One comment related to the phenomenon of tokusei ikki and tsuchi ikki concerns the position of the 土民 (domin), and what was actually meant by this pronoun. It is quite obvious that the domin were the leaders of tsuchi ikki, yet these `domin` that were referred to in courtier diaries did not constitute a single collective identity, but was a pronoun that pointed towards a variety of villagers in the vicinity of the capital. At the time (the mid fifteenth century), the villages of the Kinai region were ruled over by the dogō, with the remaining villagers divided into either jizamurai (rural samurai) or farmers. The village itself was thus created from these `muroto` 村人, who all possessed a form of equality of rights within the village institution.  As far as public officials were concerned, however, what the noun `domin` encompassed was this organization of jizamurai, muroto, and farmers.(103)

To understand this point a bit further, one needs to delve a bit into the background of tokusei ikki and their relationship to tsuchi ikki. Tokusei ikki themselves were one of the common phenomena of the Muromachi period, indeed their occurrence was regularly reported during the fourteenth century and the change over of emperors during the two courts period, to which the shōgunate ascribed the name `tokusei ikki` to describe the issue of a tokusei edict absolving debtors of their obligation (or reducing their obligations) to either warehouses or sake merchants (the predominant moneylenders of the Muromachi period). The phrase `Tokusei ikki` was in fact a later invention, as the records of the time used the phrase `tsuchi ikki` to describe the issue of edicts to commoners. As Zen monks were primarily in charge of maintaining the warehouses of the shōgunate, their judgment of these ikki was much harsher, calling them `tokusei thefts`. (95)

The wanton destruction of property and the seizure of goods by force generally describes what were known as `private tokusei` - ie, that no official sanction had been sought or given, but that commoners had taken matters into their own hands to retrieve their wealth or possessions. Recent scholarship had tended to look upon such violent and uncommon acts with a much more discerning eye, seeing in these uprisings a form of collective energy and identity in the removal of a common threat through joint action.(96) This particular activity is illustrated quite clearly in the first year of Kakitsu (1441) and a tsuchi ikki that broke out within Kyoto over money dealers (described in the Kennaiki 建内記). On the 6th day of the 9th month, the protestors took over buildings both within and outside Kyoto, demanding that if a tokusei was not released, they would burn the buildings down. On the 7th day, a monk of Jōrengein(浄蓮華院), Songobo (尊悟房) was forcibly restrained by the protesting ikki members, who threatened that if their debts were not entirely resolved, warehouses would be burnt down, a threat identical to those present in a private tokusei(96)

With progress within villages of the Kinai region moving towards the creation of unification of upper levels of administration, the creation of the so-called `sō villages`, `regional tokusei` also began to make their mark. An example of this is Oyamato gō (小倭郷) located in Ise province during the Sengoku era. The `oyamato shū` were a group of local jizamurai who had banded together so that their independent and politically equal system came to rule over Oyamato gō, and issued a tokusei edict for the entire area, thus absolving all debts. Under the name of the `tokusei shū`, this group removed all issues relating to debts and credits from among the villages, thus eliminating the problem of tokusei altogether.(100)

Although this example was taken from the Sengoku era, it was not unusual to have local tokusei issued during the Kakitsu and Shōchō eras either. The `sō chū` (or union of local representatives) were the organization principally charged with collection of tithes, the `jigeuke` 地下請`, and thus it was a matter of course that they too would issue local tokusei. When the Kakitsu tsuchi ikki broke out in 1441, the two shōen of Okushima and Kita Tsuda on the eastern shore of Ōmi province near the temple of Chōmyōji (Chōmeiji 長命寺) and the `satajin` of these shōen issued a tokusei of their own. (101)

Hence in the case of Okushima shōen, and again in Tsuda shōen (overseen by the dogō status Tsuda family), both these entities, as well as the jizamurai union of Oyamoto gō had seen fit to issue their own tokusei edicts. Of course, while at first it may seem that although the sō chū were the main instigators of the issue of regional tokusei edicts, they were not the leaders of tsuchi ikki. Yet by examining the historical development of regional tokusei edicts, and the overall appearance of greater calls for tokusei during the fifteenth century, the sō chū did become the leaders of tokusei ikki and were responsible for their distribution.(104)

Another example of this stems from Chōroku 3 (1459), when rumours of a tsuchi ikki at Nishioka began to circulate in the capital. The Bakufunate ordered the shōen owner with most property in the vicinity of Nishioka, the temple of Tōji, to produce the ringleaders for questioning. In response to this, the temple issued a kishōmon to shōen such as that of Kami and Shimo Kuse, warning them not to participate in the ikki. At Kami Kuse, 21 jizamurai (or myōshu), together with 84 common villagers, all put their names to a separate document, making it highly probable that they would have participated together within an ikki and thus making them the ringleaders. Yet amidst the jizamurai of Kami Kuse were some who were engaging in moneylending as `yūtokujin` (有徳人). In the 6th year of Daiei (1526), the jizamurai of Fushimi shōen were engaging in selling money to the farmers, and then reporting this to the Bakufu. Thus even within the same jizamurai status class, there were debtors and creditors alike.(104)

It was the dogō status class, however, who exacerbated the stand-off over tokusei and tsuchi ikki. At Nishioka were a band of retainers known as the `Nishioka hikan shū`, dogō status (in the sense that the term is applied to the Kinai and Yamashiro region when what would be more accurate to suggest is that they were of kokujin status), the Kawashima family, the Kaide (鶏冠井) family, and the Ishida family. In the 6th year of Kanshō (1465), the Bakufu had issued a document to them banning them from participation in any tsuchi ikki. The circumstances behind the issue were these: at the time, Kawashima Sakin Masatake (監) was engaged in moneylending on a large scale, thus to draw the Bakufu`s attention towards the participation of dogō (kokujin) in episodes of tsuchi ikki, he made a statement to the Bakufu which resulted in the ban on dogō participation. This `Nishioka Hikan shū` was thus divided between those lending and borrowing money (these allegiances would later manifest themselves in ties with pro and anti moneylender Bakufu officials.(105)

Interesting thing about the Kaide family is that they ruled over Kaide village, the birthplace of the `Kai Hokke` (皆法華). When Nichizō returned from spreading the faith of the Hokke shū throughout the west during the late Kamakura period, Kaide village was one of the places that converted to the Hokke sect, thus fleeing from the previous rule of Mukaihi (kōnichi) shrine, and uniting the villagers under a single faith. Hence when the Kaide family stood for participation in an tsuchi ikki, the village as a whole was behind them – all who weren`t would be ostracized. What we see from all of this is that the basis for the tsuchi ikki lay in the organization of jizamurai, muroto, and farmers that constituted the sō village, and the leadership of them by those dogō not in favour of moneylenders.(105)

Yet what would get these united organizations to engage in tsuchi ikki (tokusei ikki)? Essentially one argument has it that the dogō and jizamurai classes were particularly affected by the interest rates applied to moneylending, and thus suffered quite substantially from debt obligations. For the commoners, although their debt problems were not so harsh, the existence of regional tokusei such as that from Okushima noted that the commoners did suffer under the burden of debts, hence their participation in tsuchi ikki. The fact that a majority of these tsuchi ikki targeted warehouses within Kyoto suggests that a majority of the wealth of the countryside was being held as collateral within the capital, and thus the reason for their targeting warehouses.(106)