Then, there was Murahatchibu, whose name jeans literally ‘social ostracism’, cut off from the community, sent to Coventry, utterly ignored. Two hundred years ago and more, to be the victim of murahatchibu in Japan was to face ruinous disaster, and nobody dared stray out of line for fear of its being implemented. The name comes from mura or village, and hatchibu, which means 8-out-of-10. According to ancient Japanese farming laws, people in a rural community came together in ten different ways to help each other. Victims of murahatchibu lost eight of those ten social privileges. A funeral was still guaranteed, and your community would come to your aid if your house was burning down, but even that was only to prevent the fire from spreading to everyone else’s houses. For the other eight things, victims were entirely on their own: 1) nobody could attend your family’s weddings, 2) no one acknowledged your growing children at coming-of-age ceremonies, 3) no one helped if your family was struck down by illness, 4) there was no help in the building of a new house, 5) no aid if the house flooded, 6) you were not allowed in the local temple during the anniversaries of loved ones, 7) no help was given to those moving house, 8) and no help was given to women of your family giving birth. In naming their band Murahatchibu, these guys were not taking the easy way out. But, then again, their other choice for a band name had been Nanashi No Gonbe (The Nobodies without a Name)…

Julian Cope en la página 117 de su “Japrocksampler”.