The Burakumin are the tradition "untouchable" caste of Japanese society, originating during the Sengoku period. The burakumin, or "people of the hamlet", were an arbitrary caste consisting of those who worked with dead animals, such as leather workers, or "unclean" occupations such as undertaking. Discrimination against the burakumin was cruel and relentless, and they were often referred to as "heavily polluted" or "nonhuman". Just as the samurai were able to abuse the commoners, the commoners were able to abuse the burakumin. They were restricted where they could live, quality of housing, mobility in and out of their hamlets, clothing, hairdo, and even footwear, and, in some areas, burakumin were forced to wear yellow collars to identify themselves. They were also banned from the shrines and temples of non-eta ("polluted") communities, and intermarriage with other classes was strictly forbidden. Those who violated laws of customs could be relegated to the eta or hinin (nonhuman) status, and many tekiya members were thus branded as nonhuman. Many born into burakumin families joined the tekiya gangs to provide them with a path oout of abject poverty and disgrace, and peddling offered the burakumin one of the few opportunities to leave their birthplace. By the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1867, the burakumin numbered about 400,000 of Japa's 33 million people. Legal discrimination against the burakumin was ended in 1871 by a government decree, but the burakumin continued to be abused and victimized over the next several years, driving substantial burakumin into the hands of the yakuza. Jiichiro Matsumoto became known as the "father of buraku liberation" for his civil rights activism in the early 20th century, and, by 2003, 76% of Tokyo residents claimed that they would not discriminate against a buraku neighbor, while 4.9% said that they would avoid them.