Urban burakumin were originally destitute peasants who abandoned their fields and became camp followers of samurai in the Sengoku period. As the samurai camps became more permanent Japanese castles, the camp followers settled into various professions. Some became professional beggars, but most became street workers such as musicians, dancers, actors, puppeteers, monkey trainers, and low-class artisans of various kinds such as matcha whisk makers. Other burakumin were initially migrant farmers, often called "kawata" because of the rice-paddies ("ta") which they farmed on undesirable land near rivers ("kawa"). Many migrant burakumin eventually accumulated enough money to purchase the land on which they farmed, to the extent that laws were sometimes passed to dispossess them of their land.