Yakuza Some establishments in Tokyo prohibit the entrance to persons with visible tattoos, because yakuzas still keep the tradition of tattooing the whole body.

Yakuza (in Japanese: , also known as gokudō are the members of traditional organizations of organized crime existing in Japan. The Japanese police calls them as bōryokudan (暴力団, literally “violence groups”), while Yakuza proclaim themselves as "ninkyō dantai" (任侠

団体 or 仁侠団体, “chivalrous organizations”).

Yakuza appeared as criminal associations and obeyed to specific and rigorous rules. With time, they began to influence several segments of the Japanese society and politics. They were born by the beginning of the XVII century, in the great urban centres of Osaka and Edo (current Tokyo), under the aegis of the gang leaders. Yakuza gather varied categories: At first were professional gamblers and wanderers. To those later joined the samurais that, starting since 1603, with the end of feudal wars and “Tokugawa Peace" kingdom for 250 years, had seen themselves without masters, therefore threatened of banishment.

In Yakuza’s social hierarchy, below samurais, artisans and trade men were the hinin (not human) and eta (tainted/maculate). “Hinin" were jailers, hangmen e show-business related people. “Eta” were related to animal slaughter jobs (in Shinto and Buddhism every work involving death and blood was tainted).

Society

Yakuza was an exclusively male society.They believed that women were made to be mothers and take care of their husbands, that they shouldn’t stuck their noses into men’s businesses.Another motive for which women weren’t accepted on Yakuza is that no one should talk about the group to outsiders, and they believed that women weren’t strong enough to keep quiet in case they were interrogated by the police or an enemy. That kept going on until the 1990’s, actually there are women that operate on Yakuza and hold the highest ranks within the groups, but to enter, depending on the function, they must go through several tests. Actually young people and students are also recruited, for infiltration on the so-called “domination areas”, as they don’t wear tattoos, but still they are required to learn how to handle weapons, such as blades, nunchuks, firearms, and another.

Family

Yakuzas are organized to the resemblance of a family, having perhaps the harshest of the hierarchies within the underworld. The “Oyabun” (father) is the boss, the "wakashu” his sons and "kyodai” his brothers. Everyone must own total obedience and loyalty to the oyabun, and in exchange he offers

protection to everyone from his clan. Members must not fear dying for their oyabun and must agree with everything he says.

There are two types of yakuza: those that belong to a clan and the autonomous ones. As they don't belong to any clan, autonomous yakuzas have great difficulties to operate, since groups don’t' allow them to operate in their territories. Clans are used to used pay them in order to realise dirty jobs in which oyabuns don't want their clans to get involved or to work as spies. If the autonomous yakuza is ambitious and skilled enough, he can create a group from point zero, but generally, when he's not assassinated, he ends up joining an existing clan.

Main families

Name Description Symbol

Yamaguchi-gumi (六代目山口組)

Created on 1915 it’s the largest family of Yakuza, has more than 40 thousand members and it’s divided in 750 clans. Its current oyabun is Kenichi Shinoda.

Sumiyoshi-rengo (住吉会, also known as Sumiyoshi-kai (住吉会)

It’s the second largest family on Yakuza, with more than 10 thousand members, divided in 177 clans. Its current Oyabun is Shigeo Nishiguchi. They're the death rivals of Yamaguchi-gumi.

It’s the third largest family of Yakuza, has more than 7 thousand members and it’s divided in 177 clans. Its current Oyabun is Kakuji Inagawa. It was the first Yakuza family operating outside and inside Japan.

It’s the fourth largest family of Yakuza, has about one thousand members and it’s divided in 6 clans. Its current Oyabun is Satoru Nomura. It was the first Japanese Yakuza being created in Korea.

Obligations/Rules

Within Yakuza members obligations these are the “top ones”:

Don't hide money from your gang; No personal involvement with narcotic people; You can’t search for law or police members; You can’t rape another member’s wife; Don’t disobey superior orders; You can’t leave evidence after the crime; Don’t kill anyone from the gang without permission from a supervisor.

Rituals

Yakuza created a status and a code of conduct based on the relations of fidelity between the godfather (oyabun) and his protected one (kobun). The consagration ceremony consists on the exchange of sake cups and it represents one's entry on a clan and the bonds of blood created since then.

Yubitsume, or the cutting of one's finger, is a form of penance or apology. Upon a first offence, the transgressor must cut off the tip of his left little finger and hand the severed portion to his boss. Sometimes an underboss may do this in penance to the Oyabun if he wants to spare a member of his own gang from further retaliation.

Its origin stems from the traditional way of holding a Japanese sword. The bottom three fingers of each hand are used to grip the sword tightly, with the thumb and index fingers slightly loose. The removal of digits starting with the little finger moving up the hand to the index finger progressively weakens a person's sword grip.

The idea is that a person with a weak sword grip then has to rely more on the group for protection—reducing individual action. In recent years, prosthetic fingertips have been developed to disguise this distinctive appearance.

Many Yakuza have full-body tattoos. These tattoos, known as “Irezumi” in Japan, are still often "hand-poked", that is, the ink is inserted beneath the skin using non-electrical, hand-made and hand held tools with needles of sharpened bamboo or steel. The procedure is expensive and painful and can take years to complete.

When yakuza members play Oicho-Kabu (similar to the Western Blackjack) cards with each other, they often remove their shirts or open them up and drape them around their waists. This allows them to display their full-body tattoos to each other. This is one of the few times that yakuza members display their tattoos to others, as they normally keep them concealed in public with long-sleeved and high-necked shirts. When new members join, they are often required to remove their pants as well and reveal any lower body tattoos.

Leadership

The sons’ boss is named Wakagashira, and for the brothers goes by Shateigashira.Wakagashira comes in the second place on authority, coming right after the oyabun, and he serves as an intermediary to check if orders are being followed. Shateigashira comes in the third place in terms of authority.

Each son can create his own gang and so on, resulting in the formation of varied sub-families. Each one obeys to the leader of its gang, but still it’s the oyabun that gives the final word for all.

When the boss dies and there’s no one that can replace him immediately it's his wife that takes temporarily charge of the group.

A typical family has around 20 to 200 members, what can assure to the entire clan a number surpassing a thousand men. The families which have yakuza members go generally by the root name of Shibatsu, Yakasa, Shiatsuta, Tashiro, Tonaco, Shematse, Tokesho, between anothers.

When an individual joins the Yakuza society many clans don't allow that he gets out from the group later, doubting he may leak some information.

Current activities

Much of the current activities of the yakuza can be understood in the light of their feudal origin. First, they are not a secret society like their counterparts of the Italian Mafia and the Chinese Triad Society. Yakuza organizations often have an office with a wooden board on the front door, openly displaying their group name or emblem.

Until recently, the majority of Yakuza income came from protection rackets in shopping, entertainment and red-light districts within their territory. This is mainly due to the reluctance of such businesses to seek help from the police. The Japanese police are also reluctant to interfere in internal matters in recognized communities such as shopping arcades, schools/universities, night districts and so on.

Yakuza are heavily involved in sex-related industries, such as smuggling uncensored pornography from Europe and America into Japan (as the pornography in Japan is censored in ways Western pornography is not). They also control large prostitution rings throughout the country. In China, where the law restricts the number of children per household and the cultural preference is for boys, the yakuza can buy unwanted girls for as little as $5,000 and put them to work in the “Mizu-Shobaï”, which means water trade and refers to the night entertainment business, in yakuza-controlled bars, nightclubs and restaurants.