Note 38 — Yūjo byō-shi oyobi jō-shi no koto.37 (Of the death and double-suicide of courtesans.)

During the Genroku (1688–1703) and Shōtoku (1711–1715) eras, “shinjū” or double suicides of guests and “jōro” became so common that the jōroya were forced for the sake of self-preservation to expose the bodies of both the man and the woman on the Nihombashi for three days. The eta or “outcasts” then buried them, and writing their story, read it about the streets of Yedo. The burial of those who committed “shinjū” was the burial of dogs. Their hands and legs were tied together, and the bodies were wrapt up in straw matting and thrown into a common grave. The people of the jōroya believed that this would prevent the ghosts of the dead haunting the house where they died, the superstition being that animals had no ghosts.