Untouchables outside of India.

In Japan, the untouchable class was - and to some extent still is - the Buraku.

The burakumin are descendants of outcast communities of the feudal era, which mainly comprised those with occupations considered "tainted" with death or ritual impurity (such as executioners, undertakers, workers in slaughterhouses, butchers or tanners), and traditionally lived in their own secluded hamlets and ghettos.


They were legally liberated in 1871 with the abolition of the feudal caste system. However, this did not put a stop to social discrimination and their lower living standards, because Japanese family registration (Koseki) was fixed to ancestral home address until recently, which allowed people to deduce their Burakumin membership. The Burakumin were one of the several groups discriminated against within Japanese society.

The Buraku information linked to what was supposedly an indigenous European untouchable commuity, the Cagot.

As Marie-Pierre avers, the truth about the Cagots is obscure. The people first emerge in documents around the 13th century. By then they are already regarded as an inferior caste, the "untouchables" of western France, or northern Spain. In medieval times the Cagots – also knows as Agotes, Gahets, Capets, Caqueux, etc – were divided from the general peasantry in several ways. They had their own urban districts: usually on the malarial side of the river. These dismal ghettoes were known as Cagoteries; traces of them can still be found in Pyrenean communities such as Campan or Hagetmau.


For hundreds of years, Cagots were treated as different and inferior. In the churches, they had to use their own doors (at least 60 Pyrenean churches still boast "Cagot" entrances); they had their own fonts; and they were given communion on the end of long wooden spoons. Marie-Pierre adds: "When a Cagot came into a town, they had to report their presence by shaking a rattle. Just like a leper, ringing his bell."

Daily Cagot life was likewise marked by apartheid. Cagots were forbidden to enter most trades or professions. They were forced, in effect, to be the drawers of water and hewers of wood. So they made barrels for wine and coffins for the dead. They also became expert carpenters: ironically they built many of the Pyrenean churches from which they were partly excluded.

I am dubious about the story of the Cagot.  It seems that it might be an anachronistic invention by someone seeking victim status.  It also seems to run counter to the ethos of Christian teaching which didn't view occupations, food, occupations or religions in terms of "clean" and "unclean."  Certainly, there was prejudice and discrimination against Jews, but that was based on religion, and Jews who converted were not viewed as carrying a taint of "uncleaniness," as is the case with untouchability.

Likewise, the prejudice against Gypsies arises literally from their not being part of the host culture.  Untouchables are indistinguishable from the host culture in terms of genetics, culture, language or religion.  Consider the Buraku, for example, who are identified only by the fact that their ancestors lived in Buraku communities.

If the story about the Cagot is true, it is an interesting anthropological insight into human nature.