they began to form organizations of their own, they took over some administrative duties relating to commerce, such as stall allocation and protection of their commercial activities. During

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintoist ...

festivals A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival co ...

, these peddlers opened stalls and some members were hired to act as security. Each peddler paid rent in exchange for a stall assignment and

protection Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...

during the fair. The ''tekiya'' were a highly structured and hierarchical group with the ''oyabun'' (boss) at the top and ''kobun'' (gang members) at the bottom.Raz, Jacob. "Insider Outsider: The Way of the Yakuza." Kyoto Journal. Last modified 17 April 2011. https://kyotojournal.org/society/insider-outsider/. This hierarchy resembles a structure similar to the family – in traditional

Japanese culture The culture of Japan has changed greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia and other regions of the world. Historical overview The ances ...

, the ''oyabun'' was often regarded as a surrogate father, and the ''kobun'' as surrogate children. During the Edo period, the government formally recognized the ''tekiya''. At this time, within the ''tekiya'', the ''oyabun'' were appointed as supervisors and granted near-

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the ''daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They ha ...

status, meaning they were allowed the dignity of a surname and two swords. Unlike the ''

'' who gamble (gambling was and still is illegal in Japan), the ''tekiya'''s line of work was generally legal. However, they also engaged in illicit activities such as the creation of

protection racket A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from vio ...

s and would sometimes engage in

gang warfare A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collective ...

with other groups. In addition, their itinerant lifestyle often attracted fugitives to join their ranks. Although the ''tekiya''/''bakuto'' lines have been blurred with the emergence of the modern Japanese ''

'' in the 20th century, many of today's yakuza still identify with one group over the other.

History

References

Further reading